Building a following is hard work. Anyone who says else wise is either lying or Taylor Swift. Having studied marketing in graduate school and worked several years in the Dell marketing department, I’ll be the first to tell you marketing is no easy feat.
There are, however, more effective ways to build a following. In this post, I’ll teach you how to craft a marketing strategy for your book.
Hey Writers and Readers!
I wanted to talk about the importance of writing communities and participating in contests and writing challenges. But first, I wanted to share my good news with you all: Continue reading
Are the words you stash deep in your journal highly personal, not meant for the light of day? Or are you a natural born story teller seeking an audience?
What compels your pen to form words, that form people, that form stories? Answering this question can help you determine your path or career in writing and which steps to take to reach your goal. Continue reading
How to find The One.
If you have no clue about how to find the right agent, go on this journey with me to find the one…
I want to develop a career as an author, say, for the next 30 years, so I’ll want to take researching an agent seriously. It’s not as easy as buying a pair of new shoes or I’d have one already, but it’s not as involved as getting married –somewhere in between. And, with all relationships, there is a bit of risk involved, but there are also ways to narrow down the search to agents that seem like a good fit.
So. Where do I start? With agents that represent books I like and genres I write.
I read about them on query tracker and publishers market places, writers blogs, and interviews. I do the research. Make sure their agency is legit/established and operates with integrity. Find out if the agent has a good track record. Pubrants has great thoughts on this.
Go deeper. I reflect.
SP: Can you tell us a bit of who you are and when you started writing?
Sure! My name is Tessa, and I started writing since before I could hardly hold a pencil. =) I was three-years-old when I began to dictate stories to my mom. Any time I was bored throughout my childhood, I would sit down at the dining room table with a stack of blank paper and crayons, and write story after story. I fell in love with the thrill of becoming another person all through the power of a pen. Continue reading
Pen Friends ~ Come hear Harper Collins Debut Author, Heidi Heilig, share about her book, The Girl From Everywhere, and her road to publishing!
SP: Welcome Heidi! Can you tell us a bit of who you are and when you started writing?
Pen-Friends 🙂 Today’s feature is a professional editor sharing her insight of self editing and the publishing industry.
Welcome Jessica Barnes!
SP: Please tell us more about you?
I’m a small-town girl from Kansas who was lucky enough to get an editorial assistant position at a publishing house shortly after graduation. The fiction editor there took me under her wing and taught me how to edit novels, and I’ve been doing it ever since. Going on 12 years in the industry now!
SP: What do you like about being an editor?
I like collaborating with authors to make their story as good as it can be. Sometimes it’s just a matter of polishing things up, but sometimes there’s a problem-solving aspect, where an element of the plot just isn’t working, and the author and I have to put our heads together and brainstorm a way out of the situation.
SP: As an editor what do you wish you could tell writers?
Don’t take it personally! Continue reading
Your novel is finished. Yay! You’ve polished it so much you can see your reflection. Your critique group nods in approval-it’s ready. Double yay! Now, you are eager to get an agent, get published and let the world read your work-which means, unless you have “connections” in the industry, you must send out a query.
What is a query letter, you ask? Continue reading
The Spinning Pen 