Is social media killing your author website?

I must admit that alot of the fodder for recent posts have been from the CBS business site bnet. It’s just as writers, authors, and general creative types, we sometimes get so caught up in character arcs, plot lines, sub plots, and general how to pull off a ripping whodunit, that we rarely think about how the heck we gonna sell [...]

How to be a best selling self published author

  So Iget an email last week from author Michael Prescott about his novel Last Breath. Published in 2001, he just released it in ebook form for 99 cents. If it’s anything like his other titles he released for 99 cents, it will also be a big seller. In fact, he thanked us readers in the email for [...]

Failing our way to the bestseller list

“Failure is priceless.” I agree wholeheartedly with the above caption. I also agree with the interesting BNET article I read about, “Why Failure is the Secret of Your Success.” I agree with the article’s main point that our kids don’t know how to fail. Some of our generation don’t know how to fail. It is the [...]

First come ads, then come books?

Have you heard about the latest viral video phenomenon, Nyan Cat? If you haven’t, then you are not one of the 40 million people that have downloaded the video of a poptart cat who flies through space leaving behind a rainbow trail while a most annoying song plays in the background.   I know. I know. [...]

Do readers even like suspense?

  No matter what you write, it seems that we all have been told to build some degree of suspense in our stories. Could we have been wrong this whole time? As a reader, do you have the urge to flip to the back of a mystery to see whodunit? After you finish a thriller, [...]

Got a novel in you?

      Ever heard of NANOWRIMO? I know what you’re thinking. “Sounds like something you could catch by drinking the water in some third world country.” Actually, NANOWRIMO is short for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, many thousands of authors attempt what seems to be impossible: writing a 50,000 word novel from scratch [...]

The real reality of ebooks and their impact

In continuing the talk about the state of the publishing world from yesterday’s blog post, I’d like to ask this question to my fellow writers: what does separate reality from fiction these days? For writers, the fiction about the future of books could, and does, fill page after page of magazines, blog posts, and twitter feeds. [...]

The Art of Publishing

                          The latest round of NEW BIG NEWS in publishing is The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Speculation is that Harbach got $650,000 for his first-time novel, and yes it will actually be printed in real book form. Gasp! Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter proposed what this [...]

The Best Social Media Tips Ever! Part II and a stiff one to beat the Texas heat

                  You ever have that time when you know you published your blog and then it shows up in the “draft” column, not the “published” section? Turns out the Tools for Tuesday blog of the ‘Best Social Media Tips Ever!’ did just that. So, I published the [...]

The Best 25 Social Media Tips Ever!

I hope everyone’s Labor Day weekend was fantastic. Here in North Texas, although our brothers and sisters to the west and south are battling unprecedented wildfires, we also FINALLY got a break from 60+ days of triple digit heat. It was actually in the mid 80s on Labor Day…I know! mid 80s! If you follow [...]