Bookshop.org’s founder and CEO, Andy Hunter, could be viewed as prescient. The bookstore site launched in January 2020, just before COVID forced physical stores to lock their doors. Before Amazon downgraded the priority of shipping books and upped the priority …
Authors
When Life Gets in the Way
I posted the basic concept of this article a few years ago. In revisiting it, I found it at least as true now as it was then, if not more so. You may have observed something similar.
Life gets in …
What Makes an Agent Say Yes?
I wrote this blog post in 2009. Because so much of it remains true today, I thought I’d retread it with updates and take it out for another spin. After all, the quest to find an agent still goes on. …
A Social Media Platform that REALLY Sells Books: TikTok
I need to start out by apologizing. I know writers are weary of being told to build their platforms, to promote their books on social media, to, well, work magic at something most don’t particularly enjoy. I’m one of those …
A Social Media Platform that REALLY Sells Books: TikTokRead More
Five Ways to Wrangle Dialect
I almost stopped reading the book that eventually opened my eyes to the power of inspirational fiction and set me on a path to author and agent. Almost set the book aside after a few pages.
Why? Because the dialect …
Find a Place to Shine
Have you found your unique place in the writing world where you can really shine? Janet Grant and I recorded a podcast last week on Words for Writers. It goes live on Tuesday, here. Ginny Yttrup, writing coach, posited …
While You Wait
Blogger: Cynthia Ruchti
What’s waiting got to do with writing? Sure, the two words share many of the same letters, but writing is an action verb and waiting isn’t. Right?
Writing and waiting have a lot in common. Few beginning …
Testing the Website Waters
blogger: Cynthia Ruchti
Have you been regularly testing the website waters to make sure your author website is doing its job well?
We’re not talking Google Analytics or SEO or meta-data and keywords for this round of testing. Instead, we’re …
The Tragedy of Comedy
Cynthia Ruchti
You deliver the punch line of your best joke ever. Someone in your circle of friends says, “I don’t get it.”
And thus is the tragedy of comedy. It doesn’t always work. Because the joke was poorly delivered? …
Don’t Blindly Chase Gurus
Personal confession: I’ve been a guru chaser, particularly when I sense a weakness in myself. (Don’t know how to build that following? Pay this person to coach me–that’s what I did).
I’ve learned that my guru-chasing has cost me much. …