I’m the new kid on the block when it comes to agenting. I’ve been surprised by a few things about this career, one of them being just how often agents feel undecided about a project when reading queries and proposals. …
Marketing & Publicity
Working Through Overwhelm
‘Tis the season of the writers conference, both in-person and virtual. Perhaps you’ve just attended one, and you feel as if a mountain of useful information has been placed in your lap. You’re thrilled to have it, it’s what you …
Work Your Writer Website
What’s with all the talk about websites for writers? How important are they, especially if the writer isn’t published yet? How do you best work your writer website?
One of the first things an editor or agent will do when …
PR=Publishing Relations
Writers soon learn that to be a successful author one needs to be one’s own PR staff, communicating regularly and engagingly with potential readers. But some authors never figure out that they have an equally important audience to communicate with–also …
Looking Back to Help Others Move Forward
I still remember the day a California Bay Area newspaper featured an article titled “Accidental Author Shares God’s Word.” I smile remembering that it was in the front section of the paper as if this was news. It was true, …
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. …
Platform vs. Influencers
Let’s have a quick talk about influencers, which too many writers ignore in the search for social media platform.
Social media platform consists of the total number of people who follow you on the various social media like Instagram, Facebook, …
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
QR Codes: What’s Old is News
A few weeks ago I boarded a plane for the first time in 20 months. Heading out to visit my Colorado family, I was surprised to discover that QR codes, which were popular in 2010 or so and old news …
How Readers Discover Books
One of the biggest challenges for an author, a publisher AND readers consists of the increasing difficulty of matching a wannabe reader with the type of book he or she is looking to buy. A new survey recently was conducted …