I hear the same excuse from aspiring authors—and from published authors—when I tell them they should use social networking to build platform and promote themselves and their work. They always say, “It’s one more thing to do that takes me away from my writing.” This statement is closely followed by, “Social networking is a waste of time,” “It’s a time…
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You’ve got a great idea for a nonfiction book. You’ve written a killer book proposal. Now you need a fabulous query letter to grab an agent or a publisher so they ask you to send your proposal for review. To write a killer query, you need a one-page letter with three basic sections or paragraphs. Thus, tackle writing your query…
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As a nonfiction editor, I receive a lot of questions about permission guidelines for copyrighted material from writers working on both books and articles. I usually have a decent answer to most questions. However, I was thrilled when my colleague, Self-publishing expert Sue Collier, coauthor of The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing,5th Edition, offered me this guest blog post on the…
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All writers must at some point deal with criticism of their work. Call it constructive criticism, feedback, a critique, a review, or helpful advice, edits, it’s all the same really; the word used may just connote something a bit different or cause us to have a different emotional reaction. Once you show your work to someone and ask them to…
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Are you standing at the starting line waiting to start your book? What will it take for you to get started? Do you need a gun shut to have the impetus, the initiative, the reason to actually get off the line and start writing? If so, you may never write your book. No one is going to shoot the gun…
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