The Internet will not replace traditional promotional efforts, but it can enhance them. Before I go into the Internet, I want to talk about the old-fashioned marketing methods, because they're still your best source of readers. ===== BOOKSTORES Map out all bookstores within 20, 50, even ...

Py: How did you get your pen name as Maruerite Arotin Marguerite: My real name is Dana but when I decided to write romance, I always knew Dana would be too unisex for the romance market. So I thought about my nickname. My grandma used to call me Daisy and my hubby eventually picked it u ...

Writing several articles at once might seem pretty much impossible to do if you are just starting to write Ezine articles and find producing them one at a time hard enough. However, writing articles in clusters is not difficult and, once you understand how it's done, you will enjoy the b ...

As a student of Spanish, my goal was to think in Spanish. Skip the word-by-word translation so I'd have the necessary speed to speak and listen. I know words in Spanish that I'd be hard pressed to translate. Usually profanity, I confess. Chingow! For years my students here in China have ...

I used to think that everything in my life was geared around saving money. Even when it came to my writing I would rather waste time doing things the long way rather than spend money that would help speed my career along. Bu then something happened that made me realise that my writing ti ...

Creative writing is one of the most difficult jobs in the world. However, you really don't need a special talent for it. What you need is a paper, a pen and a very good imagination that is worthy of telling your story to other people. With good imagination, you can really capture your au ...

First let's provide definitions for the 4 terms covered in this article: Retail margin is the difference between your books wholesale price and your books retail price. For example, a book with a cover price of $10 and a wholesale price of $5 has a 50% retail margin. This is the profit e ...

Writing a Resume Not that long ago, the easiest way to get a job was to visit the company you wanted to work for and ask for one. Today, however, it's not quite that simple. Most companies require you to submit your resume to them before they'll consider you for a position. So the resume ...

Ask any literary agent what theyre interested in and theyll tell you, without a doubt, literary quality. Thats what they want. Theyre looking for high-quality writing. Thats their story and theyre sticking with it. But if you catch them in an unguarded moment, the truth might just slip o ...

With the tremendous success of such memoirs as Frank McCourts "Angelas Ashes," Mary Karrs "The Liars Club," and Dave Eggerss "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," the 1990s and early 2000s saw an explosion in the genre. The boom was seen in the number of memoirs acquired by publis ...

The big question. Do you submit directly to publishers, or do you find an agent who will do that for you Based on anecdotal evidence I've heard, it can work either way. Many publishers refuse to read unagented submissions, but on the other hand Tom Clancy and John Grisham sold their firs ...

A major "character" in Mark Salzman's first autobiography is his father. Sometimes his father paints. But his father hates painting. He likes it when his painting is done. He likes having painted. But the act of painting itself is, in his opinion, a big pain in the backside. Nobody readi ...

Sometimes writers mistakenly devote most of their attention to developing the main character while leaving the antagonist flat and underutilized. Yet so much of the meat of a story can be found in the doings of a well-written bad guy who experiences hatred, pain, torment, and even the op ...

I want to make this point crystal clear: if you write a Super Bowl ad and it gets produced and shown on the big game down in Florida, your life will be in jeapordy. Why Because the people in the ad business that live and breathe advertising have desperately wanted to accomplish that thei ...

Here's everything I know about improving your writing, publishing it electronically and in print, and promoting it after the sale. Two questions you should ask: (1) What will it cost me (2) What does this Michael LaRocca guy know about it Answer #1 -- It won't cost you a thing. The sing ...

Actually, the wordos are already here. Probably have been ever since people started using that new-fangled tool writing to make something other than inventory lists. Since you won't find wordo in the dictionary, I'll start with a definition and some examples. Wordos are related to typo ...

Once you have your book completed and out in the marketplace you cannot sit back and hope the sales will be great unless you have no desire or care to see it sell, YOU have to promote it. So, what can you offer that will boost customer confidence and promote additional sales Of course th ...

One of the nice things about being an author is that we can break any rule we want. (I just did.) It's part of our job description. Language changes through usage -- definitions, spelling, grammar -- and authors can help it do this. But on the other hand, we have to have some sort of agr ...

I love to help people, and I'm always ready to give advice to people who ask. For instance, there's a lot of people out there seeking advice because they've written a book. A lot of people. Almost as many as the number of people who give advice to people - who've written books. Most of t ...

Regardless of the novel you want to write, there are seven elements youve got to have. Call them personality traits, work habits, tools, it really doesnt matter. If youve got them, your work is going to be that much more rewarding and that much more successful. If you dont have them, you ...