Published on April 2, 2015

Writers are taught to write what they know, and read and write voraciously every day. But ‘what I know’ has limits, and – much as I love to read and write – given life’s many other responsibilities, sometimes I just want to close my book, turn off the computer, and turn on the TV…
Published on March 25, 2015
For Christmas, Richard bought me a green fishing light for the backyard. Now, after dark, we can see a variety of beautiful fish and other marine critters under the water. Every night, there’s something different or new.
A couple of weeks ago, a snook came by…
Published on March 25, 2015
amazon, book marketing, promotional pitfalls

An author recently sent in the following when asking about his book sales…
Published on March 25, 2015
Dear Ms. Hoy,
Thank you VERY much for your insight and advice! I found the information on how to send out a query for an article to be extremely helpful (I was doin’ it wrong). I got my first yes! I think I will plaster IT to my wall instead of the rejections letters!
Very Respectfully,
Dawn
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Published on March 25, 2015
writing career advice, writing scams
The recent Writers Weekly article, Great Writing Gig Or A Scam?, got me thinking about all the deadbeat editors I’ve met in my long freelancing career and how I’ve answered some of their “scams.”
Published on March 25, 2015

I am publishing an anthology book for my project, and read your article, HOW TO COMPILE AND PUBLISH AN ANTHOLOGY. I found it very insightful.
I was wondering if you might be willing to share the contract that you use. I would be willing to pay for it.
Published on March 25, 2015
The day finally arrived. My polished non-fiction book proposal needed a royalty publisher. There was more than one direction my proposed manuscript could go, and I wanted to secure a publisher before completing the book so I could adapt to that publisher’s style.
Somewhere I’d heard the idea of hunting through specialty bookstores and book catalogues for newer or unlisted publishers. The idea was to search for titles that didn’t compete, but were similar enough in topic that your own title would complement their list.
But I didn’t start out looking for a publisher that way. You might say I went around the barn…
Published on March 18, 2015

What she sent wasn’t a screenshot of a “sale” at all. It was just a picture of the ranking history on Amazon.
Published on March 11, 2015

For the past six weeks, we’ve spent every spare moment judging the hundreds of entries submitted for the WritersWeekly Winter, 2015 24-Hour Short Story Contest. In case you’re not familiar with our quarterly contest, this is how it works…
Published on February 19, 2015
An writer recently asked me to go to a website and “vote” for her. She wanted me to have our readers also click to vote for her, even asking me to post notices on Facebook and Twitter. I receive those types of requests all the time and, frankly, they’re insulting…