We’re currently on vacation in Pennsylvania. We left last week in our RV and meandered our way down here. The weather is a bit warmer than we’re accustomed to, and humid, too, but the delicious home cooking found here, along with the beautiful scenery, makes it all definitely worthwhile!
You can read about our travels here: https://www.wirelesstrips.com
Now, if you’ll excuse me, the children want me to take them swimmming. 😉
GUEST COLUMNIST!
This Week:
I hear it all the time, “I don’t need a book proposal because I’m writing a novel.” One woman told me, “My book simply defies the need to write a book proposal first. I’ll pitch it to publishers as already written.” Or the classic, “Sure, you might write a book proposal for a how-to book, but not a memoir.”
Excuse me, but I beg to differ. Every book should start with a book proposal. The only exceptions are books for personal distribution to family members and friends and, perhaps, instructional or educational books with limited distribution to a specific company, organization or industry. Books written with a national, international or even regional audience in mind, in order to be successful, require tremendous forethought. And this means, write a book proposal first.
Last weekend, Max, who will be five years old next month, came upstairs, into our bedroom, and asked if he could watch cartoons. I told him no because I was working, and needed it to be quiet. He walked out. Richard was downstairs preparing for our upcoming RV trip. Mason (age 7 weeks) was asleep on my lap. The other kids were away for a day trip to a friend’s camp.
About 30 minutes later, Richard came upstairs and asked, “Where’s Max?”
Last week, I discussed why so many authors choose to self-publish. This week, we’re going to discuss how successful, self-published authors market their books online. I’ve enlisted the help of some of BookLocker’s top-selling authors.
This Week:
Good web copywriters arm themselves with a thesaurus, a style guide, and maybe even some books on emotional intelligence in the workplace. But if you write for the web, you know that there’s more to successful copy than the old standbys of knowing your audience and keeping copy short for easy scanning. The following questions will help you navigate an early interview and also help you avoid hidden pitfalls after joining a corporate writer pool.
I am a produced screenwriter and have just recently completed a novel that I was thinking of self-publishing. (After going through the five-year headache of getting a screenplay made into a movie–I’m not sure I want to start over with the tradional publishing venue!)
My question is, does this give me any kind of advantage in self-publishing?
I would be very good at book-signings, etc. but I’m not sure how well I’d do on the Internet marketing side of it. (i.e. building websites, etc.).
Three years ago, I arranged my life to support the financial and emotional needs of a serious writing career: I moved from city to country, reducing my mortgage by seventy-five percent; sold my new car and paid cash for a used one; stopped eating at restaurants and started shopping at thrift stores. I was prepared to live on the small income my writing produced. But I wasn’t producing any writing.
Last Thursday afternoon, Grandma finally decided to leave us and join her parents, husband and sister. We were sad because we’ll miss talking to her, but also happy for her because she’s been missing her husband for so long and now they’re together again. The memorial service will be in Pennsylvania at the end of this month so we’ll take the RV down there in a couple of weeks.
