writing career advice

Getting and Giving a Second Chance By Christine Laws

A friend had recommended me to a curriculum publisher. Could I revise workbooks for fifth-grade science? I said that I would give it a try, and soon a big box appeared on my porch.
I eagerly delved into the materials: course samples, manuals on how to design curriculum, workbooks to revise, and the fifth-grade science textbook. The cover art featured a wise-looking owl. Was I wise enough to rewrite ten science workbooks?

Converting Coursework Into (Publishing) Credits – and Cash! By Erika Dreifus

Converting Coursework Into (Publishing) Credits – and Cash! By Erika Dreifus

Each year about this time, a new set of graduates with fresh, new academic degrees embarks on post-academic life. Especially among those who majored in a humanities field, or who earned advanced degrees in creative writing or literature, the road to graduation was likely paved with plenty of course papers and presentations. I’m not sure how many new graduates (or, for that matter, those with degrees earned in years past) realize that this work needn’t simply gather dust – literal or virtual. Sometimes, it can be transformed for publication and payment.

Save Your Writing Career (And Your Sanity!) By Knowing When To Quit! By Akil Wingate

Save Your Writing Career (And Your Sanity!) By Knowing When To Quit! By Akil Wingate

Sometimes we writers get hitched to the wagon and steed on a blazing trail headed to nowhere fast. That blazing trail for our purposes may be the pipe dream magazine of a bitter editor. It might be a newspaper making due at just the middle ground with no path to better real estate. It may be the dead end online portal for pulp entertainment and sports write ups that don’t really get you the Pulitzer you dream of. Whatever it is, eventually you have to have a heart to heart with yourself about your ambitions as a writer. When is it time to move on to greater adventures? That, my friends, is the million dollar question…

HOW MY BOOK BECAME A LIFETIME MOVIE! The Secret S*x Life of a Single Mom By Delaine Moore

HOW MY BOOK BECAME A LIFETIME MOVIE! The Secret S*x Life of a Single Mom By Delaine Moore

When my book, The Secret S*x Life of a Single Mom, was just a manuscript, a few people (including two literary agents) told me they thought it would make an awesome movie. I took it with a grain of salt, assuming every author thinks the same of his/her work. Nonetheless, when my publisher, Seal Press, bought it, I held onto 100% of the movie rights “just in case”…

How My Novel Became A Movie! By Dvora Waysman

How My Novel Became A Movie! By Dvora Waysman

Possibly the most exciting thing to have happened to me in my long life is knowing that my historical novel, The Pomegranate Pendant, was to be made into a movie. Despite having written 13 books, I never expected one of them to be shown on the silver screen…

P.O.D. SECRETS REVEALED: FEEDING ON YOUR VANITY – OR IGNORANCE – HOT AIR ON PUBLISHERS’ WEBSITES IS INSULTING! – Angela Hoy

P.O.D. SECRETS REVEALED: FEEDING ON YOUR VANITY – OR IGNORANCE – HOT AIR ON PUBLISHERS’ WEBSITES IS INSULTING! – Angela Hoy

I have always been offended by over-the-top marketing verbiage. Saying something is a “good deal” is one thing but trying to tell me a product or service is going to “make my dreams come true” is insulting to an individual’s intelligence. I always wonder how people can fall for so much of the garbage being shoved our way by marketing executives these days…