by Maggie Marr This October will be the 10th anniversary of the sale of my first two books to Random House. At the time my books sold, I was still working as a subsidiary rights and motion picture agent at ICM and I was unaware of just how hazardous the career of writer could be […]

Sierra Godfrey Recently, I saw a question raised about promotional items for authors: “How on earth do I go about getting them done?” The question was raised over on the highly popular new Facebook group for the Womens’ Fiction Writers Association (WFWA), and there were a lot of great answers. Now, full disclosure: I am […]

Kathryn Craft Turning Whine into Gold You will experience unexpected setbacks and disappointments in your writing career. This is not a guess, or a mere function of my confident writer’s voice—it is a given. And when the stormy seas threaten to sink your spirit, one of the best ways to stay afloat is to remain […]

Penny Sansevieri What is an elevator pitch and why do you need one? An elevator pitch is a short one- to two-sentence description about the book. It's the briefest of the briefest descriptions you can develop. The reason elevator pitches are important is that we have an ever- shrinking attention span, so you need to […]

 Tiffany Yates Martin Writers love their brains: We exploit our highly evolved prefrontal cortex to infuse our prose with dazzling verbiage and transport our reader to the world of our creation. Yet for creating tension—one of the most important elements of compelling fiction—nothing beats the lowly amygdala: the primordial lizard brain that handles the most […]