Sherry Ficklin First, let me begin by saying that if you don’t have at least a basic marketing budget set aside, you are going to have a very hard time promoting your book, whether it’s your first book or your 100th. A successful marketing budget is going to be a key part of your overall […]

Suzanne Purvis A new year full of writing possibilities, hopefully including the most exciting possibility: sending out your submission package to agents and/or editors. You’ve finished your novel, revised, revised, revised, and polished. Your query letter is tantalizing. Now you're in need of the last, and most important, piece of your submission package--the synopsis. Oh, […]

Kathryn Craft Turning Whine into Gold If Facebook posts are to be trusted, all a creative writer needs to be productive is coffee, chocolate, and wine. Rather than flow rich with ideas and possibilities, the creative blood of many writers is a biochemistry experiment gone awry. You already know why we rely upon caffeine, nutrient-poor […]

I do a lot of critiquing. As I get better at craft, I’m starting to catch the nuances of good writing; things beyond the basics of POV, show don’t tell, etc. They’re subtler and harder to spot, but I believe they can be the difference between a ‘good writer’ and a popular author. And yes, […]

Jamie Raintree The holidays are a time for slowing down and reflecting on the past year. They're also a time for thinking about the year to come. Whether or not you set resolutions, no doubt you've got ideas about what you'd like to accomplish in 2017 and the bad habits you want to leave behind […]