For Writers
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How to Write a (Romance) Blurb
As some folks know, I spent my misguided youth—all right, all right, my misguided middle age—as a copywriter. Which means that writing blurbs for my books was a piece of cake, right? Wrong. I had to learn how to do it, because writing one type of copy isn’t the same as writing another. But maybe it was a little easier…
I Can Succeed in Sixth Grade
Rearranging my office today (new furniture at last; goodbye, Ikea!), I once again looked for the best spot for this, my favorite piece of inspiration. It was written by one of my sons at age 10. He had been nominated for his elementary school's big academics/citizenship award. As the first part of the selection process, the kids were taken into…
KDP Select Promo Success—Promoting the Promo
A long, geeky post for the indie authors out there! On November 1-5, 2013, I did my first “free promo” using KDP Select since July of this year, unsure what to expect. I wrote a post back in January 2013 about my first experience getting to #1 in the Amazon “Free” store, and the kind of results that brought me…
Why I Don't Respond to Reviews
You wouldn't think that "should I respond to a reader review?" would be a topic for discussion anymore, but it still comes up all the time on writers' forums. There seems to be a movement now among some authors to go ahead and respond to readers' comments on Amazon, Goodreads, etc., whether positively ("Thanks for the awesome review!") or negatively…
Creating Your Book Cover
So you've written a terrific book. You've edited and polished it to a fare-thee-well, and are ready to send it out into the Big World. But first, it needs a--gulp--cover. Oh, well. People aren't buying the cover, they're buying the writing, right? You can just do it yourself, right? After all, you're pretty artistic. Right? Wrong. Everybody is going to…
