I’ve never made it a secret that I’m not a big fan of NaNoWriMo. The idea of pushing myself to write on someone else’s schedule doesn’t sit well with me. And I find the whole community aspect to be possibly more distracting than helpful. Don’t get me wrong. I get why people take part every year, and if it works for them, I think that’s
There is one thing almost every author overlooks when self publishing—and it may surprise you. Sure, there’s lots of talk about the importance of professional editing. Even I’ve written about it. And everyone knows it’s important to have test readers or a writing group who critique your novel. But I’m going to let you in on a secret: writing a good book won’t guarantee sales.
Note: Melissa no longer offers these services. This post remains as archived content for your reference. One of the most common questions I get as an editor is about what different types of editing there are and what each one entails. New clients aren’t always sure what level of editing they need and don’t know how to make that decision. Before you can decide between the
Before hitting “send” when sending out a new piece or before hitting “publish” on a new blog post, it pays to proofread your piece. Here are some quick things to check when proofreading your own copy. Homophones Perhaps one of the most common mistakes when when writing is misusing homophones–words that sound alike but are spelled differently. Spell check won’t catch a misused word; it
In a recent post I talked about why indie authors should never pay for book reviews. In the comments, the topic of book review websites came up — more specifically the fact that there are other ways for these sites to make money without directly charging the authors whose books they review. (And if you’re looking for reasons why you shouldn’t charge for book reviews,
This morning I woke up to a beautiful sight. I live in a wooded community, and we had snow last night. This morning the snow was still sticking to the trees. That’s rare. It gets windy up here, so snow usually blows off the trees right away. The view made me think about how this environment sometimes impacts my writing. The view this morning outside
Sometimes everyday life gets in the way of writing (and sometimes writing is that everyday life). But in the former case, one of my favorite things to do is go somewhere else — plan a mini writer’s retreat of sorts. I’m doing that with my husband this weekend. We’re heading to a B&B called Sayre Mansion, about an hour from where we live. We stay in a
My nonfiction book, The Query-Free Freelancer, has been moving along in an extraordinarily slow fashion. That’s due to a variety of things (from several months of illness where I focused my limited work time on clients to simply shelving the project for a while for a fresher perspective). Now that I’m moving forward with that first draft again (my own edits to the manuscript before sending it
I’ve been keeping an eye on a recent trend in the indie publishing community — paid reviews (and family/friends reviews) and the controversy surrounding them. But I fail to see why it’s such a hot topic. On one hand, when I see people asking the question of whether or not it’s okay for authors to do this, the answer’s clear. I want to scream “of
It’s that time of year again when goal-setting and dreams of new achievements fill people’s minds. I’m no exception, and that’s why I shared my overall writing resolutions previously on my freelance writing blog. For me those resolutions include freelance writing goals, Web publishing goals, and publishing goals for books and e-books. Today I’d like to share that last group of resolutions with you and
Creativity is defined as the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc. We often hear this concept expressed as “thinking outside the box.” Authors, perhaps even more than other creative groups, feel the stress to be “truly creative.” To avoid cliches. To add stunning plot twists. To do what has never
So perhaps you’ve done the hard part already and written a book. Or maybe you’re just doing some research because you’re thinking about writing a book. Either way, you should know that the publishing landscape today looks vastly different than it did a mere 15 years ago. Heck, it looks vastly different than it did 2 years ago. Authors today have a lot more options —
I was recently interviewed by Dava Stewart of SmilingTreeWriting.com about independent writing and publishing. I’d like to share a portion of that with you below. If you’d like to read more, please check out the full interview. Dava Stewart: Recently, I heard a well known writer talking about the often repeated phrase “there are no gatekeepers anymore.” He suggested that every reviewer on Goodreads or Amazon
This year I’m participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time. For those of you not familiar with the acronym, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and it’s organized by the Office of Letters and Light. Participants begin writing on November 1st, and the goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight on November 30th. As I said, this is my first year participating, but I’ve
Ever wonder what an editor does? Chances are it’s a lot more than you think. It’s an editor’s job to make sure your readers can see the forest despite the trees—that they don’t get caught up on typos and mistakes that will cause them to focus on the words instead of the story. And, in the process, a good editor will look for things you
[This post is part of a series on how you can maximize your ebook sales.] Almost every book includes an author bio. There’s a reason for this. The author bio tells the reader why he or she should care what the writer thinks. It tells the reader that the writer knows their stuff. This is often clear with non-fiction and how-to books; the author’s bio
[This post is part of a series on writing sales copy for your book—see the first piece in the series here: The Truth About the Back of your Book, and the 2nd post here: Compacting Your Whole Plot into Paragraphs] What you choose to include in your Amazon product description will ultimately make or break your book sales, no matter how hard you’ve worked on the
[This post is part of a series on writing sales copy for your book—see the first piece in the series here: The Truth About the Back of your Book.] We’re always told not to judge a book by its cover… but most people are referring to the front of the book. It’s flip side is a different matter. Without well written sales copy to convince
It’s a mistake authors make all the time. They labor away on their manuscript, editing and re-editing; they even hire someone else to help them. And when they’re done, they tentatively put it up for sale. Without thinking about the one thing that can make or break a book: the sales copy. Your content will determine if they read the book all the way through
It’s happening all over the web: bloggers are becoming authors. And you can too. Publishers see bloggers as a safe bet—these are people who already have a loyal audience and a solid working platform. But you don’t have to work with a traditional publisher to get your book out there; self publishing offers some serious advantages especially for the blogger-turned-author. Whichever publishing path you go
I ought to be declared the queen of the tech gremlins given how much time they like to spend around me. If you didn’t catch my Twitter rants, I recently had my server hacked (this site was fine). As soon as that was settled, my laptop hard drive died. The data was not recoverable. Of course, things weren’t backed up as recently as they should
Are you interested in publishing a nonfiction book? Do you already have a blog in that niche? If you answered “yes” to both of those questions, you might be a prime candidate for turning your blog into a book. This is largely what I’m doing with my own nonfiction book, The Query-Free Freelancer. I used my freelance writing blog to help me organize the book
We’ve talked about the fact that indie publishing is a business. And you know that if you’re serious about selling a top notch book you can’t go it alone. That’s where your indie publishing team comes into play. As a true indie publisher (rather than just a small publishing company with in-house staff), you’ll most likely work with independent contractors. There are benefits to this:
It’s no secret that your book cover design is an important book marketing tool — for indie authors and traditionally published authors alike. Yet many self published authors and indie publishers take the DIY route and the results are often easy to spot in relation to professional cover designs. Who better to talk about cover design issues like these than one of the industry’s go-to
When you publish your own book with the intention of selling it, you should always have a marketing plan. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen indie authors make is assuming they don’t need one. They just wing it or rely on a low price or a single distribution outlet to cover all of their marketing. Let’s assume you have more hope than that. For
Blame it on my days in PR, but I’m a big fan of transparency. I love sharing open and honest information, including real life data about things that interest me. In freelance writing I encourage other writers to share their rates openly because it helps us not only conduct better market research as a group and can positively influence the hiring process, but because it
If you go into indie publishing with the intention of selling your books and earning a profit, you’re going into business. Your books and e-books become the products you build your business around. You’ll see me emphasize this fact a lot here at All Indie Publishing. Today I want to talk about what that really means (being an authorpreneur as opposed to just an author).
Despite the Amazon craze (and Smashwords and all the other shiny new e-book selling tools and platforms), the majority of the e-books I release will never be sold through such marketplaces. That’s because for years I’ve focused on writing “information product” e-books — which are highly profitable, are what I usually refer to here as “traditional e-books,” and are often ignored by today’s e-book newcomers
You’ll occasionally see me use the term “self publishing” here simply because of its common use among indie authors. But I hate that phrase. Hate, hate, hate it. If you want to call yourself a self publisher, by all means do so. There’s nothing wrong with that. My biggest issue with it is when people throw that term around to describe others, including myself. “Self
I recently had a discussion with several fellow editors about voice and style. Namely, when to leave it in and when to take it out. Every piece of writing has a natural voice to it. As an editor sometimes I have to make a decision about when to leave something that’s not wrong, but could be written clearer, and when to rework a sentence from