Inspiration with a Club
By Gina Burgess Truman Capote:Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does or music. If you are born with them, fine. If not, learn them then rearrange them to suit you. Just what we were talking about last week. Frankly, no two writers will work, or write, in the same way. […]
Google+ going, going, gone
by Jann Martin We’ve been hearing lately that Google+ is shutting down. “When John Lewis heard that Google+ was shutting down after the discovery of a security bug that left private profile data exposed, it felt like a crushing blow — even though he could see it coming.” CNBC report In The Guardian “This March, as Facebook was […]
Writing Rules the Good, the Bad, the Ugly
by Gina Burgess Like me, you may have wondered where in the world all those rules about writing came from. From people who supposedly know about writing. Duh. In one of my Facebook groups, someone asked, “What is the writing rule you dislike the most?” I’m amazed at some of the dislikes, so I thought […]
200 Pounds of Trash
I have an internet friend that I’ve known since 1997. Never met him face to face, but I’ve been with him as he’s pastored several different churches. He had a wonderful email ministry for most of those years. He has graciously given me his Thought for the Day posts–all 522 of them. This one hits […]
A Blog Is an Author’s Best Friend
By Gina Burgess Last May we talked a little bit about authors blogging, why and what to blog. Something missing is how an author should maintain the blog. Where to get inspiration for blog posts? I’ve been writing blog posts since 2005 when my professor challenged us to create a blog for a class project. […]
Hullabaloo over Kindle Direct Publishing & CreateSpace
by Gina Burgess Worn out from all the fearmongering going on about the transition from CreateSpace to Kindle Direct Publishing? There are tons of articles about it. Advice: Go straight to the source. After reading and talking to a supervisor over both, KDP is fast tracking to being the same great place to indie publish […]
Where do you place your inciting incident?
by Randy Ingermanson First, let’s define our terms. The inciting incident is some “new thing” in your protagonist’s world. It marks the change that is ultimately going to pull your protagonist into your story. Usually, this is something external to your protagonist, but it’s possible it could be an internal change. Exactly where to put […]
Web-Ed EVENT! Terry Whalin, acquisitions editor
By Gina Burgess First flush of love finally blossoms into full-fledged, lasting love that ends with accepting a proposal. Like an on-the-knee marriage proposal, an accepted book proposal leads to long relationships, trusted relationships, and even better, profit for both parties. Terry Whalin–an acquisitions editor for Morgan-James Publishing–has the scoop on how to write a […]
Entrepreneur, uh, Author Marketing Mistake #7
by Gina Burgess While reading an article on Entrepreneur about eight mistakes entrepreneurs usually don’t realize they are making, mistake #7 hit home. You can read the whole article here Mistake 7: Taking ‘no’ for an answer. Great entrepreneurs realize that a no actually means “not yet” in many scenarios. They break through walls where others get blocked. […]
Guerilla Marketing Your Book…
by Gina Burgess (using part of an excerpt from Using the Ripple Effect) Guerrilla marketing—the idea of using a small amount of money [or zero money] to do something unconventional—should be a part of every writer’s book marketing strategy (Scott La Counte – @buzz_trace) This is probably the most fun thing, but least used thing […]