Jen's Writing Journey

Welcome to the new home of Jen's Writing Journey, the blog that chronicles Jennifer Roland's writing life and provides useful information for new and seasoned writers.

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I missed my Wednesday post because I was down for the count with the regular-old flu.

• The Business of Writing
• Craft
• Fiction
• Freelancing
• Platform

The Business of Writing

Special Video Interview Series with Chris Anderson
Jeff Rivera got an exclusive video interview from Chris Anderson, proponent of the freemium model of book sales. He discusses marketing, sales, and the like.

• Part 1
• Part 2: Turning Exposure into Book Sales
• Part 3: What Does NOT Work in Book Marketing
• Part 4: How Novelists Can Sell More Books

Gender Matters
Novelist L.J. Sellers explores gender preferences among readers. Do you prefer male or female writers? Does genre affect your genre preferences?

Writer Inspiration: Jessa Slade
Do you have what it takes to make the transition from writer to author? As newly published urban fantasy author Jessa Slade tells us, it may not be as easy as we think. Turns out getting that first contract is only one hurdle you need to leap on your journey. Slade gives an inspirational and authentic look at her own journey.

This Week in Publishing
Agent Nathan Bransford does a nice job synthesizing all of the craziness with new e-readers, eviscerated book prices, and doom and gloom predictions. Do you think these are the end times for the novel? Or are we just transitioning into something new?

The Dreaded “R” Word
Over at Pop Culture Divas, Kelly Boyce shares her thoughts on rejection. She closes with some of the famous (and so, so wrong) rejections from literary history. Print this one out and keep it in your inspiration file.

Deadlines
Love them or hate them, deadlines are our reality. Agent Jessica Faust gives some good tips for ensuring that the deadlines you agree to will actually work for you.

In Defense of Print
J.A. Konrath looks at the arguments for and against e-books.

Craft

So Who Else Is Doing NaNo?
Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? (This abbreviation always reminds me of what I would note in my unicorn diary if I missed a day of writing: Sorry. ForgTWri. Yes, I was 8 at the time.) Moonrat has poll about what you think you will get from the NaNoWriMo process. I see the process as similar to what you get from following the Book in a Month process: great experience writing a lot of words in a short amount of time, but probably not a salable novel. You’ll probably end with a really nice first draft that you can polish into a potentially salable novel.

Write What You Can Make up Entirely?
Novelist Rachel Vincent discusses the perils of writing realistic emotions/experiences that you haven’t lived. Do you prefer to ground yourself in realism, even when it involves experiences you have never and will never have? Or do you prefer stuff that is so fantastical that you can just make it all up?

Fiction

Ask Daphne! About My Query XXVIII
Agent Kate Schafer Testerman presents a sample query and her reactions and advice. What lesson did you learn from this post that you will use in your next query letter?

Avoiding On-the-Nose Writing
Author Mary Jo Rhodes discusses the perils of stereotypical characters and plots with specific examples of the cliched and the unexpected.

Freelancing

Free Webcast: How to Create a Freelance Writing Career
Mediabistro is offering a free webcast on freelancing. Sign up here.

20 Ways for Freelance Writers to Save Money
We writers are all lolling about eating bonbons and jetting off to Rome on a moment’s notice after we put in our half our of daily writing, right? Yeah. That is a nice dream. If you’re worried about making ends meet, Deb Ng has a roundup of money-saving tips for freelancers.

The Freelance Multiple Personality Disorder
Are freelancers just crazy people who have found a way to earn a living? Michelle Rafter looks at a typical work day and the myriad personalities she gos through.

Interview with Author Sara Morgan, “No Limits”
Have you read No Limits: How I Escaped the Clutches of Corporate America to Live the Self-Employed Life of My Dreams? If not, based on this interview, it sounds as if you should. Kristine Meldrum Denholm asks great questions, and Morgan gives great answers. Morgan serves as an example of what you can expect as a writer and what you should do to prepare yourself for the work involved in being an author.

Platform

Did You Write a Blog? The Times and Perils of Blogging
Rebecca Emrich discusses the issues you may encounter when blogging. So many bloggers start off great and then taper off. Did you have a blog? Did you keep it up? What did you struggle with? What would have made your blog seem successful and self-sustaining?

Death of the Book Review
Adam Penenberg discusses the ever-lessening role of book reviews in book sales. Do you read reviews? Do you have a plan for building buzz that doesn’t include book reviews?

Related Posts

• And It's Time, Time, Time That You Love I'm still feeling the Tori Amos after going to her show a few weekends ago, so I'm using one of the lyrics from her cover album Strange Little Girls as my title today. (As a side note, I'm also using the song "Rattlesnakes" from that album as character inspiration for......
• A Room of One's Own I spent my weekend cleaning out my garage and storage room (and then recovering from the insane amount of physical labor that involved for my sedentary writer's body). The storage room is two steps away from being my office. As I took a shower, I planned how I was going......
• Writing Roundup, August 28 Lots of good stuff out there as we look toward the fall. The Business of Writing How a Book Gets Published Agent Nathan Bransford gives a great, easy-to-follow description of how a book goes from finished clean copy on the author's desk to a shiny new book on the shelves.......
• Writing Roundup, Nov. 13 The Business of Writing Craft Fiction Freelancing Platform The Business of Writing Comparing Your Book to Other Books in Your Query Agent Nathan Bransford weighs in on using comparisons to other books in your query. Personally, I think it can give a nice frame reference for tone or subject......
• Writing Roundup, June 26 Where has this month gone? How did you do on your goals? I got my spreadsheet going, and I'm using it. The two books are still in process, but I've got a whole weekend ahead of me! And I've gotten 3,000 words written on my novel. The Business of Writing......

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