Jen's Writing Journey

Novelist and writing consultant Roz Morris is offering a free PDF download of her book Nail Your Novel–no registration required. Those of you who finished a novel during NaNoWriMo may be looking for tips to help you assess what you wrote and revise your draft.

Roz visited us earlier this year to talk about her beat sheet, which she describes in more detail in Nail Your Novel. Her book provides advice and tips that can help even the most discouraged writer get back on track and finish a novel that has the planning and execution necessary to be sold in this market.

Download your copy here, and while you are at Roz’s site, feel free to peruse some of her posts. She has some great resources there.

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For those of you who have missed me on my long Thanksgiving holiday, here is a link to an interview I did with Andy Shack about my blog tour. Enjoy!

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Today, I’m over at The Romantic Journey talking about classic love stories and why I think they remain so powerful.

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After attending Caroline Miller’s talk on book marketing earlier this month, I’ve been thinking about how to get my book into libraries.

Miller suggested asking your friends to request it, using either the paper or online forms or just a face-to-face conversation with the person in charge of acquisitions.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense to look beyond my circle of face-to-face friends. Thus, I would like to set up a library request exchange. If you would like to request my book at your library in exchange for me requesting your book at my library, leave me a comment or shoot me an email.

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A Remarkable Book from Wiley-Finance

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"An excellent book!"   — Paul Wilmott Want to break into the lucrative world of trading and quantitative finance? You need this book!

• 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 matter, but your query shouldn’t imply that your book is derivative of those other works or get out of hand with comparisons, as if you are sending outtakes from The Player.

The Curse of the Orphaned Book
With all of the upheaval in publishing, writers are being confronted with the more common occurence of the orphaned book. What’s an orphaned book? It is a title that has been contracted by an editor who is later laid off. Jeff Rivera looks at what happens in that situation.

Contract Help
Agent Kristin discusses some important contractual terms in “Sales Thresholds in Out-of-Print Clauses” and “Bring Back Term of License?”

Craft

Notes from a NaNoWriMo Newbie
Author Heidi Thomas talks about the decision-making process she went through when deciding to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Are you one of the 50K or die writers? Or, like me, did you decide to sit it out this year?

First Drafts
Jennifer Hubbard shares some of her first draft pecadillos as she works through a second draft. What writing sins do you commit on your first draft?

Fiction

Emotions Laid Bare, or Working Your Point of View
Writer Alison Kent gives some nice examples of how you can use your point of view character’s thoughts on other character’s reactions to show all of the emotions in a scene.

When Lightning Strikes
What is the strangest place or time you have been visited by your muse? While drifting off to sleep? In the shower? On the commute to and from your day job? Yes, yes, and yes for me. Kimberly Davis discusses how we writers handle that magical moment when we are handed the perfect words.

How to Create Sexual Tension in 10 Easy Steps
Do your characters need a little more tension? Nicole North stops by The Pen & Muse to share her tips for bringing the heat.

Freelancing

How to Get Money to Start Your Own Business
Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen provides some nice tips to help you pay the bills while getting your freelancing business off the ground. We are lucky as writers that we don’t require the huge capital investments some other types of businesses need to get going. Our biggest concern is keeping a steady income while we build our reputation and client list.

Publications Out of Business or No Freelance
The Christian Writers Marketplace blog has a nice list of publications that have ceased publication or that are no longer accepting freelance submissions.

Standing Behind the Shield Law
The Society of Professional Journalists is asking all of us who have a few minutes and who believe in the importance of a federal shield law to contact our senators. If you don’t know your senators’ phone numbers, you can find all contact info on the main senate website.

Platform

How to Never Again Feel Guilty about Promoting Your Own Work
“Promotion and marketing are not the devil’s work.” Write that on the chalkboard 10 times the next time you avoid a promotional event or opportunity.

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Today, a lot of us are off work. A day off can be a good time for catching up on housework, relaxing, or catching a movie. Or it can be a day that you sample the life of a full-time writer, putting in a much longer writing shift than is possible on a day that you work.

In addition to making a huge dent in your word count goals, you can learn a lot about yourself.

• Do you get bored holed up in your writing area all day?
• Does your family intrude during your writing hours?
• Do you work better before or after you shower and get dressed?
• Is your writing space comfortable enough to put in a full day’s shift?
• Will you need to work on your motivation and discipline to be able to make the transition to full-time writer?

Working at home can be a huge challenmge, even when you are doing work that you love. Trial runs on holidays will help you develop the skills you need to be successful when the time is right for you to move into that lifestyle.

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Do you have a press kit?

I didn’t until recently, even though, as a working journalist, I know how essential an online press kit is to the media. So, I pulled mine together and posted it today. It is a work in progress, and I intend to continue adding more to it as needed.

What are the basic components of an online press kit?

• Bio: Use an inverted pyramid when writing your bio. Include the essentials in the first few sentences, then move into your qualifications, writing history, and education.
• Samples: Link to your favorite writing samples. If you cover multiple topics, consider grouping them to make it easy for the media and potential readers to find what they are looking for.
• Photos/Book Covers: Include low-resolution web graphics as well as links to download high-resolution images suitable for print.
• Reviews: If you have book reviews from Amazon, blogs, or print media, include them here.
• Media Coverage: Have you been interviewed anywhere? Add it here, even if it isn’t posted online.
• Other Files: If you have a bookmark or a press flier, post a PDF.
• Social Media Links: Have fan page of Facebook? Are you an active user of Twitter? Include it.
• Contact Information: Don’t forget to give writers and editors a way to get in touch with you. Don’t feel pressured to put your home mailing address or phone number on the web, but consider getting a post office box and a business line so you can include multiple methods of contact.

Are there any other key components you have included in your press kits? Or cool things you’ve seen in other authors’ media sections? Post links to your own press kit and cool ones you found in the comments.

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• The Business of Writing
• Craft
• Fiction
• Freelancing

The Business of Writing

Firsts
What are your goals for your writing career? Aprilynne Pike discusses her goals, other possible goals as a writer, and the ways we can achieve these goals.

Choosing Your Genre
Agent Jessica Faust covers the issue of specializing in a genre. If you have ideas that span genres, how do you choose which to focus on? Faust suggests looking at your ideas and assessing which is strongest and which you can do your best work on.

This Rant Brought to You by the Letter Q for Query
Follow the submission guidelines for your chosen editor or agent. And use your query to discuss the work you are submitting and the important publishing credentials you bring to the table. Don’t criticize the guidelines or the processes. If you do these things, you’ll be one step ahead of the annoying people who don’t follow the rules.

Building a Writing Career
How badly do you want to be a writer? What will you do when you are hit with the notion that every word you’ve ever written stinks to high heaven? Rather than packing it in, Robyn decided to rededicated herself to her career.

Independents Plan Events for National Bookstore Day
Publishers Weekly pulled together a national celebration of bookstores as chains force independents out of business and Amazon forces all bricks and mortar stores into obsolesence.

Craft

Louisa Edwards: Guest Post
Novelist Louisa Edwards visits Victoria Janssen’s blog to discuss the importance of research and passion for your topic. If you don’t love your topic, how can you expect your readers to?

Writer Question: How Do I Cut Text from My Novel and Not Lose My Soul
Can you kill your darlings? No matter how hard it is, to be successful, you will probably have to cut some of your favorite lines, plots, and characters out of your work. Moonrat discusses the issues to keep in mind when you are confronted with the decision of what to cut and what to keep.

Fiction

Some Deep Point of View Tips
Novelist Camy Tang guests at The Seekers with specific examples of language and description that enliven your writing and put the reader there as a participant, not a viewer.

Creating a Plot
Taylor, over at Men with Pens, shares some great tips on creating a compelling plot.

Freelancing

The Great Debate: Flat Rates versus Hourly Rates
How do you structure your rates for freelance work? Buy the word? the hour? the project? Susan Johnson goes over the different things you need to keep in mind when you set your rates.

Watch for Signs of Trouble
Freelancer Sue Lick provides some warning signs that one of your regular clients might be in financial trouble. With the current economic situation, we will all have to protect ourselves in case our clients are unable to pay or on their way out of business.

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Last night, I saw author Caroline Miller speak on book marketing. She had some great ideas and focused a lot on marketing to libraries.

One of the best suggestions was to ask your friends to request that their local library add your book to their collection. So, next time you’re at the library, feel free to ask them to add The Best of Learning & Leading with Technology by Jennifer Roland to their collection.

Miller had many easy ideas to get and sustain publicity for your book. She mentioned a few more things you could ask your friends to do to help you: post reviews on Amazon or other book-seller sites, recommend you as a guest on local radio and television shows, help you prepare a video or book trailer to post on You Tube. (If you want to know more about book trailers, read Erica Hayes’ post on The Romantic Journey.)

She suggested using your alumni newsletters and local periodicals and radio stations as media that might be interested in covering you.

She also suggested hiring a public relations professional who could help you prepare high-quality materials and track your appearances and media coverage.

What marketing tricks have worked for you? Are you able to hire professionals to help you, or do you do it all yourself?

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We writers talk a lot about different ways to save money on health care, Internet service, writing supplies, and so on.

One way to save money is to make your own home remedies when you have a cold or mild flu.

Now, you should not rely on home remedies if you have a serious illness, and avoiding the doctor is not always the best way to save money in the long term. But, for the minor wintertime illnesses that don’t require a doctor’s care, you can pull together some low-cost cure-alls.

I shared my recipes for ginger lemonade and ginger tea on Pop Culture Curmudgeon today. Earlier this cold and flu season, Christina Katz tweeted her prescription for cold symptoms.

What remedies or combinations of cold medications do you rely on when you are under the weather?

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