Tag: Writing Advice

How To Pitch Radio And Become A Talk Show Guest – Written By Sandra Beckwith

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Sandra Beckwith provides us with advice on how to pitch radio and become a talk show guest. Thank you very much for sharing, Sandra.

Looking for a way to reach most Americans with your book’s message? Consider radio publicity.

According to Nielsen Media Research, 89 percent of Americans age 12 or older — nine out of 10 — listen to radio in a given week. Radio reaches 94 percent of adults in the 35 to 49 age group — only slightly more than those ages 18 to 34 and 50 plus. Even better, news/talk radio is the second most popular format.

There’s no question that radio is a tremendous publicity vehicle for authors with something to say.

Add the growth in podcasting to the mix and you’ll have many interview opportunities.

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Writing A Book Blurb In 4 Easy Steps – Written By K. M. Allan

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K. M. Allan helps us with four steps to write a book blurb, something we all fear one way or another. Thank you so much for all your efforts, K. M.!

Any writer who’s had to write a query or a synopsis for a submission knows how hard it can be.

Trying to boil the essence of your carefully crafted story to a few paragraphs, or a page seems like the hardest thing ever.

I’m here to tell you it’s not. And that’s because there’s a greater horror: a book blurb.
A book blurb, or the book jacket description, summarizes the best part of your book in only 150 words (yep! one hundred and fifty).

If you’re wondering how to do that and where to start, it involves penning multiple drafts, lots of cutting, losing your sanity, and planning your blurb with the help of these steps.

Writing A Book Blurb In 4 Easy Steps

Step 1:Add A Tag-Line

Open with one catchy line, a question, or a hook.

Step 2:Introduce Your Main Character

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Is A Split Infinitive Still A Grammar Mistake In Writing? – Written By Derek Haines

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Derek Haines once more provides us with excellent writing advice, this time in grammar and writing. Thank you so much, Derek!

Almost every style guide will tell you should avoid the split infinitive.
But is this generalized rule always valid?

We all know the famous Star Trek example of breaking the rule: to boldly go where no man has gone before.

It would sound awkward if I applied good English grammar. My grammar checker correction says it should read: to go where no man has gone before boldly.

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How To Love Editing – Written By K. M. Allan

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K. M. Allan writes about a challenge we writers face daily, hourly and even every minute… a challenge we fear, a mountain of a problem we hate. Let’s see how K. M. Allan tells us we will one-day love editing. Thanks so much for this great post, K. M. Allan!

The real truth of writing is that you will spend a lot of time editing. A. Lot. Of. Time. Hours, weeks, months, sometimes even years (or at least, what feels like years).

When the rush of new ideas is gone. When the thrill of filling in plot holes and working out twists is over. When the story’s set in stone but you still need to shape that stone into a majestic statue, that’s editing. And it’s something, as a writer, you need to love doing.

Accept It

The first step of learning to love editing is accepting you must do it. The sooner you do, the easier it is to work through drafts that feel endless.

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Finding The Best Grammar Checker To Correct Your Writing – written by Derek Haines

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My search for the best grammar checker I could find

No matter what you write, you always need to check your text.

However, it is not as simple as thinking that a quick spell check in Microsoft Word is going to result in error-free writing.

Whether you are an author, content writer, blogger or social media marketer, writing errors are a fact of life. That’s why we have editors and proofreaders, but they are not available for everything we write.

We all live and work online so much now that our writing accuracy is challenged whenever we sit down at a keyboard. That’s why we all use an online grammar check in some form from time to time.

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How to write a book…

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Sue Vincent informs us with an excellent blog post how to write a book. Thanks a lot Sue.

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

Image: Pixabay

There are more books being written and published at this moment in time than ever before. Self publishing has opened the doors to a global sharing of imagination and knowledge, but when you pick up the proverbial pen for the very first time, it can seem a daunting task. How do you start, where does it end… and how can you define success?

There are a plethora of resources available online to help writers start, explore or hone their craft. It matters not at all what you are looking for, there is something available. Whether you want to know how to write the vilest of villains or avoid creating a histrionic heroine,  advice, good, bad and indifferent is easily located thanks to the power of the internet.

Most of this advice, it is true, is aimed at writers of fiction. There is a tendency to generalise and the…

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6 Signs of Scam Publishers

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Steven Capps gives us excellent advice on what to look for if we want to find out about whether our publisher is a scam. Thank you Steven. We appreciate your efforts!

Bard & Books

As a warning, I am writing the rough draft of this post on my IPhone while I do cardio at the gym (cue gym selfie below). I am trying to be more efficient and thought that this would be a good time to get in some writing.

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Earlier today, I was browsing Facebook and amid the swath of political drivel, I found an advertisement for a publisher looking for authors. Several red flags flickered almost immediately. Though this post is inspired by an actual publisher, I am going to omit their name because when I reached out to them, they deleted the content. It seemed like they were more of a naive kid rather than a malicious con-artist. Regardless, here are 6 Red Flags to be aware of when looking into a publisher.

Red Flags of Scam Publishers

1. Poor Marketing Design

It doesn’t take an award winning artist to…

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7 Tips for Naming Your Characters

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J Young-Ju Harris has published an interesting blog post about how to name your characters. I think this comes in handy at times. Thank you for this article!

J. Young-Ju Harris

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Naming characters is an important part of character creation. It determines how your characters will be known moving forward. Some people find this aspect of the character creation phase to be very easy or mostly intuitive. For those of you who don’t, here are some of my suggestions on how to go about coming up with names for your story’s cast.

1.) Differentiate Your Names

My cardinal rule for naming characters is making sure that none of the names look similar on the page. Having characters with names that appear similar can either cause the reader to slow down to make sure they know who is taking action, or, worse, it can cause the reader to become confused and lose the thread of what’s going on.

I actually think that J.R.R. Tolkien made this mistake when he named his villains Sauron and Saruman. If you’re reading quickly, the two names…

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