Sunday study session: Author Beware’s year in review

Posted on 01/19/2020 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

The folks behind Author Beware would hate to hear that any author missed one of their alerts. So Victoria Strauss...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Contests, Licenses, copyrights, and other legalese

The structure of your novel can enhance the overall story

Posted on 01/18/2020 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

When we think of story structure, we often think of plot progression and not necessarily the literal way in which...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Plot / narrative, Writer's Digest, Writing advice

Dave Chesson explains how to pick Amazon ad keywords

Posted on 01/17/2020 at 02:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Say you’re looking into using Amazon Ads. You might think that, having done your Kindle keywords research, you can just...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Amazon, Dave Chesson (the Kindlepreneur), Marketing

Need a free graphic-design suite? David Gaughran has you covered

Posted on 01/17/2020 at 10:45 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

David Gaughran has a roundup of his favorite free graphic-design tools for authors, but if you already use and love...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Cover design, David Gaughran, Design, Technology

Orna Ross and Joanna Penn predict self-publishing trends for the next decade

Posted on 01/16/2020 at 02:27 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Earlier this year, we shared seven predictions for the next decade from Orna Ross, the director of the Alliance for...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Joanna Penn, Podcast, ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors)

One author's tips on writing from multiple points of view

Posted on 01/16/2020 at 09:29 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Sometimes it’s screamingly obvious — your story can only be told from one character’s point of view. Other times, you...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Characters, Writer's Digest, Writing advice

One author's best practices for researching with primary resources

Posted on 01/15/2020 at 11:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

You may not be in school any more, but chances are good you’re still being called upon to do research....

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Joanna Penn, Writing advice

Writer’s Digest breaks down “awhile” versus “a while”

Posted on 01/14/2020 at 10:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Have you been wondering about “awhile” versus “a while” for a period of time? Well, good news: Writer’s Digest editor...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Language, Writer's Digest

C.S. Lakin's first-page checklist for novels

Posted on 01/13/2020 at 04:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

C.S. Lakin is previewing her new book, First Pages of Best Sellers: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why, on her...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: C.S. Lakin / Live Write Thrive, First lines and first chapters

The Creative Penn: How to be (or strive to be) indistractable

Posted on 01/13/2020 at 10:52 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Imagine being indistractible. That’s not a pipe dream, at least according to Joanna Penn’s latest podcast guest. Nir Eyal used...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Joanna Penn, Motivational