Do you go to conferences? Boy, I do. One of the greatest aspects of conference-going is meeting people you might have known only on the ether, putting a face to the avatar. Here, for example, is author Chuck Wendig, whom I’ve met several times at conferences. Both of us normally have some traveling to do, to [...]

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Hello Writer Unboxed readers! I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Annie Neugebauer, and I’m the new Twitter columnist around these parts. I’ll be blogging Twitter tips, theory, and practice every other month. Many thanks to Nina Badzin for recommending me, and to Therese Walsh and the whole WU crew for welcoming me with [...]

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New Twitter users (and even seasoned ones) complain about the sheer amount of tweets demanding attention all at once. It’s a valid concern with one good solution: TWITTER LISTS! The good folks behind Twitter.com designed a way for us to separate the people we’re following into categories. Once you have created lists and slotted the [...]

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  I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say. – Marshall McLuhan   I’ve been putting together some thoughts recently on our collective readership. Not us when we read. Not our delegation here of Unboxed Writers. And not even the wider community of writers, local and offshore, national and intergalactic, the diaspora-digital, and where it [...]

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Even our photos of a church group, or a friend’s birthday, or exercise at the YMCA are, if we admit it, about us. Every photo is a “selfie.” Alex Miller Jr., The Myth of Narcissus Goes Social If you donated money to a hurricane relief charity via a website, you may have been asked if [...]

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      The oddness of Twitter…meeting people for the first time who seem like old friends at #bib12 — Ania Wieckowski (@agwieckowski) October 25, 2012   Ania Wieckowski, Harvard Business Review’s Managing Editor, is nothing if not a poised tweeter. She sweetly tweeted this — or tweetly sweeted it — at this week’s continually [...]

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It’s one of the first rules of characterization we writers learn—give our protagonists a fatal flaw. Even better? Use that fatal flaw to bring about the character’s ultimate triumph. It is one of my favorite character arcs, how that flaw can end up being the thing that saves us, given the right set of circumstances. [...]

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  Sometimes, when we’re terrified of embracing our true calling, we’ll pursue a shadow calling instead. And how does a shadow career relate to a real career? That shadow career is a metaphor for our real career. Something that supports what I meant to do. Good training? Yes, it sure is. This will come in [...]

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I first heard Elizabeth Law speak at a SCBWI National Conference where the title of her talk was, “Ask Me Anything—The Unvarnished Truth About Publishing.” Right then and there, I knew she was my kind of person. Then, during the course of the conference when she told attendees, “Just write your heart out. I promise [...]

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There is a revolution taking place. You can’t miss it, really. It’s rising up all around us—in the way books are published, in how they find their audience, and how authors interact with their readers. The thing about revolutions is that they are both exciting and scary. People and systems are vulnerable during revolutions when [...]

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Kath here. Today’s guest is WU community member Mary Incontro. Mary is a former federal prosecutor hard at work on her first novel, a work of legal fiction. During her career as a reporter on Capitol Hill, an attorney and public prosecutor, writing has been a huge part of Mary’s professional life; now she is ready [...]

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Last time, I wrote about Pinterest and ways to use this trendy social media tool to complement your book publicity efforts. The cool thing about Pinterest and social media in general - and the most important thing – is that it’s publicity without being blatantly promotional. It’s publicity without even realizing it. Social media should be about [...]

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