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The Secrets We Keep

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Let’s talk, just for a moment, about social media. I love Facebook and Instagram for the connection they provide, with people I see rarely and with people I see often. I love the unexpected laughs, the bits of beauty or joy, feeling a part of other’s people’s lives. But I am well aware of the gap between what I post about and the reality of my own life, and don’t envy anything I read or see (okay, maybe I get a little jealous sometimes of Paris pics—I’ve never been). Here’s what I post about: My vacations. Family milestones. My work. Small things that bring me joy. Here’s what I don’t post about: The times I’ve lost my temper and sworn at my kids. The times my kids have sworn at me. My back pain. How hard it is to care for my elderly mother. The years of my life I have wasted looking for my glasses. Sometimes I run into a friend I haven’t seen in months and he or she says to me, “Your life is so fun!” And I think, Are you kidding me? Sometimes I think about posting nothing but the truth for an entire month, but I don’t.

Instead, I write novels. [Read more…]

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A Community of Debut Authors Unite to Help Each Other

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Please welcome Kate Brandes as our guest today! An environmental scientist with over 20 years of experience, Kate is also a watercolor painter and a writer of women’s fiction with an environmental bent. Her short stories have been published in The Binnacle, Wilderness House Literary Review, and Grey Sparrow Journal. Kate is a member of the Arts Community of Easton (ACE), the Lehigh Art Alliance, Artsbridge, the Pennwriters, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Kate lives in a small town … [Read more...]

Learning to Outsource and Then Let Go

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In a few weeks I’ll be leading a session with independent editor Nicola Kraus at Grub Street’s annual Muse and the Marketplace writers conference, on “Outsourcing for Writers.” When we first pitched the idea to Grub Street, the conference organizer confessed that the idea “freaked [him] out a bit.” After all, writing is such a solitary endeavor and as writers we like to think we can -- and should -- do everything ourselves, every step of the way. Nothing else feels right. And after years … [Read more...]

Turning Social Media into the Grandest Writing Exercise Of All

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Please welcome Maria Ribas as our guest today. Maria is a literary agent at Stonesong and a blogger at Cooks & Books. She helps turn great ideas into beautiful books, and she specializes in cookbooks, design, personal development, business, creativity, and spirituality. She likes those topics so much she also writes about them on her blog, Cooks & Books, where she hopes to show writers that running a creative business doesn’t have to be at odds with a quiet and intentional life. I hope … [Read more...]

Response and Responsibility: Writers in Time of Terror

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'The Stocks of Gun-Makers Go Up' In the wake of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando Sunday morning, shares of Smith & Wesson jumped 7 percent in Monday’s trading session. Though the stock stabilized in Tuesday trading, it has nonetheless managed to gain 5.5 percent in the last five days of market activity. This is Forbes staff writer Maggie McGrath yesterday, June 16. She's ready with the answer to the question I've just placed in your mind: Why would a mass killing make gun … [Read more...]

Everyone’s Getting Into Video. Should You?

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Unless you’ve been garreted away working on the Great American Novel—and maybe you have!—you've probably noticed that video is becoming a big deal. There’s high market demand for it, and we’re all spending more and more time watching video online, which means more advertising money is moving to video. Trend reports indicate that video advertising is now growing faster than social media advertising. As a result, Facebook is now paying big bucks to celebrities and others to produce high-quality … [Read more...]

Why Authors Should Use Instagram

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Please welcome back guests Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke who have been best friends for over twenty-five years and survived high school and college together. Together they have written The Year We Turned Forty, The Status of All Things, and Your Perfect Life. Liz lives in San Diego with her husband and two children. Lisa, a former talk show producer, lives in Chicago with her husband, daughter, and two bonus children. We are passionate about marketing our books because it's a huge part of our … [Read more...]

Writing & Bathing

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Our guest today is Kelly Simmons whose novels have been hailed as electrifying, complex, and poignant, and aren’t those nice words? Her third novel, One More Day, just came out and everyone calls it riveting, so don’t buy it unless you want to stay up all night reading it. She’s a member of WFWA, Tall Poppy Writers, and The Liars Club, a group of published novelists dedicated to helping fledgling writers. If I had to pinpoint one reason I wanted to write this post—I guess it's because my sister … [Read more...]

Publishing Exhaustion

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So, I know this is going to sound like I’m complaining—maybe even ungrateful—but bear with me. I was talking to a book club recently, and I made a quip I’ve made often: that I went and turned my fun hobby (writing books) into a second job. It got the laugh it often does, but someone followed up to ask me whether that meant I found writing to be work, something I didn’t enjoy. Of course, writing is work I said, and of course I love it. What I was referring to is all the ancillary stuff to … [Read more...]

The Perils of Self-Publishing

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I’m not an expert in self-publishing.  I haven’t looked into all the new venues that let writers get their work out in the world on their own.  I haven’t run the numbers -- what kind of sales you can expect and what return you’ll get on your investment.  The only research I’ve done is to watch what’s been happening with my clients over the last 25 years. I’m not saying that no one should ever self-publish.  I know that it has worked well for a lot of writers, and it has sometimes been the … [Read more...]

Ask Annie: How Long Does a Tweet Live?

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How long does a tweet live before it gets buried in the scroll line? Someone told me less than 60 seconds. Is that accurate? --Paula Cappa, @PaulaCappa1 I like this question because I see more implied here than is stated. On the lines, I read: “How long does a tweet live?” Between the lines, I read: “Does anyone actually see my tweets?” I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m projecting, Paula, but for the sake of this column I’m going to answer that projection as much as I’ll answer your literal … [Read more...]

Ask Annie: 5 MORE Twitter Mistakes Writers Make and How to Avoid Them

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Last time I shared the first half of my two-part answer to this question: You’ve covered a lot of policy and etiquette in your blogs, but I was wondering if there are any pitfalls you commonly see writers making on Twitter? And if so, what should we do to avoid them? —Anonymous Today I’m going to finish it off with my second half. Thanks again for this great question, Anonymous, and best of luck! 6. Complaining about your WIP. Look, everyone has low points. We get that. But generally … [Read more...]

The 6 Most Common Marketing Mistakes Made by Authors

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Please welcome Jon Bard as our guest today. Jon has been helping authors for twenty-five years as the co-owner of Children’s Book Insider, the Newsletter for Children's Writers. He recently introduced his course Easy Author Marketing–The Simple Solution That Sells Books. I've been helping writers for twenty-five years and I'm the founder of a NY public relations firm. This gives me a unique vantage point on author marketing, and I'm determined to help writers avoid pitfalls and build a real … [Read more...]

Ask Annie: 5 Twitter Mistakes Writers Make and How to Avoid Them

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You’ve covered a lot of policy and etiquette in your blogs, but I was wondering if there are any pitfalls you commonly see writers making on Twitter? And if so, what should we do to avoid them? —Anonymous Hi Anonymous! I love this question, not just because you’re eager to avoid the pitfalls but also because you specified that you want to know how to do so. I appreciate that focus on positivity and taking action. I have so many answers to this one that I’m going to break it into two … [Read more...]