For pro writers, writing fiction, nonfiction and copywriting. Have fun, and become a better writer. Copyright (c) 2004 to 2022, Angela Booth. All rights reserved.
Here's what I mean by "If you do what others do, you'll get what they get."
If you've managed to get someone to pay you some small amount for an article or whatever, you'll get annoyed when you're stuck in the writing ghetto. And it's inevitable that you will. You just don't have the background to move up and out. You think that since you're making $5 an article, anyone who tells you that you could be making $1 to $3 per WORD is a liar.
You're doing what other writers do -- and you're getting what they get.
Many new writers are wary of asking questions because they don't want to appear unprofessional.
Experienced writers, on the other hand, ask as many questions as they can. They ask because they don't want to misunderstand the parameters of a project. They cheerfully nag their clients for information. Indeed, if the client doesn't respond quickly to requests for information, a professional writer will often refuse to take on the project.
Title: The Reluctant Countess Author: Wendy Vella Genre: Historical Romance Publisher: Loveswept, January 2013 ISBN: 978-0-345-54007-2
If you're a Regency romance fan, you'll enjoy The Reluctant Countess. It's a sweet Regency, hewing to the genre. There's nothing here to cause angst, just a pleasant read.
Although he has no real evidence, Patrick, Earl of Coulter, decides that there's something not quite right about Sophie, Countess of Monmouth. He was with her husband just before he died: there was no mention of a countess.
Nevertheless, the Earl of Montmouth's sister, Lady Letitia Carstairs, is introducing Sophie to the ton, and she'd hardly do that if the countess were an impostor.
Despite his suspicions Coulter is attracted to Sophie, and before too long he's on her side. He saves her from manhandling by her odious cousin, Viscount Dumbly. Then he catches her doing hand stands in the park, and realizes that her "son" may not be her son at all.
A couple of subplots add to the fun. There's the doll collector Amelia Pette, whose mother is a horror, although the mother has reasons for acting as she does. Additionally, Coulter's friend Viscount Sumner, has problems when his mother and sisters arrive in town.
All the characters are standard Regency staples. Sophie's stutter was a pleasant change to the usual Regency heroine, as was her shyness, which the ton ladies and gentlemen took for arrogance and coldness.
This is an obvious one. Editors of both mass-market and trade magazines love photographs. While most mass market editors may not use your photographs, preferring to hire a professional photographer if they decide to use your article, sending photographs with your queries makes your article queries stand out, and you'll sell more.
Of course, all editors of Web publications love photos too, and will eagerly buy your work.
Does it bother you when you're called a bad writer and your books are denounced as "mommy porn," often by people who haven't read them?
A: Of course it does, but you can't own anyone's reaction. "Mommy porn" is the most misogynistic term. It's so demeaning. Women aren't allowed to write about sex, to read about sex, to think about sex. God forbid that women have fantasies.
Title: Amber Road Author: Boyd Anderson Genre: Historical ISBN: 9781742759395 Published: January, 2013 Imprint: Bantam Australia
The place and the era: Singapore in February 1942. The battle of Singapore lasted just seven days. Winston Churchill called it the worst disaster in British history, because as the largest British military base in South-East Asia, Singapore was felt to be impregnable.
I was excited about Amber Road, because other novels I've read which featured the fall of Singapore concentrated on the English characters. The heroine of Amber Road, Victoria Khoo, is Chinese. This gave the book an entirely different perspective.
Victoria's only 17, and lives a privileged life. She's Scarlett O'Hara, vain and self-absorbed, and her entire world is about to be gone with the wind. She wants and expects to marry golden boy, Sebastian Boustead, who's just "come down" from Cambridge. She gets a nasty shock, however. Sebastian's welcome home party is also an engagement party; his fiancee, Elizabeth Nightingale, arrives on the ship with him.
After growing up with Sebastian, who's her brother's best friend, Victoria looks on him as hers, and a little thing like a fiancee has no effect on her plans. After the fall of Singapore, she figures that Elizabeth's too weak to last long. Elizabeth will conveniently die, and Sebastian will be hers.
Although I enjoyed the book, I never felt that we got to know the characters: what made them tick. Victoria's focus on herself is absolute, and she's an innocent. She's a young girl of her era, so she misinterprets the actions of those around her: her family, Sebastian, Elizabeth, the various Japanese officers, as well as Joe Spencer, an Australian intelligence officer (probably) who's fallen for her.
I say "probably" about Joe Spencer, because much of the story is told from Victoria's point of view, and Victoria doesn't know much. We get some commentary from her father and brother, but mostly we're in Victoria's head. She doesn't understand the motivations and feelings of the people around her, and she rarely understands what's happening in Singapore.
The story is good, but reading the novel is frustrating. It could have been fantastic, if the author had given us more from people like Joe, Mr Khoo, Rose the brothel keeper, and Elizabeth. Instead, mostly we're stuck with Victoria, who gets into dangerous situations without realizing her danger.
In short, great characters, great era, but many missed chances. I'd love to see a sequel to the book, focusing on one of the minor characters.
This past week, we covered: ebooks, digital publishing, self-promotion, copywriting and more.
By the way, I've started a writing and reading scrapbook on Tumblr -- enjoy it. It contains stuff I find useful, and motivating, as well as stuff which makes me smile. Enjoy. :-)
You’re a writer. You write. However, chances are that although you’ll happily write about everything from celebrity gossip to garden snails, you’re far from comfortable writing about yourself.
Over 200 thousand ebooks were published on Amazon this year. If you’re considering publishing an ebook, this might seem like a lot of competition. On the contrary — this merely shows you an active marketplace, in which there’s room for you.
I hope you’re making the most of Google’s constant updates. They’re good news for writers, because sites now need GOOD content. You can write that content.
Want to write and sell Kindle ebooks? When I’m working with my students, one of their biggest challenges is time. They don’t have a productive workflow; this means they’re exhausted by the time the finish book #1.
Judging by what some of my students (not all) are saying, publishing ebooks freaks them out. If you’re suffering from an attack of nerves, self-publishing isn’t the only option.
Are you talking yourself out of your success? Sadly this is what many of my writing students do. They take any obstacle as a signal that they’re moving in the wrong direction. So, instead of moving forward confidently, they spin and change direction. Or they stop moving completely.
This week, I received several questions about how much copywriters charge. I used to joke: “Pick the number you first thought of, and triple it. Then add $100 for housekeeping chores.” This is a way of saying that most new copywriters set their fees much too low. Then, they keep them low. Sooner or later, they burn out, because writing copy takes time and energy.
Whether you’ve scribbled some notes in the margin of a book you’re annotating or diagramming the outline for a research paper on a flip chart, take a snapshot from within Evernote and you’ll be able to find those notes anytime you need them, simply by searching for a distinctive keyword you remember from the text. Thanks to its built-in optical character recognition (OCR), Evernote can even read your lousy handwriting.
Write by hand. Drs. Carrie and Alton Barron, authors of The Creativity Cure, advise us to skip the Microsoft Word doc and pick up a pen instead. Sometimes the whole experience of writing by hand — the ink on our fingers, the smell of a fresh notebook — is all it takes to get our creative juices flowing.
If Facebook is the social network for online identification and
authentication, and Twitter is for communication, Tumblr fulfils a
different role: self-expression. Users can upload seven types of
media -- text, photos, quotes, links, dialogue, audio, video --
from one button on their dashboard and push it to their
public-facing tumblelog. These blogs can be designed however a user
wants, or dressed in a "theme" (the most popular theme, Redux, has
three million users). Tumblr is extremely easy to use as a
free-form blogging platform, but has also developed into its own
social network.
* Be enthusiastic. (Even if you’re not.) The more upbeat and alive you sound, the better. Without real motivation and inspiration in the beginning, the people hiring you know that you won’t last the distance. So be enthusiastic. If you’re not, fake it.
If you really want the writing job, SAY SO.
* Ask questions. Read the project description. Tailor your bio so that it relates directly to the writing job.
How do you prepare/get in the mood to write your erotic fiction books? Like any professional writer, writing is my job. I do it every day at a set time. You can’t wait for a mood to write. I sit down and start writing. I’d never tell a boss at a regular job, “I can’t work today, I’m not in the mood.” I never tell my book I’m not in the mood to write it.
Title: The Escape Diaries: Life and Love on the Lam (ebook) Author: Juliet Rosetti Genre: Romance, Humor, Romantic Suspense Publisher: Loveswept (December 10, 2012) ASIN: B008ENAWJ4
You have to fall in love with a book with begins with the sentence: "My mother-in-law sends me poisoned cookies." If you enjoy the Stephanie Plum books, you'll adore Mazie Maguire, the heroine of The Escape Diaries: Life and Love on the Lam. The book is laugh-aloud funny, especially in the first few chapters.
Poor Mazie's been incarcerated for four years for the murder of her cheating husband, Kip Vonnerjohn. She was framed efficiently: she seems to appear on a hidden video, as she shoots Kip in the head.
In what would have to be the strangest prison break ever, Mazie goes on the run after a tornado slams someone's roof across the prison's electrified fence, shorting it out. Mazie climbs up one side of the roof and down the other, and she's free.
That's when the fun starts. Mazie steals a van. The police and Federal Marshals are hot on her trail. Mazie gets shot at -- in one scene, a wall of toilets (yes, toilets) falls down barely avoiding her. She's almost caught at a farm, and manages to escape by climbing a grain elevator, then dropping four stories onto a manure heap.
She's saved by a man who turns into her lover, Bonaparte "Ben" Labeck. He's part of the camera team for a TV news crew. Ben's delicious; I wish Ms Rosetti had included him in more scenes.
What I loved about the book
* The writing. Ms Rosetti's word play reminded me of PF Wodehouse;
* The madcap incidents -- the wall of toilets, Mazie's drugged and buried alive -- there's never a dull moment;
* Muffin, the fiendishly aggressive Shih Tzu/ Bichon Frise, which settles down and becomes Mazie's pal in mayhem;
* Mazie-Mania.
What I didn't like
* The book was too short. The characters were such fun, the book ended too soon;
* Not enough of Ben.
I'll definitely read this book again, for the word play. I zoomed through it so quickly this time, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.
This year, we were obsessed with women mystery writers whose work we stayed up late to finish – Kate Atkinson, Denise Mina, Tana French (English, Scottish, and Irish!) as well as Laura Lippman’s first Baltimore novels.
This year, I read Clarice Lispector for the first time, which was rewarding and intellectual work.
What were the negative sides of using Kickstarter?
There weren’t many negative sides. But there were a few things that stood out.
One was that owing your readers a new project, directly, meant they had a stake and ownership in you in a way that is not normally experienced. So… there was pressure to deliver. However, I’d been living under various sorts of pressure, it only really upset me when I got a weird dizzy spell period that affected my ability to focus on a monitor and use a computer. Falling behind freaked me out.
