Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Angela Booth's Easy-Write Process 3: Write and SELL

Introducing Angela Booth's EASY-WRITE Process 3 -- completely revised, and much and expanded

The Easy-Write Process has evolved. I first launched the Easy-Write Process in 2006. Now in 2013, we've got a completely new, much expanded edition.

The first edition was short (21 pages) and hugely popular. Writers said things like "fantastic/ changed my life/ love writing now/much more confident" and so on.

Version 3 is 122 pages: more tips, more advice, more inspiration, and more exercises. More of everything, to help you to make the money you deserve, and to make all your writing EASY and FUN.

via easywriteprocess.com

The Easy-Write Process has been helping writers to do exactly that since 2006.

These days, writing quickly and well is more important than ever. Check out the prelaunch for version 3.

How Many Ebooks Do the Topselling Authors Sell A Month?

Here’s a wonderful site, Year of the Indie: May 2013 Top-Selling Indie Authors. which reports that in May of 2013, H.M. Ward’s Damaged sold 495,000 copies:

“Damaged: Peter is everything Sidney ever wanted in a man, but when things get hot and heavy Peter shows her the door. The next morning everything comes crashing down. The insanely hot guy from last night, the one who saw her half naked, is teaching at the front of the class.”

Yes, that’s almost half a million copies. In a month.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Procrastination Or Laziness?

1. Procrastination is most of the times the number one reason for being lazy. Cast away procrastination and you should be on the right track.

2. Set a deadline to get started; this is often more important than setting a deadline to get things completed.

via www.janesheeba.com

Have you been procrastinating? Me too. Maybe we're just lazy. ;-)

The "deadline to get started tip" works. Try it.

Ebook Bonanza: Article Series

“I’m like Amazon! Look at Amazon!”

This lovely quote appeared in a news story about Jack and Jasinda Wilder, who are doing very well with their Kindle fiction.

You can read the story here.

The gist of the story is that the Wilders were in danger of losing their home, so they wrote, wrote, and wrote some more. Within six months, they’d published 20 titles on Amazon.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Check out this week's article series on writing and selling ebooks.

New Series: Writing and Selling Ebooks

How much can you charge for your nonfiction ebooks?

That’s another perennial question.

You’ve got two options:

1. Charge what others are charging;

2. Go your own way: charge more.

Ask yourself this: how much is your information worth to your readers?

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

If you're writing ebooks, don't miss our current series of articles on our freelance writing blog.

Keep Track Of Your Reading and Writing With Evernote

The other thing I’ve started to do recently is to write up my notes in Evernote. Having a piece of paper stuck inside the physical book is great (and doubles as a nice bookmark) but if you’re somewhere other than your house, it’s frustrating to not be able to access the information wherever you want. Typing the notes into Evernote on the other hand gives you access any time, from anywhere.

via lifehacker.com

I'm a hopeless Evernote fan-girl. I love that I can take everything I need with me everywhere in my pocket -- and it's always up to date.

Writing Kindle Ebooks Saved Couple's Home

With each book, their sales climbed higher. Then this spring, a romance called "Falling Into You" -- about a girl whose first love dies suddenly -- jumped onto the New York Times Best Seller list. Jasinda was out driving with her kids the day it hit #1 on Amazon.

"I was crying hysterically," Jasinda said.

via www.cbsnews.com

Lovely story. :-)

Should You Share Your In-Progress Writing?

So look, no one can make you share your work if you don't want to. I share bits and pieces of my work pretty regularly — I am notorious for dropping a paragraph of the day into a Gchat window — and I also have someone who reads my work on a daily basis, which is a great luxury to have. But I also have friends who will write for years and years, entire drafts of books, that they won't show to anyone at all, and if you ask them how they're doing, they'll just say vaguely that they're working. So everyone's got a different strategy.

via www.powells.com

I never share early drafts. I can't see the point. If I don't know what I want the writing to say, how could anyone else's input be relevant?

That's my take on it. For me, early drafts are discovery drafts.

How to Remember What You Read

A simple remedy to forgetfulness is to read novels more than once. A professor I had in college would often, to the point of irony, cite Nabokov’s statement that there is no reading, only rereading. Yet he was teaching a class in modern fiction, and assigned books that are generally known as “slim” contemporary classics. They were short, and we were being tested on them—we’d be foolish to read them only once. I read them at least twice, and now remember them.

via www.newyorker.com

I've found that. Once I finish a novel, I just remember a few scenes. Once I reread it however, I remember much more.

Memory is weird. :-)

Writing a Book? Stop Thinking So Much

Stop over-thinking your first draft, start editing your second draft

Will resisting the urge to over-think produce a better first draft? Yes. Will it produce a perfect first draft? No. But that’s what editing is for.

via www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com

If you're anything like me, you need to learn the "stop thinking so much" lesson over and over again.

Writing a Novel? Make Something Happen NOW

Authors’ biggest mistake is that nothing much happens on the first page. People talk. There’s some info dumping, but nothing HAPPENS. When something does happen, it’s weird. For example, one First Page entry had a woman on her own in a snowbound cabin. A stranger comes to her door. She welcomes him, and gets fussy about some potato crisps which were past their use-by date. You might well think HUH?! Undeniably, this novel’s heroine was TSTL (Too Stupid to Live)… she’s alone, miles from anywhere, in a snowbound cabin and she drags a strange man into the cabin… This could have been set up well, if she’d been nervous.. But she was worried about potato crisps.

via www.justwriteabook.com

You're writing a novel. Make stuff happen -- on every page.

Yes, You Can Make Money Writing Ebooks

Many years ago, my father pointed out to me that writing books for a living made racehorse gambling look like a sane, steady business. Amazon changed all that. Nowadays, if you’re keen and dedicated, you CAN make money writing books.

When writers ask me Can you really, truly, honestly make money writing ebooks?, they want to know whether ebook-writing is a viable option – are “normal” writers making money, or just the bestselling authors?

via www.justwriteabook.com

I've had several questions about money and ebooks this week. The above article offers the attributes of successful ebook writers.

(Giggle) Writing: the Easy Life

I wish my job was as easy as yours.

• Please, have a seat. Write something. Not much, just 500 words that are good enough to satisfy the Bills. I.Dare.You.

via robinfollette.com

Love this list. We writers have it SO easy...

Can't Do It? Do It Anyway

There’s nothing more likely to get him interested in doing something than to be told it couldn’t be done. If you were to meet with someone who said, ‘Oh, that can’t be done,’ you’d probably say, ‘Okay, I won’t do it then.’ Richard would say that those people wouldn’t succeed in business. 

via www.openforum.com

If they tell you "it can't be done" -- people are always telling writers this -- do it anyway.

I'm a huge fan of WIGs: Wildly Improbable Goals.

Set a WIG today. Show them it can be done by doing it.

How To Collaborate On Your Book

Don't sweat the small stuff

There's always going to be some sort of altercation in any team effort that's worth doing, but it's vital to know when to let things go. "But I really love the zombie scarecrows" isn't going to cut it if this doesn't fit in with the book as a whole. You must be prepared to shelve your ego and listen to your co-writer's opinion; if she really hates it, she could well have a point

via www.guardian.co.uk

Is collaboration for you?

I've "collaborated" with other writers when I was commissioned by publishers, and wrote a section or a couple of chapters of a book. The projects were fine, and paid well. One of the (few) benefits of traditional publishing is that you pick up these kinds of projects.

I've never considered a "Lily Herne" kind of collaboration, it sounds like fun.