writing resources

Common Mistakes Aspiring Authors Make

Writing


When you declare you want to become a full-time writer, publish books, and have your own literary fans, are you really willing to make any sacrifices? If yes, your mission is to build a small empire around your words. To do that, you will need thick skin.
.
Don’t Try to Eat the Whole Elephant

Improve your skills one small step at a time.  Writers constantly have rules thrown at them left, right, and center.  Show – don’t tell!  Stop using so many dialogue tags!  Speed up the pace!  Be more social! … it can become really overwhelming.

In order to not be overwhelmed, a writer needs to focus on short assignments.  You can eat a whole elephant – or apple for that matter – if you focus on one small thing at a time, the story will eventually come together to create a whole piece.  The same applies to learn the craft of writing, editing, and publishing.  If writers focus on one aspect of the craft at a time, the process will seem less daunting.

So, when the time comes to clean up that first draft, break the process down.  For example, first, focus on plot development. Second, on “showing”, rather than “telling”.  Third, on subverting those wretched adverbs and cliches… and so on.
.

There’s More to Writing a Book Than… Writing
Reading!  Now, reading an easy book is okay for somebody whose career doesn’t involve moving around words and ideas, but it’s poison for any aspiring writer.  Spend time reading outside of your comfort zone, reading the work of authors you admire and the works of authors you detest.  If you fail to feed your mind, then don’t expect it to serve you quality ideas when you next sit down in front of the blank page.
.

This Day is Yours to Waste or Spend
Don’t put things off, procrastinate, and say it will keep till later.  I have often started my day, checking emails, reading through social media, bought books on Amazon, phoned a company about a wrong bill, arranged meetings, and done everything else but to write 1000-2000 words before noon.  But if writing a book, it’s the most important thing to do this every day BEFORE everything else.  Why not have a small laptop, just for writing – without a WiFi connection?  Turn the phone down or place it somewhere else, where you don’t see or hear it.
.

Literary Magazines are Publishers Too
Submit short pieces of work to build a portfolio of writing credits and excellent connections.  Writers often overlook literary magazines or forget they even exist.  But what many fail to realize is that they offer the perfect opportunity for you to get your name and work available to the public.

Getting your work published in a literary magazine is a bit like having proof that you are a worthy read.  Why?  Because it means there are editors who loved your work enough for it to represent their publication.  A publication that they consider their pride and joy.  No literary magazine or journal is going to publish work that isn’t good enough.

Their reputation is on stake, and they want to make sure the loyal readers they have gathered over the years will stick around.  “What readers?” Literary magazine editors.  They all want to see what their fellow magazines and journals are publishing.  And there’s always a chance that you will make great connections with these editors too.
.

Not Having an Online Platform/Presence is Like Airplanes Without Airports – or Boats Without Ports
Develop an online presence before you publish your first book.  There is nothing worse than having a book published and not having a support system to help you promote it.  Form genuine relationships and reciprocate their support.  This is important.  If you have no relationship with your readers/followers, you have no support system.

Get your name out there as early as possible, via a blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, or an online writing community, such as Goodreads or LibraryThing.  It doesn’t matter which avenue you choose, or even if you use multiple, but make sure you choose at least one that you dedicate quality time too.  Look at it as a part of your author-business.  Allocate a time of day in which you focus your efforts on establishing your platform.
.

Why Should Every Author Write a Business Plan?
Do you know, for example, which and how many competitive titles are out there?  Do you know how much these authors charge for their books and how well they are selling?  Did you read a couple of these books?  Do you consider spin-off books, sequels, and series?  And most important: Who exactly will be your reader audience?  And how large is this potential audience?  Where can you find them?

Produce a business plan for each and every book you write and publish – long before writing a word of your manuscript.  A business plan helps you determine if a market exists for your book, it helps you to determine if you are a one-book author.  Creating a business plan for each of your books will help you produce a successful title.
.

Get Feedback – Even it is Tough to Hear
The well-meaning feedback from friends and family isn’t helpful.  Better find real critiques – several beta readers – such as other writers, Meet-up members/writers or other local writing groups.  Goodreads is also a great place to connect writers with Beta readers.  Fellow writers who are not afraid to tell you what isn’t working. Finding a good beta reader is often as much about being a good beta reader yourself as it is anything else.

Be prepared to give generously, use wisdom in selecting appropriate groups and partners, and take advantage of this resource to help you polish your writing to the next level.  You will want to have the critique before the book is out – not through nasty book reviews or editors/literary agents who refuse to accept your manuscript or to publish your book.
.

Make it right from the beginning, don’t be an amateur, trying to figure out your way around the blank page.  Again, writers write!  And don’t forget: Building a writing career takes time. 

 

<><><><><>

Books by Doris-Maria Heilmann:

111 Tips to Create Impressive Videos:
How to Plan, Create, Upload and Market Videos
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BYDH41S/

111 Tips To Make Money With Writing
The Art of Making a Living Full-time Writing
An Essential Guide for More Income as Freelancer
https://books2read.com/u/bWZMjz

111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free:
Detailed Plans and Smart Strategies for Your Book’s Success
https://books2read.com/u/bMre1a

111 Tips to Get Free Book Reviews:
Best Strategies for Getting Lots of Great Reviews
plus 1,200+ reviewer contact links
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5nx5

111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer
How to Create, Where to Upload and How to Market Your Videos
https://books2read.com/u/mVZkjr

Book Marketing on a Shoestring:
How Authors Can Promote their Books Without Spending a Lot of Money 
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5gdp

.

.

Best Wishes for 2014

.
Happy-New-Year.

.
It’s this time of the year … where most of us think about improvements in our daily lives, including professional ambitions.  Whatever resolutions might be for the new year: If you are an author, and want to publish professionally and to have eventually bestselling books, it would be smart to learn everything you can about publishing possibilities and professional book marketing.

.
How Can You Learn All About Publishing?  
Most of it online. There are so many helpful blogs and articles for writers out there, where you can learn everything about writing and publishing, for example from:

John Kremer
Jonathan Gunson
David Gaughran
Dean Wesley Smith
Rachel Gardener

.
Learn-about-publishing

.
More Writing & Publishing Resources
They are right in front of you! http://SavvyBookWriters.wordpress.com, where we give tons of advice from our 30+ years of publishing and book marketing experience – for FREE in almost one thousand! articles, including several thousand links to detailed information. Just sign up and you will get them regularly to your mailbox.

With many years of coaching and consulting authors in seminars and over the internet / phone about e-publishing and book marketing we can help you to build your author brand and platform and advice you about any question you might have as writer and self-publisher.

Another option is to sign up for free to our valuable – monthly – newsletter. In the first week of every month you will get lots of book marketing and publishing tips. Just go to any of our websites where you find the opt-in form:
http://www.111Publishing.com
http://www.international-ebooks.com/
http://www.e-book-PR.com/

.
Our Online Seminars
Learn more about the changing world of publishing and the promotional part for your books – as nowadays literary agents and publishers first question to a potential author is: “what is your platform” or “what are your plans to market your book?” Traditional publishers no longer provide the marketing for authors, who must promote themselves and market their books.

Learn how to take advantage of all the available opportunities and resources to promote your work and yourself as an author to publishers and to your readers.
Ask yourself
Are you as well known as you could be?
Are your books selling as well as they should do?
Do you know the difference between the top 3% of authors and everyone else?
.
Find out how to navigate the modern publishing world, get hundreds of valuable marketing tips during our Weekend Seminars or the one-on-one Online Seminars – and learn how to promote your book without even spending money for it.
.
Get practical hands-on tips to market your book:

  • Identify your target readers and their demographic
  • Find out how to reach these readers online and off-line
  • Create your own brand and your author platform
  • Choose the type of publishing that is right for you
  • Navigate the pre-publishing process
  • Market and publicize your book successfully on a budget
  • Leverage your books’ content into other markets
  • Prepare your next bestseller
  • find free book publishing funding sources,
  • Government grants and tax deductions

.
Helpful Publishing Guide Books
The grand-daddy of independent publishing, Dan Poynter started decades ago to write about self-publishing print books and wrote in detail about the process, including distribution. His many books on this topic include e-publishing as well.
Aaron Shepard is an authority in “Aiming at Amazon” and “POD for Profit” and how to prepare your books for e-book formatting and print.
.

Writing Contests
Being short-listed or winning a writing contest is a fantastic promotional tool for your book.  Find the latest writing contests for all genres. This invaluable free blog provides news & guides to literary magazines and other resources for authors.
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/how-to-use-these-7-writingpublishing-resources/
.

And now:  Don’t forget to look in the rear mirror and pad yourself on the shoulder! Recognize where you have been successful and what you already achieved during the last twelve months!

.

<><><><><>

.

If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/
to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 970 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://www.111publishing.com

http://www.e-Book-PR.com/

http://www.international-ebooks.com/

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate


Tagged: book marketing tips, book promotions, how to find writing tips, http://www.phrases.org.uk, improvements in our lives, literary resources, New Years resolutions, phrase ideas, query to publisher, resources for authors, Writing Contest, writing resources

Best Wishes for 2014

.
Happy-New-Year.

.
It’s this time of the year … where most of us think about improvements in our daily lives, including professional ambitions.  Whatever resolutions might be for the new year: If you are an author, and want to publish professionally and to have eventually bestselling books, it would be smart to learn everything you can about publishing possibilities and professional book marketing.

.
How Can You Learn All About Publishing?  
Most of it online. There are so many helpful blogs and articles for writers out there, where you can learn everything about writing and publishing, for example from:

John Kremer
Jonathan Gunson
David Gaughran
Dean Wesley Smith
Rachel Gardener

.
Learn-about-publishing

.
More Writing & Publishing Resources
They are right in front of you! http://SavvyBookWriters.wordpress.com, where we give tons of advice from our 30+ years of publishing and book marketing experience – for FREE in almost one thousand! articles, including several thousand links to detailed information. Just sign up and you will get them regularly to your mailbox.

With many years of coaching and consulting authors in seminars and over the internet / phone about e-publishing and book marketing we can help you to build your author brand and platform and advice you about any question you might have as writer and self-publisher.

Another option is to sign up for free to our valuable – monthly – newsletter. In the first week of every month you will get lots of book marketing and publishing tips. Just go to any of our websites where you find the opt-in form:
http://www.111Publishing.com
http://www.international-ebooks.com/
http://www.e-book-PR.com/

.
Our Online Seminars
Learn more about the changing world of publishing and the promotional part for your books – as nowadays literary agents and publishers first question to a potential author is: “what is your platform” or “what are your plans to market your book?” Traditional publishers no longer provide the marketing for authors, who must promote themselves and market their books.

Learn how to take advantage of all the available opportunities and resources to promote your work and yourself as an author to publishers and to your readers.
Ask yourself
Are you as well known as you could be?
Are your books selling as well as they should do?
Do you know the difference between the top 3% of authors and everyone else?
.
Find out how to navigate the modern publishing world, get hundreds of valuable marketing tips during our Weekend Seminars or the one-on-one Online Seminars – and learn how to promote your book without even spending money for it.
.
Get practical hands-on tips to market your book:

  • Identify your target readers and their demographic
  • Find out how to reach these readers online and off-line
  • Create your own brand and your author platform
  • Choose the type of publishing that is right for you
  • Navigate the pre-publishing process
  • Market and publicize your book successfully on a budget
  • Leverage your books’ content into other markets
  • Prepare your next bestseller
  • find free book publishing funding sources,
  • Government grants and tax deductions

.
Helpful Publishing Guide Books
The grand-daddy of independent publishing, Dan Poynter started decades ago to write about self-publishing print books and wrote in detail about the process, including distribution. His many books on this topic include e-publishing as well.
Aaron Shepard is an authority in “Aiming at Amazon” and “POD for Profit” and how to prepare your books for e-book formatting and print.
.

Writing Contests
Being short-listed or winning a writing contest is a fantastic promotional tool for your book.  Find the latest writing contests for all genres. This invaluable free blog provides news & guides to literary magazines and other resources for authors.
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/how-to-use-these-7-writingpublishing-resources/
.

And now:  Don’t forget to look in the rear mirror and pad yourself on the shoulder! Recognize where you have been successful and what you already achieved during the last twelve months!

.

<><><><><>

.

If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/
to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 970 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://www.111publishing.com

http://www.e-Book-PR.com/

http://www.international-ebooks.com/

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate


Tagged: book marketing tips, book promotions, how to find writing tips, http://www.phrases.org.uk, improvements in our lives, literary resources, New Years resolutions, phrase ideas, query to publisher, resources for authors, Writing Contest, writing resources

How To Use These 7 Writing/Publishing Resources

.

Fall-Colors

.

Are you sometimes scrambling for phrase ideas, marketing tips, not sure, if your query is proper written or do you want to find out where the next writing contest takes place? All this information and more can be found in the following blogs and websites:

http://www.bookwritinghelp.com/
Chock-full of tips for aspiring writers and their publishing path. Earma Brown is the author of 12 books including:  “eBook It! How to Profit from Your Passion with E-books & More” and “Article Marketing Speedway”: “How to put your article marketing in the fast lane to sales”, as well as other inspirational non-fiction titles.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/
The Phrase Thesaurus is a writers’ resource that stimulates ideas for headlines, copy, song lyrics, fiction writing etc.  Journalists, advertising copywriters, songwriters, or anyone interested in creative writing in English, can benefit from this ideas generator.  Also very interesting:  Famous last words of famous people.

http://www.abookinside.blogspot.com 
Amazing and useful blog where author Carol Denbow shares excellent writing, publishing and valuable marketing tips. She gives lots of useful info in each post – tips and expert advice, plus interviews with bestseller authors.

http://www.booksandtales.com/pod/index.php
This comparison chart of print-on-demand provider shows you the basics about each company. Clea Saal who runs the website also wrote a book about the process of finding a reputable POD company, the title: “The Clearly Confusing World of Self-publishing & POD.”

http://www.carolkluz.homestead.com/index1.html
Lots and lots of writers resources at the click of a button. No explanations – go directly to the companies or associations. Another site for great links is: http://resourcehelp.com/qserwrit.htm

http://www.easywaytowrite.com/articles.htm
“Becoming a Better Writer: A 10-Step Guide” is a perfect place to start browsing. The author has been helping writers and artists improve and further their careers for ten years.  Fiction – What to Leave Out!, I Can’t Put It Down – How to Write Compelling Fiction, Don’t Think, Write! are some of the best blogs. Do sign up for the newsletter.

http://www.newpagesblog.blogspot.com
Find the latest writing contests for all genres.This invaluable free blog provides news, information and guides to literary magazines, alternative media and more. Also: The best online guide to independent & university book publishers.
.

Enjoy browsing through these websites and blogs. But don’t get yourself lost in it… Your book waits to be finished!  Sign up to  http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com to get the daily news from the writers and publishers world, plus tons of book marketing tips.

.

<><><><><>

.

If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.international-ebooks.com/book-promo to advertise your new book, specials or KDP Select Free Days.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 900 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate


Tagged: how to find writing tips, http://www.phrases.org.uk, interviews with bestseller authors, literary resources, marketing tips, phrase ideas, query to publisher, resources for authors, writing resources