Cathy’s Blog
Creating a Villain Your Readers Will Love to Hate
Creating multi-dimensional characters will make your fiction impossible to put down! Your villains should be at least as interesting as your heroes, and this graphic suggests ways to create unforgettable villains for your stories.
Design and Layout of Your Self-Published Book
We hear a lot about the importance of a great book cover, but what about the inside of your book? Looks are important there, too. Interior design is one of the major decisions you’ll have to make about your self-published book. But it’s not as daunting as you might think, even if right now […]
Avoid These Words to Make Your Writing Strong
Even experienced authors have weaknesses in their writing. Just as some speakers fall into bad habits, such as saying um or uh, most of us have some bad habits. Maybe you slip into passive voice or use the same word(s) too frequently. Or perhaps you use unnecessary words that add nothing to your prose. The […]
The Move From CreateSpace to KDP – What You Need to Know
I am seeing a lot of people panic over the upcoming move from CreateSpace (CS) to KDP. Authors are talking about removing all of their books from CS and generally freaking out over the transition. I’m sure it won’t go perfectly smoothly (It’s too big a change for that.) but there is no reason to […]
Recent Articles
How to Get Up and Write On Days You Don’t Really Feel Like It
We’ve all faced those days. The ones where you’d love nothing but to veg out with some Netflix all day long. And those days don’t always come at the most opportune time either–especially for writers. As writers, we’re always facing deadlines or new projects. But there are ways to get motivated. You don’t have to […]
5 Steps to Successful Amazon Ads
Amazon ads are a powerful marketing tool for authors right next to your book description. But these days, more than ever, ads are extremely competitive. You need to approach them the right way to get your book in front of the right people. In this article, you’ll learn: What metrics you should keep an eye […]
Marketing Your Book With Book Clubs
Book clubs are an author’s dream come true. With book clubs, you have readers who read your book individually and get together, as a group, to discuss it. This means more than one person is going to buy your book at the same time. You can encourage this behavior by reaching out to book clubs. […]
How to Land a Print Book Contract
It had always been my dream to become a published author. The day I got a contract for a print book, from a major publisher, I was on top of the world. The day I saw my name on the cover of a real book, The Power of Less – I was in heaven. However, […]
Author Interviews
Dan Janal – Write Your Book in a Flash
What is your most recent book? Tell us a bit about it. “Write Your Book In A Flash: The Paint by Numbers Systems for Writing Your Book – Fast!” What inspired you to write this book? I felt that writing books was my super power. I have written 12 books, several published by Wiley, several […]
Jonathan D. Villaire – The Stepford Employee Fallacy
What is your most recent book? Tell us a bit about it. My newest book is called The Stepford Employee Fallacy: The Truth about Employee Engagement in the Modern Workplace. It is meant to be a provocative and brutally honest indictment of the many ways employers are disengaging their talent. The Stepford Employee Fallacy is a […]
Sharon Farsijani – Shaming My Red Lips
What is your most recent book? Tell us a bit about it. Shaming My Red Lips. It is about the life of a female Brooklyn teenager transported back to Iran at the age of 16. This story about my formative teenage years is sprinkled with the familiar angst, anger, energy, and passion that you would expect […]
Tom Davis MD FAAFP – Telemedicine Confidential
What is your most recent book? Tell us a bit about it. Telemedicine Confidential—Keeping Your Family Safe “Can telemedicine fill the gap when Samantha loses her doctor? She learns more than she bargains for while trying to keep her family safe.” We took the “business fable” genre and turned it ninety degrees, using a fictionalized […]