I will just say it right now: I love index cards. For many years I have used index cards when planning and outlining my books and other projects. I love that they are easy to move around and rearrange. They can be pinned to a cork board or laid out on a table, and they can be put in one very portable stack and taken wherever you want to work with them. The folks at … [Read more...]
Save the Cat! Cracking the Beat Sheet
“Save the Cat!” by Blake Snyder was originally written as a tool for screenwriters. Snyder presents a structure for successful storytelling that has been adapted for use by novelists as well as the original audience. Now his work has been reimagined as a video course. The idea behind STC is simple: There are elements that are necessary to create an effective story. Snyder … [Read more...]
Stop Procrastinating, Start Writing
Would-be authors claim they want to write a book, but in fact they want to have already written a book. Writing is hard! Author Joseph Heller once said, “Every writer I know has trouble writing.” And he’s not the only one who has alluded to the difficulty of writing. Stephen King’s quote, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work,” … [Read more...]
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. … [Read more...]
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 you are not even sure what “interior design” is. Start by looking at … [Read more...]
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 graphic below describes five common mistakes that make your writing weak … [Read more...]
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 panic. So take a deep breath, sip your tea, and we will go over what to … [Read more...]
Creating Effective Book Descriptions for Amazon
People always judge a book by its cover. You have a great cover, right? That’s one of the most important ways to capture people’s attention when they’re searching through Amazon or any bookseller trying to find a book that interests them. After looking at a cover, the next thing people do is look at the book’s blurb, or description. Creating a great description is a … [Read more...]
How Long Should My Book Be?
Writing a book can be a daunting task, and many writers wonder how many words they need to complete a book. Is a 50,000 word manuscript long enough? Is a 200,000 word manuscript too long? (Another question is how many words make up a page in a printed book. That varies a lot, depending on the trim size and layout, but you might assume about 350 words per page.) The simple … [Read more...]
Book Promotion With Facebook
Facebook is one of the world’s highest traffic websites, and those visitors tend to spend a tremendous amount of time on the site. This makes for somewhat of a captive audience, and yours ads will often get a lot more attention than ads on other websites. There are a number of subjects Facebook doesn’t allow, so you need to be sure your book, and your graphics, adhere to … [Read more...]