Gold Medal 2015 IPPY Winner
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May 12, 2015

Congratulations to Elaine Mansfield Leaning into Love: A Spiritual Journey through Grief, by Elaine Mansfield (Larson Publications) has been awarded a national gold medal for the best book in the category Aging/Death & Dying from the world’s largest book awards contest. The Independent Publisher Book Awards, known as the IPPY, honor the year’s best titles from around the world published by academic, small and independent… [Read More]

Writing Advice from Will Schwalbe
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April 28, 2015

On Saturday morning at 9 a.m. at the Atlas Coffee Mill, three dozen Fox Cities writers filled a meeting room for a workshop with Will Schwalbe, author of End-of-Your-Life Book Club (Knopf, 2012) and editor at Macmillan. Friday afternoon there were two readings to packed houses as part of the Fox Cities Book Festival. I listened to him at UW Fox Valley where the audience spilled… [Read More]

Writing Memoir: Author, Narrator, Protagonist
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March 17, 2015

Writing Memoir: Author, Narrator, Protagonist Memoir has become nearly as popular a genre as fiction. It’s the stuff of which movies are made. Almost everyone I meet thinks they have a story worth telling.  And today nearly everyone thinks they can publish their memoir. Brooke Warner, publisher of She Writes Press, recently suggested in The Huffington Post the pursuit of publication is a birthright. Finding… [Read More]

Book Awards and Prizes
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March 10, 2015

Awards and prizes can be a fantastic complement to an author’s credibility, marketing strategy, and overall “brand.” The urge to apply for as many as possible is quite tempting. Yet when your book is newly published and you are considering the many choices, it is wise to step back and make an informed decision. Rather than send out of a flood of submissions, make a… [Read More]

‘Get Smart’ About the Business of Your Book
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March 3, 2015

‘Get Smart’ About the Business of Your Book Distribution is not a dirty word. No one talks about it much in literary circles and it is something you may not have thought much about as an author. Perhaps you are more conscious of its importance when it comes to films and music. Distribution determines what movies appear in which theaters. What selection of music is… [Read More]

Query Letters
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February 24, 2015

Query Letters: When to send them and what to write. The single most important key to opening the door to an agent or acquisition editor is your query letter. You will only get a response if your reader is interested in knowing more about your book project. No response is a no. If you don’t receive a reply within a week, move on. Maybe there… [Read More]

My Top 10 Digital Tools for the Business of Being an Author
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January 27, 2015

Today I’m going to share my top 10 digital tools for the business of being an author. Most of these are free and all of them are easy to use. I recommend them to you because I use them and find them valuable and think you will too.   (1) WordPress for website and blogging – Hands down there is no better platform for authors… [Read More]

Nom de Plume: permission to write with abandon?
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December 23, 2014

French for ‘pen name,’ a nom de plume is a fictitious name under which an author publishes. Mark Twain was the nom de plume of Samuel Clemens. George Eliot sounded more serious than Mary Ann Evans.  Theodore Geisel was known as Dr. Seuss. In 1899 William Sydney Porter took the name O. Henry so editors might never know the stories were submitted by a convicted… [Read More]

How to use Twitter for research and writing
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December 9, 2014

Nearly a billion people have registered accounts on Twitter and 100 million of them use it every day. Three quarters of them on a mobile device. As a writer, it’s easy to dismiss Twitter. If you’re an author, it’s a mistake to do so. If your readers are over 50 years old or under 10, you won’t find them on Twitter, right? Wrong question. If… [Read More]

Should an author have a Facebook Page before or after publication?
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November 25, 2014

It is one of the most frequent questions I get when I meet an author. Do I need a Facebook Page? Not until your book is about to be released. You need to consider using Facebook if your target audience uses Facebook. There are 1.11 billion users of Facebook, so there is a good chance some of your readers are there. It is a great tool… [Read More]