Six or seven years ago my advice to aspiring authors of nonfiction books was to build an audience platform by blogging. An example of how critical blogging could be to securing a publishing contract can be found in the case of Ann Marie Ackermann, author of Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee. After an initial assessment of her manuscript, I had recommended she start a historical true-crime blog, and she did. In fact, the editor of the ideal book series at Kent State University Press became a fan of her blog and invited her to submit a book proposal. Her book won a 2018 IPPY in the True Crime category, closed a 180-year-old cold case, and has also been translated into German where it received critical acclaim and was recognized for its scholarly contribution to the history of forensics. Today, blogging may or may not be something an author decides to invest time and energy in. If your authority as an author is based on your subject-area expertise, it remains an important goal to have a visible presence on the internet establishing your credibility. Whether blogging is the best means to achieve that goal depends on you and your project. It may be more important to be listed as an expert source available to journalists and appear as a credible source in news publications covering your subject area. HARO (Help A Reporter Out) may be a better fit to…
Kent State University Press released Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee on September 1 and author Ann Marie Ackermann arrives from Germany for her U.S. book tour this week. With a dozen events scheduled in Tennessee, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, Ackermann will spend the month of October meeting and greeting readers. I’m… [Read More]
Filed Under: blogging, historical true crime, Kent State University Press, Robert E. Lee
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Elizabeth Rynecki is the author of Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter’s Quest for her Lost Art Legacy published by NAL/Berkley/Penguin Random House in September 2016. An odyssey spanning generations, decades, and countries, Chasing Portraits is the true story of Elizabeth Rynecki’s search for the lost art of her great-grandfather, Moshe Rynecki. His unique paintings focused primarily on the Jewish-Polish community in Warsaw between the first and… [Read More]
Filed Under: Art, Elizabeth Rynecki, Fox Cities Book Festival, Holocaust Era Art, Moshe Rynecki, Poland
As an editor I see one four letter word overused and abused more than any other. T. H. A. T. That. Many times it serves no grammatical purpose whatsoever. It is a filler word. You use it in conversation to signal to others a pause, like a verbal comma, to give the impression to a listener you haven’t finished speaking. In writing, however, it is… [Read More]
Connecting writers and readers for ten years, the Fox Cities Book Festival celebrates books, ideas, stories, and community in the Fox River Valley this October. In January 2017 I joined the board and have been excited about this year’s new developments. This is the first year the festival will be held in the fall instead of the spring. The Fox Cities Reads program—one book one… [Read More]
Linda J. Spielman’s A Field Guide to Tracking Mammals in the Northeast is a wonderful reference tool for the backyard enthusiast or the back-to-the-woods survivalist. Countryman Press published her book on July 4 and her distributor W.W. Norton sent a copy I donated to a Little Free Library here in Appleton, Wisconsin. Little Free Libraries began in Wisconsin and grew into a global movement based… [Read More]