Chuck Wendig was en fuego this week with two great posts: 25 Reasons I Hate Your Main Character and A Long Look At "Show, Don't Tell." I think both of these posts are must-reads for beginning writers... and it probably couldn't hurt those of us who have been doing it a while.
Laura Bradford's post on writing as an invisible business really hit home for me. When my sister was here, it was nearly impossible to get any work done. Now that my husband is home on leave, same story. It takes great, concentrated effort to get my toddler to play by herself for short periods of time ever since she had a constant companion in my sister. Writing itself is hard--finding the time to do it without distraction or interruption is even harder. More than once, I've questioned why I even bother. (And then I remember that I really do love it and it really does matter to me and I think I'm okay at it, so all the extra hard work seems worth it. And then I have a drink because I really must be crazy.)
Girl Who Reads offered up an analysis of the star rating system in her Tips on Thursday post. I like the star rating system, personally; it gives me a lot of information at first glance. But I either don't really care what other people think of a book and will read it if I want to, anyway, or--if it's a book I'm uncertain of, like The Hunger Games--I will read the reviews with one through three stars. Two and three star reviews, in my experience, tend to be the most tell-tale.
Last week was Indie Author Week at Into the Morning (a great blog you should be following, anyway) and my favorite post was this one about indie book covers. We all judge books by their covers. No sense saying we don't. And independent books... well... they're frequently lacking. The most glaring problem I see is that we use a lot of the same stock photos. I like her quickie review of the good and the bad book covers. I think, especially for those of us designing our own, it's a good idea to look at all the criticism and praise for book covers that we possibly can. (Related: I tend to take inspiration from the traditionally-published erotica books I enjoyed. So I've based my covers on books like Breathless by Bonnie Edwards and pretty much everything by Delilah Devlin, as two examples.)
James Killick shared a short list of Five Things More Important Than Knowledge. The thing about knowledge is that it can be acquired. Or it can be rejected in favor of blissful ignorance. His list is comprised of things that are pretty hard to reject and ignore, at least in my experience.
Keystrokes and Word Counts has a short review of KDP free days. If it's something you're considering, I'd advise reading as much as possible on the experiences of other authors. I have a project in the works that I am planning to enroll in KDP select when the time comes, so posts like this are helpful to me.
Sierra Godfrey had a thought-provoking post asking where to find the self-pubbed books. She has a point. A good one. In my case, I don't market so much as I tailor my keywords for searches... because that's pretty much how I find the books I want to read.
Stella Deleuze advised that authors choose a publisher wisely. Personally, I'd do a ton of research--on the company and the people I'm working with. I'd check out the other books they'd published, not just the sales rankings, but the cover designs and reviews and the books themselves. I don't have an answer for Ms. Deleuze. I don't know what I'd do if my book was at the mercy of an editor who didn't know what she was doing. I sincerely hope I never have to answer that question.
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