Reading, wRiting, and Roaming with Author Valerie Biel

Happy October, writers!

For the past two months, I’ve written blogs about using Pinterest to build an author’s social media presence.

But October deserves an especially scary post: Who’s writing a novel during the spookiest month of the calendar? (Besides April—tax month—that is!)

I write cozy mysteries, mostly. The Backyard Model Mysteries are on submission to publishers. While waiting to hear good news, I dug out a half-finished manuscript to complete. The genre was new to me: magical realism. While I adore the category—who... Continue Reading

The September Author Series features Marilyn Levinson (aka Allison Brook) and the advice she'd tell her pre-published self. Most of the featured authors in 2022 I connected with through the Blackbird Writers, a fabulous and supportive group of mystery, suspense, and thriller authors, and Marilyn is no exception. It has been delightful to get to know her, and I was pleased she could take the time to join us in the same month as her most recent book release. She's a busy gal! 

About Marilyn:
A former Spanish teacher, Marilyn Levinson writes mysteries, romantic suspense, and novels for kids. Her books have received many accolades. As Allison Brook she writes the Haunted Library... Continue Reading

Barnes & Noble Hardcover Shelving Controversy,

The Priority Parallax: What’s Truly Important,

Draft2Digital and Smashwords Merger Update

FEATURED ARTICLES

Barnes & Noble Stocking Policy Sparks Controversy Online (and why it didn't surprise me.)

I get it. At first read, the Twitter storm and ensuing speculative articles about Barnes and Noble’s new policy about ONLY carrying hardcovers for authors for whom there’s a guaranteed track record of good sales was panic worthy—particularly for authors who might fall outside of B&N’s favored hardcover author group and are close to release date. For those authors, a strategy shift to printing less hardcovers and more paperbacks (and paperbacks sooner) could prove difficult given... Continue Reading

The brouhaha about writers and their word counts, makes a dramatic entrance every so often. Probably more often than we think. We writers, we love our words. Every one of them, from And to Zed. In our writerly heads, each word is carefully handpicked and absolutely necessary to create our magical stories. Like Mozart, each note is essential for our readers to understand our masterpieces.

Guidelines? Preposterous!

As if any would dare! No one told Mozart to limit his notes…or did they? Too many notes? For Mozart? The child prodigy used a lot of notes as he attempted to complete—without success—five sections for his, Requiem, but these days writers have a lot less room for our creative... Continue Reading