Let’s say that you know who your story’s characters are, and you know what they’ll be doing—you have a plot. Now it’s time to write your story. And like many writers, you’ll be sitting there in front of your keyboard and monitor, staring at a blank page, and sweating blood. Where to begin?
A lot of authors that wonder how to edit their book think there must be some system all the great authors use for editing, when the reality is each author is different. For example, I have my own unique set of frequent writing flaws, so I have my own way to edit my book. You’ll need to come up with a system of self-editing that’s tailored to your own writing needs.
Instead of telling you how to edit your novel, I’m going to give you tips on how to create your own system of editing.
What if you knew you couldn’t fail? I’m plagued with the vague notion that I’ve failed already. But let’s just say for kicks that I hadn’t failed and I couldn’t fail. What would I...
Author Career / book marketing / Book Promotion / book sales
by Ezra Barany · Published May 16, 2012
Many authors think getting their work published in an anthology is great for visibility. They’re right. But not for the reason they think. If you self-publish, you then tell all your friends and family about the book. But with an anthology, you now have all the contributing authors tell all their friends and all their families about the book. The amount of people who hear about the anthology and see your published name can be ten times as many!
book marketing / Book Promotion
by Beth Barany · Published May 15, 2012 · Last modified May 16, 2012
Welcome guest columnist, Karma Bennett, Publicist, Social Media Consultant and Writer. When I met Karma recently at a meeting for book publicists and those interested in book publicity (like me!) I was struck by...
book marketing / Book Promotion
by Beth Barany · Published May 14, 2012 · Last modified May 16, 2012
Is Tumblr Right For Your Book? Tumblr is the original microblog. It’s a fantastic resource for authors, and much easier to use than other blogging platforms like Wordpress and Blogger.
Kickstarter is the entrepreneurial artist’s equivalent of venture capitalists, only better. Their tagline, “A new way to fund & follow creativity,” describes crowd-sourcing money and encouragement through “a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.”
book marketing / Book Promotion
by Ezra Barany · Published May 10, 2012 · Last modified May 24, 2012
Some people think book trailers are a great way to make more book sales, while others think book trailers don’t truly increase book sales much at all. The truth is that book trailers can increase your book sales if your video becomes viral. So how do you make a video go viral?
book marketing / Book Promotion / book sales / publishing
by Ezra Barany · Published May 2, 2012 · Last modified May 3, 2012
I thought that if I made my ebook have a layout exactly like my print book, that would be enough to make my ebook sell well. The truth is, by going from print to ebook, I made the layout identical and that was a mistake. I missed out on making news of the release of my ebook spread like wildfire, and I missed out on making sure I got plenty of good reviews from my ebook sales. If I had just added a few extra components to my ebook layout, I could have made more sales and received more reviews.
Everybody knows what plot is, right? It’s action. Action drives stories. Without action, without plot, you’ve got no story. Simple. But not all actions are equal. For actions to be plot, they must have consequences. Actions without consequences are setting or description.
book marketing / Book Promotion / Book Reviews / book sales
by Ezra Barany · Published April 25, 2012 · Last modified February 5, 2019
How to write and get great reviews, with examples of a book review. A lot of authors think that getting many five-star ecstatic reviews will help make more book sales, so they get their family and friends to post rave reviews. The problem is that browsing readers can detect false praise a mile away, so if you just help guide the reviewer on how to sound authentic, your reviews will in fact help you make more sales of your books.
The problem with writing erotica is trying to come up with a compelling plot. I’m not talking about erotic romance or erotic suspense or any sub genre of erotica, I’m talking purely about straight erotica. When writing erotica, sex must be the integral part of the storyline. Sex is what tells the tale, what makes our characters evolve, and what delivers the…ahem…climax at the end.
artist entrepreneur / Author Career
by Beth Barany · Published April 20, 2012 · Last modified May 3, 2012
Those who have the most powerful visions for their work, passion, persistence, determination, resilience and focus are the ones who bring it about. Decide who you want to become. Here are three ways to focus your time and energy so that you are not sitting around waiting for the book sales to come in.
On Facebook, I’ve seen a lot of authors (myself included) asking for tags and likes on their Amazon sales page.
Waste of time.
Though it’s seductively simple to ask friends and followers to tag and like your Amazon page, there are better marketing methods to request from your friends and followers that are just as simple and take just as much time.
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Beth Barany helps authors get their books completed and out into the world, into the hands of their readers.
Creativity Coach for Writers, NLP Master Practitioner, and Master Teacher, Beth Barany has been there and knows how hard it can be to take your idea and turn it into a real book, that people will actually be interested, and even yearning, to read.
She walks the talk, as her clients like to say. She is the author of the 2012 award-winning young adult fantasy novel Henrietta The Dragon Slayer, as well as the author of the bestselling nonfiction books for authors and aspiring authors.
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