Featured Blog Posts (14)

Constantly linking to your own work or copy/pasting it here is irritating. To those who do: you're not making yourself look good in the eyes of the community, do you realize that? No one likes a taker who doesn't give back to Authors.com and only makes self-serving posts. And it REALLY hurts us on Google when it's duplicate content. Read this link please to understand the consequences of posting such things for both the site and yourselves. …

Continue

Experienced authors know that finishing your book does not mean you've finished your work by any means. It's just beginning. If you want to keep your enthusiasm alive, build lasting friendships and even possibly rack up more sales, knowing how to build and nurture a support network online will help you immensely. This is a very valuable skill in any profession. For writers, there's no better place to start developing it than amongst those who will understand you and your passion most: your…

Continue

Characters are dominating your thoughts, your fingers are itching to type and the beginning of a great story fills your computer screen.  Then...silence. You reach that point in your story where your characters take a coffee break and you are left with writer's block.

This has happened to me more times than I wish to admit. The story my thoughts have been obsessed with are eventually filed away and forgotten. It is so frustrating.

New characters are once again running amuck in…

Continue

Q1: Thanks for participating in our Authors.com Spotlight Interview series Tracy! Please introduce yourself and your book to help our readers get to know you.  

A: Hello, I'm Tracy Kauffman a new author and I have written Southern Adventures-a coming of age fiction book. It is about a woman evaluating her life.  She recalled things that she loved about her life, the trials she overcame, and the experiences that she appreciated God for giving her.  

 …

Continue

How important to book sales is the cover? It is one of the most important visual presentations that the writer has to help promote their book. The cover is the first thing that will draw the reader and potential buyer to the book.

What many authors do not stop and think about is that this cover will be what draws many people to purchase their book, because of the artwork on the cover that will entice their imagination. The artwork is rarely done by the author in preparing their…

Continue

I don't know when, on the writing curve, Stephen King or Nelson DeMille might seek editorial advice, only that it is documented that they do. So it begs the question, for the writer trying to break into the business with a major royalty publisher--and who accepts that a professional editor looking at the manuscript might not be a bad idea--when is the right time to hire a book editor.



Generally there are Two Issues



For most people it's a matter of time and… Continue

Acronyms can be confusing. POD stands for both print on demand and publish on demand. The terms should not be used interchangeably but often are. Unfortunately in the publishing world, POD has come to mean the business model of publish on demand or vanity publishing.



Print On Demand

Print on demand is a technology that allows one copy of a book to be printed and bound at a time. It's no longer necessary to have offset print runs of several thousand copies. The technology… Continue

Waiting for Inspiration to Strike

New writers often think they need some kind of special inspired feeling or mood in order to begin writing. Successful professional writers, on the other hand, have trained their minds to be productive no matter what mood they might be in. They get up in the morning and go to work, just as though it was any other kind of job. They make progress on their book each and every day.



Starting a Manuscript Before You Are Ready

With… Continue

One of the questions famous authors are asked most frequently by their readers is: Where do you get your ideas for stories? To some readers, this process of generating ideas is mysterious, almost mystical. But authors find that creating concepts for stories is just part of their job. They train their minds to continually provide them with fresh ideas to put down on paper. But sometimes they too are amazed when an idea occurs to them, seemingly out of nowhere, they grab a pad and pen, and a few… Continue

When a book is in its final stages, the writer that is promoting the book on their own is faced with marketing strategies. Plans need to be thought out how to bring this newly published book to the masses, and one way of doing this that many writers are taking advantage of are the social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, DIGG, MySpace and others.



Twitter is one of the websites that has become extremely popular and is used not only by people that go there to read, but are also able… Continue

The publishing world is changing. It's becoming more difficult for first time authors to break in as fewer titles are published by the major publishing houses. Literary agents are reluctant to take on new authors and prefer to concentrate on authors who have been previously published with a successful track record. Are there any options for writers?



Yes. Self publishing is a viable option for many authors. Self publishing means the author has the control of and the responsibility for… Continue

Writing a book is only part of having a successful book, whether it is a book that has been published by a large or small publishing company, a book that is a print on demand which the author is self publishing, or even if it is an electronic book. The other part of a successful book is the book promotion, this means the author will have book signings set up by an agent, or they will need to learn marketing skills for a self published book. Marketing skills are something that is needed even for… Continue

This is a question that is thought about by many writers, whether they really need literary agent when they are about to close the last chapter on their latest or even first book. First, it is best to understand what the literary agents job function is to know if one is needed, this is a person that is hired by the writer that will attempt to sell the manuscript to a publishing house. This can save the writer having to deal with publishing houses on their own and keep their work from being… Continue

Writers’ groups can be small informal groups that meet periodically at one of the author’s homes, or larger more formalized organizations that meet in public places such as the local library or a restaurant. The group may just sit around a coffee table and read each other’s work, or the group may have guest speakers and a formal agenda. In either case, the goal is to provide information and encouragement to advance writers’ careers, whether you are working on your first project or are an… Continue