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Bridging the Gap: A Simple Guide to College by Chelsea L. Dixon
Do you want to go to college but don’t know how to start the planning process? Bridging the Gap: A Simple Guide to College is an easy to read, easy to follow guide that gives you the information and confidence you need to get started. Its useful and practical information will get you on the…
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How Do You Sell 10,000 Books in a Year?
That’s just one of the things you will learn at the 2015 Winter Writers’ Weekend. I can’t give you all the answers to that question, but Nicole Loughan, author of the All Saints Mystery series, has sold 10,000 books in a year and she can. Nicole understands that writing a book is just the beginning…
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Is It Too Soon To Market My Book?
That’s a question I get asked all the time. The answer is: No, it is never too soon to start marketing your book. But that is also a little too broad an answer. The real question is how should you market your book at different stages of pre-publication? Here’s a schedule to help you get…
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Winter Writers’ Weekend Hall of Fame
Kesha Cox attended last year’s Second Annual Winter Writers’ Weekend to find out more about writing a memoir. She and I began working together in March, and I am proud to say that she will be publishing her book Never Settle for Less in March of 2015. Kesha’s story is powerful and she has a…
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Ideas, Plans and Materials You Need to Promote Your Book
The plans for Open Door Publications’ Third Annual Winter Writers’ Weekend are well under way. Since you have asked for it, the 2015 event will have even more information and speakers. We are offering two separate tracks: One for writers who have not yet published, or possibly even finished, their books; and a second track…
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A New Social Media Site for Authors
A new social media site, Chapter See, has recently appeared. In fact, it is so new that when I checked it looked like there were only 14 members (make that 15 now, because I just joined). So what is Chapter See? According to its website it is “an exclusive social networking site for writers, publishers,…
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Copy Editing, Content Editing or Proofreading: Which Do You Need?
When first-time authors look for editing services they often confuse the terms editing and proofreading. These are actually two different animals. In fact, editing is not just one animal, it has cousins. Make sure you know what you are asking for when you speak with a professional about these services. If you aren’t clear, you…
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Recovering from the Recovery by Anil B. Bhatt
Recovering from the Recovery: A Recipe for Survival The economic crisis of 2008 and its aftermath altered the lives of millions of people across the globe in a profound way. Although we are on a path to recovery, the rate of growth has been less than satisfactory. Recovering from the Recovery: A Recipe for Survival…
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Planning a Successful Book Event
The first thing many authors think of when I suggest they plan a book event is a reading: Afternoon tea, a quiet bookshop, the author sitting at the front of the room quietly reading from his book. Does this sound like fun to you? Okay, we are writers, maybe it does. But take a look…
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Who Are You Writing For?
Who are you writing your book for? If you don’t know who your reader is, how can you write your book? It seems obvious, but it’s a question that constantly comes up when I speak with new authors. In fact, I’ve talked about just this subject twice in the past two days. The first answer…
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What’s the Future of Self-Publishing
Some publishing pundits will state that traditional publishing models are broken. I’m not sure if they are correct, but I will say that the publishing business, just like the rest of the communications and entertainment industry, is in transition. The days of the large publishing houses positioning themselves as the arbiters of good literature and…
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Developing Your Book Marketing Plan
There are so many ways to market a book these days that many writers become overwhelmed. They try to do it all, then get discouraged because they can’t – or at least not well. You don’t have to have a giant budget to market your book successfully. But you do need to decide how much…
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Discovering a New Genre and a Great New Author
The more I learn about publishing, the more I find there is to learn. I discovered not only a wonderful new author last Saturday at the Princeton Local Authors’ Day, I learned about an entire new genre. The author is Mary Fan, whose first two novels, Artificial Absolutes and Synthetic Illusions, came out in 2012…
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Writer’s Block? Love to Have It Leave You
By Mark Hurwich, Founder, Concentrated Coaching LLC Got a great idea for a book or article, enough skill to write it…and it’s not getting done? Or, worse still, maybe you’re successfully forcing yourself to write, but despite months of work aren’t producing anything you like. You hate this block, and quite possibly yourself, too…right? Salvation…
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Are You Sabotaging Your Book’s Marketability?
It’s an example I use so often, I sometimes wonder if it has become a cliché, but then just last week I heard it again. “I don’t need to hire an editor. My mother is a retired English teacher. She knows all about good grammar.” I don’t care if your mother is the world’s greatest…