(www.thegoldenpencil.com)
Seth Godin has a wonderful post called Is effort a myth?. (Thanks to Your Book Publishing Coach for the pointer.)
It’s a wonderful and helpful essay, complete with the suggestion to find 120 minutes each day and commit to something positive. He lists a number of things that can be done with that time, plus makes some other suggestions I like.
If I had to choose just one it would be: Only spend money, for one year, on things you absolutely need to get by. Save the rest, relentlessly. In fact, I’m going to do that and so commit to you, …read more

He’s done it again! Joe Wikert, creator of Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog has a post called: Amazon Sales Rank and it’s truly helpful.
First it points to a great article called What You Need to Know about Amazon’s Sales Rank by Bill Stephens over at Beneath The Cover. Bill details how Amazon calculates rank then gives some guidelines about what those numbers actually mean.
Not content with just one source, Joe points to Amazon’s rather cryptic statement about their ranking plus a link to TitleZ currently free web based service that lets you compare ranking of many books and RankTracer which …read more

Arghhhh… I just sent off the wrong version to a client. In this case, it wasn’t all my fault, not that it matters.
For this project we’ve got three people involved. Me, the client and the client’s secretary. I write, submit to the client who edits on paper, gives that to his secretary who enters the edits and sends the revised edition to me. I should have worked with the secretary to determine exactly how we’d deal with version numbers, but I thought what I was doing was clear… chapter number, brief title, date, my initials. We muddled along with me …read more

A client recently asked me what the difference between a copy editor and a proofreader is. The short form is that the proofreader is, for the most part, looking only for typos. The copy editor, however, goes further and looks for style problems, technical punctuation and grammar problems and even awkward sentences.
You might want to read the article I wrote called: What’s the difference between proofreading and copy editing?
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision – for those who want to get a book written.

Hmmm… 52 New Writing, Editing and Translation Jobs today.
We’re moving into the holiday season. In the U.S. that starts with Thanksgiving and lasts through January 1. Trade publishers tend to almost shut down. It will be interesting to see how freelance writing jobs hold up.
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision – for those who want to get a book written.

Thanks (again) to Joe Wikert and his link to an article at Entrepreneur.com called: How to ‘Invent’ Your Book. If you’re just starting to think about getting a book written, this is a great overview… in fact, it’s a good article for anyone involved in writing a book.
In the shameless self-promo department, I coach writers about books and am offering a Visioning to help you ground your book so it’s easier to write and will truly express what you want to say.
Feel free to contact me with any questions at all.
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a …read more

Mark Chillingworth states in his post, Wiley: publishers must push e-books, states that Wiley and others are urging book publishers to push ebook readers. The emphasis in the post is on textbook publishing, and, if I’m understanding correctly, the idea is that publishers could improve their bottom line if they were able to deliver more (text)books digitally; to do that, they’ve got to get readers to adopt ebook readers.
Well, maybe. I mean, that does make sense, but the ebook readers currently available still leave a great deal to be desired.
The iLiad is newish, looks good, uses something that’s supposed to …read more

It’s so tempting to think that your book will be a best seller if only you can find the right trade publisher. But the odds of that are truly small.
There are other ways to make money with a book. I’ve written about some of the alternatives in an article called Earn $1.25 Per Copy of Your Book or $85?
No magic bullets, of course, but some ideas you may want to think about.
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision – for those who want to get …read more

Publisher’s Weekly announced today that the sales of books in bookstores was up some 7.5% in August, on top of a rise in July.
It’s hard to know exactly what this means, but it’s certainly good news for writers… and probably for readers as well.
Have you spent more on books recently? Tell us about it.
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision – for those who want to get a book written.

Publishers Weekly reported today that Harlequin has improved profits in spite of flat book sales. What I find most interesting about this report is that although their paper back book sales are flat, their ebook sales have increased.
Apparently they are encouraged enough by the ebook sales to launch a new line of ebooks –
They’ve launched a new line… Spice Briefs will be original erotic e-books in the 5,000- to 15,000-word range. If you want to try for this line, check out the guidelines.
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week …read more