Aug 09 2010
These two related booby-traps are often hidden beneath our little darlings (clever dialogue, beautiful description, etc). That is probably why Stephen King recommended we kill them. Yes, kill them dead. No burying them in the Pet Semetary, also known as “revision.” Killing means killing….as in delete forever. Yet too many times we hang on to those favorite characters or bits of dialogue, reworking them and hoping we can make them fit…at the expense of the rest of the story.
Aug 06 2010
Our lives are all like junk drawers; full of the messy, the missing, the mystifying and the magical.
Aug 04 2010
This lesson is foundational for social media success. When you buy my book, you will quickly see that I focus far more heavily in what and how you post than I do on the technology. Why? Because social media changes so quickly it will give your brain whiplash. You will never keep up unless you want a career in social media. Even then…trust me. You will never keep up. So don’t try to.
Aug 03 2010
Think of it this way, if a guy is holding a gun to your head to take your car, do you really care about the childhood trauma that made him turn to crime? Uh…no. But basically that is what we do to the reader when we interrupt the flow of action to shift back in time and explain.
Jul 27 2010
So let’s be clear. No we do not have to blog, but we will be competing against authors who do. Is it possible to become a success without a platform and a blog following? Sure. It is also possible to win a million dollars playing scratch-offs, but I wouldn’t say that purchasing tickets counts as wise financial planning.
What is a brand? A platform? Why do we need one? How do we get one? Better still how can we create a brand with the power of driving book sales and still have time left to do THE most important part of our job? Writing more books.
This book demystifies branding and social media and harnesses the same passion and imagination we authors use to write books, then uses that to locate and cultivate a devoted fan base. The methods taught in this book can weather any technological upheaval, and is virtually fad-proof. The new cool social site might change, but your platform will remain.
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