Beyond Words

Publishing Audio Books & eBooks at the Same Time (Or: How to Sell Virtually Unsellable Novelettes) Playing second fiddle to James Patterson shouldn’t be all that troubling to a new author trying to peddle his first novel. And for me, it wasn’t. It was educational. I finished my first book, A NEW PROSPECT, late in 2006 and began making the rounds, querying agents interested in mysteries and police procedurals. As the rejection letters trickled in, I wrote shorter mysteries for practice. The rejections kept piling up and I kept writing. After I finished a half-dozen stories, all of them in the 8,000 to 11,000 word range, I developed a bright idea. I’d try to sell them, too. So, I tried Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, Strand , and a couple others. No takers with the first one. Okay, said I, try a different story. Still no takers, but one acquisitions editor did have the courtesy to write back and tell me why no one wanted to buy what I was offering. He said most mainstre...

Robin P. Waldrop hails from Miami, but lives in Alabama with best friend, business partner, and husband, John. She is a mother of five, grandmother of five, and owner of a variety of different animals. When she’s not working at her business with her husband she’s found at her computer where she breathes life into all the wonderful characters that are born from her vivid imagination. She is an award-winning author who enjoys writing edgy YA paranormal/Urban Fantasy, and FBI suspense/thriller novels and short stories. Always a voracious reader with an unapologetic television addiction, Robin still searches for the perfect cup of coffee. What Inspires Me to Write My oldest daughter and I are big readers and we swap books all the time. We were talking just the other day about what inspired me to start writing, and why. After careful thought I realized all I could think of was how ideas just sort of come to me. And if I don’t quickly get them on paper they soon sta...

A new year is upon us, and that makes it the perfect time to evaluate ourselves and determine just what we want for ourselves in the coming year. Now’s the perfect time to look at the changes you want to make in your life, whether it’s your personal life or your professional life. If you’re looking to make changes in your personal life, such as living a healthier lifestyle, doing something that will make you happier, changing a bad habit, or starting a project that will make you feel better about yourself, now’s the best time to begin planning for it. If you’re looking to lose weight, or just start living a healthier lifestyle, begin to eat healthier and exercise more. If you’re trying to break a bad habit, do it in small steps that are easy to reach. If you’re looking to start a project that will make you feel good about yourself, check out local volunteer organizations in your neighborhood. If you’re looking to make changes in your professional life, start by determining what kind ...

Today I'm welcoming author Sara Curran-Ross to my blog. Take it away, Sara... Recently I had a discussion with a friend about the attributes of a good female lead character in a novel. Many female characters are often depicted as weak-minded women calling for male help as often as Penelope Pitstop when in a rut. Then there are those who allow the male lead to overpower them. After that, we have women who are super human, indestructible loners who spit on the very idea of needing a man’s help or even one in the their life. So which one is the most realistic? Which one can you identify with? Neither? Me too ... I loved Twilight but I have to say I wasn’t very keen on Bella. I found her miserable and weak when it came to her relationship with Edward. I was actually concerned about my daughter reading it for fear she would get the wrong idea about relationships. Bella offers little resistance to Edward when he stalks her and prevents her from seeing Jacob. She also completely falls...

Andrea Buginsky has enjoyed writing since she was a kid. Once in college, she decided to turn it into a career and earned a BA in journalism. She has been writing freelance for several years now. Andrea has always wanted to write children’s books. She loves fantasy movies like "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter," so she decided to try writing one of her own. She is excited to announce her first publication, The Chosen , a young adult fantasy. As writers know, writing can sometimes be hard. You have moments when you want to write, but don’t have time. You have moments where you have the time to write but no idea what to write. You even have times when a huge deadline is looming and you’re working day and night to meet it. These obstacles and more can make your writing life a hard one. Not to mention the publicizing and advertising that comes with it. But you suck it up and do what you have to do for your writing career because it’s what you really want. T...

Bethany Lopez was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Michigan and San Antonio, Texas. She went to High School at Dearborn High, in Dearborn, Michigan, which is where she has set her young adult novel. She is married and has a blended family with five children. She is currently serving in the United States Air Force as a recruiter in South Carolina. She has always loved to read and write and has seen her dream realized by independently publishing her first novel through Amazon with CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing. Ta Ta for Now! is also now available through Smashwords at Barnes and Noble.com, on the Nook and the Sony eReader. For a chance to win an ebook copy of Ta Ta for Now! please leave a comment and email address. A winner will be chosen August 31st. I never imagined I would be an Independent Author. To be honest, I never thought I would be an author at all. It is something I always loved to do and dreamed of when I was younger, but it seemed like too big of...

  Self-Publishing Controversial Titles by Jeni Decker By "controversial" I mean, “books I can’t imagine traditional publishers taking a risk on in this dicey economy.” Waiting for Karl Rove is one of those books. It’s irreverent satire, chock full of politically incorrect content, and the “characters” are public figures, mainly in the political arena. Not to mention that it’s kind of a lampoon against the publishing industry, as a whole. Oh, and we (my writing partner, Kat Nove and I) wrote ourselves into the book as dueling protagonists - each writing a chapter in first person, alternately. So, yeah, risky. We did get some good feedback from a few agents and small publishers, who chuckled at the cheeky query letter and wished us good luck, Godspeed, and many happy returns (probably while deleting our initial query from their inbox after sharing it with everyone within a fifty mile radius and guffawing at our unmitigated gall). The industry doesn’t seem willing to tak...

Michelle is excited to do a free critique of a query letter or the first 250 words of a manuscript to a random commenter. Comment within one week, and be sure to include your e-mail address. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. How can you really tell if an agent is the right one for your book? Do you pick an agent with a great client list, or will they be too busy for you? Or should you pick a new hungry agent with less experience? Although there is no right way to spare ourselves this decision agony, the following has been successful for me. Whenever I read a book that resonates with me strongly, I do some research to see if I can learn who the editor and agent are. Then I see if they accept the genre I write. If so, I start reading books by the authors they’ve repped. I also rely heavily on www.agentquery.com and http://caseylmccormick.blogspot.com/ to get a feel about what others have experienced with my prospective leads. I also look to see if they’re an ed...