A Bit More on Goals

First, a public service announcement, especially for avid readers: if you’re going to be in or near Green Valley on December 6, I hope you’ll stop by to see me and a lot of other local and regional authors at the annual Meet the Authors Book Fair. That’s next Saturday, December 6, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Desert Hills Lutheran Church at 2150 South Camino Del Sol in Green Valley. I’ll have my new … Read more

A Few Resources and Goal Setting

Hey Folks, A few strong resources— If you’re serious about your work as a writer, check these out: http://deanwesleysmith.com—The resource-rich website of Dean Wesley Smith, my own unintentional mentor and one of the most prolific writers in America. While you’re there, check out the Think Like a Publisher and Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing tabs. I also recommend checking out his Online Workshops tab and his Lecture Series tab. Also while you’re there, remember that … Read more

A very special blog post

Hi Folks, If you live in southeast Arizona and you are an aspiring writer who can’t seem to find time to write has never heard of Heinlein’s Rules HAS heard of Heinlein’s Rules but have amended them because you think they’re too good to be true believe you have to “polish” your work before publication believe you have to rewrite X number of times before publication believe you have to write X number of drafts before … Read more

A New Era Begins: Writing Intensives and More

Hi Folks, Now that I’ve retired as a copyeditor and resigned my position as General Manager of the Universe, I have more time for my own writing. Fortunately, I can also focus on teaching writing to those who are serious about becoming professional writers. Most of my mechanics and techniques seminars (the ones I’ve taught all these years in Tucson, Bisbee, Green Valley and Willcox) are available online in my Audio Lecture Series. If you want … Read more

The Professional Writer: Pseudonyms & Personas (Part II)

Hi Folks, As promised, in this one we’ll deal with the persona. First, again, let’s all get on the same page. A lot of folks believe a pseudonym is a persona and vice versa, but if that’s true (for them) they aren’t using it right. You’ll remember that a pseudonym (pen name) is something you might choose to use when you want to publish something without allowing others to know you’re the author, or perhaps you … Read more

The Professional Writer: Pseudonyms & Personas

Hi Folks, Okay, this post is gonna be about The Care and Cleaning of Pseudonyms and Personas, Part I: The Pen Name. As usual, I’ll start with a definition. A pseudonym is a pen name. It’s something you use when you want to publish something without allowing others to know you’re the author, or perhaps you want to let them know selectively. Some writers use a pseudonym because doing so makes them feel cool or makes … Read more

7 More Tips for Emarketing

Hey Folks, As I mentioned last time, visitors on the web have literally thousands of choices when it comes to which websites they will visit and whether they will subscribe or bookmark those sites. Remember that it’s always more important to you that the visitor remains on or subscribes to your site or newsletter or blog post. Making it worth their while is never a waist of your time. A few days after I received the … Read more

A Bunch of New Stuff

Hi Folks, Yeah, I know it isn’t the 10th or 20th or 30th, but then again this isn’t a normal blog post about writing. I mean, it’s about writing in a way, but first it’s about my website. I’ve made a lot of changes to the site. The first is a general reorganization. I added a sidebar, made my new picture the subscription button, moved my Meet Harvey stuff (formerly Connect with Harvey) over under my … Read more

6 Ways to Increase Book Sales (and Why They Work)

Hi Folks, One of my StoneThread Publishing authors and I were discussing possibly giving away a “sampler” that contains, say, the first 20 pages or so of four different books. If I have 32 books, I’d create 8 samplers. The author originally was talking about creating printed samplers in POD. The discussion led from why I wouldn’t prepare printed samplers to what I could do and what the author could do. I decided it’s is an … Read more

10 Lesser Mistakes Writers Make

Hi Folks, First, a kind of news flash: We’ve extended the 50%-off sale on fiction over at StoneThread Publishing through Tuesday, January 14. To take advantage of this excellent sale, Visit StoneThread Publishing to get the coupon codes for the titles you’re interested in, then Click any cover to go to Smashwords. Enter the coupon code for the book you want during checkout, and download your selected title in any ebook format (Kindle, Nook, Apple, Sony, … Read more