This video is too funny! Wouldn’t it be hilarious if you could program your “Digital Assistant” like this?
Oh wait…I think that day might be closer than we can imagine.
Meanwhile enjoy this creative satire!
Fun Fridays – February 2, 2018
Blog
Timing Myths Dispelled
Sometimes I receive submissions with the note, “I want to get this to the editor before fill in the name of the big conference, or before the holiday, or whatever! Does this make sense? I can answer this question right now. The perfect time to submit a manuscript is… Thursday, 4:45 AM local time, in Guam. Seriously, I understand the desire to enhance a submission’s chances by timing it when the …
A Writer’s Best Friend
If I asked you what you considered to be a writer’s best friend, what would you say? Please don’t say “Wikipedia.” My clients would probably reply, “Bob Hostetler.” But that can’t be everyone’s answer. You might consider “a fine fountain pen” or “a blank page in a brand new journal” to be your best friend as a writer. Maybe the thesaurus is your best friend (ally, associate, buddy, companion, …
In Defense of Social Media
Today I am going to stick up for the poor, downtrodden multibillion dollar global public corporations behind social media. Blamed for everything from the breakdown of the family to the dissolution of meaningful personal relationships, they are supposedly the reason society is on a virtual brink of collapse. But for authors of books, social media is the simplest and quickest way to create an author …
Three Significant Announcements Regarding E-books and Audiobooks
Last week there were three significant announcements from Apple, Google, and Walmart of interest to all authors. First the three bits of news and then a few observations. Apple Apple announced that their iBooks app is being renamed to simply Books. Accompanying it will be a complete redesign of the reading app, their store, and the addition of an audiobook tab to make it easier for users to access …
Fun Fridays – January 26, 2018
Doing what you love for 70 years? Priceless. May this inspire you today.
I Can’t Believe I Wrote the Whole Thing
You’re an author with lots of talent and a great idea! You know the market and are confident your story will work. There’s plenty of plot to make word count. So why not sell on proposal? Selling on proposal seems ideal, but might not be a good idea for the new author. Why not? Pacing A new author can’t necessarily gauge how long it will take to write a book. Perhaps the first book rode like the …
Seven Tips for Your Next Writers’ Conference
I attended my first writers’ conference in 1989. Yes, I am that old. I was a magazine editor at the time, and knew absolutely nothing about writers’ conferences. Since then, however, I have served on faculty more than a hundred times, and have learned a thing or two about writers’ conferences, knowledge that I am happy to impart—for the right price. Today, since we are approaching the height of …
Are You Curating or Creating?
Every once in a while, a book proposal crosses my desk and catches my attention with its creativity and approach. It is engaging and makes me think. Whether I agreed to work with the author or not, I needed to give them kudos for their great work. Rarely, if ever, does something catch my attention (in a good way) which is simply assembled from or built entirely on the thinking of someone else. I …
How Do You Count Lifetime Book Sales?
A key element in a book proposal is your sales history. Of course, you can ignore this if you’ve never published a book before. But if you have published, either with a traditional publisher or independently, your sales history must be included in your next book proposal. Here is an example: Sales History: The Bestest Book Ever (XYZ Publishers, 1996) – 12,449 sold The Other Bestest Book I Wrote …