Dead Book Walking
I’m writing a book that will probably never get published. Not because it’s a bad book, necessarily, though it may be, but because it’s a book about people trying to escape the kind of broken country we might end up…
Category: Publishing
Under Pressure
People used to ask, “When is your next book due?” and I would laugh, self-consciously, because I didn’t have deadlines. I wasn’t a writer who had contracts or editors waiting for me to produce anything. In those bygone days, I…
Four Lies People Will Tell You About Marketing Your Novel
After I jubilantly signed with an agent I met at last year’s Muse and the Marketplace conference in Boston, well-meaning friends and fellow writers began bombarding me with advice. You need more Facebook followers. You have to be more visible…
Debut Author Debrief
I’m about a month out from the publication of my debut novel, Cottonmouths, and let me tell you, it’s been a whirlwind. But my whirlwind is definitely different from other authors’ whirlwinds because as I’ve mentioned before, we’re all special…
What to Do When Someone Publishes Your Idea Before You
It’s the stuff of nightmares. The thing that keeps established authors up at night during their lowest points of self-confidence; what gets newbies wasting their time trying to copyright their books before they even begin to write them; what causes…
Reviews: To Read or Not to Read
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a wonderful review will make little impression on an artist whereas a bad review will be seared onto said artist’s brain and heart. Like a terrible tattoo, a negative review is impossible to…