Sell sheets, also known as one sheets, are often requested by booksellers, award competitions, reviewers, and other industry folks. They are useful tools for people to get quick information about your book and make decisions, such as whether or not to stock your book in their store. It’s important to have all the standard elements on your sell sheet and to make sure they are organized in a structured way. So what exactly do you need to have on a … Read More »

If you have a particular interest, activity, or hobby, there is a magazine out there that wants you to write for it. Do you run? Play tennis? Like dogs? Fix bicycles? Play the piano? Attend church? Plant wildflowers around your house? Watch birds? Like rocks? Anything you do and know something about can be fodder for an article that some magazine will be interested in. My efforts at writing fiction have never gone anywhere. But I was involved in many … Read More »

The hard work we writers go through to polish that memoir, novel, short story, poem or essay is real work. It’s hard, stressful, makes us anxious, doubtful and happy – all at the same time. Those who do not write don’t appreciate the labor we struggle with but when the finished product is in their hand and the story comes alive, we become one because in the end – the words make the difference. The promise of celebrity that writers … Read More »

Market research is an essential step of the book creation process no matter how you publish. It is basically seeing what is already out there in the market and how your book will (or will not) fit in. Luckily for us, we live in the age of Amazon so you don’t have to spend hours at a book store picking through different titles. If you are working to be published traditionally, you will often have to list what are called … Read More »

From time to time, someone who wants to change careers and become a full-time freelance editor will contact me and offer to take me to lunch in order to “pick my brain” or ask me a “quick question” about the business. I turn down such requests as kindly as I can. I’ve been a full-time independent for 18 years now. It would take me many hours to tell someone all I’ve learned about conducting business over that time, and anyway, … Read More »

You’ve spit-shined that short story, non-fiction piece or poem. Great! Now what do you do with it? How do you find your way through the thousands of magazines and journals, and keep your sanity trying to keep track of it all? There are the trusted Writer’s Market guides published by Penguin that come out annually. But, often, the information there is a bit dated by the time the guide goes to press. Even some of the listings from the highly … Read More »