The Newbie's Guide to Publishing contains all of the information you need to understand the writing business and maximize your sales and success.There's over 370,000 words of writing advice, tips, tricks, and observations. That's more than 1100 pages. It's the biggest book on writing and publishing ever put together, featuring hundreds of essays on the following topics:WRITING - More than forty essays, covering everything you need to know to craft fiction.BREAKING IN - Over forty essays on how to find an agent and sell your writing. PUBLISHING - More than twenty essays about the publishing business, and how it works.PROMOTION - Over fifty essays on marketing, advertising, and self-promotion.TOURING - Extensive, in-depth details on how to do book tours and signings.INTERNET - Dozens of essays on how writers can effectively use the world wide web.EBOOKS - Speculation and real-life examples of digital publishing, the Kindle, print on demand, and self-publishing.MOTIVATION - Over fifty essays guaranteed to enlighten and inspire your writing efforts.Plus many, many more.It also includes a foreword and several bonus essays by bestselling author Barry Eisler.About the AuthorJ.A. Konrath has written dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories. His work has been published in over a dozen countries, and there are millions of copies of his fiction in print.His blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, has been named one of Writer's Digest Magazine's Best Web Sites. In a 12 month period, he sold over 35,000 self-published ebooks on Amazon Kindle.He's been featured in Writer's Digest, Forbes, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Book Page, Entertainment Weekly, and The Huffington Post. Konrath is known as the hardest working author in the business, having toured more than 1200 bookstores. He's done successful blog tours, sent over 7000 letters to libraries, and has been flown all across the country to speak on the topics of publishing, marketing, ebooks, and self-promotion. Under the pen name Jack Kilborn, he wrote the horror novels Afraid, Trapped, Endurance, and Draculas. The Jack Daniels thriller series has houndreds of thousands of books in print around the world. The latest is Shaken, published by AmazonEncore.

    Packed with 30 exercises, abundant examples, and practical strategies, this guidebook will help you write unforgettable characters who "come alive" on the page, create compelling dialogue, and chart more breathtaking emotional journeys for your characters. Stant Litore is the author of The Ansible Stories, The Zombie Bible, The Running of the Tyrannosaurs, and Dante's Heart. Best known for his weird fiction, alternate history, and scifi, he has taught frequent courses for writers across the genres and has served as a developmental editor for Westmarch Publishing. His own fiction has been acclaimed by NPR, has served as the subject of scholarly work in Relegere and Weird Fiction Review, and he has been hailed as "SF's premier poet of loneliness." He lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters, and is working on his next book.

    Use them to pry, chip, yank and sift good characters out of the place where they live in your memory, your imagination and your soul.Award-winning author Orson Scott Card explains in depth the techniques of inventing, developing and presenting characters, plus handling viewpoint in novels and short stories. With specific examples, he spells out your narrative options–the choices you'll make in creating fictional people so "real" that readers will feel they know them like members of their own families.You'll learn how to: draw the characters from a variety of sources, including a story's basic idea, real life–even a character's social circumstances make characters show who they are by the things they do and say, and by their individual "style" develop characters readers will love–or love to hate distinguish among major characters, minor characters and walk-ons, and develop each one appropriately choose the most effective viewpoint to reveal the characters and move the storytelling decide how deeply you should explore your characters' thoughts, emotions and attitudes

    Along the way, it’ll help you form the foundation you need to write a novel you’re proud of. You’ll learn to:• Strengthen the ideas you have and discover new ones, even when inspiration seems far away.• Expand your original idea into a fully fledged story.• Develop a fleshed-out cast of characters, without overwhelming yourself with complex formulas and “best-practices."• Apply structure to your story in a way that honors and refines your original idea. • Bring it all together in a final Master Outline, designed to guide you through every stage of writing your novel.Each day of this outlining challenge comes with easy to follow prompts and intuitive goals, streamlining the outlining process. By the end, The Ten Day Outline will have taken the stress out of planning a novel, so you’ll be ready to set out on your own epic writing journey!

    It's like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what's not. The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult.) The Story Grid is a tool with many applications: 1. It will tell a writer if a Story "works" or "doesn't work." 2. It pinpoints story problems but does not emotionally abuse the writer, revealing exactly where a Story (not the person creating the Story...the Story) has failed. 3. It will tell the writer the specific work necessary to fix that Story's problems. 4. It is a tool to re-envision and resuscitate a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper stuck in an attic drawer. 5. It is a tool that can inspire an original creation. Shawn Coyne is a twenty-five year book-publishing veteran. He's acquired, edited, published or represented works from James Bamford, John Brenkus, James Lee Burke, Barbara Bush, Dick Butkus, Harlan Coben, Nellie Connally, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Ben Crenshaw, Catherine Crier, Brett Favre, David Feherty, John Feinstein, Tyler Florence, Jim Gant, Col. David H. Hackworth, Jamie Harrison, Mo Hayder, William Hjortsberg, Stephen Graham Jones, Jon Krakauer, David Leadbetter, Alan Lomax, David Mamet, Troon McAllister, Robert McKee, Matthew Modine, Bill Murray, Joe Namath, John J. Nance, Jack Olsen, Scott Patterson, Steven Pressfield, Matthew Quirk, Anita Raghavan, Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell, Jerry Rice, Giora Romm, Tim Rosaforte, William Safire, Dava Sobel, Michael Thomas, Nick Tosches, Ann Scott Tyson, Minette Walters, Betty White, Randy Wayne White, Steven White, and Don Winslow among many others. During his years as an editor at the Big Five publishing houses, as an independent publisher, as a literary agent both at a major Hollywood talent agency and as head of Genre Management Inc., and as a bestselling co-writer and ghostwriter, Coyne created a methodology called The Story Grid to teach the editing craft.

    True, you’ll actually have to write if you want to be a writer, but ultimately literary success is about much more than putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys). Before you snap your pencil in half with frustration, please consider the advice writer, teacher, and self-made lit star Ariel Gore offers in this useful guide to realizing your literary dreams. If you find yourself writing when you should be sleeping and scribbling notes on odd pieces of paper at every stoplight, you might as well enjoy the fruits of your labor. How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead is an irreverent yet practical guide that combines solid writing advice with guerrilla marketing and promotion techniques guaranteed to launch you into print—and into the limelight. You’ll learn how to: • Reimagine yourself as a buzz-worthy artist and entrepreneur• Get your work and your name out in the world where other people can read it• Be an anthology slut and a brazen self-promoter• Apply real-world advice and experience from lit stars like Dave Barry, Susie Bright, and Dave Eggers to your own careerCheaper than an M.F.A. but just as informative, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead is your catapult to lit stardom. Just don’t forget to thank Ariel Gore for her inspiring, hands-on plan in the acknowledgments page of your first novel!

    It features a collection of 24 essays from the short story writers, many of them prize winners in the toughest short story competitions in the English language. It includes writing exercises, and lists of published stories.

    You will see how a work takes form and shape once you grasp the principles of momentum, tension, and immediacy. "Tension," Stern says, "is the mother of fiction. When tension and immediacy combine, the story begins." Dialogue and action, beginnings and endings, the true meaning of "write what you know," and a memorable listing of don'ts for fiction writers are all covered. A special section features an Alphabet for Writers: entries range from Accuracy to Zigzag, with enlightening comments about such matters as Cliffhangers, Point of View, Irony, and Transitions.

    This is not one of those books. On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid—at all costs—if you ever want your novel published.In How Not to Write a Novel, authors Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman distill their 30 years combined experience in teaching, editing, writing, and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter. Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious "mis-examples" to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they'll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, jokes, perspective, voice, and more. As funny as it is useful, this essential how-NOT-to guide will help you get your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the bookstore.

    was born in Puerto Rico. He began having visions of future events asa young boy, a gift he inherited from his mother. At age 13 he and his family joinedthe LDS Church, and the visions he had been receiving began to make sense as helearned more about the prophecies and doctrines taught by church leaders. Amongthe events he has foreseen are:�� Earthquakes in Utah�� A national financial collapse�� Plagues and sicknesses�� Concentration camps on U.S. soil�� An invasion from foreign troops�� The Saints prevail against the enemyHector's visions are specifically meant to serve as warnings to his own family, but hehopes that by sharing what he has seen, it will help others prepare for the challengingtimes that will soon come upon the world.

    Among the many subjects it discusses: working with non-traditional forms; maintaining a consistent and ongoing storyline; developing a personal cinematic style; finding a script's audience; keeping an audience's attention; developing subtexts; utilising psychology and philosophy; creating realism; polishing scenes; creating memorable dialogue.

    From ideas to tips to absolute musts, THE EXTROVERTED WRITER builds on Amanda's successful "Thursdays with Amanda" blog posts on ChipMacGregor.com. This easy-to-read guide breaks down the most popular social media sites and online options to give YOU the tools you need to be effective when engaging with your readers. Whether you're new to social media or a longtime pro...whether you have dozens of books under your belt or are still waiting for your first deal, this book is for you. I started reading Amanda's posts on chipmagregor.com about the time my novel was launching. Amanda's understanding of branding and her insight as an agent were extremely helpful to me as I thought about an overall platform strategy. I had no idea what to do about Facebook, and her thoughts helped me refine what I was doing and better connect with my fiction readers. Charity Hawkins, author of The Homeschool Experiment: a novel My twitter following tripled with Amanda's training and after putting her Google search rules into practice, my blog posts are drawing increased traffic and new shares. Reading The Extroverted Writer is like getting down-to-earth advice from your best friend. Your extroverted best friend that knows all the social media answers you need. Finally! Laura Anderson Kurk (laurakurk.com), author of Glass Girl and Perfect Glass Amanda Luedeke, agent at the number one literary agency in the country, MacGregor Literary, Inc., takes you through easy, step by step approaches to growing your online presence and as a result, your audience. Her lessons are straightforward, simple and applicable, no smoke and mirrors or degrees in physics required. From growing your readership on your blog, to pumping up your number of Twitter followers, to utilizing the eye candy of Pinterest to promote your books, she has it all. I recommend this book for all authors; newbies, established and everyone in between. Laura L. Smith, author"

    From her long experience working with successful writers and discovering new voices, Lerner looks at different writer personality types and addresses the concerns of writers just getting started as well as those stalled mid-career.

    The whole process seems overwhelming. This conversational and action oriented book is for people who want to write a book (or are thinking about it), but for their whole life, have never been good at writing. Writing has always been difficult for you, and you think you could never enjoy it, much less write an entire book. Every time you start to write anything it’s like all of your ideas disappear. You know the drill. You get ready to do some writing. You’re pumped and think this will be the day all of your great ideas flood the page. Then ... You find yourself staring at a blank screen. You have no idea what you want to write about. After some time, you want to bang your head against the keyboard. You want to write a book. In fact, you know you have a book inside you but, you keep telling yourself: “I’m not a writer. I can’t write a book. I don’t have enough time anyway.” There are TONS of myths, misconceptions, and flat-out lies out there about how difficult it is to write your first book. How to Not SUCK at Writing Your First Book busts those myths and challenges everything you’ve been told about writing. This book is filled with proven solutions, options, and problem-solving methods that every first-time author needs to know—no matter what writing challenges you face. How to Not SUCK at Writing Your First Bookgives you the foundation for your first book through: 4 tried and true writing methods that make the writing process simple, easy & fast A writing method that involves 0 actual writing (your book can be done in as little as 7 hours) Simple strategies for preventing & defeating writer’s block Uncovering the #1 way to actually finish and publish your book (hint: is has nothing to do with writing) Shows you how simple and fast writing a book can actually be (by holding your hand every step of the way). Follow the advice given in this book and by the end, after putting what I have to say into action, you will have easily written a high-quality book. Best of all, the rest of your life doesn’t have to be put on hold to do it either! This book shows you how you can continue to spend most of your time doing what you love instead of struggling through something you hate. Before your buy the book, I have one question for you: What’s stopping you from turning your daily conversations and knowledge into a high-quality book faster than you ever thought possible? Scroll to the top and click the “buy now” button and you will write your first book-- and not suck at it.

    And while patience and resilience must come from you, the essentials of craft and the plan to execute them are right at your fingertips with Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel. This completely revised and updated edition features solid strategies for drafting, revising, and selling an intriguing novel that grips your readers and refuses to let them go.New York Times best-selling author Hallie Ephron shows you how to:- Create a compelling sleuth and a worthy villain - Construct a plot rich in twists, red herrings, and misdirection - Bring the story to a satisfying conclusion - Sharpen characters and optimize pace during revision - Seek publication through both traditional and indie pathsFilled with helpful worksheets and exercises for every step of the process, Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel Revised and Expanded reveals the keys to writing a memorable story that will have fans of mystery, suspense, and crime clamoring for more.