I recently watched the movie “Genius” – which is about Thomas Wolfe and the editor who got him into print. The topic is a fascinating one, something I’ve discussed in previous posts, but fleshed out in more romantic detail in the movie. In short: “genius” is the pure, uncivilized, manic, raw, passionate energy that produces the work. The book belongs …

  RESULTS: The winner is Lauren Smith, who writes historical romance (and an upcoming dragon shifter). Thanks everyone for entering, I’ll link to your articles and try to drive some traffic. I plan to do more writing contests like this in the future!   For the past 10 years I’ve been helping writers publish and promote their books. While I’m …

A few years ago I published a book called Write, Format, Publish, Promote. It’s a little outdated, so I just went through and fixed it up a bit – I’m going to make it permafree, to get lots of downloads and widen my funnel (free books are a great way to reach your target audience). When I published that book, I …

This is a follow up post to an article I just wrote about hiring a VA or getting and author assistant. Getting a job as a virtual assistant seems like an easy, low level thing: you can do basic internet stuff, you can write well, some people are making money but are too busy, why not just help them out? …

I think I spent $250 on my first book trailer, but I don’t do them anymore. There are better ways to market books, and it’s one more thing that sucks up time and energy. However, I have thought about the idea of grabbing some cool movie clips from Video Hive and getting someone on Fiverr to put them together. My friend …

There are some benefits to doing preorders on Kindle, but the main drawback is you can’t get reviews posted on a preorder book until after it’s live. Or can you? Actually there’s a way around this: Set up the book on Createspace also. Publish it to Amazon. But then, upload a new interior file and don’t approve it. The print book …

This is a very short post – mostly making a note to myself so I can use it later. I’m usually against “book promotion” on Twitter, instead I focus on connecting and providing value, sharing my blog posts but not usually selling my book or doing promotion. BUT Megan Crewe pointed out that “RT&F” (retweet and follow) giveaways work well, …

Recently on Facebook some virtual assistants (VAs) and personal assistants (PAs) were asking about how to get more work, or what they could do to grow their business. I’ve also talked a lot about using VAs, and have one right now, though I usually haven’t been good about having a clear strategy of things to do that will actually help …

>The course is FULL already. < I’ve been working on Reach Your Readers – my first online course – for about a year. That doesn’t include the year I spent overcoming my terror of being on camera. But I had to learn a bunch of software, figure out which platform to use (I went with Teachable), and learn a whole bunch …

Sometimes I get manic and think something is a GREAT idea. I get really excited about it, and think everybody else is going to be excited, too. One time I planned a Twilight-themed dance party (don’t judge me). One of the movies was coming out (I don’t remember which one), so I booked a space at a club, got the city’s …