A few years ago I was in Bali when I got pitched a full-time, $200K/year job in New York managing a creative team to turn a book into a video game. The author had won seed funding and had money to burn, but no idea how to make it work in reality; and he knew The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle tour. Totally free. Get it...
Nearly 2 decades ago, only a few streets over from where I live now in Tainan, Taiwan, I had a panic attack about my future. What will I do when I’m OLD. What am I building and creating that will actually last; rather than all my efforts consumed in fire. I could argue, looking back, The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle...
I don’t think it’s unusual for anybody to feel like the last two years haven’t been great. I generally agree with the sentiment, if all you’re doing is surviving, that’s enough. I also don’t think we always need to productivize our creativity. There’s a perversion in the modern compulsion to Always Be...
I feel like I’ve discussed this ad nauseum, but it was probably tucked into some broader concepts and it’s a HUGE issue. So I wanted to share a very relevant, crucial bit of advice that might make everything easier. What’s backstory? Backstory is usually the deeper, poignant scenes that reveal character motivations. A lot of...
FIRST CHAPTER MISTAKES What follows are some insights I’ve collected, after providing feedback on hundreds of first drafts. I’ve tried to only share general examples that I notice frequently in the majority of inexperienced manuscripts. There is nothing implicitly or inherently wrong with any of these: they are simple, common...
Someone asked me this question recently on YouTube: Where do authors go to learn more about story craft? How do we know when we’ve found a reputable teacher? Is it a college degree in English and literature? What is the best way to learn how to piece together a readable story? I’ve gotten similar questions The 3 secrets to book...
I’ve been hearing more chatter about Plottr, the book-timeline software that helps you map out your novel’s key scenes. A while back someone created a pretty cool template based on my chapter plotting outline, and I’ve been talking with Plottr’s founder to add my template within their tool so everyone can access it. That...
I see this question a lot so here’s a quick answer: Novels are typically 250 to 350 pages; with about 250 to 300 words per page. This will depend on genre and word count. Average novels are 75K to 95K, though some genres can go longer – still, it’s very rare for a novel to The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted...
Testing out my new theme with this poem I wrote for the preface of Book Craft. Help me test the comments by writing your own poem below! My best words come at night. When soft music is humming and birds or bats are chirping and dusk or dawn is peeking above the horizon. When the The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle tour...
It’s nearly the end of a long year. If you weren’t as productive as you wanted to be, don’t worry about it! But now might be a good time to start using the clean slate of a new year to set goals and level up your author career. The good news is, publishing success is The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle...
Nanowrimo is just around the corner: here’s a brief getting started video with links to my best writing and publishing resources. Start with this: It’s a “Defense of #amwriting” and explanation of my #amwriting tattoo. Basically, Nanowrimo is worth doing for experience; writing quickly and writing a lot is the best way...
I’ve put a lot of effort into plot outlines and templates for writing fiction, but the deeper stuff is sometimes trickier to convey. After all, you can have a brilliant outline that still fails to generate any interest. Intrigue is about delayed gratification which means, information management: not giving away important reveals too...
