I started this post a few years ago when I was working on a book project called “The Creative Brain on Drugs.” I’ve left some of the original content down below – but more recently I’ve been focused on writing faster and boosting word count: when I searched for “best smart drugs for writers” Google...
This is a guest post from my friend Sean, who’s an expert on writing books by dictation. I asked him to send me some more information, since using dictation to write books is potentially much faster and may help avoid writer’s block. Simply put, Tonguenastics™ harnesses the power of your tongue and the spoken word The 3 secrets...
I read a lot. When I was younger I read a lot of fiction and I wasn’t very critical. Nowadays my time is valuable. I expect to be entertained and to learn. Fiction rarely holds my interest – while some books are good, most are bad. This is even more true of non-fiction. The non-fiction The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a...
I’ll admit I’ve never used a sell sheet for book promotion. Instead, I like to get wicked awesome postcards printed on high quality stock. These I can hand out, put up or leave around indiscriminately. In fact after browsing through Google for sell sheet design examples, I’m pretty convinced they’re worthless. Your book...
I’ve written before on the cult of failure; but in case you’re new here, let me lay it out: The “follow your passion” paradigm leads some entrepreneurs to success, but most artists and authors to failure. Passion may be a necessarily ingredient IF you have a strong business idea and a product. But if all The 3 secrets...
I recently gave this blog a facelift, and since I’ll be publishing four books this year under the umbrella of my personal brand Creativindie, I needed a logo for my book covers. I hadn’t worried about this for the ebooks, but I’m getting organized and putting out some high quality paperbacks as well. Most books The 3...
I underestimated vampires. I thought the trend was mostly dying down. I thought we, as an international culture, had decided to focus more on zombies, post-apocalyptic survivors, and dystopian, authoritarian governments. I thought Johnny Depp in Dark Shadows or Adam Sandler’s Animated Vampire Film Hotel Transylvania signified that...
I’ve known for some time that Picasso was a self-aggrandizing asshole of little talent (capable of massive production, but not hard to do with no quality standards). From non-art affectionados Picasso’s cubist paintings or simple line sketches may elicit comments such as “any kid could have drawn that.” A superficial...
For years I’ve been dancing around the idea of offering author websites. I’m a WordPress pro PLUS a graphic designer, so I’ve got the skills – and WordPress author websites are in huge demand and average around $1000 to build. Why I don’t do it? I don’t want to become the author’s life-long tech person...
I’ve studied Spanish, German and Chinese in both school and immersion environments; in both classroom settings and one on one tutoring. I’ve also been an English teacher to ESL students in several countries. Some things I’ve learned about language acquisition: You have to make it a primarily goal, not a hobby. An hour or two...
In early 2013 my wife and I were in the Yucatan on a kind of extended honeymoon; I’d been wanting to see the ruins and temples for a long time. Most of them were on the tourist route – day trips from Cancun or Playa del Carmen. Easy to get to and with lots of The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle tour. Totally...
You’re writing a book. You want to make sure you do the marketing part right so people know about it, buy it and read it (so that they can rave and tell their friends about it). You know having a “Social Media Strategy” is important, so you might be thinking about setting up a special The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a...
