Your Story Matters
Let's Get Real: Bravery & Accountability
Bravery means doing something scary—Elizabeth Gilbert
Writing is an act of bravery. Putting your thoughts, ideas, your story, your choices—your life!—onto the page for the world to see is scary. An...
Show & Tell: Beginnings Are Hard
Beginnings are important. Beginnings are hard.
Where to start your book? This is one of the most important—and hardest—decisions for a writer—particularly a memoir writer—to make.
My memoir, Graveya...
So You Want To Write A Book: Creativity and Fear
A few weeks ago, my whole body was shaking as my right index finger was poised to press SEND. The email on my laptop screen was a request for a “blurb,” aka a testimonial, for Graveyard of Safe Choice...
Choose A Working Title
Choosing a working title is a clarifying exercise that helps you define your book idea before you’ve even written a single word of your manuscript.
Some quick dos and don’ts:
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Draft Your Jacket Copy
What is Jacket Copy?
Jacket copy is exactly what it sounds like—it’s the copy you find on the inside flaps of jacket of a hardback book. On a paperback—where there’s no jacke...
Nail Your Elevator Pitch
The Elevator Pitch is an important step in building the foundation for your nonfiction book. Your Elevator pitch—or your logline (what they call it in the movie biz) is the 1-2 sentences you want to ...
Why It Makes Sense to Plan Your Book First
There's value in building your book’s foundation first, even if your preferred style is to just “get the words out on the page.” Planning doesn't have to squelch creativity.Â
Two different styles of ...
From Idea to Publication: Key Decision Points Along the Way
Sometimes the book-writing journey can feel like a long winding road.Â
While every journey is different, there are common steps and common decision points in every journey:
Every book starts with ...
5 Steps to Building Your Author Platform
Author Platform is a scary and mysterious term for many writers. Let’s unpack it.
Michael Hyatt, author of Platform, says platform "is the stage you use to connect with readers. It’s how you get noti...
Let's Talk Money!
The universe is divided into two kinds of writers
#1: Writers who don’t care about making money with their books.
#2: And writers who do care.
The writers who don’t care—the creatives, the artists—...
