New Spin: Celebrating the Release of “Battle Bunny”

Imagine taking a sweet picture book about cats and then altering it completely – crossing out and penciling in new text, drawing over the illustrations and scribbling laser beams that shoot out from the cat’s eyes with a permanent marker. Back when we were wildly imaginative kids, we did this to books all the time…. Read more »

How ThrillerFest Taught Me To Plan Like a Pro: Part One

When I attended ThrillerFest this summer, I was at the tail-end of a long wait for query responses. I’d had a few requests. Some promising leads. But in the end, nothing panned out. I actually received a rejection letter while at the Conference. Talk about a bummer! But, thankfully, I’d spent a day listening to… Read more »

A Short Story from the Slush to the Cover

For all too many writers, the short story market is like a black box: stories go in, rejections come out.  I’ve been on the receiving end of those rejections, even when I’ve been notified I’ve made the ‘final round’.  So, I decided to find out just how one gets from the slush pile to the… Read more »

Announcing New Writing Resources at DIY MFA

We’ve introduced the DIY MFA reading and community resources, but in the end, it all comes down to writing. Sooner or later writers need to get their backsides in the chair and do the work. To that end, we’ve created a go-to list of writing resources here at DIY MFA so that you to help… Read more »

Self-Publishing Insights: Q&A With Lisa Renee Jones

Today I am so excited to host Lisa Renee Jones at DIY MFA. Throughout her career, Lisa has navigated both the traditional publishing world and self-publishing, and has lots of great insights about both. An entrepreneur at heart, Lisa is the CEO of a multi-state staffing agency that has been featured in several magazines and was… Read more »

Self-Publishing Insights: Q&A With Bella Andre

We’re back with another installment of the DIY MFA Self-Publishing Insights series. Today we talk to Bella Andre, who not only has taken the self-publishing world by storm, but also turned the typical publishing model on its head by negotiating a print-only deal with Harlequin. This is a huge step in the industry, where once… Read more »

The Perks of Small Press Publishing

a.k.a. Genius is my debut middle grade novel, published by the small press Pauline Books and Media. Changing how you see yourself can be challenging. For nearly seven years I saw myself through one lens – as a mom. A full-time, stay-at-home-with-my-three-little-ones mom. I am also a published author. That’s still hard to say. And… Read more »

What I Learned About Building a Book from Stuart Horwitz

Stuart Horwitz is the founder and principal of Book Architecture, a firm of independent editors based in Providence and Boston. Book Architecture’s clients have reached the best-seller list in both fiction and non-fiction, and have appeared on Oprah!, The Today Show, The Tonight Show, and in the most prestigious journals in their respective fields. Horwitz… Read more »

What I Learned from the Terrible Mind of Chuck Wendig

Chuck is the author of the published novels: Blackbirds, Mockingbird, Under the Empyrean Sky, Blue Blazes, Double Dead, Bait Dog, Dinocalypse Now, Beyond Dinocalypse and Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits. He, along with writing partner Lance Weiler, is an alum of the Sundance Film Festival Screenwriter’s Lab (2010). Their short film, Pandemic, showed at the… Read more »

What I Learned About the Publishing Industry from Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson is a journalist, speaker, and consultant specializing in publishing and its digital disruption. “Writing on the Ether,” his original weekly column on the industry, appears every Thursdays at JaneFriedman.com. His “Ether for Authors” column appears every Tuesday at Publishing Perspectives, the international site supported by Frankfurt Book Fair. A third franchise, London on the… Read more »