Conquer the Craft in 29 Days (#CTC29) is off to a fantastic start! Already we have over 500 writers participating in this DIY MFA writing challenge, and Twitter is a-buzz with people sharing updates and progress. I’ve had a few people email me with questions and I’ve noticed a few that have come up again… Read more »
In These Happy Golden Years, the eighth Little House book, Ma Ingalls tells Laura that people make their own luck. This is illustrated in the story when Laura is kind to a girl in her class who, like Laura, wants to be a teacher. They both take the test, but only Laura passes. Because she and the girl… Read more »
Thanks for sticking with me! We’ve already talked about creating a professional book package for fantasy and romance books, but we’re not done yet. Continuing on our genre cover journey, let’s dive right in: Science Fiction This genre includes several subsets for the purposes of cover design: “hard” and “soft” science, space opera, steampunk and dystopian. In… Read more »
I am so excited to share that I’ll be representing DIY MFA at a fabulous online conference later this month. WANACon is an awesome conference and–get this–you can attend in your jammies! Seriously, it doesn’t get much better than that when you can hear from top industry experts and connect with other likeminded writers all… Read more »
Continuing where we left off, let’s take a look at those genre specific cliches that can help make your cover a success. Are these hard and fast professional book package rules? Of course not. But someone looking to hook as many readers as possible would do well to pay heed to their genre guidelines. At… Read more »
That’s right, Team DIY MFA and I are on the brink of launching our newest, biggest program ever, called DIY MFA 101. I am so excited, I think I just might start squealing like a twelve-year-old girl. Part of my excitement is in seeing years of planning and mapping out ideas finally come together, but… Read more »
Hopefully by now you agree that a great book package is vital to your publishing success. That thought might even be overwhelming, especially if you have no graphics background. First, take a deep breath. Like any problem, if you break it down into steps it becomes much more manageable. Step One: Change Your Hat Take off… Read more »
Writers are solitary creatures. We choose to isolate ourselves in imaginary worlds of our own creation for hours, months, years at a time. We often feel protective or possessive of our projects, hoarding our words away like Gollum with his “precioussss.” These are survival skills we learn as writers. We have to seclude ourselves and… Read more »
Have you waded into the murky waters of indie publishing? You’ve probably noticed advice everywhere. Do this. Don’t do that. No wait, do the other thing. You’ve spent a year, or two, or ten, crafting words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs. Angsting over every detail. Now it’s time to hit that giant shiny PUBLISH button…. Read more »
Creating Youtube videos is one of the most effective ways for a writer to enhance his or her community. First, we’re going to look at what groups make up our writing community, what we give them, what we gain from them, and most importantly, what we should not expect to get from them. Then, we’ll… Read more »
