I recently shared my thoughts about branding building with my publisher, Aberdeen Bay, Author Community in the hope this would be helpful to other authors. Aberdeen Bay published my historical novel, Papa's Shoes, in May 2019. Building A Brand by Madeline Sharples Before I discuss what I did to create my brand, I need to emphasize why an author – or any business person for that matter – needs a brand. We must market ourselves so that potential readers will know about us and our books. If people don’t know we exist, they won’t know what we have to offer. In addition, a strong brand lets customers know what to expect, represents us, helps us stay focused on what we’re offering, and helps connect us with our customers. As a result of a strong brand, it will provide value to what we are offering. I can’t emphasize this enough. People need to hear about us if we are going to sell our books. And if we’re perceived as experts as a result, we will stand apart even more from our … [Read more...]
So how was the writing workshop?
Back from four long days at the UCLA Extension Writers Program's Novel Revision Techniques workshop. And when all is said and done, I must say I got a lot out of it. The instructor, Mark Sarvas, was well prepared and he enthusiastically imparted his knowledge of novel revision. It was hard to tell that this was the first time he had ever taught this workshop. As a result I'm very tempted to sign up for his Novel IV class that starts in April. His best advice is: Read Like a Writer He also encouraged us to keep reading novels all the time. The class was really grueling. It included lectures on these subjects: The Many Drafts of the First Draft Revision Tools Structure Scene Character Language The Essential Revision Questions Mark used The Great Gatsby over and over again to illustrate his points, and believe me, he is an expert on The Great Gatsby. He reads it at the start of every year. As much as I like the book and I like it even better now that I know some of … [Read more...]
My UCLA workshop starts tomorrow
I'm scheduled to start a novel revision workshop through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program tomorrow, taught by Mark Sarvas. (He looks like he could be my grandson.) I just hope I'm doing the right thing by taking it. Not that I don't think my work is any good, it's just that it might be premature for the stage I'm in on my novel. But I know one thing for sure; it will jump start my work on the novel something that has been too much on the back burner lately. So to prepare for this class I had to pick a portion of the novel that others could read and critique. I chose chapters three and four. That took up the allotted page count 15 pages double-spaced. We were also required to turn our selections in by January 22 with a one-page synopsis and what specifically we want help with going forward. On January 23 I received a compilation of the entire classes' work or so I thought and began reading. At the outset we were told that if our material wasn't received by the … [Read more...]
