I’m sure you’ve heard this before. But I need to tell it to you again. Book revision and editing will be harder and will take longer than the actual writing of your book. So be prepared to stay with it for the long haul before you start. In other words: Make the Decision to Do the Hard Work Before You Start to Write a Book. Here’s a true story. After I wrote the first draft of my memoir I hired an editor who helped me prepare it for submittal to interested agents and presses. This took about a year. Then once I had a book contract, my publisher requested an enormous amount of revisions to that draft. So I spent another six months revising and editing my manuscript with the help of three writing friends who checked my work for repetition, inconsistencies, chapter organization, wording, and typos. Afterward, the publisher’s editor worked another month doing a final review and edit before producing the first hardback edition. After my memoir’s release in May 2011 many readers … [Read more...]
The work-in-progress blog tour: about my novel-in-progress
During this Hanukkah and Christmas season I can't help feeling grateful for all that this past year has provided. I'm especially grateful to my dear writing friends - some I've met in person and some not - who have brought me continued wisdom about the writing process and such joy in knowing them and their writing work. First of all thanks to Kathy Pooler, author of her new memoir: Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse, for tagging me to participate in this blog tour. Kathy's memoir is a must read if you haven't yet. So here goes: My Work in Progress Synopsis and story idea : My novel, Papa's Shoes, is the story of a family immigrating to America in the early 1900s and a daughter's coming of age in the 1920s in downstate Illinois and Chicago. Some other things going on in the book life in a Polish stetl, early 19th century Chicago and Illinois, a woman's role in society at that time, religious prejudice, interfaith marriage, and a feisty … [Read more...]
How to survive a relationship with a writer
The singer and writer Janis Ian, famous when I was a teenager for her song, "At Seventeen," posted these top ten tips, and my friend Marla Miller shared them with her Facebook friends. I had to share as well. Actually, my husband seems to be surviving very well. He's gotten used to me going into my office and spending most of the day there. However, once in a while he'll stand quietly at my door - I usually leave it open, rap lightly with his knuckles and say, "Knock,knock." Sure it's disturbing - I'm probably in mid sentence, it gets me out of my zone, but it usually happens just at the time I need to take a break. Plus it's nice to see him once in a while during the day. Here's the Top Ten Tips … [Read more...]
What makes a book sell?
I attended the Digital Author's Conference this past Saturday, sponsored by West Coast Writer's Conferences with special recognition and discounts to Greater Los Angeles Writer's Society members. Coincidentally, both are headed by Tony N. Todaro. Tony and his staff do a great job in getting interesting and informative speakers to their events. I found some of the information presented on Saturday so beneficial to my writing life I thought I'd share a little bit here. One was a mention of a blogger I recently started following (at the suggestion of Marketing the Muse's Marla Miller) Seth Godin. I have been marveling at how much meaningful information Seth can impart with just a few lines of short sentences, short paragraphs, and a lot of white space on the page. And Elaine Wilkes, Ph.D. who spoke about ways to place our books everywhere and how to write emails and books that get results said this is the kind of writing that is selling best right now: Short even one-line … [Read more...]
Women Over 45 Speak
Marla Miller's website Women Over 45 Speak posted a three-minute video of me speaking about how I reinvented myself after the age of seventy. Please take a look. And if you're a woman over forty-five, go over to her website and make a video of yourself. The directions are right there on her site. … [Read more...]
Is my marketing program beginning to pay off?
So, it looks like there's been a little movement in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, Amazon sales ranking this week. It went down from as high as in the one millions to the 700,000s earlier this week, and back up to the one millions again and down to the 300,000s today. Does that mean two books have sold? I have no clue what those numbers mean. But hopefully all that has been going on in the last few weeks has spurred some sales: my talk at the American Association of University Women in mid November, Marla Miller (Marketing the Muse) highlighting my platform earlier this week and posting my July 19, 2010 blog piece about my journey to getting published yesterday, my showcase on The Hamilton Gallery with links to Amazon for book purchases, and another five-star review up on Amazon yesterday. It's really been a yeasty time. Plus I've had more and more Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter connections, and I look forward to a piece about my work and book in a future issue of the … [Read more...]
