Owning a teeny-tiny publishing company, I have to wear many hats. One of my most favorite hats of all is design. Now, many indie-published authors should consider hiring someone to design the cover (and possibly publicity material), just like they should hire an editor. Lucky for me, I not only have a professional editor in…
With NaNoWriMo, I honesty haven’t been taking in too much to entertainment, even reading (which is like half-entertainment, half-work). My plan for these last two months was several books, but I haven’t even finished one all month (unless you count the first book of Parade’s End, which I guess we should). We did, early on,…
Let’s just say you have a burgeoning career as an artist and a blogger and you get sick. Or your kids get sick. Or you and your kids get sick right before an intense vacation. We all know that one of the cardinal rules for successful blogging and successful book sales is to remain engaged…
Whew! Let me just ask: how many times a day do you check your email? Your Twitter? Your blog stats? Your Linked In? Your Amazon rankings? Don’t have Amazon rankings? Thank goodness. Because it’s just another thing to be obsessed about checking. I didn’t think I would circle around my internet activity nearly as much…
Yes, I know a ton of my blogging lately is very reflective on that very quiet and constantly disappointing first year of publishing. Then again, going for this ride together is largely what The Starving Artist is all about. I promise to keep throwing in the odd book review and monthly synopsis, but as for…
Well, I suppose that I knew it was coming. Or, in other words, you can’t win them all. As part of my marketing and publicity strategy (I am very new to this), I am entering Benevolent into various book competitions throughout the year and even around the globe. It is the single-most expensive part of…
Launch day. Well, I can first off say I learned way more about the internet today than I ever wanted to know. Other things that happened: I showed up all over my own personal Facebook page as well as on Benevolent‘s, my author page, and Owl and Zebra Press’s, including with a cool tee shirt…
I was just a writer. All I ever wanted to be was a writer and all I ever planned on being was a writer. Even last spring, when I decided it was time to start focusing on the goal. Even last summer, when my aunt and I started Owl and Zebra Press to publish my…
So I have been doing more thinking about how publishing a novel is like having a baby. So much so, that I have come up with yet another very apt connection between the two. I don’t know how many of you have studied or even thought about the phenomenon (it probably has a name, but…
I have been repressing this blog post, because it’s a little cheesy and may seem too far-fetched for applicability. However, I can restrain myself no longer. Being an author is like being a mom, and the book is your baby. It is. Here’s why. Now no disrespect to moms. They are pretty cool. I’m a…
Things I don’t particularly like about being a writer: Marketing Publicity Talking to people, especially answering questions on the spot (Crotchety!) Not getting paid for long periods of work Tweeting Distractions (from working at home) Not being taken seriously Self doubt Snooty writers and snooty critics Needing a GRE or 12 conferences in Hawaii Editors,…
Occasionally, in the life of a writer, your job demands that you curl up in the fetal position and bawl your eyes out. Maybe it’s only happened to me once, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the last time. You see, because I have only been a part-time writer (and full-time mom with a double-full-time…
I don’t actually starve. But the word “starving” is a whole other blog topic dedicated to the slang usages and relative versus absolute poverty. That said… When I was a little kid, I was often praised for my artistic abilities. They even stuck me in a special school for it, encouraged it. My parents drove…
