There comes a time when we all need to take a break. You risk crashing and burning when you push too hard for too long. Race car drivers make pitstops. Even the Almighty took a day of rest. How do you know when it’s time to recharge, what steps might accomplish that, and how do you return to the race without losing your place? I will try to shed some light on those questions in this article. Welcome back, readers! I hope my insights help. Knowing when to take a break is the most difficult challenge. When we’re on a roll, we become obsessed. It’s hard to stop when the…

Book promotion is the single most crucial challenge, aside from writing ability, that an author will ever face. Just because you’ve written a great book doesn’t mean it will ever be read. In this article, I will look at how advertisements and promotions have changed over the years for aspiring authors. My goal is to provide you with insight into how to effectively share your work with the world. Times have changed, but the extent and velocity of change are not easy to recognize without context. Before we enter the 21st Century, let’s take a look back in time at a few indisputable facts: The first computer, ENIAC, was powered…

Hey, readers. Welcome back! In this post, I want to provide you with the tools and insight that you will need to create realistic scenes in your novels. In the past, authors had to rely solely on their imaginations or experiences to create detailed scenes that would draw their readers into their stories, but that’s no longer the case. Let’s get started by answering a couple of related questions. Why is the setting so important? While it is the underlying story that matters, the way you describe your settings greatly impacts your readers’ experience. Yes, they are reading text in a book or on a screen, but you want them…

Welcome back, readers! If you’re like me, then you’re obsessed with writing. While this is a good thing in general, it can be problematic in practice. At some point during each day, we all turn back into pumpkins! Pumpkins aren’t well-known for being great authors. This post is about knowing when to throw in the towel for the day. While I could quite literally write every waking minute of my life, I know that’s not smart, healthy, or productive. How many hours of writing you put in each day entirely depends on your situation. If you have a traditional job, then that plays an obvious role in the matter. If…

Hey, gang. Welcome back! Following up on my previous post about promoting your books, today’s article is intended to help you gain exposure. The more the world knows your name and what you are striving to achieve with your books, the greater your sales will be. One of the best ways to gain exposure is through interviews. Let’s start with the value of an interview. In a perfect world, an interview benefits three separate parties – the author, the interviewer, and the audience. From the author’s perspective, generating sales is the intent, but let’s look at each independently of the others before we get into that. The Author One of…

Welcome back, readers! In today’s post, I want to share my thoughts on how you can best promote your book once it is published. Publishing a novel is an intrinsically rewarding achievement, but we all want more. We want our books to be read and we want to profit from our efforts. Now that our manuscript is complete, how do we make that happen? In this article, I will list ten steps that I believe are critical in promoting your new book. If you have additional thoughts or suggestions, please include them as a comment. Let’s get to it! Step 1: The Cover A book’s cover is the very first…

Contrary to popular opinion, I’m still alive and kicking. I realize it has been a while since my last post and I apologize for the delay. In this brief post, I want to give you an update on my status to put an end to the rumors. I hope you are all well and I wish you a very happy New Year. Some think that my absence is a result of giving up on my blog and my writing efforts. Their assessment couldn’t be further from the truth. As it turns out, writing is about all that I have been doing. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, I doubled…