My Mistakes and Procrastinated Bits

Business of Writing, Writing Tips

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigfile8851246481245

The last time I ran a post on mistakes I’d made, it helped illuminate areas I’d fallen behind on so that I could stick them on my calendar as to-dos.  I’m hoping that will be the same today, too (some things can’t really be fixed, but can serve as a warning to others).

Here we go:

Not making sure I’m updating all the pages in my website.  Embarrassingly, a reader emailed me on this.  She wanted to see immediately, on my site’s home page, when I had an upcoming release.  She’s right—that’s really the point of the site.  I had the information on my books page, but the welcome page is a bit better.  Plus, I hadn’t updated that page often, thinking I’d left it as a static generic welcome.  Not so…it listed “recent releases” from a year ago. Continue reading

Newsletters as Promo

Business of Writing, Promo Tips

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigmail chimp

I was very late to hop on the newsletter bandwagon.  I’ve finally started sending them.  Of course, before I start anything, I have to try to find out as much as possible about best practices…because, sadly, I’m neurotic that way.  So I spent several days researching best practices and the various newsletter services before sending my first newsletter.  The newsletter itself took a fraction of the time to create.

I heard over and over that successful newsletters have one thing in common—it’s all about what we could do for the reader instead of what the reader could do for us.Continue reading

Twitterific Writing Links

Twitterific, Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigBlog

Twitterific links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search alengine(developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 23,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

An Agent’s Role in Shaping an Author’s Career and the Second Book:  http://ow.ly/vOEIT  @ElisabethWeed @writerunboxed

Are Your Stakes High Enough?  http://ow.ly/vOCeB  @janice_hardy

Why a Writing Routine Matters and How to Start One:  http://ow.ly/vMsYi  @stacyennis

5 qualities important to successful self-publishing:  http://ow.ly/vMoOt  @ninaamirContinue reading

Hooking Boys on Books

Business of Writing

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This post is written by both Elizabeth the Mom and Elizabeth the Author.  Although the subject of encouraging boys to read is one that’s been important to me for seventeen years, it recently came to the forefront of online debates with the publishing of a report by UK writer Jonathan Emmett.  The report’s findings were covered by industry reporter Porter Anderson in his Publishing Perspectives story on April 22, “What if Boys Can’t Find the Right (Reading) Stuff?”  The report focuses on the gender gap in both reading ability and interest in books, and looks for possible causes.

What I wanted to cover today was primarily ways that we can hook boys (early) on books and reading. Early action is best since it’s too hard to play catch-up after boys have had years of poor reading experiences…and have moved on to gaming, television, and other mediums that get it and target boys. Continue reading

A Tip for Avoiding Plot Holes

Writing Tips

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigDanger

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a love-hate relationship with outlining.  For me and the speed with which I’m writing, it’s become a necessary evil. But I dislike it.

I dislike it enough to happily deviate from my outline whenever I feel like it.  And frequently, the story is better when I do.

The only thing is that my outlines don’t have any plot holes in them (at least, they haven’t so far) and my deviations do. Continue reading

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