Guest Columns

Short story collections are the weird sister of the publishing world. Though you can see anthologies of shorts in bookstores (i.e., 2012′s Greatest Stories About the Kardashian Sisters), you rarely see collections by individual authors. Sometimes the poor things are teetering on the tippy-top shelf of a general fiction section, because it’s a rare store that sets aside shelf space for collections, unless your name is Alice Munro or Annie Proulx.

GIVEAWAY: Tom is excited to give away a free copy of his collection to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Update: DocAnnieD won.) Read more

It’s a writing rule most of us have heard before. And it’s a good one. Because no reader wants to be spoon-fed a story. Readers want to see the story for themselves, to make up their own minds. It’s more interesting and entertaining that way, and even more importantly, it lets the reader become more invested in the characters.

A student once asked me to explain the concept of “show, don’t tell,” and here’s what I told her: Pretend you’re sitting in a movie theater, eager to see the latest Shia LeBeouf action movie. You’ve got the popcorn, the Milk Duds, the Coke. The lights dim, and on the screen, LeBeouf appears, with a white background behind him. Nothing else. He tells the audience with a shrug, “This film had a low budget. I mean, really low. Because of that, I’m going to tell you the movie.” Read more

I am, as my mother would say, “a busy little beaver.” While writing my most recent novel, I was working full-time, going to school at UCLA and training for a 50 kilometer footrace. I also slept, ate, saw friends, posted on Twitter and Facebook, blogged, belonged to a book club and watched a number of “Mythbusters” episodes.

With that kind of schedule, one question comes up a lot, especially from other writers: “When do you write?” Read more

“Which character tells the story?” That’s a crucial character-question writers must ask themselves in the planning stages of any novel. It’s usually followed by: “Should the story come from one character’s point of view, or more than one?” A tricky question, because incorporating multiple points-of-view can be a bit like juggling plates. Each character is tossed into the air for a brief time, highlighted, then another one takes its place. When handled well, this technique can be extremely effective, fluid. When handled poorly, it can end in disaster (plates crashing to the ground). Read more

Hosting guests and author tours on your own blog is a way to attract more readers to your site as well as introduce your guests to a new audience. As a blogger and author, you also have an opportunity to make special appearances from time to time, or to schedule a virtual tour for a new book release. When I was promoting my second mystery, I did a few guest appearances for more experienced bloggers. In mid-2010, after I’d mastered the basics of Blogger, I began inviting authors to write for my blog . These are a few of the things I’ve learned.

GIVEAWAY: Patricia is excited to give away a free copy of her book to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Update: Petrea won.) Read more

Before you can collect any royalties, you have to earn out that advance. So easy! Obsessive sessions with a nubby pencil, a calculator and reams of greasy napkins have revealed that you only have to sell say … 8,500 copies of your hardcover, at a 10% royalty, to earn it out. Then you’ll be one of the 30% of published authors who actually manages to do so. You feel sorry for that other 70%, but their work is doubtless rather flawed and perhaps they’ll have better luck next time.

Guest column by Rhonda Hayter, whose kids book, The Witchy Worries of Abbie Adams was released in April 2010 by Dial. She is a member of the Class of 2K10 Debut Authors. Read more

Making your reader want to turn the pages—through tension, pace, humor, what have you—is the foundation of effective writing. A writer who can’t make his reader want to keep reading is like a painter who can’t draw accurately, or a composer with no sense of melody. If you can’t make people desire to turn the pages of your book out of sheer pleasure, fear, tension, or joy, then you haven’t written a book that anyone really wants to read.

GIVEAWAY: Adam is excited to give away a free copy of his novel to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the print book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. Read more

1. Write What You Love: You should always write your first draft for yourself, telling the story you want to read and only you can write. I sat down for lunch at a conference with one of my authors, Jackie Morse Kessler, and she told me about a book she wanted to write someday, when she was a big enough name, about an anorexic girl who became the embodiment of Famine, one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Miriam Kriss is an agent with the Irene Goodman Literary Agency representing commercial fiction and she represents everything from hardcover historical mysteries to all subgenres of romance, from young adult fiction to kick ass urban fantasies, and everything in between. Read more

I’ve been so busy running around the country I’ve hardly realized it’s been several months have elapsed since Crown published my book, Radio Shangri-La. Here’s a bit of what this first-time author has learned.

First of all, let me say that I sent myself on the road. Most publishers these days are more likely to invest in what mine did, a “web tour,” where a third party is hired by and myriad blogs are approached with advance copies in exchange for the promise of a review. That was great; those free book giveaways that happened just as the book hit, to generate buzz. Read more