I have coauthored three books, so I know: writing together is the intellectual equivalent of marrying someone — it is that intimate, getting it right is just as rewarding, and getting it wrong is just as painful. Here’s how to collaborate on a shared writing project. Decide on your shared objectives It’s hard to share the work if…
I love copyeditors. I just wish they could go further. Over the years, the many copyeditors I’ve worked with have flagged my embarrassing misspellings, taught me obscure grammar rules, and saved me from looking stupid. We bond over our Oxford commas. And I pride myself on creating “clean” prose — drafts that are ready for copyedit…
I had a lot of fun with this interview with J.S. Leonard for his Bleeding Ink podcast, which serves indie authors. We got to talk about how I got where I am now and what I’m passionate about. If you’d like to hear a fun conversation about an hour, give a listen or download it to your phone…
If you want a great book launch, your focus after completing the manuscript should be on promotion and relationships. Great books sell, but they don’t sell themselves. The traditional publishing process has three stages. In the first stage, you create a proposal and pitch the book to publishers. In the second stage, you complete your research and…
Rohit Bhargava had an idea. After writing a few great books, he decided to become a publisher-partner for authors. Rohit’s Ideapress Publishing venture is closer to self-publishing, with some costs for authors, but with great upside and the benefits of partnership. His company has now published seven books, including his own bestseller Non-Obvious. Rohit’s got great insights…
Bibliomotion is more than a publisher, it’s a partner for authors. They focus on building your business around your book. If you’re looking for a publishing partner that focuses on the challenges of authors rather than the size of the advance, Boston-based Bibliomotion is worth a look. Here’s my interview with Erika Heilman, Bibliomotion’s cofounder and publisher….
In 2009, Ted Schadler and I had a problem. The back half of our book Empowered wasn’t working. This is how we fixed it. We were nearing the manuscript deadline for Empowered, Ted’s and my book about strategies to deal with empowered consumers and workers. The front half of the book, about consumers (and marketing), was holding together pretty…