A week doesn’t go by without someone asking me for money to self-publish their book. Nine times out of ten, they are beginning authors. There are no grants for this. And there are lots of reasons why. I’ll try to toss most of them in here, in abbreviated form so this doesn’t turn into an epistle. 1) Writing grants are mostly for writing the book, not producing it. Making the book (i.e., self-publishing) isn’t writing; it’s business. 2) Most writing grants don’t go to first time authors because they have not proven their likelihood of success. 3) Writing grants don’t always go to those in finan ..read more

What makes a screenplay successful? This question has haunted many a writer since the dawn of motion pictures. No single genre, subject or storyline has so dominated the box office as to be dubbed a surefire winner. If one had, that’s all Hollywood would make. We’ve seen hits and flops from every kind of film imaginable. For every Spartacus, there’s a Cleopatra. For every Godfather, there’s a Billy Bathgate. For every Lawrence of Arabia, there’s an Ishtar. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t key elements producers look for in a script as bellwethers of success, because most understand that whil ..read more

Most of you reading this have published somewhere. In newsletter, magazines, or blogs. Maybe you’ve done podcasts or YouTube episodes. Or you’ve published in an anthology, or even published a book or two. Along this journey, you’ve met people in the business. Don’t forget these people. Some will be editors and others marketers. Some helped you design your cover, and others selected you for a book of anecdotes. Someone interviewed you live, or on a blog. You may even run into peers who praised you. Peers who have done well for themselves, or may have knowledge of people you don’t have connectio ..read more

I no longer belong to a writer’s critique group. I used to belong to two at the same time. One in person and one online. The first was 25 miles away, and we met biweekly, with a limit of ten double-spaced pages. The second was online and international. It was understood to submit a chapter at a time. I belonged to both for a while. One for a decade and the other several years past. I left the first one after publishing two books. My contract required me to write faster than the group could critique. At best I could workshop 3/4 of a book per year. As time went on, I had to write faster than th ..read more

As a starving freelance writer, I always look for ways to turn craft into coin. Enter Substack. Think of it as a personal online publishing platform with which you build a paying readership. Setup is free, intuitive, and quick. Fill it with previously published work, new articles, OpEds, short stories…whatever tickles your fancy. Create subsections, the content and purpose of which are only limited by your imagination. Insert graphics to make your written word pop (free tutorials for your account help you find royalty-free images). I launched The Island Intelligencer Substack on ..read more

In having coffee with a local writer, we started talking contests. She has a goal of entering one per month with her works in progress. She writes mainstream and romance, so she has to select contests open to other than literary fiction (which makes up a lot of contests). She’d heard me say that I once entered contests, before being published, in order to take measure of how well my writing had advanced. I felt once I started placing or winning contests, I must be improved enough to risk pitching agents and publishers. It was a good challenge and, actually, the agent who signed me up said my c ..read more

Whether you write poetry, nonfiction, gardening books or novels, writing book reviews is an excellent way to expand your writing practice and your publication credits. The task sharpens your skills, deepens the reading experience, and helps support the writers’ community. The niche also separates you from the crowd: literary journals are besieged with poems and short stories, but not, it appears, with reviews. Just to be clear, the reviews I discuss here are not ones people leave on Amazon. Although there’s nothing wrong with doing Amazon reviews, that type of review doesn’t increase your lis ..read more

I am a fan of The Marginalian newsletter/website, aka Maria Popova. She is insanely well-read and looks at humanity through the lens of many classic creatives. Recently she wrote on normalcy. . . and its affiliation with rejection, or in the case of those frequently rejected and distraught, breakdown. https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/10/13/alain-de-botton-normalcy-breakdown/ The world comes at us with pressure to be normal. Be unique….but keep it between the lines or you, as a writer, risk being cancelled, chastised, or review bombed. More than ever, people not only think they have a v ..read more

According to a 2022 article in Publishers Weekly, “shivery tales are proliferating.” Middle grade horror stories are having a moment, and for good reason. These books can do both things a great kids book sets out to do: entertain and enlighten. Horror stories keep kids engaged and turning the page. R.L. Stein, the king of middle grade horror, writes brilliant books that master engagement. But middle grade horror can also provide a metaphorical lens through which kid readers can deal with real life trauma. Books that do this well—Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, Christian McKay He ..read more

Well known mystery/suspense author Lee Goldberg received a call recently from a gentleman professing to be with a literary agency. He and his organization would assist him in getting his book promoted at the Los Angeles Festival of Books. Mr. Goldberg recorded the conversation and you’ll enjoy listening to this renown traditionally published author mess with a scammer. https://leegoldberg.com/the-new-age-literary-agency-scam/ Someone calls me every month or two want to promote me at some book fair or another. Most of the time they ask to represent The Shy Writer Reborn, a nonfiction how-t ..read more