The 5 Minute Author

You might’ve heard me mention a couple times that I write a novel in November. And I’m not the only one. But why is that? I believe it all started with National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you set up the time in that dark boring month to write your novel. And even if a novel sounds a little too much it’s a great idea to set aside those dark days to do something more interesting and why n...

Carl Sagan, the voice for Cosmos, and a prolific writer, would dictate his ideas and stories, and later type them up. Luckily, these days we have Star Trek level technology to take our spoken words and turn them into text.  My friend and fellow writer Dita asked me about dictation apps (and Dita - I will get into Android options at the end) and I’m so glad she did. It gave me a chance to really lo...

Critiques and reviews can hurt. So I’m going to hopefully get you thru the hard stuff so you can get on with the business of writing. If you listened to episode 2 I talked about the power of a review group for your novel, I mentioned that being part of a review group was where I’ve learned the most about being a better writer.  But you’ve put your heart and soul into writing a story and hearing cr...

If you’ve been away from writing for awhile, well maybe it’s time to get back to it and I’m going to share tips on how to do that. I know I’ve stopped a couple of times in my writing career. The latest was when I was caretaking a house for a friend and covid broke out. There I was, isolated with no one to talk to. For three months I sat on the couch, binge watching Netflix, and ordering delivery f...

If you have a book on Amazon with very few reviews, this episode is for you. When I was struggling to get reviews for my book I put my book for free and advertised in reputable newsletters – businesses that actually do connect with readers. I went from 20 reviews to now having 123 reviews. That’s led to better return on my amazon ads. I tried out 7 programs. When I break down the costs, I figured...

Do not advertise your book with these companies Let’s say you’ve published your book to Amazon and you’re not seeing sales, you want more downloads, sales, reviews, etc. You receive an email out of the blue from - let’s call them Give us your money dot com.  They say in their email,  Hello author! We saw your book on Amazon and we love it! We wanted to let you know that we have room on our newslet...

You’ll hear it from 90% of writers - write every day. But I’ll tell you, do not beat yourself up or get discouraged if that doesn’t work for you. Because you don’t have to write every day. There are advantages to writing every day, but if you’ve got kids, dogs, cats, a normal life, it can be hard to squeeze that time in. So, if you can’t write ever day, here are some tips to help you find some tim...

I took a college level creative writing class with a friend, and the teacher was reviewing some of the stories. She never got to mine so I asked her if she could tell me what she thought of mine. She turned to me in this dramatic sweep (at least, that’s what seemed to me) and said, “My dear, your grammar was so bad, I just couldn’t read it.”  I was so mortified, sitting among my peers and my frien...

I’m going to try and share all of the self-publishing steps in five minutes.  Step one is to  get it in front of a review group. For me this is a group of writers who are going to give you honest feedback. This will definitely give you great ideas on making your story better. Step two is to start finding ARC readers. I am telling you right now you must get a group of readers who will give you revi...

Recently the Independent Book Publishers Association released new guidelines that define a hybrid publisher. This is in an attempt to keep vanity publishers or those companies that are really just help you self-publish from calling themselves a hybrid publisher. Define a mission and vision for its publishing program. I’m going to use my company as an example here - The mission at Plot Duckies Publ...

Inspiration for most of my characters comes from real life, and as I’ve mentioned before I keep a notebook and it has a section for characters. Anytime I come up with an idea for a character I write it in the notebook. I especially add in strong personalities, unusual behaviors, and weird tics. Things that will help a character stand out. Now, award-winning author Katy Hammel had this to share wit...

Cheryl Cryer asked me to talk about what to do when you have too many writing ideas.  Oh boy do I know the feeling. I have so many story ideas right now. So, hopefully these practical types for an unpractical problem will help. Make sure to write them all down (the organized notebook) Is there one idea calling to you more than the others? Then work on that one! What I’m doing - finishing book 4 of...

How do you go about finding ideas for your stories? I’d say first, keep an open mind. We can be bombarded by ideas every day, all around us. From a snippet of a conversation on the train, to a piece of art you glimpse in a gallery. I was watching a documentary about the Amazon river when I had a spark of an idea for my first novel. I imagined what kind of ship could make it down the amazon and if...

Recently, I was on a book marketing panel at Killer Nashville , and I wanted to share with the audience some quick tips. So I was thinking about the most important things to sell a book. Besides having a great story and cover. And I wanted to share that with you. Number one is having ARC readers.  Those are readers that get an advanced copy of your book. You give it to them in the hopes that they...

Some creatives, like me, can find it a challenge to stay organized. But I’ve found that being organized makes for a much better and less stressful situation when you have a lot to do and you don’t have to go searching for what you need. Miriam Ortiz y Pino, a simplicity expert and owner of More than organized shared this with me. “Organizing your space isn’t about stifling your creativity. It’s ab...

Today I’m going to share with you the different types of publishing, and what to watch out for when you’re looking for a publisher.  Traditional publishing - You’d start searching for agents, until you find one that fits your genre and is interested in representing your book. Then they would see if they can get one of the big 4 to pick up your book.  Then it might take the publishing company about...

I don’t want you to regret not writing that story.  but I’ve seen it too many times when someone I meet tells me that they regret not sitting down to write a story.  And it could have been either they were waiting for that perfect moment or maybe they were waiting for retirement. Neither is a good idea. Or maybe they just found there were hurdles in their lives and didn’t do the work to get around...

Tools for writers I’m going to share with you all the tools that I use for writing and publishing. Let’s start out with what to do with all those ideas you have. I’ve tried many ways but the best I’ve found is an old fashioned notebook. And yes, once upon a time I had a stack of notebooks with all sorts of ideas, but I’d never know where certain ideas were. So I got a little organized and it’s def...

When you get into the business of writing, you might think that your fellow authors are your competition, but the truth is they are really an opportunity to grow your business and make some new friends. Unless you’re a big name, when you have a book signing, it generally brings your own friends and family. If you combine forces with others, including other authors, you can bring in a bigger crowd...

At one time self publishing was considered the last ditch effort for those unfortunate souls not able to get a traditional publishing deal. But that’s not the case anymore.  Self publishing is for authors who want to take charge of their own process. Not only that but for women and other marginalized individuals who’ve hit roadblocks in traditional publishing, self-publishing Is an asset. Speaking...

A review group (also known as a critique group) is a group of writers who will give you honest feedback on your story or novel so that you can fix your mistakes. Let’s be honest, you know your story inside and out, but if a reader doesn’t understand it, you’ve missed your mark. That’s where a review group shines. And, a review group should get a look at your book, after you’ve made it as clean as...

Writing a novel can be a daunting task. It can be even made harder by the people around us, or by how we work on it. So I’m going to get into all the ways to get that novel done.  Let’s say you just have a nugget of an idea. Where do you start? From that point you have to figure out what kind of writer you are. If you need an outline to follow your story or do you prefer to just start writing. For...