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(Read Parts 1 , 2 , and 3 of this 3-Part piece at FundsforWriters.com.) 2: Getting the orders in! After getting the book deal signed with Unbound, we now had to raise a five-figure sum in pre-orders to get our manuscript turned into a real book. One of the fun things Unbound does is teach you […]

1: Getting started In this series of three articles, I’m going to look at how I crowdfunded my novel, Work in Progress, through Unbound’s unique crowdfunding model. I wrote my book with two pals, Martin and Alex. It was originally called Kitten on a Fatberg, and it tells the story of a group of eccentrics, aspiring writers […]

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.  ~Annie Dillard This quote, from the FundsforWriters newsletter on November 26, 2021, reached me toward the end of a one-month writing residency. Dillard’s words helped me understand why I had found my weeks at the residency so worthwhile: because this brief period of time […]

Steven Pressfield (the author of The War of Art) speaks about the difficulty of pushing through and reaching THE END of whatever you are writing. It could be a poetry chapbook. It could be a memoir. It could be fiction of any genre or any word count. It could be a how-to on cabinetmaking or a children’s picture […]

As writers, we tend to carve out a niche for ourselves and stick to writing what we know best. We get comfortable writing in our genre. It fits us much like a pair of old pajamas. Even if the money isn’t coming in like we’d hoped, we don’t want to take those flannel pants off, […]

I just saw another crowdfunding campaign where the author is asking for money to be able to do what they love to do…write. These types of campaigns are usually not successful, and this is why: 1) Everyone has a dream. Why should the world pay for your dream? 2) A lot of people, millions as […]

There are almost 31 million small businesses in the United States, and a freelance writer who understands how to serve and communicate with small businesses—and their special needs and restrictions—can open up a whole new world of opportunities, relationships, and steady income. As a small business owner, advocate, and consultant, someone who has worked on […]

I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.   ~James Joyce I grinned at this quote. Do you remember in English Lit class when the teacher spent days dissecting a novel on […]

As a teacher, I know firsthand the value of using visuals to catch my students’ attention and move them from the printed word to a higher level of engagement. Therefore, as I pondered ways to attract potential buyers of my debut novel, The Bottle House, it occurred to me that brief videos could interest and […]

Most of you will say both, but that is not true. You may not even realize it’s not true. Truth is, we all start writing with a purpose in mind. . . to either make money writing, or to have our work loved. And whether you admit it or not, you favor one mindset over […]

Access to TV/film producers and directors has never been easier through direct access pitching. It is made possible through a variety of online venues (below) that have sprouted up over the years in an effort to bridge the gap between screenwriter and TV/film decision-makers, with the prospect of getting it produced. While traditionally securing a […]

The publishing industry is never going to settle into a norm. Frankly, it never has, it’s just we, as members of different generations, enter the business at different times, with different books, in different genres, with different styles of publishing, and with different concepts of marketing, and as a result we establish our own sense […]