on Writer Unboxed:

We wouldn’t need the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” if people weren’t always doing exactly that. The cover of your book is important! It makes a huge difference to how the book is perceived at every stage of the process, regardless of how your book is published or distributed. And making the most of the cover reveal is something any writer can do.

Fresh off my own cover reveal (about which more later), I thought I’d share a few tips that you can use as guidelines while you’re planning and executing on sharing that powerful first look at the cover of your upcoming book.

Here are three things you’ll want to do:

Continue reading HERE

on New Shelves:

If you are thinking about getting an agent and you already have a book published by a self-publishing company, what are your options?

Get Full Details HERE

on Nathan Bransford:

“Writing is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.” – Flannery O’Connor

Writing a novel is rarely fun. Like most writers, I usually rely on love for my characters, daily word count goals, and pure determination to make it through.

But in the middle of the pandemic, I couldn’t muster up the energy to get through anything. The usual ups and downs of the writing process left me feeling drained and irritable. I wasn’t even interested in whether my characters lived or died! Eventually I stopped writing altogether.

This month, I tried to reconnect with my passion for writing. My goal wasn’t just to write again. It was to remember why I wrote in the first place, and build a healthier relationship with myself in the process.

Continue reading HERE

On Writers Helping Writers:

Everybody loves their heroes, some people even love their villains. But it’s a rare author that actively loves and spends equal time on their side characters.

Sure, some of them are fun to write, but they’re not who the story is about, which is why so many of them are simply slapped on and ill-thought out.

Today, I’m going to help you combat that by giving you three mistakes to avoid when creating your side characters.

Continue reading HERE

on Fiction University:

Representation in fiction leads to a more inclusive society.

There has been a rise of strong female characters and representation in recent years, which is super awesome. I love that there is more attention being given to this topic.

However, writing strong female characters is more complicated than simply giving our female character a sword. (Though for the record, I’ll pretty much read any book where there is a hero with a sword so don’t hold back on my account)

This post will walk us through why writing strong female characters matters, what a strong character looks like, and 14 common pitfalls we may encounter.

Note: Gender representation is complex and all identities matter. This post is focused on characters who identify as female but this is by no means saying other identities are less important.

Continue reading HERE