Nancy Christie's Blog, page 85

Be careful what you wish for...

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Trying to generate a February thaw

Like a lot of working writers, I cover many different categories with my writing. 
I blog on behalf of my clients, doing my best to keep their name and offerings alive and well in the blogosphere.I write for a select group of magazines—those that I know will treat me fairly and whose topic area is of interest to me.I write for corporate clients—both as a subcontractor for agencies and for some direct clients. And in between all that (or whenever I can steal the time!), I do my own writing...

Planning a blog tour—Guest post from novelist Gillian Felix

Gillian FelixI “met” Gillian (so to speak—it was all by e-mail!) last fall when she asked if I would be a host for her upcoming blog tour. 
I was such a newbie to the concept that she had to explain what I needed to do (practically nothing!) and that she would provide (everything I needed!) and what the whole idea was behind it anyway!
And now that I am in the early-early stages of marketing for my upcoming short fiction collection, TRAVELING LEFT OF CENTER, I knew that blog tours wo...<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>

What's your reading preference: “e-” or “p-”?

In the January 5th Bookends column in The New York Times, two writers weighed in on the subject of e-books versus printed books: what they liked about each type and what ultimately was their preference. (Spoiler alert: It appeared that print books won!)

For my part, I am more than a little curious about the marketplace's preference, since my published works include a non-fiction book out in both formats, two short stories in e-book format only, and a fiction collection that, when it comes out...

What do readers want—and is that only what writers should give them?

There has been a lot of conversation—in the media, on writing blogs and forums and at writing conferences—about
How writers can find readersHow writers can build their platform. How writers can show their publishers (or potential publishers) that they have enough followers to deserve a shot at being published.
And I freely admit that this is a conversation I have been following with no little interest. As I work to build a platform for myself as a fiction writer (my two short fiction e-bo...

Turning a faint glimmer into a full story with the 5 Ws

Has this happened to you? 

You overhear a tantalizing tidbit of  a conversation or you happen to glimpse an interesting interaction between two people (or one person and a pet or an inanimate object or whatever!) and your writer's mind seizes on it because it just might be something that could turn into SOMETHING — a piece of fiction, an essay, a poem, an idea for an article or a book.

But when you sit down to start working on it, your creativity engines stalls out and you go nowhere. ...

Preparing for a National TV Appearance — Guest post from Erin Flynn Jay

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Happy New Year!

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Looking back at 2013

With 2013 drawing to a close, I wanted to take a look back at what I accomplished in terms of my writing goals and where I am heading in 2014.

While I don't wait until December 31 to measure my performance or make changes to improve my income or abilities, I do like to take time at the end of each year to look back at the past 12 months and see what I did right (or wrong) and then plan for a better outcome in the upcoming one. So here is where I am — and in the next post, where I hope to be g...

Agatha Christie: An Autobiography—An "Essential"

I have long been a fan of Agatha Christie, devouring every one of her cozy mysteries, from those featuring Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot to the Tommy and Tuppence ones. 

(How much of a fan? When I started writing professionally, I decided to use a pseudonym and chose "Christie" as my new last name, changing it legally several years later after my divorce. Now that's a fan!)

But in this post, I'm not talking about her fiction but about her non-fiction—specifically her autobiography—a book...