Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 50

Self Publishing? What’s Your Plan to Keep Readers?

It’s time once again for my monthly guest post over at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University. We’ve been exploring the choices for what path we want to follow in our indie publishing career, and today, we’re going to talk more about how to walk our chosen path.

My series about Indie Publishing Paths at Fiction University has highlighted some of the choices we have to make and given us a few guidelines for figuring out how to make the best decisions for us.

We started off talkingabout knowing our...

Story Conflict: Villains vs. Antagonists

Conflict is one of those words that can be hard for new writers to understand. We all think we know what it means, but the writing-world meaning doesn’t quite have the same connotation as the non-writing meaning.

Outside of the writing world, the word conflict often evokes images of fist fights or screaming matches. So new writers—when they hear the advice to include conflict on every page—might imagine that they need to include lots of arguments in their scenes.

However, in the writing worl...

Writing Skills: Beginner vs. Advanced

I’ve spoken many times about our learning curve as writers. Not only can it seem endless—with all the different skills we need to learn—but we can also be skilled at one aspect and unskilled in another aspect.

Just when we start thinking we’re getting pretty good at this writing thing, we might come across another element of writing wherewe’re a complete newbie.That’s not anything for us to be embarrassed about—that’s just part of writing life. *smile*

Even multi-published authors contact me...

Story Description: Finding the Right Balance

In writing, we always talk about finding the right balance of elements for our story. Characters can be too unlikable, or they can be too perfect. A character’s emotions can be lacking—leaving readers feeling distant—or their emotions can feeloverwhelming and melodramatic.

Even when it comes to writing craft, we can go overboard. There’s one popular series I didn’t enjoy because the prose had too much voice, due to an overly chatty narrator. Or some stories suffer from too many adjectives or...

Working for “Exposure”? Get the Most Out of It

Last time, we discussed some of the circumstances when we might be willing to work for free. Or to put it another way, when we might be willing to be paid in exposure.

Maybe we’re new and trying to prove ourselves, so we make our first book a freebieto expose ourselves to readers. Maybe there’s no money to be shared, so we say yes to expose ourselves to supporters of the cause. Or maybe we’ve simply decided an opportunity fits with our long-term plans if we get more exposure from it.

I want...

Should We Work for Free?

Over the last month, Kristen Lamb has written several blog posts about how authors need to have a business-oriented mindset if income is a goal. Her recent post about how the “culture of free” is killing creatives is especially thought-provoking, and I encourage everyone to read it.

In that post, she shares the story of Revolva, a performance artist who was liked enough by Oprah Winfrey’s production team to be invited to perform at a conference charging around $600-$1000 per ticket (with 18,...

Nourishing Our Creativity to Help Our Writing

Writing is an art form, and yet I don’t usually think of myself as an artist. Maybe that’s because when I think of art, I think of visual arts or musical arts, and I’m utterly incompetent at both.

(I draw stick figures, andI don’t play an instrument or compose music beyond humming when I’m happy. *smile*)

Logically, I know there are plenty of other forms of art, but I have to remind myself to include them—along with writing—in the “art” category.

I mention this obvious fact because it occurr...

If We’re Serious about Writing, We’ll…

Well, today’s the day I’m going to make one reader happy and disappoint a bunch of others. Sorry! I really wish I could provide you all with a seat in James Patterson’s Writing Masterclass because I hate disappointing people. *sigh*

However, congratulations go to Kimberly S. Barton! Yay!

Like I mentioned last time, we shouldn’t think that not winning this giveaway will prevent us from being successful. There’s no secret to success lurking in any workshop or conference that we’re going to mis...

The “Secret” to Success Can’t Be Bought

Last week, I kicked off a giveaway of James Patterson’s Writing Masterclass. (If you hurry, there’s still time to enter!)

Giveaways like this always create love/hate feelings in me. I love the opportunity to help one of my readers, but I hate the fact that I’ll be disappointing so many, as I can choose only one name.

Many of my readers have been including in their entries their reason for wanting to win the giveaway (which won’t affect the random selection of the winner), and their heartfelt...

Giveaway! James Patterson’s Writing Masterclass

If Facebook or Google know from our browsing habits that we’re a writer, chances are we’ve seen the ads for James Patterson’s Writing Masterclass. No matter what we think about his writing style (he admits he’s not a stylist), we have to admit the man knows how to tell stories that keep millions of readers turning pages.

This past weekend, I entered Maddie Cochere‘s contest for a giveaway of his class. Much to my surprise, I won!

I almost never win giveaways, so I nearly forgot how to react....