Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 60

Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

I’m a perfectionist. That’s not news to any of you who have been reading my blog for a while. *smile* But that meant I had to get over a lot of my own issues to be able to publish my stories.

Those of us on the traditional publishing path have (or will have) an agent, an editor (maybe several editors), and a publisher acquisitions team all chiming in about when our story is ready. Those authors also don’t have to learn retailer accounts or the millions of other little things that authors on th...

Should We Change Our Blogging Style?

I’ve had a couple of people ask me (or mention in a comment): “Are you going to continue your blog now that you’re published?” That’s a fair question that deserves a full answer because I’ve seen authors take both approaches.

Many authors—both traditionally published and self-published—continue to blog about writing or publishing advice after publication. But just as many authors stop blogging about anything other than release news tidbits for readers once they’re published.

Neither approach is...

How to Punch Up a Blurb or Query — Guest: Julie Glover

I’ve spoken before about how no matter how we publish, we have to come up with a great book description—either for use as the query or the back-cover blurb. If we go the traditional route, we might have an agent, editor, or copywriter from the publisher help us improve our blurb before we’re in stores. But if we self-publish, we’re on our own.

For those of you who might remember my struggles with writing queries that didn’t suck, this was a problem for my release last week. *smile*

I’ve read...

How to Punch Up a Blurb or Query

I’ve spoken before about how no matter how we publish, we have to come up with a great book description—either for use as the query or the back-cover blurb. If we go the traditional route, we might have an agent, editor, or copywriter from the publisher help us improve our blurb before we’re in stores. But if we self-publish, we’re on our own.

For those of you who might remember my struggles with writing queries that didn’t suck, this was a problem for my release last week. *smile*

I’ve read co...

The Perils of a “Dead” Genre

It’s been almost a week since my release of Unintended Guardian, and I’ve been getting lots of questions about how I made my decisions for what to do with my books. There are several blog posts worth of brain dump I can provide on that topic, but let’s start at the beginning:

How did I decide on my publishing path?

For that, we have to go back several years to when I first started on my writing career path. Back before the Kindle and Amazon made self-publishing a standard option. Back when trad...

Boom! Publishing Like Beyoncé

A bit over a year ago, Beyoncé surprised the music world by secretly dropping a new album onto iTuneswith zero advance promotion. Her release made news a) because it was Beyoncé and b) because the strategy was something new and different.

Recently in the publishing world, there’s been grumblings or suspicions that traditional marketing events like months-in-advance cover releases weren’t generating the excitement they used to. Some book bloggers have flat-out said they’re no longer interested...

What Scares You about Writing or Publishing?

Many large, life-changing events can scare us—even terrify us. We can probably think of several times inour life when the thought of moving forward was near-paralyzing.

Maybe we experienced that when starting a new job. Maybe when we stared down the aisle at our wedding. Or maybe when we learned our firstchild was on the way.

Not surprisingly, we often hear people say about big changes, even when they turn out well in the long run, “It’s a good thing I didn’t know how hard it would be, or I mig...

What Are Your Favorite Writing-Related Books?

I spent a couple of hours yesterday playing with a plugin my Tech Guy installed on my site. (If you’re hosted with TechSurgeonsas well, you might be able to get it on your site too if you ask Jay, our very own tech genius.)

The plugin is called MyBookTable and allows me to list books in different categories and offer buy links. Useful plugin for authors, right? *smile*

Inmy For Writers section, I created a page to list my favorite writing craft and reference books. I’ve added several books that...

Should Our Protagonist Be in the First Scene?

Most stories openwith the protagonist on page one, but every once in a while, our story seems to work best if we start with another character. Is this a good idea? Can we make itwork?

Today’s post was inspired by a question from Glynis Jolly, who asked me if I thought an author would sabotage themselves and their story if their protagonist doesn’t enter the picture until later. I thought that was a great question and decided to explore the scenario more deeply so we could all learn together. *...

Is “Love Conquers All” Realistic?

Every month or so, there’s an author or blogger or journalist making news by putting romance stories down. “They’re formulaic!” they say.

Uh-huh, and other genres don’t follow a formula? Mysteries regularly end with the mystery unsolved, do they? Or thrillers end with the terrorist’s plot succeeding? No? All righty then…

“They’re unrealistic!” they say. Well, sure, no one would claim marrying a vampire, sheikh,billionaire, or Lord is likely to happen. But then again, plenty of other genres cont...