Adam Heine's Blog, page 34

Blogging for Your Target Audience

Unpublished writers' blogs are a strange beast. They're part community-building, part writing practice, and part planning for a hopeful future in which we need a platform. It's that last bit I want to talk about today.



Aspiring writers who blog are sometimes told they shouldn't write for other writers. I can understand that. I mean, you want to reach your future target audience (who is interested in your books), not other writers (who may or may not be). But I wonder why my future audience (...

Earning a Reader's Trust

(Remix)



When we read something, anything, we want to know that we can trust the author. If we trust that the author knows what they're doing, we'll give them more grace when they make "mistakes" like using unnecessary adverbs or telling when they should be showing. We trust that eventually they'll explain whatever we don't understand.



If we don't trust the author, those mistakes will stick out like they were written in sparkly red ink. If we don't understand something right away, r...

Sketch: The Train Job

Cross-posted from Anthdrawlogy's Wild West week.

Sympathetic Characters: The Struggle

One encouragement I keep hearing, regarding my querying, is that I "deserve" an agent. I like hearing that, for sure. But the last time I heard it I thought, "They haven't even read my novel. Why do they think that?"



And I think part of the reason is because you guys see me fighting for it.



Because there's something we love about a person who fights for what they want against all odds, who never gives up no matter how many times they get knocked down. This is why I love characters like Naru...

Blog Schedules: Do You Even Notice?

You may have noticed that Susan's guest post went up on Tuesday -- normally an off-day for Author's Echo -- but also that there was no post on Wednesday. Or maybe you didn't notice! That's what this poll is about.



See, I've seen conflicting advice on the subject of blog schedules. Most professional bloggers say you need a schedule so your audience knows what to expect. I get that. That's one reason I blog M/W/F (usually).



But other advice says don't worry about it. E-mail subscriptions and ...

Guest Post: Why My Critique Partners Are Smarter Than Me

Susan Kaye Quinn is a regular here at Author's Echo and one of my critique partners. She writes, she blogs, she mothers, and I understand she once politicked and rocket scienced (it's a word now -- shut up). Her new novel Open Minds, which I talked about yesterday, is out now, and to celebrate, Susan wrote like a billion blog posts.



Her book is awesome because it's about a world of mind readers and hidden mindjackers (who control minds). This guest post is cool because it talks about how...

Books I Read: Open Minds

Susan Quinn is a regular here at Author's Echo and (I'm proud to say) one of my critique partners. She wrote this book. It comes out tomorrow.



It's pretty cool.



Title: Open Minds

Author: Susan Kaye Quinn

Genre: YA Sci-Fi

Published: 2011

My Content Rating: PG-13 for make-outs, tense situations, and the occasional bullet



In a world where everyone can read minds, Kira is a zero -- a freak who can't read or be read. When she accidentally controls her best friend's mind, nearly killing him, sh...

Just Testing, Please Ignore

I'm just playing with a new comment system. Don't know if I'll use it. This is not the post you're looking for.

Twitter Unfollows and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (Also, a Chart!)

I don't automatically follow people back on social media, but once I decide to follow someone, I rarely unfollow. Unfortunately, it does happen. The likelihood of getting unfollowed can be determined (sort of) from the following chart.





What constitutes signal?

Anything funny.
News I want to know.
Interesting links.
Talking to me directly (esp. saying nice things to me or retweeting my tweets).
 What constitutes noise?

Follow Friday tweets, thank you's, and any other random list of...

Confessions of an Ascetic Writer

My previous confession proved to me I'm not alone in these things, and I know ascetic writers are more common than analytical ones. But still, I feel the need to confess...



[image error]

I can't listen to music while I write. If there are words, I sing them (and sometimes type them -- seriously!). If there are no words, I still get caught up in the story the music is telling, and it becomes impossible to tell my own.



Sometimes I can edit with music, but even then, if I listen to an epic song during a so...