Michelle Witte's Blog, page 2
April 15, 2015
Hello, Paris!
If you haven’t heard, Ashley Evanson’s forthcoming HELLO, WORLD series of board books are so freakin’ adorable. To illustrate why, I present my niece two-year-old Ava as she reads from PARIS: A BOOK OF SHAPES. Pre-order yours now! Amazon: amzn.to/1PNYhrk; B&N: bit.ly/1DIjL3X; Indiebound: bit.ly/1D2k7O4
October 20, 2014
Seeing the “Good” in Goodreads
Some Necessary Context In recent years there have been a number of brouhahas involving book bloggers and amateur (in the sense of not being professional) book reviewers. You can see a post I wrote about three years ago that addresses several of these kerfuffles. Note: This was written several months before the opportunity to become […]
July 13, 2014
5 Simple Things that Will Instantly Improve Your Manuscript
Really. I’m totally serious here. If you do these five simple things right now, the flow and readability of your manuscript will improve immediately and exponentially. Guaranteed. 1. Excise all that “just,” “so,” “really,” “very,” “well” fluff. Well, for one thing, it’s really just so very annoying to see those same words all the […]
April 14, 2014
It Takes Time
The other day Shannon Hale (who I adore and who is one of the most giving authors I know) wrote up a post called I Am Not Accessible about how she just doesn’t have time to respond to emails from readers. There are so so so many things I would like to do that I […]
February 25, 2014
Factors in Deciding Which Book to Publish
There’s so much more that goes into the decision to represent or acquire a book than simply whether it’s a good story that’s well written. I and probably most others in publishing wish it weren’t, but it’s an inescapable fact that not every book we like or even love will be right for us to […]
February 18, 2014
Going beta fishing
The followed stemmed from a conversation I had with one of my super-amazing authors, Betsy Schow, over pie shakes* during a writers conference last year. Without further ado, I give you Betsy in her infinite wisdom. ***** Allow me to teach you the simple trick of beta fishing. Step one: Find up to ten […]
February 4, 2014
Michelle’s “Rules” for Writers
Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re thinking. “But haven’t you told us before that there aren’t rules when it comes to writing, and that there are always exceptions?” Okay, well, you got me there. But these rules are so simple and so, like, perfect that if you don’t follow them you’ll probably sink into the […]
January 28, 2014
Focus on the Story
Writers are an interesting lot. We’re so full of—and surrounded by—dichotomies, it’s a wonder we don’t second-guess ourselves every moment we spend in front of the computer tip tap typing away. Focus on the story. Well, okay. Maybe we don’t spend every moment obsessing about i before e—or is it ie after eieiei?—but I’d say […]
December 20, 2013
The Truth About Depression
[View the story "The Truth About Depression" on Storify]
September 2, 2013
Salt Lake is going Comic(Con)
I has been my goal for the past few years to attend San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) to partake of the geeky madness, but it just hasn’t worked out. Plus tickets are crazy hard to get. So imagine my delight [read: high-pitched squealing] when I found out that Salt Lake City would have its own […]
