Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 237

Make the Most of Your Memory: 10 Tips for Writing About Your Life

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Today's guest post is by Stacey Dubois, a graduate student at Tufts University,
as well as an aspiring children's/YA novelist. For
more on the psychology of the creative process, visit her blog.





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In the courtroom, witnesses pledge to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth." An admirable goal, but a laughable one to memory researchers. Unless
you're Jill Price, a woman suffering from the first known case of hyperthymestic
syndrome ("total recall"), such a fea...

Best Tweets for Writers (week ending 8/27/10)

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I watch Twitter, so you don't have to. Visit each Sunday for the week's best Tweets.
If I missed a great Tweet, leave it in the Comments. Want to know about the best stuff
I read each week? Click
here to subscribe to my shared items.




Quick plug for upcoming Writer's
Digest online classes:




Publish
Your Children's Work in Today's Market by Mary Kole, on September 23







Best of Best

B happened because A happened ... Plotting
advice stripped to...

Don't Annoy People on Facebook

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I have a wide range of friends of Facebook—including many writers who are using the
site to market their work. While this isn't wrong in and of itself, some approach
the site as their personal direct marketing tool, and do more damage than good.



That's why I wrote this lengthy post at Writer Unboxed:

Using
Facebook to Amplify Your Reach and Not Annoy People

There you'll find basic principles for using the site beyond socializing
with close friends, 5 un-marketing principles, and speci...

Writers & Publishers Need to Act More Like the Art World

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Today's Q&A is with Dan Holloway, who I first met on Twitter as agnieszkasshoes.
Dan is a founder-member of Year Zero
Writers, and curator of eight cuts gallery and
eight cuts gallery press. I was very intrigued by the new publishing operation he's
launched, eight cuts gallery press, and asked him some questions about how it'll work.




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Okay, let's start from the top. You're starting a press called eight
cuts gallery that focuses on contemporary urban fiction (sorry to...

Q&A: My Thoughts on Book Publishing Today

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Many writers ask me about changes in the publishing industry, how to make sense of
the transformation, and what it really means for them.



I
try to tackle that, in part, in this Q&A with WetMachine, where the insightful
John Sundman poses a variety of questions about trends, e-books and e-publishing,
self-publishing, author promotion, and online marketing.



Here's a brief snippet, where I share my thoughts on how to meaningfully participate
in online communities once your book is relea...

You Can Learn As Much From Writing Friends as Writing Experts

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Today's guest post is by writer David B. Schlosser,
who attended the 5th annual Killer Nashville literary conference. My thanks to him
for summarizing for us the best information he heard. Follow
David on Twitter.





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We're all in this together. By "we," I mean people dedicated to stories and the words
authors use to tell them: successful authors, newly published and excited authors,
regularly published but struggling authors, yet-to-be published authors, and readers.




Asso...

Glimmer Train Monthly News

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Photo credit: Arlene Diehl




Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their June Fiction Open competition.
This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers for stories with a word
count range between 2,000-20,000. The next Fiction Open will take place in September. Glimmer
Train's monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Nona Caspers (pictured above), of San Francisco,
CA, wins $2000 for "Ants." Her story will be published in the Fall...

Best Tweets for Writers (week ending 8/20/10)

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I watch Twitter, so you don't have to. Visit each Sunday for the week's best Tweets.
If I missed a great Tweet, leave it in the Comments. Want to know about the best stuff
I read each week? Click
here to subscribe to my shared items.




Quick plug for upcoming Writer's
Digest online classes:




How
to Land an Agent, by Chuck
Sambuchino (our most popular webinar, on finding an agent), on August 26







Best of Best

10 Things to Do to Become a Better...

Perhaps the Wisest Writing Advice of All (About the Ones Who Succeed)

At the 2008 AWP, I was sitting next to writer
and professor Michael Martone,
who was signing Rules
of Thumb for students.



I don't know how this came up, but I caught a bit of wisdom from Michael that I've
never forgotten:

Only 10% (if that) of writers keep
at it, and because they do keep at it, they are successful and known—even if not talented.

Think about that the next time you're tempted to say it's impossible
to get published or that you have to be lucky.

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Super-Powered Book Proposals Secret #3: Always Evaluate Online Competitors

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This post is part of a series I'm writing on how to super-power
your nonfiction book proposal. For the majority of nonfiction book ideas (except possibly
memoir), you should prepare a book proposal first, rather than write the manuscript. To
find out if you should write a book proposal, click here.








Secret #3: Always Evaluate Your Online Competitors


If you were writing a nonfiction book 20 years ago, your greatest competition was
probably other books on the same topic.



If you'...