Jennifer Ellis's Blog, page 3

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Nine

Today on the blog we have poet Heather Haley with a fitting poem about the Virgin Mary. As we draw closer to Christmas, it's probably time that I start thinking about Christmas, not work and writing. I will start my shopping today, I swear... maybe after a little ski (it is a powder day after all).

One of the big challenges of being an indie writer (aside from resisting powder days) is all the busy work associated with updating one's front and back matter and files whenever a minor mistake is...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Eight

Today on the blog we have Laurie Boris with a heartwarming story about how Mrs. Claus got her groove back. I'm sitting here after just watching the new Star Wars, which was amazing, and I'm so excited about the movie that I can't think of anything that I want to change in the indie world, except maybe that I could write a story like Star Wars. Movies do that to me, especially action movies. I have to limit the number I watch or I would spend too much of my life too excited. I actually didn't...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Six

Today on the blog is RJ Crayton with a post entitled "The Place for Humbug During the Holiday Season." This is a particularly apt post for me today as I must confess I was feeling a bit humbuggy. Yesterday was my birthday and I decided to drift through one of my favorite clothing stores in search of a new fleece for myself. It gets cold at the writing desk in the Klondike and so I wear a fleece and slippers, and the two fleeces I have are starting to look a bit bally, which means that I look...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Five

Today on the blog we have fellow Canadian Gordon Long, who wrote a story about just how cold it gets in some parts of Canada at Christmas. I don't live in those parts, but for my writer friends in balmy Texas who like to joke that I live in the Klondike, it can get chilly sometimes. Just as writing is becoming more democratic as a result of the digital revolution (but still has room for improvement), where you need to live as a writer is also changing (and needs to change more).

The Centres of...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Four

Today on the 12 blogs of Christmas, we have Virginia Gray, a bestselling women's fiction novelist, and a writer whose background is remarkably similar to my own. I will keep my commentary short because work and children got away on me last night (and I had best go chase them), and I love Virginia's post.

Like Virginia, I too prayed that Middle Earth and Narnia existed. I think I even believed right up until four years ago. But a few years deep in the writing world cured me of believing, and I...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Three

On today's blog, Keith R. Baker has shared a winter story that links into his Longshot series. You can read the story by following the link to the excerpt below.

In my continuing series of positive rants on things I hope will change in the book publishing world as we count down to Christmas, I am going to talk about the traditional publishing model, and specifically their approach to discovering and nurturing new writers and their relationship with indie writers.

Discoverability in the Writing...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Two

Up second in the 12 blogs of Christmas is Sarah Lane, a writer from Vancouver. Sarah has provided us with a link to a reading from her novel. Check it out below.

The Need for Speed

And, inspired partially by Sarah who is working on her second novel, second in my list of things that I'm not grateful for in the writing world (or things I hope will change), is the speed at which indie writers are expected to produce books. I am going to blasphemously claim that indie writers are under too much pre...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas - Blog One

And so the 12 Blogs of Christmas begins with Ellen Chauvet, a writer from Vancouver, who is currently participating in the Kindle Scout process with her first novel When Darkness Falls. Ellen blogged about something that has been a part of so many of our Christmases, the poem 'A Visit from St. Nick', which many of us know as ' 'Twas the night before Christmas' by Clement C. Moore.

I had originally suggested that I might be snarky when I discussed the things that I'm least grateful for in the w...

The 12 Writing Things I’m Grateful For

I’m once again participating in the 12 Blogs of Christmas with eleven other writers, organized by Martin Crosbie. As part of the event, we are to write about—not surprisingly—Christmas. Many of the other eleven bloggers have written about fond or funny memories of Christmas. Last year, I wrote about my fraught relationship with Christmas—acknowledging the magic of Christmas but also the busy-ness, commercial aspects, and guilt associated with Christmas (we have so much, and so many people ha...

Things That Actually Sell Books

Given that I just finished a Bookbub promotion on A Pair of Docks and I’ve now been in the indie world for two years, I wanted to do a quick post on things that in my experience actually sell books, not that we’re all necessarily in the writing business just to sell books, but selling books is definitely better than not selling books. Just saying...

Before I get to that, I wanted to remind you that Tails of the Apocalypse, an anthology to which I contributed is now available for purchase on Am...