Zoe M. McCarthy's Blog, page 29
March 12, 2015
5 Steps to Save Days in Marketing Your Next Book
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” — William Penn To save days marketing Book 2, you need to become a super-crazed, organized packrat for Book 1. If you failed to do these steps on Book 1, do them during Book 2. Step 1 – Save During the writing and publishing process […]
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March 5, 2015
Your Words Can Possess Power – It’s Your Choice
“Mark Twain said, ‘The right word is to the nearly right word as lightning is to the lightning bug.’ Fill your book with lightning.” — Robert Littell It’s our choice to choose the word that gives our sentence the most power in creating a robust image in the reader’s mind. Often, power words don’t naturally […]
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February 26, 2015
Book Promotion Overwhelming? Pick the Plums Touching Your Nose
“Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.” —Napoleon Hill Many of us authors dread marketing our books. It’s difficult, time-consuming, and often we’re unsure it works. The least we can do is open our weary marketing eyes and grab the promotional opportunities directly in front of us. Those ripe plums. Opportunity […]
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February 19, 2015
How You Can Avoid Burnout
“Time spent in nature is the most cost-effective and powerful way to counteract the burnout and sort of depression that we feel when we sit in front of a computer all day.” —Richard Louv My guest today is Pamela S. Thibodeaux. Pam gives practical ways to avoid burnout. Authors handle edit deadlines, marketing, research, […]
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February 12, 2015
Your Author Event Was NOT a Failure
“One fails forward toward success.” — Charles F. Kettering I share the story of my meet-the-author library event for one purpose: Don’t bemoan the poor response to your author event; look for the hidden successes. Click to tweet. Act 1 – The Setup I called a library. The event coordinator detailed impressive ways she […]
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February 5, 2015
How to Stop Your Readers from Constantly Shifting Gears
“I never leave a sentence or paragraph until I’m satisfied with it.” —Clifford Geertz Have you reread paragraphs to understand what they said? Most authors write confusing paragraphs in their drafts. If left in books, these paragraphs cause readers to shift into Reverse. Some shifts are small, and readers accept them. But when readers shift […]
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January 29, 2015
What Essential Stage is Missing from Your Heroine’s Journey?
“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” —Willa Cather Image courtesy of sattva at FreeDigitalPhotos.net At the American Christian Fiction Writers conference, I attended […]
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January 22, 2015
Tips to Connect with Readers After Your Author Events
“The future of publishing is about having connections to readers and the knowledge of what those readers want.” — Seth Godin Authors meet readers at such events as book signings, public launch parties, and library meet-the-author discussions. Some attendees would enjoy further contact with authors and subscribing to their newsletters. But not all readers. […]
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January 15, 2015
Sisterhood of the World Bloggers
Because mine is a how-to blog, writing a blog-hop interview this week is a treat. My nominees, the rules, and their questions follow the interview. Thank you, Paula Mowery, for nominating me for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award. Here are Paula’s questions and my answers: What is something you would count as […]
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January 8, 2015
How to Write Easy & Honest Book Reviews to Help Other Readers
“Nowadays, I only review books I really like. It’s cowardly, I know, but I figure it’s not my job to make people unhappy. I’ll leave that to the professionals.” — Meg Rosoff I’m talking about reviews on bookstore sites, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Now that Calculated Risk is out, I see how important […]
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