This post was first published here on January 16, 2009 Mark Goldwich, author of UNCOVERED: What REALLY Happens After The Storm, Flood, Earthquake or Fire asks, "How do I get back cover reviews from the people I want reviews from?" Good question, Mark. Thanks for asking. The quotes you see on the backs of books come from two sources. Most are blurbs - short recommendations written specifically for the cover. Others are excerpts from reviews. I first learned about blurbs in Austin Camacho's marketing text. I recommend you find a marketing book for writers that will work for you. Many exist. How do you acquire blurbs for your book? The short answer is you ask for them. I know this is not an easy thing for many writers to do, but it is a necessary part of our business. If you are not comfortable writing request letters, find a friend who is and ask for help. When deciding whom to ask for a blurb, consider your target market. What name (or title) would your reader...

Another substantive post about writing an author Wikipedia page. This was first published here on March 31, 2010 and is part of an excellent series by former blogger, Charlotte Phillips. ~~~~ So far, we registered with Wikipedia , wrote our leads , learned about biographies , took the tutorial, and practiced making edits in Wikipedia. Yesterday we wrote the rest of our articles. Today we put our creations into Wikipedia using the article wizard. Follow these steps to get to the article wizard: 1. Go to the Wikipedia login page and login. 2. Go to the article wizard page and click the Create Article Now button: 3. Read the intro, then scroll down to the propose article topic area and click the I’m Writing About Someone Else button: 4. Read the definition of notable people, then scroll to the buttons and click My Proposed Article Is About a Notable Person: 5. Read the blurb about reliable and verifiable resources – including the lists in the sidebar. Note: onli...

It's that time of year---again. Weddings. Bridal Showers. Rehearsal Dinners. First Communion. Confirmation. College Graduation. High School Graduation. Kindergarten Graduation. Day Care Graduation. Mother's Day. Father's Day. Memorial Day. With so many celebrations going on, when is there time to work? Yes, I said work, because writing---and marketing, and editing, and book signings---are work. It's how writers earn their living. People who work for others certainly know when it's time to work because their employers tell them. But how do writers stay focused? How do you maintain a reasonable work schedule amidst the chaos? All of the above is, of course, in addition to the usual list of family, friends, and neighbors who see working from home as "working" from home---meaning that we writers can just drop what we're doing at any time to run a quick errand, comfort a friend in need---the one who is heartbroken over her third boyfriend loss this week...

 Today is the final day for the 2010 Detectives Around the World event and I have the honor of interviewing a mystery fan – our very own Dani Greer. For those of you who don’t know, Dani is the force behind The Blood-Red Pencil blog, an accomplished editor, artist, mentor of writers, friend of the Earth, and voracious reader. Her favorite books to read and edit? You guessed it – mysteries! You’ve made no secret of your love of cozies. What attracts you to this form? To put it simply, no blood and guts. I have a really weak stomach. That goes for sex, too. In a cozy, I get a protagonist I can relate to - they're weak, too. I don't have to face all the violence and gore, and when there's a romance built-in, as there often is, I get the sweet old-fashioned hearts-and-flowers relationship, with not too much gore there either. It's the perfect world. Is editing mysteries different from editing other fiction? I actually chart the storylines to keep track of the clues,...

In an earlier post, we created leads for our articles. Today we draft the rest of the story. If you haven't already done so, begin by reviewing existing author pages. What kinds of information is included? How is it grouped under sub-titles? What kinds of external links (links to pages outside of Wikipedia) are included? What kinds of wiki links? What kinds of categories are used? Now look at the information you’ve gathered on your author. Can you organize it into chunks of related items? What heading (sub-title) would you give to each chunk of information? Organize the information that way in your document so you can cut and paste later. What is typical for authors? It depends. Take a look at Nevada Barr and Linda Barnes . They have the simplest form of article for authors – a lead and a list of publications. (Note there is no table of contents. That’s because there’s only one subheading – the list of books. We’ll learn tomorrow that Wikipedia automatically adds the table ...

If you’ve decided to write a Wikipedia biography , you’ve probably selected a subject that excites you – an author whose books you love (or love to hate), for example. There are some points to keep in mind for all wikipedia articles that have special importance when writing about people. • Be factual – do your research, double check the facts, make sure the facts are independently verifiable • Limit the article to relevant facts • Keep your tone neutral, don’t state your opinions • Take care to link your finished page to other pages, otherwise your hard work will be orphaned Be Factual Remember – Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a collection of known, verifiable facts. You are also writing about a person and people tend to have families and friends who care about them. Your family probably would not be amused to read that you died three years ago in a drug induced frenzy during which you leapt from Grand Canyon rim while yelling “I believe I can fly!” Okay, maybe they would be am...

Recently, a young man asked me, "If editors know something is wrong, why don't they just fix it? Are they on some sort of group power trip?" I'll give you a minute to recover from the question. My first thought was uncharitable. I assumed I was talking to a young man who had never actually written a book, or anything else he cared about. Luckily, my brain did engage before my mouth—a rare event, but it does happen. I carefully explained that most writers would not appreciate an editor who simply changed the author's manuscript/work of art/baby. I didn't want to scare the young man, so I refrained from references to specific emotional reactions or spilled blood. After giving the question a bit more thought, I came up with a three other reasons for an editor to note issues, rather than fixing them. First, the writing could be ambiguous. The editor may not know what the author is trying to say. If the author writes "The boy run through the woods," the e...

Critique Groups: Gotta love 'em. Learn to see your writing with a reader’s eye, identify your bad habits, and polish your manuscript before you submit to agents and editors. It’s hard at first, often scary. It could even be akin to your first bungee jump. Getting your work critiqued probably won’t kill you, but it could turn you into a writer worthy of publication. Honest. Alex Sokoloff said it here on June 10th in Top Ten Things I Know About Editing : “Find a great critique group.” In a discussion between author Sylvia Dickey Smith and editor Helen Ginger, Helen advises, “…join a critique group in your area or online – you’ll get help, you’ll help others, and you’ll learn how to edit and critique.” Author, reviewer, and blogger Charlotte Phillips wrote in February, “I recently joined a critique group for the first time ever and must admit, I am enjoying every bit of it. I wish I’d gotten up the nerve many years ago.” One of the best ways to hone self-editing skills is to mee...

Have you ever wondered what all those different kinds of editors do? Recently I picked up a book titled The Copy editor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications and learned that copy editors look after the four Cs. Being a red-blooded American girl, I immediately thought, "What do cut, color, clarity and carat have to do with editing?" I could make an argument for clarity, but not the rest, so I read further and learned the copy editor has a different for Cs: clarity (of course), coherency, consistency , and correctness. That's nice, but what does it mean? Does the copy editor care if you kill off Uncle Joe in chapter three and resurrect him in chapter twenty? Probably, but the copy editor's main goal is to guide the author to an error-free product with respect to editorial style and language. Editing for language primarily consists of ensuring proper grammar is employed throughout, but also includes other language concerns su...

An earlier post, Hiding Bones , from Morgan Mandel got me thinking about the different ways writers - especially mystery writers - introduce red herrings so they sound like significant clues and provide significant clues in ways that make them seem insignificant. One great tool for both is the simple list. Try this exercise. Set a timer for fifteen seconds, then study the list below. When the timer sounds, look away and write down everything you remember from the list. red icicles tricycle broken wheel blue sky polka dots gray beard framed art beach ball Valentines Day stack of books blond hair pill bottles How'd you do? Most people will remember the first two and the last two or three. So where's the best place to hide good clue in plain sight? Where's the best place for red herring? How many times have you read a mystery where a character or the narrator describes what is visible at the scene of the crime, on the first trip to a suspect's apartment, or even during a...

I recently joined a critique group for the first time ever and must admit, I am enjoying every bit of it. I wish I'd gotten up the nerve many years ago. I'm learning quite a bit from my fellow writers - and not just when I'm in the hot seat. At each meeting, we critique seven to eight documents. For each document, one person reads the pages out loud. This if followed by a round table discussion during which critiquers share first impressions - what got their attention, where they were lost, etc. We don't discuss grammar and spelling. We make those comments on printed copies and return those to the authors. These written comments raised several questions in my mind. I'm going to limit this post to one of them: What are the rules about paragraph structure in fiction? This question came up when I noticed that seven out of seven critquers did not like my paragraphs - especially any paragraph deemed to be long. If all seven had agreed on how the long passages should be c...