Hello, to everyone in the blogosphere. Today, I have a couple of things I want to talk about. I explain them in greater detail in my latest podcast episode.
First of all, I would like to celebrate my first entry submitted to the monthly furious fiction competition, which takes place the first weekend of each month. This contest is sponsored by the Australian Writers Center and stories can be no longer than 500 words. The contest if free, and you have a chance to win $500 each month that you participate. The writing prompt for March was as follows: Your story must have a character in disguise. Your story must be set in a park and it must contain a mirror. I wrote a story entitled Calm before the Fall, using the victim from A Journey of Faith: A Stepping Stones Mystery.
The second topic in today’s episode of #InspirationalJourneys is my highlights from the Women in Publishing Summit March 2-8, 2020. The nuggets I found from the various presentations are as follows. Each of these nuggets are explained in greater detail in the episode linked below.
Editing
Although an author writes one draft of a story, don’t expect your first draft to be ready to send to an editor. One of the editors said either she or one of her clients revised their manuscript seventeen times, before it was ready to publish. There are different types of editors: developmental/content editors, line editors, copy editors and proofreaders. Don’t rely on one editor to do all the various types of edits.
Self-publishing your book:
Self-published or Indie authors wear three hats: The author hat, when you write the book, the publisher’s hat, when you get your book formatted, edited and hire a cover designer, upload your book to the different platforms etc., and the marketer’s hat once your book is published.
What readers look for:
In a bookstore, a reader checks the cover, the blurb and the author’s writing style, among other things, to determine whether or not the book is worth the purchase. Readers also look for books that are in a series first, genre specific books second, and books by their favorite authors third. I also learned that poetry books are often published in series.
Click the link below for today’s episode of the #InspirationalJourneys podcast: