Writing has been tough for me for a couple of years. I’m one of those writers who had a horrible time putting pen to paper during the pandemic. Although NaNoWriMo 2022 helped, I didn’t really rebound from stuckness until I made a day-job career change earlier this year. But I…
The Allen County Public Library Author Fair Committee sent out links to panel videos last week, and since my fellow panelists Jennifer Foehner Wells and Kayleen Reusser had such great advice during their presentations, I want to share the whole video with you. We each talked for about ten minutes, and…
This is the text of a presentation on self-publishing that I gave at the Allen County Public Library’s Author Fair yesterday. I’m posting this, complete with links, in the hopes it will be useful to writers who are beginning to research their publishing journey. Lots of you probably know that…
Today I’m going to write about a pet peeve of mine: Twitter’s Direct Message feature. Specifically, how authors use Twitter’s Direct Message feature. This week, I had several people follow me on Twitter. (I’m here: @stephanie_cain) Generally speaking, I take a look at someone’s profile and their most recent tweets before…
Dear Self-Published Authors, do yourself a favor. Stop charging libraries so much for your e-books. Robin Bradford is someone I follow on Twitter, and she frequently Tweets her collection development work as a librarian in Washington state. Since I have Librarian IV certification in Indiana (I actually have 3/4 of…
Back in March I finally finished Business for Authors: How to be an Author Entrepreneur by Joanna Penn, and here it is May and I’m finally finishing my review of the book! I had owned this book for months, and I think I was subconsciously intimidated by it. Why else would I have…
I know, I know, most writers are introverts, so you just looked at the title of this blog post and shuddered. But don’t worry, live events don’t have to be torture! In fact, live events have been, in my experience, very good days in terms of sales, and very good days in general.…
I had the opportunity this week to review the Self-Publishers Ultimate Resource Guide (Amazon affiliate link) by Joel Friedlander and Betty Kelly Sargent. First off, I’ll say that I was given a free digital copy in exchange for a fair and honest review. But I’ll follow that up by saying that I…
How do you market a self-published book into a best-seller? Start with the absolute best book you can produce. This isn’t really a new idea–marketing experts have long been touting the importance of having a good cover design, professional editing, and excellent back copy–but it doesn’t end there. Author Derek…
Sorry it’s been a while since I posted! The museum where I work has its most important annual fundraiser in late August, and I got sick two days before the fundraiser and spent the next two weeks recovering. Summer colds are the worst, especially if you get completely soaked and walk…
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