Happy October! It is weather-change month around here in far-northern California. We’re getting a four-day storm in starting tonight. The trees that surround my villa cabin will love all this nourishment from the sky.
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Help For Worried Authors Fretting About Agent Queries
There’s a message board thread at Absolute Write where authors worried about submissions fret about query letters and agent acceptance. From reading that board I found this blog by a literary agent who makes fun of things writers say in their query letters. This epitomizes what’s wrong with the publishing industry.
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Fighting CPS for Grandparents
Nobody needs to agree with me. Even if I face opposition, I will protest the evils of child protective services as long as I need to. However, a lot of people do agree – most of them, because they’ve had children taken from their families by this over-active, family-destroying government agency.
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Why I’ve Decided to Self-Publish My Books
I’ve been mulling over the self-publishing options for months. I have ten unpublished novels. I love to write. I have non-fiction book ideas too. But the gatekeepers of the publishing industry – agents and editors – have made the hope of getting published seem like a distant dream.
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Business Ethics of Agents in the Writing Community
After trying for several years to prepare novels for traditional publishing houses, I'm gradually being swayed into the self-publishing market. I'm particularly interested in Amazon's Kindle and Createspace POD publishing. I like the Kindle option because there are many ways for people to read novels, even if they don't own a Kindle! For example, you could do what I do, and download Kindle For PC … for free! Then read Kindle books on your computer!
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Writing Novels for Your Activist Agenda
I love the idea of writing novels to express social justice issues of importance to activists. However, how viable an idea is that? Is the time spent on writing a novel cost-effective? Will it bring the attention you need to the cause you’re passionate about? And speaking of passion, how much emotion can you put into that novel so that readers will truly be swayed to accept and even adopt your position?
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Do You Want a Job or Do You Want to Be Prosperous?
I am amazed at the number of people who look for jobs online or off, who could instead be building momentum to create their own online small business. No great thing is accomplished overnight, and there’s no such thing as easy money online, unless you’re just looking for dribbles and tiny paystreams.
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Videography, New Beginnings, and Me
Can an old woman learn new skills? Can Linda learn videography at the age of 58?
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Ethics in Business: Dealing With Conscienceless Sociopaths
Your reputation is valuable, but that isn’t the best reason for having ethics when you deal with others in your community. Your business prosperity is important too, but again, that’s not the most important thing.
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Tonight: Chamber of Commerce Board Meeting
Three more hours, and I’ll be in the midst of a meeting of the local Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors! Am I ready? I’d better be! I’m their secretary this year! Honestly I couldn’t believe they wanted me to be their secretary. I asked for (and got) an assistant who has been secretary in the past – she’s my awesome friend here in town, and owner-editor of Happy Camp News.
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What’s New: February & March, 2011
I got so busy last month I never wrote a word in my blog about what I was doing! I fell behind in my work because of a computer problem – the fan went out and I had to order one from thousands of miles away. After that setback, at the end of the month I raced to get the March 2011 issue of Literature For Kids online – and also rushed to get my new business site online almost two weeks after my intended launch date.
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Two Simple Productivity Tools For Content Writers
If you want to get your writing revised and website work organized enough to support you through the recession, put yourself in gear and make the work load manageable. One thing is certain – disorganization doesn’t help.
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Can a Community Ever Really be Unified?
Last night I attended a community business meeting at which a group of participants were talking about an absent person who had earned a bad reputation. Most of the people in the group were clearly incensed at something the absent person hadn’t done right, but a few others said we should forget the past, all be friends, and have a unified community.
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