From Dream to Draft: Transform Your Ideas with Creative Writing Courses
fleepbleep.com – Friday November 3, 2023
Are you an aspiring writer with a head full of stories waiting to be told? Do you have a burning desire to share your thoughts, emotions, and imagination with the world? If so, you’re not alone. Many dream of becoming writers but struggle to turn their ideas into fully-fledged drafts. The good news is that there’s a path from dream to draft, and it often begins with creative writing courses.
In this article, we’ll explore the transformative power of creative writing courses, how they can help you unlock your creativity, hone your skills, and ultimately bring your writing dreams to life. Whether you’re a complete novice or an experienced writer looking to refine your craft, read on to discover how these courses can be your guiding light on the journey from dream to draft.
The Ultimate Guide to Finding a Literary Agent for Your Book
legaldesire.com – Thursday November 2, 2023
If you’re an aspiring author who dreams of publishing your book by a traditional publishing house, securing a literary agent is essential. A literary agent acts as a professional representative, connecting authors with publishers. Their industry connections, expertise, and experience are instrumental in selling your manuscript to the right publisher, negotiating favorable deals, and safeguarding your rights.
However, finding the ideal literary agent who is genuinely interested in your book and can secure the best deal can be daunting. Standing out from many aspiring authors and avoiding scams and pitfalls are common concerns.
In this guide, we will address these questions and provide valuable insights on how to find a literary agent. Whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, Christian or secular, genre-specific or literary, we will offer the best tips and strategies to help you find and attract the perfect agent for your manuscript.
Amazon Sues Scammers Targeting Authors
publishersweekly.com – Wednesday November 1, 2023
Amazon this week announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California against some 20 individuals scamming authors by falsely claiming an affiliation with Amazon Publishing and Kindle Direct Publishing. According to the suit, the scammers run fake Amazon knockoff websites designed to lure would-be authors into paying a fee to publish, and then deliver either substandard or no service at all.
“Defendants use the Amazon Marks in their domain names and on their websites to divert victims from Amazon’s genuine websites to Defendants’ websites that purport to offer services to help authors create, edit, and publish their works through [Amazon Publishing or Kindle Direct Publishing],” the suit states, adding that, “to further the ruse of affiliation with Amazon” the websites often have chat boxes or advertise phone numbers to call that provide “false and misleading representations of affiliation with Amazon.”
Kindle Direct Publishing Will Beta Test Virtual Voice–Narrated Audiobooks
publishersweekly.com – Wednesday November 1, 2023
In a post today in the Kindle Direct Publishing community forum, the self-publishing giant announced that it has begun a beta test on technology allowing KDP authors to produce audiobook versions of their e-books using virtual voice narration. The ability to create an audiobook using synthetic speech technology is likely to result in a boom in the number of audiobooks produced by KDP authors. According to an Amazon spokesperson, currently only 4% of titles self-published through KDP have an audiobook available.
Under the new initiative, authors can choose one of their eligible e-books already on the KDP platform, then sample voices, preview the work, and customize the audiobook. After publication, audiobooks will be live within 72 hours, and will distributed wherever Audible titles are sold. Prices can be set between $3.99 and $14.99 and authors will receive a 40% royalty. All audiobooks created by virtual voice, the post says, will be clearly labeled and, as with any audiobook, customers can listen to samples.
New Magazine Listing: Abridged
firstwriter.com – Monday October 30, 2023
Aims to publish and exhibit contemporary/ experimental poetry plus contemporary art. Each issue is themed. Themes focus on contemporary concerns in a rapidly changing society. We are offering an alternative and complete integration of poetry, art and design. We experiment continually.
New Magazine Listing: The Passionfruit Review
firstwriter.com – Friday October 27, 2023
The theme for general submissions is love: the romantic, the familial, the platonic, the intimate, the lost, the young, the wretched. Above all, Passionfruit seeks to be a home for that which illuminates something of the human spirit – pieces that explore what love is (or isn’t, or might be), when we love, how we love, what we love, and why we love.
Our focus is on poetry, but there are no particular restrictions on genre, type, or style – we will consider poetry, prose, and visual art for each issue.
New Publisher Listing: Hashtag Press
firstwriter.com – Wednesday October 25, 2023
We are looking for excellent writers with brilliant diverse stories to tell.
Please read the about us before submitting to us. We would prefer books that haven't been published already.
We love diverse and inclusive books! We are open to debut authors especially those from an underrepresented background. We publish commercial fiction books for young people that are plot driven with relatable, inspiring characters.
We are a tiny publishing house, so we are incredibly selective.
Any books that are not diverse or inclusive will be a no.
Example Of A Book Proposal That Should Have Been Accepted
financialsamurai.com – Tuesday October 24, 2023
So you want to publish the next great book! To do so you first need a book proposal.
Back in late 2011, I spent hours putting together a book proposal for my severance negotiation strategy book, How To Engineer Your Layoff.
After engineering my own layoff three months earlier, I had hoped to get a literary agent, land a book deal, and spend the next year writing the book. Writing a book was always on my bucket list. And what better time to do so than after retiring on a beach in Hawaii?
Alas, fate had other plans. I submitted my book proposal to about 15 agents and didn't get a single reply back. Undaunted, and with the help of my dad and wife, I decided to self-publish my book anyway.
Should You Write Something Different?
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Sunday October 22, 2023
The obvious answer to that simple question would seem to be yes, but it’s not the answer I’m going to give you—since I care about the outcome for you. I’ll, instead, give you a qualified yes and tell you to write something different than everything that’s out there if you can’t help yourself—if the urge is too strong to resist.
Rather a while back I wrote a wholly different novel about Jesus the Christ. Quite different, in fact. That is to say an actually spiritual novel based on my training in a secret spiritual lineage: an original novel. (Which you can find currently on Smashwords—Jesus of Nazareth.) I knew I had only a few publishing houses I might approach and very few agents, but I was impelled to produce this rather different novel due to the materialistic understandings offered in a few contemporary novels. Jesus starting out as an anti-Roman revolutionary? Seriously? I had to utter a resounding no to something missing the mark by that far. Or a Jesus so fully human that not a touch of the divine might be found within his suffering. Puzzling. From a Christian publisher, I got “If we want a book about Jesus, we’ll have one of our own people write it.” So then, forget about originality and creativity. Apparently people only want their own opinions played back. Yeah, no surprises there.
Or picture me hunting down an agent amid the negatives directed at my latest production of human wisdom (if I may say so myself). An agent I knew through other means told me, “You write well, but I don’t like the book.” Yes, I’m quoting. Never mind “Not for my list. Best of luck.” You know, the typical phrases that agents use to convey a pinch of faux humility. This guy had none of that.
The book my agent acquaintance hated (though he probably read no more than a page or two), is Rescued, now out on Amazon from an honest-to-goodness publisher, having been rejected by the very few agents willing to even have a peek. And all would no doubt have thrust book two in the Rebirth series, Re-Live, aside as well—a wholly different book from what is being published these days, certainly suited to follow Rescued, both presenting transforming protagonists who are deep into the martial arts and have some appearance of contemporary heroes. Are you, like me, the victim of your own inspiration and what an editor I listened to recently called the flatness of our culture?
Want to write a novel? National Novel Writing Month celebrates 25th anniversary
eu.news-journalonline.com – Saturday October 21, 2023
On November 1st, hundreds of thousands of people around the world will suddenly start crouching over their laptops, keyboards, notebooks, journals and tablets as they try to destroy and rebuild relationships, craft the perfect murder, create a thrilling adventure, devise a winning courtroom argument, help plucky kids discover their true destinies and find new and unusual ways to dispose of a body.
November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, and this year marks the 25th frantic, caffeine-driven year for millions of otherwise perfectly sane people. If you've always wanted to write but lacked motivation, commitment or plot, that pressure has now been replaced with a simple deadline. The event begins at 12:01 on Nov. 1 and it stops at the stroke of midnight, Nov. 30.
Your goal: producing a 50,000-word novel in a frustrating, exhilarating time during which you’ll push yourself to the limit of your endurance and get over the psychological fear of writing a book by whomping out something that at least looks like one.
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