Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: up to mid-40s
How many words are there for love? I wish we had more in the English language to distinguish the kinds of love.
We have parental love for a child, love based on sexual desire, love based on mutual interests and friendship, love or devotion for animals and nonliving things, adoration for God, and in tennis, love is a score of zero! We have love as a noun and love as a verb. I won’t even start with love as an adjective.
Did you know that one who writes about love is an amorist?
Would any of you amorists out there tell how you describe the feelings you attribute to love?
Do you find other words? Use other languages?
Do you indicate love in actions in your writing rather than using the word?
Maybe we’d all be warmed up in this horrendous winter with a little more love talk!
By Etta Wilson on Feb 25, 2010 in Blog, Fiction | 4 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Mid-40s. Still cold!
In the February issue of the review publication BookPage, I read an interview with Richard Whitmire, author of Why Boys Fail. Whitmire, the father of two daughters and formerly an education reporter with the Gannett News Service, writes that he used to think girls got shortchanged in their education.
But later he woke up to the fact that boys were not getting the education they needed. Reading experts report that starting at fourth grade, boys should pull even with girls in literacy skills, but that’s not happening, and most boys never cross the gap. Whitmire thinks that although men may rule the White House and Wall Street, they don’t rule the local economy and local government structure.
Could this be because boys and girls have different learning styles that aren’t being tried? What about the levels of math skills where boys have traditionally led? It is disturbing to read that the U.S. educational level has slipped so dramatically. Is there a correlation? I think we are at ninth place worldwide now. (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Feb 24, 2010 in Blog, Life | 13 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: mid-40s again
I’m blown away by the statistics indicating how many romance novels are read! The Romance Writers of America website reports that 74.8 million Americans read at least one romance novel in 2008; while the core of the romance market, that is regular readers, is around 29 million.
The genre is multiplying even as it divides into sub-genres. At a recent presentation I heard three published romance authors talking about the particular kind of book they write. One writes what is called a “mashup” in which a contemporary romance is set within some historical writing; another writes romantic detective stories; and the third writes romantic paranormal stories. (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Feb 23, 2010 in Blog, Fiction | 10 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Mid-40s
We’ve just passed Valentine’s Day, and as usual it had a lot of emphasis on the romantic relationship. My sweetie tends to get more tender as the years go by, and I hope yours does too. It did set me thinking about how our perceptions of men and their role in family have changed. Most of us know a family or two in which the woman is the breadwinner and leaves the home every day while the man remains to care for children. And more often than in generations past, the care of home and children is a shared responsibility. The rise of the home office has facilitated this change in traditional roles.
The thing I’m pondering now is how men are presented in romantic fiction. What really appeals to women readers?
Has anybody read a romance novel in which the female protagonist and her intended knew on the front end that she would be the chief earner in their relationship or that the two of them together would provide income as the years went by?
In these times of economic downturn, should authors create stories that offer escape for readers and simply ignore the hard realities of the groceries and the mortgage and who’s going to pay? Or do those realities become the fictional grist for turning a fling into real love against all odds? What makes a man heroic and lovable in such stories?
I’d particularly like to hear about any books that you think provide answers. We’re in a changing world, and we have young girls and boys looking for models.
By Etta Wilson on Feb 22, 2010 in Blog, Fiction, Reading | 5 Comments
Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski
Location: Writing for the Soul conference, Denver, Colo.
How do the writing tools and skills we’ve discussed this week affect aspects of your life beyond the craft of writing?
The following two questions might help you to consider a response:
What have you learned at a writers conference that helped you with raising children, managing time, or with your day job?
How has online networking, blogging, changed your personal or spiritual life?
By Rachel Zurakowski on Feb 19, 2010 in Blog, Life | 3 Comments
Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski
Location: Writing for the Soul Conference; Denver, Colo.
Tools and tips for handling the financial aspects of writing:
1) Understand taxes: When you receive your first advance, it’s so exciting that you’re tempted to spend the entire thing. Don’t do that! Be sure to talk with an accountant about how much you need to set aside for your taxes first. Publishers don’t withhold any taxes from your advance; so it’s your responsibility to pay Uncle Sam yourself at tax time. Avoid unaffordable surprises!
2) Find out what you can write off: If you know what you can write off of your taxes and you save receipts, you can save yourself thousands of dollars. Writers Conferences and research travel can be written off in some cases. The catch is you need to make money from your writing within a couple of years. If you don’t think you’re going to have a book published right away, but you still want to attend conferences and to write off the expense, it’s a good idea to submit articles to magazines. Getting paid for an article counts as making money from writing. Be sure to talk to a tax accountant about the specifics for you.
3) Keep all check stubs and payment receipts: It’s important to have these documents when tax time comes. You want to have a record of all income made from writing.
4) Look into pros and cons of becoming incorporated: Looking into this is something you should do when your income reaches a certain level. Incorporation isn’t for everyone, but it could benefit you.
What other money tips you have learned?
By Rachel Zurakowski on Feb 18, 2010 in Blog | 5 Comments
Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski
Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Professional Tools
Writers need to keep up on the publishing market; a variety of tools help the author to be knowledgeable and “in-the-loop,” as they write and submit projects. These are the professional tools.
1) Research Books & Subscriptions: Keep up on the book market so you can know what’s selling and also what’s happening at the different publishing houses. Books like Sally Stuart’s Christian Writers Market Guide or Robert Lee Brewer’s 2010 Writers Market are tools that help authors to keep current on the happenings in the industry. Magazines like Christian Retailing or Publishers Weekly are full of information and insight into book publishing and into what’s hot right now.
2) Microsoft Word: Word is the standard for publishing these days so learn at the least how to use these features: page numbers, headers, page breaks, fonts, text size, envelope and label printing, double spacing, track changes, comments and charts. It’s also nice if you can learn to save your Word document in the universal “.doc” format instead of the Word 2007 “.docx.” Those who haven’t upgraded Word to the newest version can’t open the “.docx” documents.
3) Writers’ Group Registrations: Staying current is made a little bit easier when you have a large group of authors keeping you up-to-date. Groups such as American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), Romance Writers of America (RWA), The Writers View and more are great tools to help you with the market. Make sure you don’t let these groups distract you from your goal, however. It’s easy to get carried away with chatting about writing, but then you don’t actually write your manuscript.
What tools do you use to keep up-to-date with the book market?
By Rachel Zurakowski on Feb 17, 2010 in Blog, Writing Life | 3 Comments
Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski
Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Today we’re going to explore the tools a writer needs to master for marketing a book. Marketing has become a huge part of the author’s job both before and after a book is published. A writer is responsible for building a platform before the book is even contracted with a publishing house, and after the book is published, the author must be the key force in the marketing of the project. Even New York Times bestselling authors market their books.
Here are some marketing tools that you need to master: (more…)
By Rachel Zurakowski on Feb 16, 2010 in Blog, Marketing & Publicity | 2 Comments
Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski
Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
As you know, there’s much more to writing these days than just producing a book. Some authors would claim that the writing is the easy part! The hard part of being a writer is mastering the tools necessary for getting a book published, for marketing it, and for handling your daily writing life.
Today we’ll be examining some of the tools that are helpful for getting a book published. The first tools you need are guides to help you learn to write and to grow in your writing. Anybody can write a book. Very few people can write a great book.
These tools will help you write a book that’s high quality and ready for publication: (more…)
By Rachel Zurakowski on Feb 15, 2010 in Authors, Blog, Fiction, Nonfiction, Writing Life | 11 Comments
Blogger: Wendy Lawton
Location: Central California Office of Books and Such
After a week of talking nonfiction let’s share some of the nonfiction books that we love. You can just list them or you can tell us why they made your list.
Here are a few of mine:
- Books that changed my life: Prayer by Richard Foster, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
- Books I will reread often over the course of my life: Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
- Devotionals I keep going back to: My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, Magnificent Prayer by Nick Harrison
- Idea books: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
So tell us about yours. . .
By Wendy Lawton on Feb 12, 2010 in Blog, Nonfiction | 8 Comments
