Pen to Pen: Selling your Special with Sonni de Soto

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Guest author Sonni de Soto argues that the key to success is to publishing success is emphasizing what makes you different. Sell based on what makes you special. Your stories are one-of-a-kind, and that’s what readers are looking for. … Read more

Pen to Pen: Five Essentials For Your Author Website

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This week in Pen to Pen, I’m happy to have Mary Caelsto, author of Perfect Author Newsletters, coaches other authors in improving their websites and newsletters. Check out her list to make sure you’ve got all five of these must-haves on your website. … Read more

Pen to Pen: Coping with Rejection by K.S. Trenten

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Welcome to Pen to Pen, a new weekly feature on my writing blog where authors stop by to talk about things they’ve learned along the way. Kicking the series off is K.S. Trenten, a wonderfully creative author of queer fantasy that I met when we both were publishing with the now-defunct Torquere Press. Today, she has some advice for those of us who have experienced rejection. And since that’s pretty much every writer who’s ever tried to get a story published, what she has to say will help a lot of people. … Read more

What are simultaneous submissions? How are they different from multiple submissions?

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“Simultaneous submissions” and “multiple submissions” are bits of jargon that have distinct meanings in the publishing industry. I break them down in this article.
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How to Track Book Sales — Even When You’re Not the Publisher

Image of book pile to illustrate tracking book sales

In this article, I evaluate sales tracking systems that are free to any author with an ebook on Amazon, paying special attention to Pronoun and NovelRank. Why these two? I’ve used both of these for a while because they’re user-friendly and can be used by any author whether they self-publish their ebooks or work with a traditional publisher. I also touch on tracking sales of print books—a much more difficult endeavor.

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