THE RYW Blog
WRITING, SELLING, AND BALANCING YOUR LIFE
Fairytale Promotion: the Marketing Secrets of Cinderella
I've written romance for over a decade. One of the most popular tropes is the Cinderella fantasy: a woman, mistreated, misunderstood and basically hidden from sight, is suddenly plucked from obscurity by a "fairy godmother" to great acclaim, living happily ever after...
How to Find Time to Write and Promote.
I first wrote this post years ago, and needless to say, a lot has happened since then! New types of social media, the rise of video shorts. Bookstagram, BookTok, etc. That said, the basics remain the same. How do you find time to write and promote? I haven't perfected...
Five reasons why readers aren’t buying your book.
1. They don't know about your book. This seems painfully obvious, doesn't it? With the sheer volume of ebooks being added to the market daily, with a very low barrier to entry, getting noticed by a target audience is a lot like shouting your title randomly at a...
The valuable lessons failure teaches you about success.
When I got my first contract at 26, I had a goal. I'd sell 100,000 copies, I thought. That'd be a decent start. Then I'd start really making some big numbers. (If you're not laughing now, you should be. Trust me. 100,000 copies is nuts,...
How to blow sh*t up (and improve your story!)
One of the things I hear the most often from my plot brainstorming clients: "I know where it ends, and I think I've got the black moment, but in the middle -- I'm not quite sure what happens." It's a litany I've heard for years. Hell, I've said it myself. You get a...
How to use torture for fun and profit!
I get to see the framework of a lot of stories in progress in both my coaching service and my critique service, When it comes to conflict in general, and Black Moments in particular, there's one thing I've noticed over and over. People pull their punches. They...
How to act your way into right thinking.
Pair of shoes standing on a road with three white arrow on the pavement I've had two crippling bouts of writers' block in my career. I experienced the first after I published my first novel. My editor said, "we loved the book! What else do you have?" I...