As a new writer, you probably have many misconceptions. I’ve been at this for a while now and can only laugh at myself when I think about how naïve I was. One of my favorite sayings is you don’t know what you don’t know.

I think my biggest misconception was anybody can write a novel. It’s easy. You get a great story line and put pen to paper, or fingers to keys, whichever you prefer. Well as my more experienced readers know, that’s a laugh.

Writing a novel has been one of the hardest journey’s I have ever taken. And I’m saying journey, because you’re going to be at this for a while. Like years, if you follow the traditional route.

One of the first things you’ll learn, after you receive a mailbox full of rejections for your first draft, is you don’t know how to write a novel…

By getting the word count right. How?

Scene by scene.

I’ve written in the past about the word count for books but a book is made up of chapters. And chapters are made up of scenes. 

A mixture of really short and really long chapters may give your reader a case of whiplash. Make sure that doesn’t happen. 

There is nothing wrong with varying chapter length or writing a book with all short chapters, but I’d avoid the extreme. Scenes set the pace and like stepping stones lead your reader through the book. 

Randy Ingermanson on Advanced Fiction Writing, reminds us to think SCENES not CHAPTERS.

Controlling Chapter Lengths in Your Novel

Things from his post I want to remember:

• Chapters are stepping stones to take the reader through your book.
• Chapters consist and are controlled by SCENES.
• Varying scene length is okay. But be consistent.
• A good average

by Andrea Lundgren

Personally, I like fitting endings even more than happy ones. Sure, it’s nice to know that the characters you’ve read about succeed. When you’ve invested time and emotional energy, you enjoy it when they make it out of their troubles and gain the victory they’ve sought for so long, but I don’t like false endings. I don’t like endings that feel fake, as though the author pulled some strings with the fictional higher powers to give the characters the ending they wanted, rather than what they deserved.

LULU has been publishing books since 2002 with over 2 million titles published. Lulu has developed into an outstanding company with many advantages over both Createspace and Kindle which in recent years caused to many hassles for me personally to want to use them any longer.

One of my favourite parts of Lulu is the LIVE CHAT which helps you through the process of uploading your manuscript if or when you get stuck.  It is a bit of a learning curve and I have gathered the images of the process for everyone to use for any paperback publishing with Lulu.  I will eventually do eBooks as well.

First of all you need to create an account using your email address and finding a unique password. After you sign in you’ll  need to click on CREATE to find the image below.

In Image1 (above) you will find two tabs 

1. You have to learn to sell to a small audience before you can sell to a larger one.

Sometimes social media can give a false perception of success, whereas we think we have to constantly be working and grinding and that we have to have a lot of people support us. The truth is that we really just need a few committed individuals to build with to lay the foundation for where we ultimately want to be. If ten dedicated readers bought a book at $10 and left an Amazon review, that’s already ten reviews and $100. This is just an example and it may not seem like much to start but over time that number of dedicated people will grow. Don’t look to other people to determine what success is for you. Start off giving your best to the few people who are already there to support you.

1. Don’t…

by Penny C. Sansevieri   on BookWorks site:

Everyone is still buzzing about the recent algorithm changes for Facebook. And with good reason—it’s a game-changer for social media marketing in general.

Though Facebook and other social media networks are great strategies for book promotion, they should never be your entire marketing plan.

Never put your success in someone else’s hands.

The true strength of Facebook, and really, all social media, is how it fosters a direct author/reader connection.

That relationship is what drives book sales, not the platform itself.

Continue reading HERE

This is a guest post by Max Therry, an architecture student who is fond of photography and wants to become a professional photographer. He is also working on his brand-new photography blog about photo editing, modern photo trends, and inspiration. Max shares here some great resources for stock photos, a topic I’ve written about in the past. You can reach him by email.

The Best 21+ Completely Free Stock Photo Resources

You’ve written a sensational blog post — typed up the perfect email newsletter — or designed a batch of perfectly festive holiday cards. But, alas, you’re on a budget and you need a photo. Finding photos free of copyright restrictions (in other words, you can download and use them for both commercial and personal use without attribution) can often prove to be one giant headache. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of some of the best

by Meg Dowell

Writing a lot and writing well at the same time? It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

I know of writers and overall content creators who publish a new piece of content every day — and their work is usually good. But not always great.

I also know of creators who publish new content less frequently — and it’s always phenomenal.

I thought of this post when I heard of a problem plaguing one of the groups I belong to. People are using its Twitter hashtag without actually being members of said group. This both confuses readers and dilutes the group’s rather successful brand. Even worse, these authors are taking advantage of the hard work others have put in without ever contributing anything themselves.

This reminded me of a series of posts author David Gaughran has written since June 2017. In them, David complains about scammers breaking the Kindle Store and about Amazon’s frequently heavy-handed approach to dealing with the problem. The main culprit is so-called click-farmed titles and other dodgy marketing practices. Based on David’s observation, I, too, mentioned the issue in my post, Fake Books: Amazon’s Latest Headache.

Big Rewards, Big Hype

If anything, the problem seems to have grown worse since then. This is because of the…

By Derek Haines  on Just Publishing Advice:

Learning English grammar rules is easier than you think, and fun.

Here is a little light grammar relief for you. Perhaps it will be a good way to waste ten minutes of your day, or to encourage you to extend your morning coffee break.

The following list of grammar and writing rules was originally published on my personal blog many, many years ago. But as these rules remain useful to use as a quick refresher, I thought I would move the list here for Just Publishing Advice readers to enjoy.

55 Grammar mistakes and boo-boos that you should avoid making