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Meghan Ward

I'm a freelance writer and book editor who specializes in memoir. For more info, visit my website.

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Editor Alan Rinzler & Literary Agent Andy Ross On All Things Publishing

First off, we have a winner for a signed copy of A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception and Survival in Jonestown by New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres. That winner is:

MOLLY!

Molly, e-mail me your full name and address, and I will pop the book in the mail to you [...]

10 Steps to Becoming a Self-Publishing Superstar

There’s been a lot of brouhaha about self-publishing lately, with the success stories of Joe Konrath, Barry Eisler, Amanda Hocking, and John Locke being tossed around the Internet like a wedding dance video. But is self-publishing for you? Back in June, when I met with Smashwords founder Mark Coker, he had recently been quoted in [...]

Should Self-Published Authors Pay For Reviews?

When I hear about companies like Blue Ink Review, who charge self-published authors to have their books reviewed by professional book reviewers, I have two thoughts:

1. FINALLY! I’ve been waiting for high quality websites who specialize in self-published book reviews written by professional reviewers to emerge as the gatekeepers of the self-publishing industry.

2. [...]

Interview: Ethan Nosowsky, Editor-at-Large, Graywolf Press

Ethan Nosowsky is Editor-at-Large at Graywolf Press. He is also Consultant for Innovative Literature at the Creative Capital Foundation. Previously he was an editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He has edited books by Jeffery Renard Allen, Emily Barton, Elias Canetti, Geoff Dyer, Stephen Elliott, John Haskell, J. Robert Lennon, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, among [...]

Author Interview: Nathan Bransford Part II

As you know if you read/watched Part I of our interview, author Nathan Bransford came to the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto for lunch last week, and I videotaped our interview. This half is really more of a conversation between Nathan and some of the writers at the Grotto, including Po Bronson, Constance Hale, and Caroline [...]

Author Interview: Alicia Dunams

Alicia Dunams is author of the Amazon bestseller Goal Digger. She is a dynamic speaker, book packager, and business coach.

In 2007, you self-published a book titled, Goal Digger: Lessons Learned From the Rich Men I Dated. Why did you choose to self-publish?

I shopped it around to literary agents and was [...]

Link Love

Wow. This week I’m actually going to post my favorite links on Friday like all the cool people do!

Editor Alan Rinzler over at The Book Deal has a detailed post on memoir with seven tips for combating your inner critic.

Jacquelyn Wheeler breaks down the pros and cons of self-publishing vs traditional publishing.

Shelli [...]

Author Interview: Jacquelyn Wheeler

Jacquelyn Wheeler is the author of Rising Shadow, a YA sci-fi novel.

How long did it take you to write Rising Shadow?

It took me about nine weeks to write the first draft and then about nine months to edit it, although during that time I was also working on books two and [...]

Self-Publishing

There’s been a lot of talk on blogs lately about the pros and cons of self-publishing. Until now, self-publishing has been synonymous with vanity publishing, the idea being that there are no gate-keepers to self-publishing. All you need is some money and you can publish a book, no matter how crappy it is. Today, as [...]