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Common Writing Mistakes to Avoid

First, I want to announce that the winner of the BlogHer ’13 swag and copy of Guy Kawasaki’s ebook APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur, is …

ANNE ALLEN!

Congratulations, Anne! Please email me your mailing address so I can send you your swag!

Now I want to talk a little about craft and […]

Why Do You Write?

Lately I’ve been thinking about how I can steer my three-year-old daughter toward a career in engineering. She has a knack for putting things together, and oh how much I’d rather she became an engineer like her father than a writer like her mother. (I read, by the way, that the way to do […]

How to Convert Your Followers into 1000 True Fans

If you’ve been reading blogs for a while, you have probably come across the term “1000 true fans.” Kevin Kelly first wrote about this idea on his blog Technium. The number 1000 is an estimate, of course, but the rationale goes that all you need to succeed in your field are 1000 true fans, […]

Should All Authors Blog?

This week, I’m introducing a series of YouTube videos that I am creating to give readers who don’t have a lot of time to read long blog posts quick access to information about writing, editing, publishing, and social media. To be sure you don’t miss any, click on the red “Subscribe to my videos on […]

Stress Reduction for Writers

I’ve had insomnia for the past couple of years. Sometimes I’m up from 2-4 or 5 a.m., reading until I fall back to sleep. Other times I sleep through the night but wake up at 5 or 5:30. For a while I took Tylenol PM, then melatonin, but I hate taking sleeping pills. I […]

Contently: Building Your Brand the Fortune 500 Way

If you’re a journalist looking for a way to display your clips on your website, look no further. Contently.com offers a “build-your-own portfolio” site tool that is quick and easy to use and that you can embed into your own website.

“We realized a lot of journalists are not great web designers, so […]

Translating Trauma into Memoir

Some of you may remember that in July 2003, an 86-year-old man drove his car through the crowded Santa Monica Farmers’ Market outside of LA, killing ten people and injuring dozens more, many of them critically. That story struck a chord with me because I used to shop at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market when […]

Author Interview: Caroline Paul and Wendy MacNaughton

Today I’d like to welcome my friends and colleagues here at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto Caroline Paul, author, and Wendy MacNaughton, illustrator, whose book, Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology hit bookstores yesterday. The talented Caroline Paul has two previously published books, Fighting Fire, a memoir about the 13 […]

Should You Crowdsource Your Book?

Today I want to welcome author and nature photographer Mike Spinak, who is here to talk to us about his children’s book Growing Up Humming (which is wonderful; I bought two copies), his behemoth following on Google+ (45,710 people have circled him), and why he crowdsourced his book (Mike funded the publication of Growing Up […]

Memoir: Finding Your Story

A friend of mine wants to turn her diaries into a memoir but doesn’t know where to begin. I read one of her diaries and marked all the passages that I found interesting—stories about dating, details about finances, notes about current events that took place a decade ago. Those details will be invaluable when adding […]