You may have an out-of-the-ballpark manuscript, but if you don’t get the reader interested within the first sentence or paragraph, you may lose that reader. Those first sentences are so important, Jacob M. Appel (author of over two hundred published short stories) notes, “agents and editors, if not impressed after a sentence or two, will…
Author: Karen Cioffi
Karen Cioffi is an award-winning author and children's ghostwriter. She loves to help those who want to be the author of a children's book fulfill their dream. Contact Karen today to get your story started!
Writing and Marketing – Keep Things Manageable
If you’re jumping into the writing arena, there are a few things you should know. The first is to take it step-by-step, and make your steps manageable.
Writing Productivity: The $25,000 Question and Meditation
How do you accomplish all the writing and marketing tasks you must, aside from keeping up with everything else in your life? Ah, the $25,000 question.
Literary Tropes: The Orphan
Contributed by Melinda Brasher A trope is a common plot device, character type, writing element, etc. I believe that many tropes are so common because they’re popular, fun, and good—except that they’ve become so overused that they’ve lost some of their goodness. These should be treated carefully and creatively. Other tropes are simply a result…
Working with New Authors and Writing Mistakes
Six Common Writing Mistakes I FindI’ve worked with a client on four picture books over the past few years. She loves the final product and keeps coming back, but she’s still making the same mistakes regarding her feedback on the drafts.With every new section or draft I send her, she sends them back with notes…
Your Children’s Manuscript: Synopsis to Submissions
Once your manuscript is complete, it’s time to submit if you’re taking the traditional path. The first thing you’ll need is a synopsis. Then it’s on to the submitting process.
Self, Indie, and Hybrid Publishing – Which is for You?
Authors have lots of choices when it comes to publishing. There’s traditional, self, indie, and hybrid. Which is best for you?
6 Things a Writer Should Always Do
What’s the very first thing you should do as a writer? It’s pretty simple, you should know what you’re doing. Find out the other five things.
Shaun the Sheep and Marketing with Animation
If an hour and a half cartoon movie with no talking can hold a child’s attention, you can be assured using short-clip animation will do the same for your book marketing audience.
Sell Your Books Face-to-Face
Book marketing encompasses a lot of strategies, one of them is selling books face-to-face. Find out how to go about it.