Inspired by Dane Golden's guest post on YouTube videos, I have begun a new series of YouTube videos, the second of which answers the question "Should all authors (published or not) blog?" Check out the video below for my answer. Also, one announcement: Litquake, San Francisco's literary conference, is introducing Digi.lit, a one-day digital publishing conference that will take…

Why is it our motivation sometimes wavers this time of year? Do you feel like the Little Engine That Could losing steam up a big pull? Maybe it’s the close of school and the beginning of summer. For some of us, that means a change in routine with kids home. Or maybe it’s that we’re five months into the year, and the…

I think most women would agree with me that shopping for a man is a little more difficult than just cooking him dinner. However, men get just as moody if you rock up to them on their birthday empty-handed and there is no amount of fluttering your eyelashes or bashful 'I love you's' that will make up for not actually buying a present.

So how exactly do you shop for a man? Do…

New calls! For all three anthologies, I strongly encourage writers new to erotica and my books to submit; I love publishing new authors and each of these topics is rife for creative voices approaching them with a fresh perspective. Work MUST follow the guidelines below.



Couples' Erotic Romance Stories

To be published by Cleis Press in 2014



Editor Rachel Kramer Bussel is looking for romantic, primarily heterosexual erotic stories for a 2012 anthology of…

In our backyard shop/artroom, I am working on a mosaic for our Copper River cabin; a stylized salmon spawning scene that is played out year after year when the reds run aplenty, and we are blessed with the bounty of…

You probably know that Amazon bought GoodReads at the end of March. A week before that, I had the pleasure to meet Patrick Brown, Director of Community at GoodReads, when he came to lunch at the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. Brown spoke about the…

To celebrate The Lake House arriving in stores my publisher, Gallery/ Simon & Schuster, will be giving away copies next week to She Writes members. So check in next Wednesday for more details.

Last Thursday I did my first reading of, The Lake House, at a…

Niche Over Numbers

by Karen Dodd

If you are a newly or soon-to-be published fiction author, chances are you are feeling overwhelmed by the what, why and how of building your author’s platform.

Let’s start with the…

This is going to be a short post today because the events of this week have been so totally depressing and discouraging. The folks in Washington voted down background checks; there were the awful events in Boston and in West, Texas. It's enough to make you want to…

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…

The process to become a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) starts from enrolling in a CNA training program. The program is a short-term course offered through various technical and educational institutions that lasts for four to six weeks. After the training, passing the certification exam is necessary to have the license. The cost of the training bears no resemblance throughout the states and training institutes. It may be in the range of $300 to $1200. Any specialization…

I was really happy to hear about a new organization that was founded right after the Newtown shootings:  Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.  Reading about them gives me hope, for the first time, that maybe the tide could start to turn a little.  Just think about how effective Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been in working against teenage DWI…

An essay that ran in Salon Tuesday titled “I’m a self-publishing failure” recounts how one writer, John Winters, spent countless hours and dollars promoting his book online only to sell a handful of copies. Where did John go wrong? How can you avoid becoming a self-publishing failure?

1. First of all, start early.

Seth…

Granted my marketing team consists of a teen and tween, but that 's all I can afford!

They actually came up with a good idea that I'd like to share with other authors.

It's a game, similar to  Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader, played out over two hours on Facebook.

So we are working out the questions and finding backup for the answers along with the prizes. If you'd like to donate an ebook or item that belongs under the genre of music or hotel stays, please let me…

If you haven't prepared your tax return yet, check out this great article on tax returns for artists, complete with an expense checklist for writers. This CPA's site and ebook have all the info you need (note: this is not my own accountant).

I'm a lifelong math phobe. So tax season sends me trudging into the dining room for what I've come to think of as my annual…

1. Use your name/brand as your Twitter handle. For the same reason that you want your name on your blog and your Facebook page, people won’t realize that Kiala Givehand is “supercoolwriter,” whose Tweets they follow and love, when they see her book in the bookstore, and they won’t buy it. Unlike on Facebook,…

For those of you who were intimidated by the thought of marketing yourself on YouTube, here’s a video tool for you.Vine, Twitter’s new social media video app, allows you to make short videos on your computer or mobile device and easily upload them to your Vine, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. The catch? The videos are limited to…

It's Friday. Besides the fact that it signals the start of the weekend, it may also mean the time to avoid meet. Now people opt for eating fish instead of meat for a number of reasons, from religious ones (yes, it's the Lenten season),  to dietary reasons (3 ounces of orange roughy  equals 89 calories compared to 3 ounces of lean steak, 159 calories), to a commitment to starting to eat lower on the food chain (complicated issue here, if you are looking at environmental issues, beef vs.…

I am delighted to be a part of The Next Big Thing, the “authors and the authors who love them” weblog chain in which I answer questions about what I’m working on and get to introduce you to two gifted friends and writers. Ruth Ozeki tagged me for this, and her long-awaited novel, A Tale for the Time Being, is coming out in March.  I got a sneak peak at it in…

Today I'd like to welcome guest blogger Dane Golden of Hey.com, who is here to talk about how writers can use YouTube to build their author platforms.…