By Donna Schlachter Reaching Readers Without Leaving Your House Guest Blogging So far this year we’ve covered three topics related to Marketing for Introverts—Reaching readers without leaving your house. They are: Connecting with readers where they are (February); Facebook and other social media (April); and Newsletters (June). Hopefully, you’ve had […]

An Interview by Deborah L. Brewer What’s not to love about middle-grade books, so full of curiosity and can-do spirit? Writing for middle-grade readers is a great way to introduce children to a lifelong love of reading and a great market for book sales, too. In the United States, in […]

By Margena Holmes As an author, it’s not enough to just have a website for your books. To make your name and work known, you need to have a social media presence, too. But how does one do that? And with so many different ones, where do you start? Here […]

By Deborah Brewer What author’s work would you emulate? A simple copy work exercise could be your masterclass. Over the centuries, students of writing have hand-copied sales letters, poetry, scripture, legal documents, and even passages from scientific journals. Not to plagiarize, but to learn. Copying prose and poetry longhand is […]

By Trista Herring Baughman Many writers experience writer’s block, a feeling of being stuck and unable to move forward in their story. While some writers don’t believe it exists, others dread it and find it frustrating. The positive aspect is that regardless of whether it is real or perceived, it […]

by Jeff Schmoyer You may have heard the term “going wide” regarding self-publishing. This means making your title available in as many places as possible, rather than taking an easy (sort of) route and only publishing on Amazon. Amazon can get your masterpiece into the world in eBook, softback, and […]

By Deborah Courtney   If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living. — Gail Sheehy   Growth and change feel uncomfortable. Because of that most people avoid them. Like the plague. And they end up on a path that feels meaningless and repetitive. […]

by Trista Herring Baughman What is Mind Mapping? At some point in your school days, you learned about mind mapping. You might have tucked the knowledge away, back in the warehouse of your brain on a dusty shelf, or perhaps you still use it today. If it’s the former, let […]

By Donna Schlachter Reaching Readers without Leaving Your House Newsletters Back in the day, newsletters were printed, folded (or stuffed in an envelope), hand-addressed, and mailed to recipients. “Desktop Publishing” was a term bandied about when computers got involved, instead of mimeograph machines. And now, most newsletters are digital. Unless […]

By Deborah Brewer As writers, we dream of readers lost for hours in our carefully crafted story worlds. But if we don’t master the paragraph, we may lose our readers to confusion. Fine-tuning a paragraph can be frustrating work, but it’s the writer’s job to communicate clearly, not the reader’s […]

By Margena Holmes A writing coach friend of mine, Christine Whitmarsh, has a daily podcast called Your Daily Writing Habit, where she gives tips to follow to establish good writing habits. Her pillars that she focuses on are writing fundamentals, productivity, and mindset habits. In March 2022, I decided that […]

Hello, Dear Readers,  Let me tell you about an amazing resource I stumbled across a while ago, but just really dove into: The 5-Day Author Ad Profit Challenge. The challenge coaches authors on how to run Amazon Ads to make a profit. You learn by doing. This means you go […]

By Catherine Dilts Logline, pitch, blurb, synopsis. At some point, you will be required to develop short descriptions of your fiction work. You may find the differences confusing until you understand the purpose of each tool. LOGLINE Logline is also called the “elevator pitch,” or “hook.” It is the briefest […]

By: Margena Holmes In this day and age, there are many ways a writer can become a published author. There’s the traditional way of submitting your work to agents and publishers with no promise of getting accepted. There are independent publishers, where you submit your work and with it being […]

By Catherine Dilts My daughter and I embarked on a grand new adventure – collaborative writing. We’re finally digging into that crazy speculative fiction novel we’ve talked about for years. But this article isn’t about our writing project. It’s about our different approaches to attending PPWC 2023. This will be […]

By Trista Herring Baughman In 1996, the Academy of American Poets established the largest literary celebration in the world, known as National Poetry Month, to celebrate the integral role of poetry and poets in our culture. This holiday is celebrated in the U.S. and Canada. There are so many benefits […]

By Donna Schlachter Reaching Readers Without Leaving Your House Facebook and Other Social Media Welcome back to the second article in this series. We are exploring ways to participate in marketing our books and services without leaving the comfort of our homes. Or our coffee shops. Or wherever we introverts […]

By Deborah Brewer Writing a novel or even a short story is no small task. A writer has to accept that after that first creative rush of putting their vision into words comes the hard part of crafting it into a coherent, polished work of fiction. On the internet, one […]

By: Kim Olgren Stephen King does jigsaw puzzles, plays guitar, and bowls. Emily Dickenson loved baking. Agatha Christie traveled with her husband. E. Cummings painted. Jackie Collins is into soul music and photography. Hobbies. Every writer could use one or two. “Why would I need a hobby? Don’t I have […]

By Jenny Kate, Director Pikes Peak Writers marked their first conference 30 years ago. Yep, we’re turning 30 in April! At this conference, we’ll actually have an attendee who has attended every single conference since that first one. We’ll also have several PPW members who were around to help stand […]

By: Kathie Scrimgeour   What?  At first glance, it makes no sense to write a novel and submit it to an anthology. After all, anthologies are short writings, and novels are long. Here is the long and short of it (pun intended), do both at the same time. Here are […]

By J.T. Evans When faced with a deadline, many people wait until the “crunch” at the end to get things done. This usually involves sleepless nights, loads of caffeine, and stressed-out nerves. There’s a way around this. I call it “working from your future.” In essence, don’t front-load the work […]

By Trista Herring Baughman Hello, Dear Readers! I want to take a moment to let you know about Read an eBook Week. It is an annual holiday celebrated the first (full) week of March. Its purpose is to inspire readers to grab an eBook and writers to choose eBook platforms […]

By Deborah Brewer I have enjoyed visiting a few writers’ home museums on my travels. Samuel Clemens’ (Mark Twain) study, in Hartford, Connecticut, sports a billiard table. One does need some non-writing time to think. Ernest Hemmingway’s study in Key West, Florida, feels like a tree house. An elevated gangway […]

Connecting with Readers Where They Are By Donna Schlachter Extroverts—don’t roll your eyes and tune out. You can get something from this new series, too. Introverts—stop rolling your eyes. Marketing is something that needs to be done if you want your books to sell, your message to reach its intended […]