Ask Jami: How Can We Use Beat Sheets with Short Stories?

Need a beat sheet for a short story? Technically, my beat sheets can be customized for any length story, but let’s take a look at how story structure changes with our story’s length and how beat sheets might need to adjust for short stories.

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Ask Jami: How Can We Use Beat Sheets with Short Stories?

Promo Tool: Making Videos with Lumen5

Yesterday I played with Lumen5, a super-easy video creator. It makes it easy to create videos from blog posts or other writing in just a few minutes. Should we use it? Let’s take a look at how we might use it for promotion.

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Promo Tool: Making Videos with Lumen5

Sexy Scenes: Open Door or Closed Door?

There’s no right or wrong answer for how to depict intimacy in our writing—only what’s right for our story. The “right” amount can depend on our genre, our characters, their situation, their emotional journey, and our target audience.

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Sexy Scenes: Open Door or Closed Door?

The Silver Lining of Bad Reviews

Whether we pursue traditional publishing or self-publishing, rejection is a given for writers. Our choice simply comes down to how we’ll handle it. Will we let rejection hold us back, or can we see it as a sign that we’re doing something right?

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The Silver Lining of Bad Reviews

Conference Recap & Bonus Contest Winner!

I’m back from beautiful San Diego and the Romance Writers of America National Conference and here for a quick recap of the past week with contest winners galore.

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Conference Recap & Bonus Contest Winner!

Self Publishing? What’s Your Plan to Keep Readers? — Part Four

One way to keep readers interested in our writing is to hook them with an excerpt to our next story at the end of our book. But there are times an excerpt could hurt our sales. When is it a good idea to include an excerpt—and when is it not?

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Self Publishing? What’s Your Plan to Keep Readers? — Part Four

The Risks of Offering a Freebie

A common suggestion for how to attract readers is “offer a freebie.” However, there are risks to that strategy that we should be aware of before we can make an informed decision.

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The Risks of Offering a Freebie

Editing Mistakes: How Forgiving of a Reader Are You?

An interesting conversation grew out of Misti Wolanski’s guest post earlier this week. She mentioned that sometimes readers enjoy finding typos. Let’s take a closer look at what that means for readers and for us as authors? Should we leave typos in our work? What say you…

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Editing Mistakes: How Forgiving of a Reader Are You?

Do You Have a Publishing Plan?

Those of you who have been following my publishing process might be wondering why the one book I have out so far is free. After all, it costs money—potentially lots of money—to publish a book. Let’s take a look at a publishing plan for when it might make sense to give our books away for free.

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Do You Have a Publishing Plan?

Picking Editors: How to Evaluate Potential Editors

When we’re ready for professional editing, we want to make sure our editor is good, especially if we’re opening our wallet. Here are some tips, questions, and processes that will help us evaluate editors for our needs.

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Picking Editors: How to Evaluate Potential Editors