Business for Breakfast

Until now, as a writer, all you've focused on is the Craft of writing. However, your writing is not the same thing as your business. This book gives you a combination of career and writer/life advice to help you take that next step, and go from being merely a writer to being a professional, from someone who has had to learn all this the hard way. Some of the topics discussed include: DBAs Intellectual property Money Communication Self-confidence 101 The physicality of writing What's stopping you from writing The Business for Breakfast series contains bite-sized business advice. This is a 101 level book, with beginning advice for the professional.

This book isn't going to give you all the answers about publishing. Everything is changing too fast for that. Instead, this book will help you figure out the questions you need to be asking, right now and tomorrow and direct you to areas you need to think about. This book covers some of the universal things in publishing, such as: organizing your computer, your publishing schedule, contracts, etc. It also highlights the things that are driven by the genre of your project, such as covers, price, and marketing. Learn from someone who has already learned some of this the hard way. And continues to figure it out. Some of the topics discussed include: Producing Easy Books Organizing Your Computer Ideas In Marketing What Happens When You Do Strike it Big? Distribution and Branding The Business for Breakfast series contains bite-sized business advice. This is a 101 level book, with beginning advice for the professional.

You've learned how to use the Seven Point Plot Structure to tell a good story. However, a good writer needs more tools in her toolbox. Understanding the three act dramatic structure can give you a new way to build stories. Expanding to four acts, five, or even two, greatly enhances your repertoire. Come explore the way we write for the stage as a method for increasing your skillset and becoming a better writer.

Have you always wanted to create your own magazine? You can. The world has changed and the tools are now available. See how a team of plucky independent writers came up with and launched Boundary Shock Quarterly, a speculative fiction quarterly that looks as professional as anything coming out of New York. Don't lose your shirt, your marriage, or your mind in the process.

They've told you that writing fast is impossible. They were wrong. You too can create stories at the speed of the great pulp writers. Not only that, but your craft will actually get better the faster you go. It just takes time and practice. Come learn the things I discovered as I went from writing at mundane rates to Pulp Speed.

So, you commit art. However, you feel...stuck. Unsatisfied. You want to do more as an artist. Can do more. You just don't know how. You've seen all the advice books out there, all meant to help you. Most of them come from people who are not artists, haven't struggled with the fear. This book may help you, but you have to want to change and then be willing to do the hard work. Inside, find straightforward advice on things you need to think about to grow as an artist. The "Check Ins" provide thoughtful questions, meant to get you pointed in the right direction.You must to do the work. I cannot want it more than you do.

Readers really do judge books by its cover. It's frequently the first thing that a reader encounters. Maybe the last, if it's not compelling. A beautiful cover isn't enough. If the cover doesn't suit your story, if it doesn't instantly convey the correct genre and tone, doesn't re-enforce your author brand, it will do you more harm than good. This book isn't to teach you how to create your own covers. Instead, it's to help you learn about covers, learn about design, learn about genre and tone. Topics include: Knowing Your Genre Using Fonts Elements of a Cover Paper Book Covers

These days, your readers want series. That chance to revisit their favorite characters over and over, to see where their lives are going next. Television has spoiled them for long arcs of story spanning seasons, rather than episodes. You need to adapt to this new world. Learn to write in series, expanding your stories into greater and greater tales.

We have many, many different ways to tell a story. Possibly as many different types of story structure as there are stories and storytellers. You will not find a book on abstract theory with an emphasis on definitions and static edifices here. Nor a scholarly work going into unimportant minutia. Instead, let's look at some of the more popular types of story structure, with hints and ideas for how you can use immediately them in your own writing. Places you can go that you might never have considered before. This is a 201-level book, taking your writing from merely good to stories that your fans cannot put down.

In Media Res. Latin for 'into the middle of things.’ Not every story has to start with a long, slow brain-dump of world-building to establish setting. Many modern readers will put the book down and walk away when you do that. Instead, consider starting right in the middle of the action, working forwards as you slowly explain how things got here. Perhaps beginning so simply as somebody knocking on the door. Drop your characters into the middle of things and run with it. Your stories will move faster and your readers will be drawn in, never to escape again. We'll also talk about Character Backstories, World/Culture Backstories, Technology Backstories, and the Perils of Prequelitis. This is a 201-level book, taking you from writing merely good novels to that place where you are turning a quarter of a million or more words into one long, engaging story that your fans just can't put down. Be sure to read the entire Business For Breakfast books and see how it can help you improve your writing craft and up your publishing game.

Do you ever look at other writers who are further along the path and wonder how they got there? What they had to do to dig themselves out of the myths, get themselves unstuck, and moving forward? Writers aren't born with all that knowledge of craft and writing process. They figure it out and learn it the hard way. Fortunately, you don't have to start from scratch, though the journey is long and neverending. This book will give you clues: signposts to help you along your journey, on becoming a better writer, improving your craft, and getting out of your own way. You must still do the work. I cannot want it more than you do. But the sooner you start, the sooner you'll be on your way. The Business for Breakfast series contains bite-sized business advice. This is a 201 level book, with intermediate advice for the professional. Be sure to read all the books in this series!