Grammar checkers make suggestions, not commands Just because your grammar checker makes a suggestion doesn’t mean you have to follow it. The suggestion may not be correct and it may not improve your writing. I have the privilege of serving as the publication and content advisor for the U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce. In [...]
Do bestseller lists really matter? An announcement from Publishers Weekly about the Wall Street Journal dropping its bestseller lists should make authors reconsider their infatuation with claiming “bestseller” status for their books. According to the Nov. 7, 2023 online edition of Publishers Weekly: The Wall Street Journal has stopped running its weekly bestseller lists. [...]
There are a lot of reasons to publish on Medium.com. For authors, a big reason is to promote themselves and their books. Below is an edited transcript of a presentation I gave to Orlando Word Weavers on how to promote your book on Medium and get paid for it. Most of the attendees were [...]
Generative AI should excite and empower you. The headlines are full of dire warnings about AI and how it’s going to be the end of society. Even Elon Musk called it “dangerous technology.” There’s a lot about the development of AI that I don’t understand. I’m not a tech creator, I’m a tech user. I [...]
The Frugal Editor: Do-It-Yourself Editing Secrets—From Your Query Letters to Final Manuscript to the Marketing of Your New Bestseller Carolyn Howard-Johnson Modern History Press If You Write Anything, You Need The Frugal Editor I’ve always appreciated the reality of gatekeepers—those people you must get past to get to the person you want to reach. Of [...]
It can help writers be more productive and efficient I’m not saying this because I’m a writer, but because it’s true: Artificial intelligence (AI) will never replace human writers, but it can be a great tool to help them be more productive and efficient. AI can also help people who are not writers but [...]
I just read another blog by someone who said she was embarrassed to tell people she was a writer because she hadn’t published a book. That’s absolute nonsense. Plenty of outstanding writers never write books. I had been writing professionally for about five years when I got my first book contract—and I wasn’t looking for [...]
Self-publishing is an increasingly popular and accepted way to get your book on the market, but it takes a lot of knowledge and work to do it well. In our consulting business, we work primarily with businesspeople who want to write and publish a book that will help them boost their reputations and grow their [...]
The future of writing tools is here and I want to share access with you from the beginning. I wrote my first novel by hand on lined notebook paper when I was in the fourth grade. Santa brought me a manual typewriter for Christmas when I was in the seventh grade. Decades later, when I [...]
Can Publishing on Medium Help Grow Your Business? Take this quiz and find out Would you like to put the content that’s currently on your website in front of 100 million readers? Do you have old content on your website that you’d like to update and share with a larger audience? Are you looking [...]
