Building Your Audience

• Promoting Your Book, Part One and Two–some innovative and mostly free ways to promote your writing.
• Search Engine Optimization Tips for New Bloggers— this will help you write Google-friendly content, which is helpful if you’re the sort of writer that enjoys having readers.
• Author’s Guide to Podcasting–this will help you market your writing with online video and audio.
• Should You Advertise on Facebook?–Therese Walsh talks about her experiences advertising her writing on Facebook. If you’re thinking about ads, I’d recommend checking this out. Personally, I’m a bit skeptical (you only make about $1 in royalties every time you sell a novel, so your advertisements would have to bring in near-guaranteed sales to justify the expense).  I’d have trouble seeing how you could get away with paying less than $.10 per click, so you’d have to sell at least one copy per 10 prospects just to break even.  (Normally, I think 1-2% is typical). I suspect that advertising would probably make more sense for experienced authors with many books to sell.  It increases the potential profit per customer.

Beating Writer’s Block

• How to Finish Hard Scenes–excellent for anybody that’s ever struggled for days with a particularly tricky scene.
• How to Turn Off The Internet While Writing on Your Computer–some tips to increase your writing productivity by removing online distractions.
• Six Ways to Make Your Writing More Productive–here’s a seventh one for free: stop reading SN and start writing! SN will be here when you get back.

Miscellaneous Advice on Writing Better

• Writing Plausible Villains–because villains are far too important to suck.
• How to Write Strong Cross-Genre Fiction–some tips in case you’re sitting on a killer idea about a goblin detective… in space!
• Kim Blank’s Wordiness List–a vast list of wordy phrases that can be pared down shortened or eliminated.

Miscellaneous Advice on Getting Published

• How to Find an Agent–if you have a manuscript completed and need an agent, I’d highly recommend checking this out.
• Completing Your Author’s Bio–whether you’re completing an “About the Author” section of your website or preparing a manuscript submission, you’ll probably provide a bio to your readers. Here are some tips.

Advice for First-Time Authors that Want to Self-Publish

• Don’t. Seriously, that’s probably the best advice you’ll get all day.

Advice for Authors that Want to Self-Publish Anyway

• Digital Book Formatting for Dummies–you’re not a dummy, but you might benefit from this guide anyway.
• Designing Your Book–one of the biggest opportunities (or challenges, depending on how you look at it) of self-publishing is that you make your own design choices. Don’t suck.