MARYLEE MACDONALD Hello Reader, I want to talk about book covers today, because I see authors make the same mistake over and over. They spend a year writing a beautiful book, then put a homemade cover on it that signals to every potential reader: "This is an amateur." Readers really do judge books by their covers. That's not cynical. It's how their brains work. A cover tells a reader in less than three seconds whether your book belongs in their hands. What a Professional Cover Does A great...
1 day ago • 2 min read
MARYLEE MACDONALD Hello Reader, Almost every week someone emails me a version of this question: "Do I really need an email list?" The answer is yes. Full stop. No asterisk. Here's why. Social media platforms come and go. Algorithms change overnight. A platform that sends your posts to thousands of followers this year might bury them next year. Your email list is the one thing no platform can take away. The Number That Changed My Mind A recent survey of indie authors found that writers earning...
3 months ago • 2 min read
MARYLEE MACDONALD Hello Reader, I want to let you in on a secret that took me years to accept: your first draft is not supposed to be good. I'm serious. The goal of a first draft is not to produce publishable prose. The goal is to get the story out of your head and onto the page. That's it. Everything else comes later. I used to write a sentence, hate it, delete it, and rewrite it. I did this for hours. I produced almost nothing. A wise writing teacher finally told me: "Marylee, you can't...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, How will readers know your book exists if you don't have some way to let them know when it comes out? You absolutely need to think about what comes AFTER you finish writing. Apart from uploading book files to Amazon, every writer needs a website presence. A website presence doesn't mean a blog. There are simpler and cheaper options, such as doing an interview on somebody else's website. This Week's Ten Questions Feature This week I'm featuring an interview with Lorraine Dusky....
over 3 years ago • 1 min read
