If your mom is still around, you're so lucky.
I think Paris smells not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She's a city for the all senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and, yes, for mysteries.
I was taught to think outside the box. Before my grandfather was one of the original Mad Men, he and a group of other Air Force Intelligence officers formalized brainstorming as a problem solving technique. He taught the concept that creativity can be taught at Buffalo University. My dad invented toys. My mom was a photographer.
There is no debate that social media is a great tool for networking with others in our industry. It can lead to friendships, support, and serendipitous connections with reviewers, agents, reporters, or editors.
Vera Caspary wrote thrillers - but not like any other author of her time, male or female. Her specialty was a specific type that she pioneered - the psycho thriller.
Nora Roberts, Stephen King, Lee Child and George R. R. Martin write wildly different books. Their writing, plotting and styles have little or nothing in common. But they all write books and characters that readers find appealing.
It's been more than a decade since I put that self-published novel, 'Lip Service', up on a website. Since then, many hundreds of authors have gone from self-published to traditionally published.
Don't send out a newsletter just to send out a newsletter. One newsletter a year that is really interesting is more beneficial than 12 that are boring. If you write two or three boring newsletters in a row, your readers will start to think you write boring books.
If I present a boring personal life to my readers, it's going to be harder for them to think of my novels as thrilling.
From the very beginning, I envisioned success as selling enough books so I could keep getting published and continue to write what I wanted to without compromising.
Jacqueline Rose was so wonderful in so many ways, and I was really blessed to be her daughter. Of all the things I am because of her - there's no question: I am a writer because of her love of books.
There was an ingredient used in perfumes and remedies in the Middle Ages called 'momie' that is certainly one of the most fascinating I've come across.
As consumers, we are faced with hundreds of choices - and when it comes to books, thousands of choices.
As a general rule, when you comment on a blog, make it knowledgeable or witty and, most of all, relevant to that post - then, simply sign it with your name and your book title. Resist the urge to brag or sell your book.
I'm not a good writer. It takes me a long time to get there. I write and then rewrite and revise and do it over and over until I'm satisfied.
It's so easy to look foolish online.
There's almost no author alive who isn't weathering the tumultuous changes in the publishing industry.
The most satisfying thrillers send ordinary people into battle against the forces of evil - otherwise known as greed, ego, rage, fear and laziness - and bring them out bloodied but whole.
When I sit down to write, I know everything I need to know... I start writing, and within 30 seconds or 60 seconds, I'm watching a movie. I'm not making this stuff up; the characters are acting it out,and I'm just writing it down.
A comprehensive marketing plan involves both online and offline efforts to use and broaden your existing platform to promote your book.
