Make A Lasting First Impression

 

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

In the rush to show a literary agent or editor your idea, many writers forget a simple yet important truth: You only get one chance to make a good first impression. As an editor and former literary agent, I’ve read thousands of written proposals and pitches. For over 35 years, I’ve taught at writer’s conferences and had short 15 minute sessions with writers who show their ideas. When an editor asks for your proposal or manuscript, are you sending it? If you follow through with an excellent submission, you will be among the few who do so. It may be surprising to you, but many people do not submit their requested materials.  No wonder they don’t get published because they do not get into the process,

Let’s begin with some good news. I’ve been with some of the top publishers and literary agencies in New York City. Without exception, every single agent and editor is actively reading and speaking with writers. They are searching for the next bestseller. Whether you write a novel or nonfiction, every writer needs a book proposal or pitch. Why? Imagine receiving over 100 pitches a day (not uncommon for a well-connected literary agent). The title and first few sentences are critical to catch their enthusiasm. 

There are a number of keys to making a great proposal. 

1. Create a memorable book title. Many writers are worried that someone else will take their title. Instead you need to try it out on others and test it and make sure it pulls in your reader.

2. Read and re-read your opening paragraphs. Have a trusted writer friend read it and give feedback. If an oral pitch, then practice it. You’d be surprised at the difference it will make.

3. Write to a well-defined target audience. No book is for everyone.

4. Detail your competition. Every book competes in the marketplace—no matter what you believe about the uniqueness of your idea. You need to include four or five specific competitive titles to your book.

5. Present a realistic marketing plan of what you will do to partner with the publisher to sell books into the market. Your plans need to be practical and clearly defined.

Your writing and story is unique and I know you have something unique and  special to give to the marketplace. As an editor, I’ve met authors who have created a negative first impression. At a large writers conference, I was in an indepth conversation with an author. Suddenly another author interrupted and thrust his poorly designed, self-published children’s book into my hands, then turned and left to find another editor or literary agent. I do not remember what I did with that book or author but I never spoke with him again. His first impression made a lasting negative impact. What type of first impression will you make today?

Here’s three resources to learn more detail: 

1. Book Proposals That Sell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success which I wrote as a frustrated acquisitions editor and has 150 Five Star Amazon reviews. You can also download a free copy of the full book at this website: https://bookproposals.ws. 

2. Get my free Ebook, Some Book Proposal Insights and teleseminar at: www.AskAboutProposals.com 

3. Consider taking my online Write A Book Proposal course where I have step-by-step teaching how to make your best impression.

If you use these resources, then you will make the right type of lasting first impression. As I said at the beginning of this article, we only have one opportunity for a good first impression. Which one will you make? Let me know in your comments.

Tweetable:

As writers, we have one chance to make a good first impression. This bestselling author gives resources and details for your writing life. #pubtip #thewritinglife (ClickToTweet)

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. Get Terry’s newsletter and a 87-page FREE ebook packed with writing insights. Just follow this link to subscribe. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including  Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s recent book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Your Author Website's Landing Page

 

Contributed by Karen Cioffi, Children's Writer and Self-Publisher

 The internet is teeming with information on everything you can possibly think of. This includes information on your business platform. But with all this information available, there are still many who aren’t aware of the basics, the dos and don’ts of an author online platform.

I recently came across a website on ‘article submissions.’ Finding it on Twitter and being interested, I clicked on the link.

It brought me to a site with articles on unrelated topics. There wasn’t an About page or any information on what the site was about. And there wasn’t a Contact or Services page.

This marketer/business owner was leading people back to his site, apparently to sell something, but the site was completely ineffective. It was one of the most puzzling sites I’ve ever seen.

So, the question is: If someone lands on your website by accident, through a search, or via a social link, is it effective? Is it visitor optimized?

To answer these questions, you first need to know the fundamentals of a business website. And a business website can be an author’s site, a freelance writing site, a home business site, or a small business site. The basics are the same for all websites that sell something, whether it be books, services, or a product.

To guide you in the right direction to creating a visitor-optimized website, let’s go over the very basics.

Online marketing 101 is to create a website that works, a website that converts visitors into clients, customers, or subscribers.

This is the foundation of your online empire, and an effective website needs to immediately answer these four basic questions:

1. Who are you?
2. What are you offering?
3. Why is what you’re offering worthy of the visitor’s time, money, or email address?
4. Is the path to what you’re offering, the path to the YES, simple? (The YES is the potential customer’s positive action, whether it’s opting into your mailing list or buying what you’re offering, or other call-to-action)

Let’s go over each element:

1. Who You Are
Make sure your website has an About Me page. In addition, your landing page should clearly identify who you are. Don’t let the visitor have to hunt you down – don’t let her have to search through your site just to find some information on you.

Tip: Keep the About Me content conversational, like you’re talking to a friend.

2. What You Have to Offer
Your landing page needs to quickly convey what you have to offer. To do this, you can use an image with content or a video. Video is highly effective—it has been proven to increase conversion rates. 

Tip: Keep the ‘key’ information above the fold. This means it must be visible upon landing on the page. The visitor shouldn’t have to scroll down the page to find it.

3. Why What You’re Offering is Worthy of the Visitor’s Time/Money/Email
Let the visitor know the value of what you have to offer. Show how it will benefit her. And, if possible, make it seem exclusive. Figure out a way to make the visitor think he can’t get what you’re offering anywhere else.

Tip: The visitor must perceive the value of your offer as higher than its cost.

4. Is the Path to What You’re Offering (the Path to the YES) Simple?
Marketers use the acronym KISS (Keep it Simple Silly) to emphasize the importance of simplicity. Your website should be easy to navigate, focused and clear, have a simple design, and have an easy path to saying YES.

Tip: To keep it simple, have only one or two steps for opting in or to taking another call to action. 

To further cement the ‘tell it all and tell it quickly’ website strategy, the new timeline is only 3-5 seconds to get the job done. That’s the length of time you have to grab the visitor, let him know who you are, what you have to offer, and how it can benefit him. Longer than that and the visitor will bounce back to his search results.  
    
Ready, set, go!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Cioffi is a working children’s writer and self-publisher. If you need help with ghostwriting, rewriting, editing, coaching, or publishing, visit Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi. 

You can check out Karen’s books HERE.

Connect with Karen on social media. 

 

What To Do When You Can’t Find The Right Word

 When Words Disappear…

 

 

                  And How Some Authors Can Fight What They Can’t Change

 

 

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, 
author of  the HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers

Including the soon to be released Word by Word: A Vocabulary for Success 

 

 

Words disappear all the time. They disappear from dictionaries because the English language is full of words lexicographers have determined we don’t use any more--or don’t use enough to warrant a place in current dictionaries. We have so many because humans value the ability to easily communicate. Furthermore we love them so much we borrow them other language and make up new ones at will when the ones we have don’t do the job at hand well enough or for the joy of being creative. Our needs sometimes change and we discard them or we misuse them often enough we come to dislike them. We forget them when we’re young and from disease as we age.  When they disappear--for whatever reason, we tend to miss them, so we replace them with something else. But there are a few in the world who love them so much they keep records that have grown so there are too many for a single dictionary--or even a whole library large enough to handle them all--or large enough to make a claim that we haven’t missed a few as time passed. We have found the internet a good, but not perfect keeper of words for us.

 

That doesn’t mean authors might not need one of those forgotten, those discarded. 

 When a word can’t be found (or verified) we might just give up.

 

And when that happens our writing suffers because as authors we have special needs that the general population might not.

 

We need these words to put into the mouths of characters. Maybe characters who live in another English-speaking country or dialect-speaking region. Maybe characters were bring to life from another century, another era, another class. When we reach such an impasse, here are a few ways to conquer the problem: 

 

~Ask your wife or even the person sitting next to you at Starbucks trying to get some writing done.

~Using keywords, look books published in past decades on Amazon’s New and used feature.

~I have a couple books of slang that I’ve stashed in my own real-life bookshelves.  Some are out of print, but I’m keeping them safe. 

~Ask people you know who are lots older—or younger—and see what they come up with.

~Makeup a word of your own. A poem called Jabberwocky made such words perfectly legitimate.

~Visit charity shops and buy old paperbacks for a dime. Start with Thesauri but anything including lists of words for specific purposes will do like one published only a few decades ago called The Describer’s Dictionary. 

~Put marginalia in all your book and don’t go giving them to charity or anyone else. 

~Build more bookshelves so you won’t feel obligated to clean house.

~And alphabetize your books in ways that will be meaningful to you decades from now.  Or adopt librarians’ methods of categorizing them.  

 

 

 

MORE ABOUT YOUR #WRITERSONTHEMOVE CONTRIBUTOR

 

 

The triptych that Amazon provides the authors of series
published by their KDP unit. It feels like bonus. 

 

Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative.) The third edition of The Frugal Editor from Modern History Press includes contact list magic. It is the second multi award-winning book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. Find it on Amazon’s new buy-page for series where the e-book is offered with one click in online’s version of a set of books. (The availability—free—of that new page for authors with book series that appear on KDP’s pages is another of her #FrugalBookPromoterTips.) The Frugal Editor has been fully updated including a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to help readers and nudge book sales. And watch for her new book on—you guessed it—word lists! 

 

Some Thoughts Before Embarking on Writing a Series, Part I

Secrets of the Heart is the last
book in my Abi Wunder Ghost/
Mystery trilogy. It is a
work-in-progress.

By Linda Wilson   Website: bit.ly/44Dx1t9   

How big is your book idea? In fiction, it might cover generations as in The Little House series and The Rose Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Roger Lea MacBride, reddit (1); or growth of the main character which occurs in Nancy Drew mysteries. Have your pick of nonfiction topics that can blossom from a single topic, such as The Magic School Bus or the Body Works series; My Messy Body, My Noisy Body, etc.

Authors who write series promise readers that the fun doesn't have to end, that there's more excitement to come, more adventure and worlds to explore, more of these lives to be lived. In Writing the Fiction Series: The Complete Guide for Novels and Novellas, by Karen S. Wiesner, Weisner quotes author Thomas Helm: "Author and reader dread the end, which is the test of a good novel. Why not expand into a series?"

For three months, this blog-post trilogy will offer tips from my research and experience while writing and publishing a chapter-book trilogy. I hope the information will be helpful to you if you’re considering embarking on writing a series.

Why Turn a Perfectly Good Stand-Alone Book into a Series?

You might find that you’ve:

• Fallen in love with your characters, especially the main ones, who have so much more life to live that you can't say good-bye.
• Written in a genre that lends itself to series, such as mystery, ghost stories, romance, westerns, historical novels, fantasy and sci fi.
• Read that series sell well and publishers like to buy multiple books because series attract readers.
• Laid the groundwork in the first book.
• Loved reading series from childhood on. If you have, then you enjoy the feelings of familiarity series provoke.
• Enjoyed your setting and want to expand on it so your characters can explore worlds far and wide.    

The Next Step: Tips on Writing a Series to Keep in Mind

• Create a general outline that shows how each novel relates to the others.
• Keep track of the details and connecting threads among the novels in order to maintain continuity.
• Have an overall plot plan as well as a plan for each novel. 
• Be organized and prepared by knowing where your series will end, plotting a timeline to keep track of events.
• Choose a central conflict or premise for your series that "is the main tension or unknown that needs to be solved. In . . . Harry Potter, the central conflict is the protagonist's unfinished business with the villain, Lord Voldemort. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the central conflict is between the world-dominion-seeking antagonist Sauron and the elves and hobbits who desire peace and freedom from tyranny." http://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-write-book-series/
• Plan for the passage of time and how your characters will age.

My Abi Wunder trilogy, ghost/mystery stories for 7-to-10-year olds, passed all of these considerations. Secret in the Stars, illustrated by Tiffany Tutti, and Secret in the Mist, illustrated by Danika Corrall, are now available on Amazon. Secrets of the Heart, illustrated by Danika Corrall, is in the work-in-progress stage. As listed above, the books have connecting threads that run through them, culminating in the last book. This is my challenge now: giving meaning to these threads and giving the book a satisfying ending.

Next month: "Tips on How to Start a Series," Part II

(1) https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthatbook/comments/u40i3s/childrens_fiction_series_where_each_book_focuses/ 

Moi with my trusty
writing buddies.

Linda's latest release is Secret in the Mist, the second book in the Abi Wunder trilogy, illustrated by Danika Corrall, cover art and formatting by 100 Covers, published December 2025. Two other new releases are the award-winning Botas Altas, the Spanish version of Tall Boots, illustrated by 1000 Storybooks, translated by Graciela Moreno and Adriana Botero; and Cuna en la Naturaleza, illustrated by 1000 Storybooks, the Spanish version of Cradle in the Wild, translated by Adriana Botero. Linda's newest books will be released sometime this year: The Pur-r-rfect Costume, a bilingual picture book in English and Spanish, illustrated by 1000 Storybooks, translated by Adriana Botero; and A Home Run Friendship, a middle grade book, cover art and formatting by 100 Covers.
 

Invisible Serves No One: Why You Need to Share What You Write

 by Suzanne Lieurance

There is a cost to staying invisible as a writer. It is not always obvious, and it rarely announces itself loudly. But it accumulates — in the work that never gets read, the readers who never find you, the opportunities that pass quietly to someone else simply because they showed up and you didn’t.

Why Writers Stay Invisible

Invisible feels safe. That’s the seduction of it. When you keep your work to yourself, you can’t be rejected. You can’t be misunderstood. You can’t be told it isn’t good enough. The work stays perfect in its private space, untouched by the messy reality of other people’s responses.

But invisible also means unread. Unheard. Unfound.

And here is the truth that every writer who has stepped into visibility eventually discovers: the readers who needed your work were out there the whole time. They were looking. They just couldn’t find you.

Why You Shouldn’t Hide Your Work

This is what makes invisibility not just a personal loss but something worth reconsidering on behalf of others. When you hide your work, you are not only withholding it from yourself and your own creative growth. You are withholding it from the person who would have been moved by it, helped by it, changed by it. The reader who would have felt less alone because of it.

Invisible serves no one.

Not you. Not your reader. Not the writing itself, which exists — on some level — to be encountered.

This doesn’t mean you owe the world every draft, every experiment, every half-formed idea. Privacy has its place in the creative process. The early drafts, the tender first attempts, the work that isn’t ready — these deserve protection.

But there comes a point in every piece of work where it is ready. Where it has been shaped and refined and given everything you have to give it. And at that point, keeping it hidden isn’t caution. It’s withholding.

So ask yourself this: Is this work hidden because it needs more time? Or is it hidden because I’m afraid of what happens when someone reads it?

If you’re afraid to share what you’ve written — that’s not a reason to stay invisible. 

That’s the exact moment to step forward.

Try it!

Suzanne Lieurance is the author of over 40 published books and a transformational Law of Attraction coach for writers who are ready to stop waiting to feel like the real thing. At Write by the Sea, she guides writers through the identity shift that changes everything — not just the writing, but the whole life built around it. She is the publisher of Manifesting Monthly magazine and the host of Monday Morning Manifestors.  

Subscribe to The Morning Nudge to get a FREE, short email every weekday morning with writing tips and other resources for writers.

Persist For the Right Fit

 

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

Change is the only constant in the publishing world. It’s like playing the childhood game of musical chairs. The players are constantly in motion and change positions and roles. It’s one of the reasons for writers reading the trade publications which report significant personnel changes. Editors become literary agents. Literary agents change and work for a publisher or they become a freelance editor. These examples are just a couple of the continually shifting landscape. 

As a writer, you have a dream and a desire to publish your words. It takes a lot of perseverance and persistence to find the right publisher for your work. The Chicken Soup for the Soul series is one of the bestselling series in the English language. Most people have forgotten their challenging beginning. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen were rejected 140 times before they located a publisher. That is a lot of rejections in the search to find the right fit.

There is only one way your book doesn’t get published or your story doesn’t appear in print or your book stops selling. It’s when you as a writer give up on your dream and stop. 

* You stop meeting new editors at a conference or on LinkedIN or through an online group.

* You stop reading about new publishing houses and new publications. Change can mean opportunity for your book and your writing--if you don’t stop.

* You stop pitching your writing or your book to literary agents and editors

* You stop writing a book proposal and query letter. If you haven’t read my Book Proposals That Sell (The Revised Edition), I encourage you to download the free Ebook then read it and take action on the information. 

I don’t encourage anyone reading these words to stop but instead to choose to keep going until you find the right fit for your writing. 

I heard a published author with an agent talk about her devotional going out to numerous publishers (40 is the number I recall) and getting rejected. The agent and author could not find the right place to publish this idea. Then one of the editors moved to a different publishing house. This editor remembered the author’s pitch and asked for the proposal. It was published along with three additional books. Her persistence paid off with four published devotional books. 

Also, recently I met a new magazine editor. One of my friends had written an original story for that magazine and never received a response. Her experience was a common one. When I asked this editor about another editor who attended last year. I learned he was no longer with the magazine. I asked if my friend could resend her article to the publication. The editor said this friend should send it directly to her and use my name with the submission. Will it get published? I don’t know if it will happen but now my friend has another opportunity. As with the book author, it takes persistence to find the right fit.

Many writers are following the “Field of Dreams” action plan. I’m referring to the movie where they build a baseball field then players and people come to it--even in an Iowa cornfield. Writers believe if they pitch to the right literary agent, their book will get traditional published. They believe if they build a great website, people will come. Or writers have many other fantasy ideas which are not based on reality. You must actively be looking for the right connection and the right fit through your email, phone calls and much more. When you locate a possibility, act and explore it. For example, several months ago I spent a chunk of time reaching out to the writers I met at a conference. One of those people emailed me back saying she pulled my email out of her spam or junk folder. What is sitting in your spam folder that could be an opportunity?

If you seize the moment, change can provide a fresh opportunity. How have you learned that it takes persistence to find the right fit? Let me know in your comments.

Tweetable:

There is only one way your work doesn’t get published: you give up. This prolific writer and editor give the details why it takes persistence to find the right fit.  #pubtip #thewritinglife (ClickToTweet)

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. Get Terry’s newsletter and a 87-page FREE ebook packed with writing insights. Just follow this link to subscribe. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including  Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s recent book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Don't Sacrifice Quality When Writing for Kids

 

Contributed by Karen Cioffi, Children's Writer

 A while ago, I started a new children’s ghostwriting project, and the client recommended that I read a book she wanted her book to be based on.

The client raved about the picture book.

So, I bought the Kindle version and read it. 

I’ll start with the positives of the book:

1. The illustrations were colorful and fun. 

Now onto the negatives:

1. Children’s writers have a responsibility.

While the book was written to help children overcome emotional issues, it was very misleading. The character was miraculously healed in one day.

I’ve written for enough child psychologists and therapists to know that overcoming emotional issues takes time and work. It’s essential that the child and parents are aware of this.

How it should basically work: There’s a struggle. The child moves forward, then there are setbacks. The child moves further along with more setbacks, then there is forward movement, possibly with more minor setbacks, until he is finally able to handle his symptoms.

It’s not wise or professional to give children and parents false expectations.

2. There were grammatical errors, including missing periods at the end of sentences and missing quotation marks. And there were some poor word choices used.

3. The book is described as ‘lightly rhyming’. 

I’ve never heard that phrase before, and I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean.

The book was mainly rhymed, though some of the rhymes felt forced. And notice I said, “mainly rhyme.” A couple of paragraphs weren’t rhymed. I’m guessing the author couldn’t come up with a rhyme for those paragraphs, so they were simply left as they were.

Important tip: Either you rhyme right, or you shouldn’t rhyme.

4. There was a lot of telling.

Telling is when the author 'tells' the reader what's going on rather than showing it through action, dialogue, senses, and details. 

5. The formatting was off.

In a couple of spots, I had to reread the page a couple of times to make sense of it and figure out who was speaking. And page-wise, it was much shorter than a standard picture book.

There are industry standards for a reason—children’s writers should adhere to them.

6. The back cover copy wasn’t professionally written, and the sales page author info wasn’t professionally written.

SUMMING IT UP

This isn’t about 'putting down' an author’s book; it’s just that it was too easy to quickly know that this was self-published... and it was unprofessional.

That’s never a good thing. It’s these types of books that perpetuate the stigma of self-publishing.

While it’s easy to send a book out into the world, the quality of the book should never be sacrificed for the sake of speed in publication or the cost of having it professionally edited and formatted.

What I find especially disappointing is that this author, a professional in her field, has a series of children’s books.

While many authors may slack off on quality, we shouldn't let that happen when writing for children. As children’s authors, we should set the standard high… and keep it there.

The takeaway of this article is that if you’re going to self-publish a book, please take the time to do it right. Put in the time and effort, and spend the money to, at the very least, pay to have it professionally edited and properly formatted.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author, ghostwriter, editor, and self-publisher. If you’d like to learn more about writing for children or  need help with your story, visit Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi. 

You can check out Karen’s books HERE. 

Connect with Karen on SOCIAL MEDIA.