As writers, we don't think of ourselves as merchants. But, we are. We are in the business of selling writing.

I have become enamored with MerchantCircle. This is a social networking site that offers easy tool to merchants for creating blogs, newsletters, professional articles, and coupons.

At first glance, I wasn't sure that MerchantCircle had anything to offer writers. Then I realized it depends on writers!

Newsletters and Blogs

The site caters to small businesses. The average butche… Continue

Whether you are participating in National Novel Writing Month or not, you need to know what a genre is. If you plan to sell your writing, the genre is critical.

Genre refers to the category that best describes the type of fiction you are writing for NaNo. There are a number of genres and, if none of them fit, you can choose “other.” Last year, I wrote Historical Fiction, which is a category. The year before, I chose “other” and wrote Urban Literature. Is it really a genre? It doesn’t matter! We… Continue

It’s time to get signed up for National Novel Writing Month. It is free and, oh, so easy to do.

It doesn’t matter if you are worried about completing 50,000 words during the month of November. Go ahead and sign up.

After you create your account, look at the tools. Write your author’s bio. Find the word count tool. You will become obsessed with this tool. It will track how many words you are writing and combine your word count with everyone’s so you can see how many words the world is writing!… Continue

There is an old saying that writers should write what they know. Stop selling yourself short. Trust me, you not only know a lot. You also know things no one else does. And they will pay for that information.

I have a friend who has travelled with a very specific group, four times. She has been to Mexico, Guatemala, and Romania. She has firsthand information that easily lends itself to writing.

The challenge lies in figuring out what to do what that information, as a writer. There is the obviou… Continue

We’re down to the countdown. Are you ready for NaNoWriMo?

By now, you should have your calendar set. You should know how you’re going to pace yourself so that you finish your 50,000 words by the end of the month.

I have a new timer this year. It’s a Taylor timer. It folds flat, props up like a tiny picture frame, folds flat and is small enough to tuck into a pocket, or hangs from just about anything.

My favorite timer is one that with settings. One setting will set of an alarm at the end of a… Continue