Tuesday's Tips for Flailing Writers

You're a failure. But wait -- that's a good thing!



Camera shy? You'd better hope not. Cuz The Book Deal swears a video will help you sell your book.


I wouldn't recommend wasting your money on a freelance editor, but if'n you're loaded, The Book Deal has a few tips for choosing one.


Another 'tip' I disagree with but still feel is worth reading: Booker nominated author A.S. Byatt warns against what she calls "faction," or writing which blends "biography and fiction, journalism and invention."


Maybe it's the heat, or maybe I'm just one ornery sonuvabitch, but here's a third 'tip' I'm spotlighting solely for the sake of disagreeing with it: Storytellersunplugged's Titles and their Unimportance. As to why I disagree, allow me to quote the piece's second paragraph. "The fact is the title is the only aspect of a book or story’s first impression that an author can control. The other items such as the cover art, the back cover or end flap plot summation, the story placement in the anthology, and the accompanying illustration in the magazine, are left to the editor and publisher. The title is (generally) the author’s choice."