Written Well
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Writing Blurbs That Sell

A cover might bring the reader in, but it’s the blurb that seals the deal. So, how do you write a blurb that turns browsers to buyers? Discoverability vs. Conversion A good blurb both makes your book easier to find through good use of keywords and search terms as well as “conversion” — getting someone to buy the book. When writing blurbs, I lean far more toward conversion over discoverability, because if you get eyes on the your book that don’t buy, you’ve wasted ad money and are telling the algorithm that your book doesn’t sell. Booksellers give higher priority...

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What Does ‘Write To Market’ Mean?

You will often hear the phrase “write to market” from independent authors. But what does it really mean? Everyone has different ideas about how exactly to do it, but one thing is clear: writing to market is absolutely essential if you are going to have success publishing your own work.  The Two Pieces Of Writing To Market In order to make money as an independent author, you must sell a significant quantity of books. That means you need two things. A big enough market, meaning enough people who want to read that type of book, and market penetration, meaning that...

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Writing to Teach

My writing career started by teaching people how to play poker. I’ve talked about that in my article on establishing yourself as an expert, but I didn’t really cover HOW to write this type of nonfiction. The reason I was successful as a poker writer, according to my readers, was that I found ways to explain complicated subjects in simple ways. There were two reasons I was able to do this.  1. My competition weren’t good teachers Most poker theory experts are not great writers. They are very intelligent, but they don’t relate to people as well as they relate...

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Establishing Yourself As An Expert

For many genres of nonfiction, especially self-help or instructional books, readers want to hear from an expert. Are you an expert in your field? Would you like to be? Establishing yourself as an expert is easy in most areas of expertise.  The first question is, what qualifications are necessary in your field? When I was establishing myself as an expert in the poker world, all that I needed to do was provide good information, backed by solid math, present myself confidently as an expert, and be a winning player.  If your area of expertise is related to the law, medicine,...

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How to Know When Its Done

At some point, after all the writing and revising, your book will be done. Unfortunately, no one knows when that will be. Every author has to figure that out for themselves—and sometimes figure it out anew with each new book. It is more of an art than a science, but I will try to help you with what I know about when to pull the trigger and publish the thing. Most of us know what a first draft looks like. Some are sloppier than others, but most have flaws of some sort in the structure or the prose. Sections might...

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Historical Fiction Guide

Historical fiction is all about the setting. You can do anything you want within it — mystery, thriller, drama, romance, and more — but in the best historical novels, the setting takes center stage, or rather becomes the theater itself. And the walls of that theater must become more real to the reader than than the walls of their own home. A master of this genre transports the reader to the story’s place and time entire, setting them down in the middle of not just a tale, but an entire world that hasn’t been seen in many years. The amount...

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History Study Materials

Back to history Online Resources The American Historical Association — A good place to start for an overview of the resources available to those who want to study history of any kind. Erik Larson’s blog — He doesn’t seem to be updating it any longer, but it has a ton of posts about his process when writing history books. Two PDFs on writing history, one from Duke and another from Southwestern University. Good stuff on primary and secondary sources and how to interpret them. Books to Read Instructional A Short Guide to Writing About History — Richard Marius Like it...

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History Guide

Back to nonfiction With the entire history of humankind to draw from, history is obviously a gigantic genre. And it’s not just the different time periods. Histories can be military, political, biographical. They can be focused on a single subject, sometimes even a single object. Or they can tell the story of an entire people from their appearance in the annals to modern day. There is no end to subjects you can tell the history. However, the best (and best-selling) histories tend to have some things in common that you should consider before diving into this rich genre. 1. Something...

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Paths to Success

Before you begin your trek toward self-publishing success, it’s good to know the path you want to take. Even better if you know the path you’re best suited to. Because despite what a lot of people will tell you, there’s more than one way to make it as an indie. The Fast Lane Series and Speed Level of Difficulty:HIGH Chance of Success:HIGH Combines With:EVERYTHING Putting out a lot of books quickly is the simplest and most likely path to success. But it’s certainly not the easiest. The fast lane is for those who want the highest chance of success as...

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Should I Write Nonfiction?

Back to Nonfiction Deciding whether you’re right for nonfiction is fairly easy. Do you have expertise in a subject that you wish to disseminate to the masses? Then nonfiction is for you. Whether you can do it profitably is another question altogether. Before you decide to dive into nonfiction, you should definitely do some research. First of all, is anyone interested in the subject you’re planning to write on? Check Google and Amazon searches to see if there’s interest in the subject. Is it overserved? i.e. Are there already a ton of books out there on your chosen subject? If...

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