Friday, January 23, 2015

Friday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts


By: Darcy Pattison

Openings are incredibly important. This was brought back to me recently as I was judging a contest. Those manuscripts that kept my interest for three pages were rare. Usually, they lost me by the middle of page two!

Am I harsh? I don’t think so.

Noah Lukeman has it right in his book, The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile. This is a book I ask those attending my Novel Revision retreats to read before they attend. Lukeman’s premise is that an editor will decide if they want your book or not based on the first five pages of your manuscript. After judging this contest, I agree. Sometimes, you can even make a judgment based on the first paragraph.

That first paragraph? You want to grab the reader by the throat and never let go!

Here are five things that made me stop reading:

. . .

Read the full article HERE
~*~

If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:
  1. Smart Author Sites | Our specialty: Websites for authors! http://ow.ly/HKBMO
  2. Build suspense with a ticking clock. - Venture Galleries http://ow.ly/HKFmC
  3. How publishers did everything wrong fighting Amazon over e-books - SFGate http://ow.ly/HKFvg
  4. Novel Rocket: 10 Social Media Rules for Authors in the New Year http://ow.ly/HKFAz
  5. Writing with Color — Is this a good way to point out that a character... http://ow.ly/HKFPH
  6. 10 Story Decisions Scifi And Fantasy Writers Ended Up Regretting http://ow.ly/HKFUq
  7. Be Realistic About Your Writing Resolutions - Five Top Tips for 2015 - Writers Write http://ow.ly/HKG0I
  8. What sort of ‘back matter’ should your book contain? #IndiePublishing #BookReviews #BookMarketing | deborahjay http://ow.ly/HKG42
  9. The Write One Blog – How To Self Publish On Kindle - The Write One Blog http://ow.ly/HKGbp
  10. 5 Reasons Why You Should Start a Blog Today - Finally Writing http://ow.ly/HKGfg
  11. KCross Writing – The Making of a Novel: Behind the Scenes with Antebellum Awakening http://ow.ly/HKGkv
  12. The dos and donts of adding more description http://ow.ly/HKH5p
  13. How to Promote Your Business With Instagram | Social Media Examiner http://ow.ly/HKHiF
  14. 2 enduring, low-cost book marketing tactics | @Belinda_Pollard http://ow.ly/HKKkX
  15. Simple Tricks To Get Book Reviews Fast | Self-Publishing Review http://ow.ly/HKKx9
  16. Premium WordPress Themes for Authors http://ow.ly/HKNdw
  17. 10 Key Factors That Will Determine the Future of Google+ - Copyblogger http://ow.ly/HKNkP
  18. On Art and Life | Dani Shapiro http://ow.ly/HKQXQ "Let’s move on to the what ifs.  These are the biggies, of course." 
  19. How to know when you're done writing your novel? http://ow.ly/HL2I3
  20. Openings: 5 Ways They Go Wrong http://ow.ly/HLgi4
  21. Scenes: The Skeleton of a Novel | Fiction Notes http://ow.ly/HLgDJ
Happy writing and running, Kathy 

1 comment:

KC said...

Hey, thanks for the mention! *fist pump*