#writingreference

Non-Fiction Book Review: Rapid Release: How to Write & Publish Fast For Profit by Jewel Allen

Caitlyn Lynch

Nov 24, 2019
2 min

Non-Fiction Book Review: Rapid Release: How to Write & Publish Fast For Profit by Jewel Allen

The most interesting thing in this book is the case studies the author has included from around a dozen authors writing mostly in the same genre (clean contemporary romance). Realistically, there’s no ‘how to’ about writing and publishing fast for profit - if you can put out a book a month or quicker, with decent covers, written to market in a popular genre, you’ll make a profit. How much you make is going to depend on your marketing strategy, and this is where Allen explains

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Non-Fiction Review: 5 Minute Book Marketing for Authors by Penny C. Sansevieri

Caitlyn Lynch

Nov 13, 2019
2 min

Non-Fiction Review: 5 Minute Book Marketing for Authors by Penny C. Sansevieri

What this book is REALLY going to tell you is that there are no easy answers. With thousands of books being released every day, if you don’t want yours to disappear from view instantly, you’re going to have to actually market it. Even if you’re with a mainstream publisher, you as the author will still have to do something, from book signings to library talks. Self-publishers have to do everything, or risk sinking without trace. And being self-published myself, I can tell you,

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Book Review: Writing Love Scenes: Professional Techniques for Fiction Authors by Rayne Hall and Susa

Caitlyn Lynch

Nov 3, 2019
2 min

Book Review: Writing Love Scenes: Professional Techniques for Fiction Authors by Rayne Hall and Susa

First of all, let me just comment that this book isn’t just for romance writers. If you’re a man concerned about his work ever winding up featured on the @menwritingwomen Twitter account, for example, or you’re terrified of one day being nominated for the Bad Sex In Fiction Award, you should make this book required reading, because the authors definitely know what they’re talking about, and they disseminate the knowledge in easily-digested, comprehensible chunks paired with s

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Book Review: Writing the Romance Novel: Crafting a Love Story that Sells by Leigh Michaels

Caitlyn Lynch

Oct 22, 2019
2 min

Book Review: Writing the Romance Novel: Crafting a Love Story that Sells by Leigh Michaels

With 100 books to her name and over 35 million copies sold worldwide, Leigh Michaels knows a thing or two about writing romance, and in this fantastically thorough guide, she shares a great deal of it in easy-to-understand language. Divided into four parts, the first three cover the actual writing process, from deciding what kind of romance novel you’re writing through establishing the framework - and making sure you plan to include everything a reader expects to find in a ro

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Blog Tour and Book Review: Writing Fiction: A User-Friendly Guide by James Essinger

Caitlyn Lynch

Sep 29, 2019
2 min

Blog Tour and Book Review: Writing Fiction: A User-Friendly Guide by James Essinger

There’s a lot of very useful information for the aspiring novelist in this guide. A literary agent and experienced author of both fiction and non-fiction, Essinger knows his craft and presents some excellent advice here, breaking down and explaining terms often presented to aspiring authors, such as ‘show don’t tell’, how to make your story into a page-turner and how to make your characters both realistic and sympathetic. There were spots where I thought Essinger dumbed down

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Blog Tour for How Not To Write Female Characters by Lucy V Hay

Caitlyn Lynch

Jul 7, 2019
2 min

Blog Tour for How Not To Write Female Characters by Lucy V Hay

This is quite a short read, and the actual meat of the advice contained in it doesn’t start until about the 60% mark. The first part of the book is basically some statistics on why you should include female characters in your story, which basically boils down to ‘women buy books and watch movies and TV’ which strikes me as common sense, but then I suspect that, being female, I’m not really part of this book’s intended audience demographic. Some of the advice in the book is ex

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Non-Fiction Friday Book Review: BookBub Ads Expert: A Marketing Guide to Author Discovery by David G

Caitlyn Lynch

Jun 21, 2019
1 min

Non-Fiction Friday Book Review: BookBub Ads Expert: A Marketing Guide to Author Discovery by David G

This is one of those reviews I might have to revisit once I’ve had some time to put the advice it contains into practice, because make no mistake, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. David Gaughran lays out a methodical plan for getting BookBub ads to work for your book, using some basic math, decent graphics and a reasonable budget, but it isn’t going to work overnight. Not unless you can afford to do all the testing he recommends simultaneously, anyway, which I definitely

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Non-Fiction Friday Book Review: Book Review Secrets For Author Success - Barb Drozdowich

Caitlyn Lynch

Nov 9, 2018
3 min

Non-Fiction Friday Book Review: Book Review Secrets For Author Success - Barb Drozdowich

A book review about book reviews? How very meta! Full title: Book Review Secrets For Author Success: How to win great reviews to make your book shine by Barb Drozdowich. As an indie author who’s been learning the industry for a few years now, one of the questions I most often see from folks who’ve just put their first book out is “How do I get reviews?” Well, if you’re lucky enough to be signed with one of the big publishers, they might do some of the work for you. Otherwise,

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Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Rock Your Plot by Cathy Yardley

Caitlyn Lynch

Oct 19, 2018
2 min

Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Rock Your Plot by Cathy Yardley

Where Rock Your Plot differs from other plotting books is that it is unashamedly aimed at genre (read; popular) fiction. Which means it works great for THE most popular genre of all, romance, and that’s what I’m going to focus on in this review because I am recommending this book SPECIFICALLY for romance authors who want to improve their plotting skills. Cathy Yardley knows exactly what she’s talking about. She’s written category romance for Harlequin, among many other things

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Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Fool Proof Outline by Christopher Downing

Caitlyn Lynch

Oct 13, 2018
2 min

Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Fool Proof Outline by Christopher Downing

Full title: Fool Proof Outline: A No-Nonsense System for Productive Brainstorming, Outlining, & Drafting Novels - Christopher Downing I’m going to start this with a note that if you’re a romance writer, the Fool Proof Outline Christopher Scott Downing has created for you to use in Scrivener or Excel isn’t going to work for you. It’s not suited to romance novels (except possibly suspense or paranormal which is heavier on the plot than the romance). However, though I don’t writ

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Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: The 8-Minute Writing Habit by Monica Leonelle

Caitlyn Lynch

Oct 5, 2018
2 min

Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: The 8-Minute Writing Habit by Monica Leonelle

Full Title: The 8-Minute Writing Habit: Create a Consistent Writing Habit That Works With Your Busy Lifestyle by Monica Leonelle. This is an excellent resource for someone who wants to write but is just too busy. For someone in full-time work or being a full-time mom (or both), who at the end of the day just wants to collapse into a comfy chair. Yet, they’ve still got characters in their head and stories which need to be told. If this describes you - you want to write but you

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Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Conquering Writer's Block by K.M. Weiland

Caitlyn Lynch

Sep 28, 2018
2 min

Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Conquering Writer's Block by K.M. Weiland

Full title: Conquering Writer's Block and Summoning Inspiration: Learn to Nurture a Lifestyle of Creativity by K.M. Weiland I’m possibly not the best person to review this book, because I don’t really suffer from writer’s block. If I get stuck on one story, I go work in another for a while until the solution comes to me. At any given time, I may have 4-8 major projects on the go and another 10 or more on the ‘back burner’. But what works for my ADD brain may not work for othe

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Non-Fiction Friday Book Review: Outline Your Novel by Scott King

Caitlyn Lynch

Sep 21, 2018
2 min

Non-Fiction Friday Book Review: Outline Your Novel by Scott King

Full title: Outline Your Novel: The How To Guide for Structuring and Outlining Your Novel by Scott King. Universal purchase link here. I have a confession to make: I am a pantser from way back. I’ve written 100,000 words stories by the seat of my pants based entirely off a strange dream I half-remembered in the morning. However, as I progress in my writing career, nitpicky little things like deadlines and required submission of synopses and blurbs have started to crop up, and

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Non-Fiction Friday Book Review: 2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron

Caitlyn Lynch

Aug 31, 2018
2 min

Non-Fiction Friday Book Review: 2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron

Full title: 2,000 to 10,000: How to Write Faster, Write Better, and Write More of What You Love. Universal purchase link here. Rachel Aaron is a professional full-time author of fantasy and science fiction. A few years ago, she did some analysis and self-examination of her writing habits and techniques and managed to successfully apply some theories to take her writing from 2,000 words a day to 10,000 words a day. Rachel first published most of the information in this book as

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Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders by Susanne Alleyn

Caitlyn Lynch

Aug 24, 2018
2 min

Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders by Susanne Alleyn

Full title: Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders: A Writer’s (& Editor’s) Guide to Keeping Historical Fiction Free of Common Anachronisms, Errors, & Myths. I’m going to put this in bold type so it’s very, very clear: If you are an author, editor or aspiring author of historical fiction of any genre, this book should be in your reference library. Divided into chapters on various useful topics, beginning with the aforementioned underpants and their usage (or rather, lack of)

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Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Mastering Amazon Ads: An Author's Guide by Brian D. Meeks

Caitlyn Lynch

Aug 17, 2018
2 min

Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review: Mastering Amazon Ads: An Author's Guide by Brian D. Meeks

Mastering Amazon Ads: An Author’s Guide is widely known among authors as THE definitive guide to how to get Amazon ads working to sell your book, and there’s good reason why. Brian D. Meeks has spent an enormous amount of time and effort, and a fair amount of money, figuring out the arcane art and he really has mastered it. The burning question, of course, is can you make this method work for you and YOUR books? Meeks does his level best to hold your hand every step of the wa

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Caitlyn Lynch

Apr 28, 2018
1 min

Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review

Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys For Writing An Outstanding Story is a really useful tool for writers who haven’t been formally educated in the craft of writing and language structure (like myself). K.M. Weiland carefully breaks down, using references with which most people will be familiar, just what goes into making up a successful story and how to replicate that successful structure when planning and writing your own. While the examples given are in some cases films,

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Caitlyn Lynch

Jan 26, 2018
3 min

Non-Fiction Fridays Book Review

So I have a tendency to buy and hoard (fortunately electronic copies of) self-help writing books. A while ago, I had the idea of starting a regular blog column called Non-Fiction Fridays where I'd read and review them, and hopefully garner a collection of the best snippets for my own future reference too. You'll be able to find all these reviews in the Writing Advice Books section under the Reviews tab. I'm going to start with Andrew Mayne's How To Write A Novella In 24 Hours

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ALL NEW EDITION! Let's Get Digital is updated and better than ever!

Caitlyn Lynch

Jan 22, 2018
1 min

ALL NEW EDITION! Let's Get Digital is updated and better than ever!

Anyone who's asked me about self-publishing advice will confirm that the one thing I always tell them to do is buy David Gaughran's fantastic book Let's Get Digital. (I reviewed the old edition here). Well, if you didn't take the plunge yet, do it NOW. The new edition is releasing on January 25th and in pre-order, it's only 99¢!!! Yes, I bought the new edition. David is an incredibly well-respected voice in the self-publishing world and he says it's packed full of new info, s

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Book Review: Because Self-Publishing Works by V.V. Cam

Caitlyn Lynch

Apr 28, 2017
2 min

Book Review: Because Self-Publishing Works by V.V. Cam

This is an absolutely excellent book for any aspiring author wondering how self-publishing works and how to go about it. And yes, there are a few tips and tricks in here that those who've already taken the plunge will find helpful as well. The author writes in a clear, conversational style, detailing the self-publishing journey she and her husband undertook to get his first fiction novel on the market, and sharing with the reader all the things that they learned along the way

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Check out my new romantic suspense, Ranger's Rescue, available now in Kindle Unlimited!

Ranger's Rescue