Marketing tips for reaching your first readers

Nathan Bransford, TVWriter™’s favorite publishing know-it-all has a video for us this week, in which he reaches out to his fave book-marketing expert David Gaughran.

So sit back, relax, and watch this scintillating discussion of why and how you should use digital ads to reach new readers and other (and slightly less daunting) SEO topics.

Nathan has a transcript of this entire convo for those of us who are too impatient to watch and listen. You can find it right here. read article

Why I’m Paying Someone to Edit My Guide to Writing a Novel

Knowing yourself – ah, what an empowering thing!

And, clearly, Nathan Bransford knows himself well:

Josef_Wagner-Höhenberg_Die_Abrechnungby Nathan Bransford

A few months ago I announced that I’m going to be self-publishing aguide to writing a novel, and I’m pleased to report that I have finished and edited my first draft! read article

The Value of Life Experience

Dood nails this one:

how sweet it is

by Nathan Bransford

Writing, by its very nature, is a solitary activity. It requires blocking out the world around you, surrounding yourself only with your own thoughts, and swimming and diving through the oceans of your imagination.

It’s also a tremendously time-consuming activity, one that requires blocking off days on the calendar when you would much prefer to be out doing something far easier than pouring your heart out onto the page. You have to focus, power through when the writing gets hard, and above all, make sacrifices to complete a novel. read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 2/13/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
  •  Roseanne Barr (don’t try to pretend you don’t know who she is) has signed a development deal with NBC, although we don’t know if she’ll put on her writing hat.  (Hey, don’t be sad. The network wanted her to play a part on THE OFFICE and this is just part of her payment. Oh, wait, maybe we should be very sad.)
  • Lena Dunham & Jenni Konner (both of ROBOTS GIRLS) are writing an HBO pilot based on Betty Halbreich’s upcoming memoir All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go,  about the trials and tribulations of a Bergdorf Goodman personal shopper. (Yeppers, it’s a fact of life that all HBO subscribers know all about that particular store and even what personal shoppers are. Maybe they even all have them. America, we love you.)
  • Speaking of books, Nathan Bransford’s new book, Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp is coming out this week, and we’re going way out on a limb to recommend that everybody read this latest installment in his Jacob Wonderbar series.  (Who knows? Maybe he’ll get a TV deal out of it, and we can move into the limelight and claim it’s all because of us. Yeah, we’re adorable that way, hmm?)
  • And, speaking of people who don’t write TV,  MTV has named Mina Lefevre, formerly of ABC Family, head of scripted  programming. If you know Mina, you should give her a call and start pitching. If you don’t know her, you should find a way to wangle a meeting and start pitching. (And if you’re Mina herself, you should start writing your own stuff cuz then you’ll get TVWriter™’s ultimate honor: We’ll put your name in bold the next time we mention it here.

Aha, we knew there was something else. In honor of the fact that we think Nathan Bransford and Jacob Wonderbar are both way cool, here’s the trailer for the new book:

What People Mean When They Say “Bad Writing”

There’s a difference between “good writing” and a “good book” or “good script.” Nathan Bransford gets it:

by Nathan Bransford

One thing about my Fifty Shades of Grey  post that inspired some mild controversy was my insistence that it’s not that badly written. read article