Biz

POD and Self-Publishing

ECPA Bestsellers

Randy Rooney

The Wrenching Truth About Wannabe Writers

I was a wannabe novelist for about seven billion years before I sold my first novel. Because of that, wannabes occupy a soft spot in my lizardy little heart. But I can do only so much for a wannabe who doesn’t wanna work.

While reading a novel one slow Saturday afternoon, the phone rang. It turned out to be a wannabe from my critique group whom I’ll protect with the pseudonym “Joe.” He’s the kind of guy who puts the “fun” in “dysfunctional.”

Bookclubs

Seven Ways To Recharge Your Bookclub

Book clubs are a great way to connect with like-minded people, discuss good books, and have fun and laugh (you can never have enough laughing is what I say). These relationship-based groups, like all relationships, can grow stale over time. Following are some tips to rekindle the fire when the passion for club dims. Maybe some of these are happening in your group; give a few of these a try and see passion for book club ignite.

Agent Column

Discerning Literature

I’m about as ancient as dirt in Christian-agent time (of course, that would never be said of me in real time). I’ve been an agent for twelve years, which in the Christian realm means I came to this game early on. I decided to pursue being an agent after Focus on the Family divorced me. . . . Okay, really, we parted company because Focus was moving to Colorado Springs from Southern California, and that was a move I didn’t want to make.

Fiction Fixit Shop

I Need Structure!!!

Scene structure, that is. If one thing guarantees to send a story down the meandering, dimly lit, dead-end byway of total reader apathy, it’s a poorly structured scene. You know the ones I’m talking about, right?

• The one where the POV character is mentally sizing up or describing all the other characters in the room—like a line-up of suspects, only without even the interest of a crime.

Read more

ECPA Bestseller Lists

Notice it says plural lists! That's right...we have ALL of the ECPA lists now, including their Archives. Check out the latest in hot reading across all Christian spectrums.

POD And Self-Publishing

Making the Leap

Linore Rose Burkard has experienced one of those rare publishing success stories: landing a contract from a major publisher without half trying. Now, don’t jump to conclusions and interpret that to mean she didn’t put hard work, sweat, and even tears into her journey. But Linore’s leap from the POD (print on demand) publisher she used for her first novel...