Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.
While this is slanted towards business writing I put to you that all writers need to have an effective short pitch for their projects. Why? Because you are always trying to market your story and people don’t have a lot of time. In fact, your elevator pitch should be the first thing on your Amazon page or where ever you are placing your book. Readers are rushed and often will look at the first paragraph to decided whether to read further. During one of my jobs, it is my duty to help authors craft an effective and quick view of their title. I always try to put the author and story in the best light. Having an already great first paragraph that describes the story allows you to stay in control of your narrative and allows others to effectively help you to market your title. Check out the post at Writer’s Write!
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Why The Elevator Pitch Will Always Be Effective In Business Writing
Many readers do not have the time to read everything. The world moves quickly and people have short attention spans. People become bored at a frightening rate.
As Cecil Beaton said, ‘Perhaps the world’s second worst crime is boredom. The worst is being a bore.’
- How do we grab their attention?
- How do we make them trust us?
- How do we change their minds?
In a busy world, the elevator pitch is a powerful tool for business writers. Measured in the time span of an elevator ride, it should take no more than 20 seconds to read. When written, it should not be longer than 100 words.
Cover these points in your elevator pitch:
Read the full post on Writer’s Write!
Let me begin this week’s post, a continuation of looking at 
The other day I watched an old MGM movie, The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954). It stars Elizabeth Taylor at her most gorgeous and Van Johnson at his most likable. Van plays a GI in Paris on VE Day. He gets kissed in the crowd by Liz, which is not something a GI would ever forget. When he sees her later at a party, he makes a beeline for her. Soon they are in love. Then married.
Today, I am talking with Nick Stephenson. Nick is a bestselling author of fiction and nonfiction. Plus, he teaches new authors how to find their first 10,000 readers. Nick is a good friend of mine, and when we talk we geek out on things like marketing and audience building. We are always on Skype sharing our best stuff with each other. So I thought I should have him on the show to share these things that he does so well.
Where I am, we are safe. There are fires around us and my allergies are in charge right now, but I am not complaining. There are people who lost everything.
In the past, I’ve recommended strict rules about social media use.
by Jo Linsdell
By 
Emotional wounds are transformative and have the power to re-shape a character in many negative ways, impacting their happiness, their self-worth, and causing mistrust and disillusionment to skew their worldview. This 
When my first novel was published in 2013, all I knew was that I wanted to tell stories for a living. I’d grown up seeing Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and Anne Rice do it, and, having gotten paid $25 for the publication of a short story in Scholastic magazine when I was still in middle school, I’d had a little taste of doing it myself. But I had the idea that what my readers were most interested in was the story I was telling, and that they didn’t really care about ‘the man behind the curtain.’
I spend about a hundred hours a year reading writers’ manuscripts and doing content edits on their stories. I’ve seen it all–stories that ramble on for 400+ pages, never really getting to the point; stories that start off pretty good and then about a quarter of the way in change into a totally different story; stories where the voice changes so many times you couldn’t keep up if you wanted to… I could go on.
Beyond Nostalgia: authentic historical detail from fads, trends, and headlines can help you write books readers will relate to.
by 
This is going to be a quick post because if you haven’t guessed yet from the title, I am waaaaay behind.