Discovery Archives

If you’re a professional author, chances are you’ve had a love-hate relationship with Goodreads. Maybe it’s the clunky interface. Maybe it’s the Wild West of one-star ratings. Or maybe it’s just the nagging feeling that your beautifully crafted book deserves a little more …  sparkle. The good news? New kids on the block—The StoryGraph and Fable—are offering fresh alternatives that are built w…

I was first introduced to Substack by Joanna Campbell Slan, who migrated her newsletter list there in December 2023. “Substack has brought me 207 new subscribers,” she said. “Since I don’t pay Substack, I count that as a huge win. Previously, I was paying around $120 a month, and the other email list servers sure didn’t recommend me to anyone.” Should you use Substack to deliver your newsletter…

In Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare writes this line from Juliet to Romeo: What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. Likewise, authors sometimes wish readers would judge our books purely based on prose, character, and plot. But let’s face it, readers are often swayed by an eye-catching book cover or a clever title. The reality is that there are mil…

Authors are always on the lookout for ways to garner more publicity for their books. One way that’s been around for quite a while is to enter a contest. But there are many contests out there, and some of them charge high fees to enter, or require that you mail printed books to judges at your cost. The first thing to consider is what you want from the contest or award. Is there a cash prize, whi…

An author’s job: It’s not just writing It’s no secret that only half an author’s job is the actual writing of a book. The other half falls squarely in the realm of marketing. If you’re like me, spending that much time trying to build your brand and reach a wider audience is not what you want to be doing. Social media While it’s true that social media has become a critical component of marketing…

In the early days of my publishing career, I worked as an editor for a publisher based in Ireland. While it started as primarily a digital-first romance house, it quickly grew into a multi-genre powerhouse. During that time, two of my titles were accepted by the publisher. The first was a little military thriller called Stray Ally, a story about a not-so-great guy who meets a dog in the wildern…