Editing your work is vital to achieve best results. It is not always easy when you are feeling overwhelmed and tired. These easy steps will help improve your writing.

If you have spent the last few days completing your business plan, article for a woman's magazine, school assignment or updated your resume, you are probably feeling the relief flood in after the last full-stop. Exhausted but satisfied, you still know it is not quite right to call it a wrap. You have to check your work. Though you may still be high on adrenaline, it is highly unlikely that you are enthusiastic to dive right into editing your work.

Here are a few pointers to help you start without feeling overwhelmed.

Rule number one is to take a break. Your brain cannot accomodate non-stop work. It has to rest. Indulge in a first milestone victory by drinking a cup of hot coffee or hot cocoa. Take a long shower. Return your calls. Watch a movie. Jump on to your exercise bike. Do something to take your mind of work.

Taking five clears your mind from the entanglements of your said assignment. Napping, or if you have an extra day, calling it a night for the time-being will allow yourself to feel refreshed to tackle the nitty gritty details of your writing.

Print out a hardcopy.

Your project paper is probably in softcopy form. This can cause eye-strain and alot of tension in the back muscles when engaged in self-editing. Print out your work on paper, even if it is long and winding. It will save you alot of strain and aches.

Working on a hardcopy allows you to make corrections with red ink and allows you to check your writing in more comfortable areas of your home and / or office. This will help you take your mind off the stress and allow you to enjoy checking and appreciating your hard work.

Break your work down.

Once you are ready to start editing your work, make sure you break down your project into segments. Depending on the project, you could choose to divide your work into chapters, paragraphs, sub-chapters - it is up to you.

Sometimes it is easy to start with the easier segments, so as they are out of your way before tackling the more taxing ones. You will feel satisfied knowing that there is more done than left undone. After you have completed editing the different sections, piece them together and read through the whole document until you are satisfied with your work.

Read your work backwards.

Reading backwards is a good method to check spelling errors. Errors pop up more obviously when you read words one by one in an incoherrent order.

Read your work outloud - in front of a mirror.

Read you work in an animated fashion to yourself in front of a mirror. The mirror acts as an audience and will help you become conscientious of your delivery. When reading outloud, pause dramtically at commas and semi-colons and raise your eyebrows to yourself when asking rhetorical questions. This will help check your punctuation. If it makes sense to the person in the mirror, it should make sense to your reader.

Be cautious of automated spelling and grammar checks.

Microsoft Word is wonderful to use as its automated spelling and grammar checks are a great tool in spotting mistakes. However, it is wise not to be overly reliant on them as these checks are not able to comprehensively highlight mistakes. For example, your research on the solar system may have come clean sans erorrs, even though you had mis-spelt the word "sun" as "son."

Another example, you may make a simple mistake in a cover letter, like this: My precious work experience included a party-time job at Pizza Hut. Though a party-time job does sound precious, it is important to note that a spell-check would not have prompted you to change "precious" to "previous" and "party-time" to "part-time!"

Ask a friend for help.

However enthusiastic you are about your document, a friendly set of second eyes will help spot any errors. Your friend or colleague will also be able to read your work objectively and may provide you with accurate feedback of a real audience. Constuctive criticism taken positively will help you improve your work dramatically.

Tips on how to write a query letter with a summary and help an author grab an editor's attention with a good grabber sentence.

One of the hardest things for many writers is not actually writing the manuscript, but writing the query letter. Compared to writing the query letter, a manuscript is a piece of cake.

There are several things an editor will look for in a query letter. If a query letter lacks the required material, the editor won’t even bother looking at the manuscript, no matter how good it is. Here are some basic steps to consider when writing a query letter.

Address: At the top of the query letter should be the name and address of the publisher. Make sure the publisher’s name is correct; don’t put “Mr. Jane Smith” or get the address wrong. The editor will probably get a good kick out of it and throw it in the trash can.

First Paragraph: One space under the address should be the date, and one space under that the letter should start. The first sentence of the query letter should be a grabber, a sentence that hooks the editor and makes them want to read every word on the page. Make it as suspenseful or shocking as possible. The first paragraph should be a summary of the story, something that’s read on the back cover of a book. Highlight only the most important events, introduce one or two key characters, and don’t give away the ending!

Second Paragraph: The second paragraph should be stating your qualifications, like any previous publishing experience. If you don’t have any previous publishing qualifications, don’t say anything. Stating that you have no publishing experience is basically a shout-out to the editor that you have no experience at all and would probably not be worth the time. The second paragraph should also tell the editor what line the book is intended for and how many words it has.

Thank-You: The third paragraph should be a thank-you to the editor for taking time out of their busy schedule to read the query letter.

Signature: Make sure that your signature is both typed and signed. Under the signature there should be your contact information, such as address, telephone number, and email address.

Enclosed Material: The last required item for a query letter is to let the editor know what is enclosed. Rarely do editors ask for a full manuscript upfront. They might ask for a synopsis or even the first three chapters of the book. Below the contact information needs to be a single line that looks something like “Encl: Synopsis, chapters 1-2, return envelope.”

The digital age--it's easy for someone to steal your Internet or print freelance writing without permission. Find out how to copyright or register intellectual properties

Pay upwards of $150 to have your written creation or intellectual property copyrighted, or save those dollars and copyright it yourself. What should it cost? Anywhere from nothing to about $35, depending on your personal goals and needs and current U.S. Government copyright registration fees. Here’s how it works.

Copyright is unalienable right, if you author a work that exists in tangible form, according to the U.S. Government Copyright office. The right is linked to the Constitution, applying to published and unpublished works.

What You Can and Can't Copyright

Can't copyright

• an idea, or an intent
• your hopes for future projects or writing success
• snippets of dialog floating through your head as you showered this morning
• the outline of your next novel
• an email describing your latest plot
• anything written by the U.S. Government (anything authored by the government is public domain in the U.S.)
• a title

You probably can secure rights to

• original literary or written works
• musical works
• dramatic works
• pantomimes and choreographic works
• pictorial material
• graphic and sculptural works
• motion pictures and audiovisual works, sound recordings

And you can, the government notes, consider these categories quite broadly – seeing computer programs as literary works and maps or plans or blueprints as graphics. Web sites might qualify if everything you put on the site came from your creation, not from a template or borrowed code, scripts or graphics.

Rest assured the government sees any completed, tangible creation you author as copyrightable, if it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord and you can prove you created it. The definitions of copy and phonorecord are very broad. Proving you created it is simply, in many cases, a matter of committing the work to paper or a computer file and securing proof of a date.

How To secure a Copyright

Easy to do, in both cases. Take the paper document to the post office, buy a postage stamp for it and ask them to cancel the stamp on the document. Irrefutable proof that it at least existed on that date. Or mail the writing to yourself, label the envelope with title and details, and then file it, unopened, after your mail carrier delivers it to you. If the creation exists on a computer file, the software will date the original file the day you create it, and it will record each date that you alter it. Permanently copy the file, including date detail, to a CD, floppy, or DVD. Experts agree that will likely prove existence.

Your work, your creations, are automatically copyrighted, legally and forever more, the day you commit them to a copy or a phonorecord - whether you register them or not. But writers, especially freelancers may want to register your copyright with the Government Copyright Office for about $35. Most publishers do so because registration creates a public record of rights, and rights claimed, like First North American Serial, for example, can be specified.

If someone steals your work and you want to take to the courts, know this: The rules say you can’t defend an unregistered copyright in court. You can register your rights, at anytime after creating the piece, for a term of your lifetime plus 70 years. Registered or not, you can display the copyright symbol like this - © 2004 Jane Author - on your work.

Why Copyright Your Work?

Eugene R. Quinn, Jr, patent attorney and law professor, founder of IPWatchdog.com and of-counsel to Hiscock & Barclay, underlined, in a 2007 interview, the need to be reasonably concerned about ownership of your work. No need overreact and display the copyright symbol on work you’re submitting to a magazine or newspaper publisher. That's the mark of a rank amateur. But the writer’s path is long and arduous. Rewards are inconsistent, and your rights are precious.

Quinn says, “As Internet usage grows, new legal questions continue to surface, as do certain bitter and painful business realities. The sad but simple truth is that digital communications and the digitization of information of all types make the infringement of intellectual property rights, particularly copyrights and trademarks, easier than ever before. For support of this statement one need look no farther than the myriad of examples of copyright piracy that are plaguing the Internet.”

Any author can benefit from the few moments it takes to secure a copyright and peace of mind.

When writers are ready to submit their manuscripts to publishers, they sometimes rush into sending their work out without researching the publishers fully.

After working for a long time on that literary piece, it is finally completed. It sits there on the desk, fully edited, primped, printed, and ready to send out. Next step, the writer searches the internet for publishers that print titles that are similar to the one that they have written, copies down the information, and gets ready to send the work out, assuming that all they need is a complete manuscript, a submission letter, and that's it. But, this couldn't be farther from the truth.

In the publishing world, there are tons of people in play on both sides - publishing and writing. The competition is fierce for an author's spot with any publisher, and most writers don't realize this. To help narrow down the potential authors, almost every publishing company has a strict set of guidelines that authors must adhear to when they send in their works. If a potential author doesn't follow these guidelines, then their manuscript is simply tossed aside, or tossed in the garbage, no matter how wonderful the book is.

To avoid this happening to a manuscript when it is submitted, there are a few rules that every writer should always follow:

1. Look over the publisher's web site completely. Make sure to check their submission guidelines and either print them out, or write them down.

2. If the publisher requires certain items, such as a query letter first or only the first three chapters, make sure that is all that is sent to them. Most publishers have an assistant in the editorial section that screens all of the manuscripts that come in, and if they don't follow the guidelines to the letter, the submission is simply tossed out before it ever makes it to an editor's desk.

3. Remember that the competition for a spot on a print schedule is fierce. There are literally thousands of other authors out there competing for the same spot. To ensure that a manuscript submission makes it to the editors and then passes an editor's test, follow all the guidelines completely and make sure that any query or submission letters are completely original and unique. The editors will be on the lookout for letters that grab their attention and leave them wanting to read the manuscript.

4. Editors want to see manuscripts that don't need a lot of editing or other work. If possible, try to find an outside source that can go over a manuscript before it is sent to a publisher. Make sure that the entire manuscript is error free, including spelling, grammar, and typesetting errors. The less that an editor has to do on a manuscript to get it ready for publishing, the faster the writer will see results.

5. Be a professional writer. No matter if a manuscript is accepted or rejected, be professional about it. If a writer is professional about a rejection, the editor is more likely to contact them in the future if the written work is good. There just may not have been enough room on the print schedules at that time, or the editor may know another publisher who would be interested.

6. Keep in mind that publishing houses are always a flurry of activity and they receive thousands of manuscripts. If a writer doesn't hear an answer within a couple of months, or within the length of time that the publisher lists on their web site, then call to check. But, don't call a week later to see if the manuscript has been accepted.

By following simple rules and guidelines that publishers set in place, an author can turn a simple submission letter into a great working relationship. Good luck!

Many publishers are making money by selling you a service you should get actually be getting paid to have done. What is legitimate and what should send red flags?

Vanity publishing is a term used to describe the process of paying a publisher to publish your book. To a career writer who is making a living from selling their work, this method of publishing is generally unacceptable. After all, writers are in the business of selling their work, not paying to have it published. If you're interested in having a few copies of a book made for your own use (see this article for more details), this can be a valid publishing methods for your publishing wants and needs. However, when a publisher attempts to find writers to publish using this method against their better options, it becomes a problem.

"Bad" publishers often prey on new writers who are excited to get their work published and are looking for an easy out. Getting your book to print can be a lot of work. Researching agents and editors is time-consuming, and mailing multiple letters and manuscripts can be costly. These bad boys are hoping that by enticing you with bells and whistles you'll opt for the quick and easy route rather than spending the time waiting for a phone call. They are often right.

Most of the time, these scammers are promising services and results they are not really providing and cannot truly guarantee. They may state that your book will be edited and reviewed, when what they're really doing is running it through a spell-check and writing a summary for a quickie news release. They may claim you will sell X number of books through ABC type markets, when they really can't control whether or not book buyers will make that purchase.

So which companies are legitimate and which are out to get you? With these criteria one might suggest that iUniverse, the publisher associated with Barnes & Noble, is a vanity publisher running a scam. After all, you'll pay a minimum of $299 to get published - $499 if you want to see the books for sale to more than just your mother. One of the differences here is that iUniverse does not need to pre-accept your book, offers a large selection of services, and it puts much of the responsibility for quality assurance back in your hands.

In and of itself, the services a book publisher offers are not bad. However in the publishing world there are options considered to be more favorable and more acceptable. If a publisher wants to charge a writer to have their book published, that doesn't independently mean they are running a scam. After all, that is what printers do - the same printers where you might get business cards or wedding invitations printed. Keep in mind though, that you have options. Which option you choose will depend on your reasons and goals for publishing your work.

What is first person point of view and when is it the best viewpoint to choose for your fiction novel? This article discusses the pros and cons of writing in first person

A novel written in first person is a first-hand account of events told or narrated through the eyes of a single character, typically the main character. Books written in first person are easily identified by the use of the pronoun “I” rather then “he or she”. The reader will see phrases such as “I said, I thought,” rather than “he said, she thought.” Everything is experienced through the eyes of a single character, and all thoughts and observations are limited to that one person. There can be no outside observer. If the narrator does not see or experience an event first-hand, it cannot be a part of the story. All scenes in the story are filtered through this person’s unique perception.

What are the Advantages of Writing in First Person?

First person makes the narrator close up and personal. The reader can identify with the character and experience their deepest, innermost thoughts and feelings. While third person and omniscient points of view distance the reader, first person allows the reader to enter the world of the narrator, provy to his personal thoughts and feelings.

What are the Disadvantages of Writing in First Person?

When writing in first person, the author is restricted to a single point of view. First person is the narrowest, most restrictive point of view because everything is seen and processed through the mind of the narrator.

Some author find first person a natural choice, while others fin it too limiting to stick with one character’s viewpoint through an entire book. Some find writing in first person easy and comfortable as writing in a personal journal, others find it awkward and restrictive.

When is First Person the best POV to Use?

First person can add a hint of foreboding or foreshadowing, which makes it a popular point of view for ghost stories, gothics, and novels of suspense. It is also a good point of view to use if the book is confessional in nature.

Let’s take a look at a made-up opening below:

Example of First Person: Had I but known what terrors awaited me at Grange House, I would not have been so eager to board the carriage that night, to begin a night-bound journey to a place where only ghosts and torment reside.

Example of Third Person: Had she but known what terrors awaited her at Grange House, Susan would not have been so eager to board the carriage that night to begin a night-bound journey to a place where only ghosts and torment reside.

These examples demonstrate that first person viewpoint can sometimes be a better way to draw a reader into a story that contains intrigue, suspense, and character reflection. While any book can be written in first person, this point of view works well with novels that rely on thought processes and the personal emotions of one character rather than books that contain multiple main characters and lots of action.

When should First Person be Avoided?

Books that require multiple characters to tell a story work better in third person, so that more than one viewpoint of events can be offered.

How do Publishers feel about First Person?

Third person is still the point of view most commonly used and recommended by many editors. First person, long associated with gothic romance, some private eye mysteries, and a few mainstream novels, falls in and out of favor with publishers. For many years, first person was very popular. It then declined in popularity. Lately, however, many new books, especially mysteries, have appeared on the shelves that are written in first person. It seems the bias against first person has been lifted and the point of view is once more the author’s individual choice.

When choosing a point of view, the author should first experiment by writing a few passages in first person, then change them to third and see which feels the most natural for the unique story they are trying to tell.

Example of Books Written in First Person

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (gothic)

The Lying Tongue by Andrew Wilson (mystery)

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (mainstream)

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond (mainstream, mystery)

The Meaning of Night Michael Cox (confessional

When you get better acquainted with your creations, you will hold your readers' interest, too.

Some writers hate to have too clear an idea of the story they are telling, and the characters they are creating, when they first sit down to write. They prefer to see where the story and the characters take them. Other writers, however, have to know exactly what will happen, and who each character is, in as much detail as possible, before beginning the journey.

Although each style has its strengths, and weaknesses, the first kind of writer may benefit from creating a character sheet that asks and answers some basic questions, such as a character’s age. After all, a police detective who is 45 at the beginning of the book, and, twenty pages and a day later, has suddenly aged to 53 is the type of blunder that doesn’t sit well with editors, or with readers.

How to Create the Sheets

Create character sheets in a working journal specifically for the story you are going to tell, or make a computer template, into which you can key the answers. Save those sheets on your computer or print copies of them to add to your working journal.

Kinds of Questions to Ask

Start with basic questions like these: What is your full name? How old are you? Where were you born? When were you born? Where were you raised? What are your parents’ and siblings’ names?

Then move on to questions such as: What do you eat? What is your favourite food? What is your favourite drink? How do you spend your Saturday nights? Do you read? What kind of books? Do you watch television? What is your favourite show? Do you listen to music? What kind?

Go into more detail here: Are you married? Divorced? Do you have children? What are their names and ages? What is your job? What do you like about it? What do you hate about it? What do you spend your money on? Do you travel? Where and why (or why not)? What does a typical day in your life consist of?

You can also create a physical description of your characters with questions about eye and hair colour, height, weight, scars, physical or mental challenges. Remember that a character sheet can be as general or as detailed as you require.

What to do with the Answers

The answers your characters give to the questions you ask will provide a place to start in building believable characters. You can add more flesh and blood to each sheet or just stay with the skeletal outline, whichever works best for you.

Where do writers find inspiration for writing? Proven techniques for developing fiction ideas for writers of every level.

Not only new writers want to know how to keep developing ideas. Many writers fear being consumed with writer’s block. When confronting writer’s block, you should consider possible solutions and techniques available. Conference Speakers like Terry Barnes or Debbie Macomber advise keeping a pad of paper on hand at all times, even by the bed. You never know when a great idea may occur. They also tell writers to observe people and things around them. Ideas are everywhere.

Places to Find Inspiration

Good places to begin your search include bookstore shelves, libraries, and magazine racks. Read the newspaper headlines and insert magazines. Watch CNN for story ideas. Sporting events or school concerts can give you inspiration.

People Watching for Inspiration

You can find models for your characters by listening to conversations at other tables while you eat lunch. Pay attention to conversations with family and friends. What are their speech patterns and vocabulary? Does someone have a personality quirk you could use in one of your characters? Get them to tell stories from their own lives. Ask people questions.

Community Activities as Inspiration

Check community calendars for upcoming events. Is there a car show or art exhibition scheduled? What about the city commission meeting? Watch for the county fair or performances. Always carry your notebook with you. Your community may host ethnic celebrations that provide new opportunities for innovative story lines.

Alternative Sources for Inspiration

Watch the Discovery or History Channel. Read the Yellow pages of the phone book. Read old journals or diaries. Movies can generate an interest in a particular subject that could grow into an article series. Children’s books can be a great source of basic ideas. Make a list of people’s interests and hobbies.

Brainstorm Ideas in a Notebook.

Put the notebook to use that we’ve discussed above. You can turn one idea into many. Choose a topic, such as “Pets.” Write twenty ideas that could be written about pets. For example,

• What fish live the longest in a tank?
• How to train an older dog?

Other ideas can be generated from asking “what if” questions. What if the South had won the Civil War? What could have happened? What if Lincoln had lived? What if Columbus had perished before returning to Spain? What if the US had not won the Revolutionary War?

"Pay-for-Performance" or "Pay-per-Click" Internet advertising is making big waves lately, and the two biggest players are Google and Overture, which was recently purchased by Yahoo. Microsoft has since joined the fray with MSN Search and there are numerous other fish (albeit tadpoles) in the pond.
When it comes to promoting a book, the advantages of internet advertising over traditional print advertising can be summed up with the following acronym-rich equation: CPC - CPM = PPC. That's CMO-speak for expressing how much more cost effective cost-per-conversion analysis is to cost-per-thousand analysis.

With Pay Per Click advertising via Google and Overture, the cost of the ad is based upon the performance of the ad; however, the effectiveness of the ad is gauged by its conversion ratio. Thanks to tools provided by both Google and Overture, these conversion ratios can be calculated automatically.

Traditional print media, on the other hand, provides a CPM (cost per thousand) to demonstrate cost (value) of an ad. A certain number of people will see the ad (and believe me, this number is pie-in-the-sky, based upon circulation times "readership"). Therefore, the cost is X.

It's easy to recognize the advantages of pay per click advertising, especially when promoting a relatively small-ticket item such as a book, but before jumping head first into the PPC arena, review the following tips:

1) Be aware of the differences between Google and Overture

Google is the leading search engine at the moment, but their reach never exceeds their grasp. Overture technology, on the other hand, currently extends to Yahoo, AltaVista, CNN, Infospace, and others. Overture requires you to deposit money into an account in advance. Said account is then depleted based upon your campaign selection. Meanwhile, Google simply bills your credit card based upon your expenditures. Overture provides more intuitive and complete reporting functionality that enables you to analyze the effectiveness of keywords, but Google allows you to enter a maximum expenditure-per-day. This daily cap provides more control over your monthly spending while Overture’s system simply draws money from the online account until depleted. This daily draw can vary substantially from one day to the next. Also, Overture requires you to keep 3 days of "extra cash| on hand. Do you earn interest on the money you’re loaning to Overture? Forget about it.

2) Be aware of the similarities

Both Google and Overture differentiate their paid clicks from their free, contextual algorithms, usually by featuring the "sponsored" searches on a different part of the page and by highlighting them in a color box. Recently, Overture launched a new product, or search mechanism, whereby an advertiser can choose to be listed among the contextual content, also. That’s kind of like paying for a meal after you’ve already eaten it.

Both services also experience infrequent, yet unexplained, "spikes" that decimate your daily or monthly budget in a matter of minutes or hours. It’s a little unnerving knowing that you could blow through $500 or $1000 in a matter of minutes with absolutely no recourse. Staffed to handle these anomalies, both services feature barely adequate customer service with representatives who often reply to such technical idiosyncrasies with hostile ambivalence. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s not.

3) Start conservatively

That said, realize that pay-per-click campaigns are not an exact science and contain the potential to be ridiculously expensive if you’re not careful. Start a campaign on either Google or Overture, but not both. Become familiar with the mechanics before launching full scale advertising campaigns on the other service.

4) Understand the mechanics

The way pay-for-performance works is simple. You bid on search terms, either words or phrases or a combination of both. Your webpage link then appears in search engine results relative to the price of the bid. If you're the highest bidder, your webpage appears at the absolute top of many search engines. Remember the frustration of typing in a search for your webpage and never finding your link? No longer!

5) Understand the advantages

Perhaps the best part of pay-for-performance advertising is the "pay for performance" part. Unlike traditional advertising where you pay based upon the number of impressions, here, you only pay if people click on your link. In essence, they are pre-sold.

6) Select the appropriate keywords

Let's look at an example. Say you have published a mystery novel about the death of a land baron in Louisiana. Not exactly a new plot and yet millions of "whodunit" readers may be interested in reading it. Your solution? Open a pay-for-performance account and bid on search terms like "Louisiana Mystery Novel" and "Mystery Book Plantation" and other similar search terms. Counter-intuitively, the more specific the term, the better your campaign will perform, since very specific searches deliver very motivated buyers to your page. Since you're paying for each click, you want those browsers to buy! That's where "conversion" comes in to play.

7) Understand the disadvantages

You have to be very careful managing your bids and selecting your keywords, or pay-for-performance advertising can become ineffective. Do not bid on ridiculously vague and popular words like "book" or "fiction" because you will never recoup your money. Instead, focus your search terms as specifically as possible.

It's only a matter of time before traditional print media finds some way to adopt this new method of cost-per-conversion and pay-for-performance advertising. Those who don't will die trying. Viva la digital revolution!

All you need to know are the basics and from there you will be able to create an effective book promotion. Below I've listed the most vital and basic tips to a successful book publicity campaign.
1. ALWAYS Take 'No' for an answer
It can be frustrating when the media isn't interested in your book or story idea, but always thank them for their time and move on. If you try and persuade or argue with them you will leave a bad impression of yourself and your chances of working with this particular media in the future are slim. Try back in a couple months if it's a show or publication that you're particularly interested. The media changes with the seasons, and trends, so they may love your show or feature idea then, rather then now.

2. Don't Hound Your Publicist
The more time you take up with your book publicist the less time they have to talk with the media. When you first begin your book publicity campaign ask your book publicist when an appropriate time would be to have a weekly chat, and see if they have a number to call in case of a publicity emergency. This will be well received by your book publicist and their efforts will be more successful!

3. Start NOW
A book publicity campaign is the most successful within the first 6 months from your book's publication date (differs for traditionally published authors). This is because the media wants the latest products and they want to be the first to tell their audience about them. It's best to start publicizing your story to mainstream and industry media prior to your book's release and reach out to consumers once your book is available to order.

4. Don't Pitch Your Book
Make sure that you're pitching a concept, show idea, or solution when you begin promoting your book. If you sound more like... "Hello, I am an author who just published my women's interest novel....." rather than, "Hello, is this a good time for you? Great. I'm a relationship expert who has proven that love novels bring couples closer in bed..." The second pitch is more intriguing and will most likely get a few minutes from the person on the receiving end. Your goal with every pitch should be to get their attention, a few minutes of their time and booked or featured as a guest, depending on the type of media.

5. Create a Press Kit
Before you begin promoting your book you should have a press kit ready to go. The essentials in most literary kits are a cover letter, press release, author bio, Q&A page, sample interview questions, and articles that make your topic relevant today. You're publisher should supply you with these materials and if you're self-published you'll most likely need to create these materials from scratch and on your own. This can be a daunting task to some, but the internet or library can be helpful when researching the proper formats of these products. Or, find a publicist to create a press kit for you!

6. Know Your Target Audience
Who will buy your book? 'Everybody' is not the correct answer to this question, although it is a common answer. The more focused you can get with your efforts the better your results will be. If your book is more main stream rather then specialized, then try beginning with a smaller audience and broadening your focus after you've saturated this first audience. Just a tip: Authors should always start with their local media, then regional (surrounding areas and states), and finally saturate national media.

7. Have fun!
Your enthusiasm, humor, and smile should shine through in every phone pitch, letter, and e-mail. If you're not excited about getting your work out there, then why should a producer or editor be excited to give you time on their program or space in their publication.

I truly believe that any author can publicize their own book if they have the drive, energy, and time to see it through from beginning to end. Publicity is the most vital within the first six months from its publication date, so authors should hit the ground running. If you need more guidance or would rather hire a professional to handle your book's publicity then start looking now. There are many publicity companies out there, but you need to find the one that's right for you and that is as excited about your book as you are.

Seeing your child's writings published is a truly exciting experience for all. Here are some resources that can make this happen.

Do you have an inspiring young writer? It is an exciting experience to see your child's stories published. There are certain things you need to know about children's publishing, and hopefully this article will help you decide how to go about turning your child's writing into published material that she can share with others.

IlluStory

A lot depends on what kind of publishing you are envisioning. If you simply want to have a book published that your child can keep as a memory, then IlluStory is a good choice. This company allows your child to write a book, add pictures, a small bio, and produces a hardback book delivered straight to your door. Your child can design his book on paper or using the Internet, which is really cool. The retail price for IlluStory is $19.99-$21.99, depending on which version you choose. This price includes the publishing of one book. You can order additional copies at an extra cost.

KidPub

They allow your child to submit a story on-line and have it posted on their server for millions of viewers to read. In order for your child to submit a story, you must join the site. It costs $6.95 for a lifetime membership, which is a rather nominal fee. This allows your child to publish an unlimited amount of stories. You hold the copyright to your child's stories, not KidPub. They also offer contests for kids to join.

StoneSoup

This company gives your child a chance to have his story published in a print magazine, which has a circulation of approximately 20,000 magazines six times a year. The magazine is for children writers between the ages of 8 to 13. They receive about 250 submissions a week, so it is not a guarantee that your child's work will be published at all, but they do have other resources for print magazines that accept children's stories.

Self-Publishing a Book

This is another way to get your child's writings in print. Self-publishing has become very popular over the past few years. BookSurge offers services to print books on-demand. It is a more expensive way to go, but it also depends on your purpose for having your child's book published. It is worth a look, if you are really interested in having your child's book professionally published.

Homemade Book Idea

Fold cardstock paper lengthwise and stand it up. Divide the paper into three sections, making sure each section is equal in size, and cut. Repeat this to make as many pages as your child needs. Overlap all of the sections and staple at the binding. Glue a piece of lined paper into every other page to create a place for your child to write her story and leaving a white space for her to draw pictures

When writers are ready to submit their manuscripts to publishers, they sometimes rush into sending their work out without researching the publishers fully.

After working for a long time on that literary piece, it is finally completed. It sits there on the desk, fully edited, primped, printed, and ready to send out. Next step, the writer searches the internet for publishers that print titles that are similar to the one that they have written, copies down the information, and gets ready to send the work out, assuming that all they need is a complete manuscript, a submission letter, and that's it. But, this couldn't be farther from the truth.

In the publishing world, there are tons of people in play on both sides - publishing and writing. The competition is fierce for an author's spot with any publisher, and most writers don't realize this. To help narrow down the potential authors, almost every publishing company has a strict set of guidelines that authors must adhear to when they send in their works. If a potential author doesn't follow these guidelines, then their manuscript is simply tossed aside, or tossed in the garbage, no matter how wonderful the book is.

To avoid this happening to a manuscript when it is submitted, there are a few rules that every writer should always follow:

1. Look over the publisher's web site completely. Make sure to check their submission guidelines and either print them out, or write them down.

2. If the publisher requires certain items, such as a query letter first or only the first three chapters, make sure that is all that is sent to them. Most publishers have an assistant in the editorial section that screens all of the manuscripts that come in, and if they don't follow the guidelines to the letter, the submission is simply tossed out before it ever makes it to an editor's desk.

3. Remember that the competition for a spot on a print schedule is fierce. There are literally thousands of other authors out there competing for the same spot. To ensure that a manuscript submission makes it to the editors and then passes an editor's test, follow all the guidelines completely and make sure that any query or submission letters are completely original and unique. The editors will be on the lookout for letters that grab their attention and leave them wanting to read the manuscript.

4. Editors want to see manuscripts that don't need a lot of editing or other work. If possible, try to find an outside source that can go over a manuscript before it is sent to a publisher. Make sure that the entire manuscript is error free, including spelling, grammar, and typesetting errors. The less that an editor has to do on a manuscript to get it ready for publishing, the faster the writer will see results.

5. Be a professional writer. No matter if a manuscript is accepted or rejected, be professional about it. If a writer is professional about a rejection, the editor is more likely to contact them in the future if the written work is good. There just may not have been enough room on the print schedules at that time, or the editor may know another publisher who would be interested.

6. Keep in mind that publishing houses are always a flurry of activity and they receive thousands of manuscripts. If a writer doesn't hear an answer within a couple of months, or within the length of time that the publisher lists on their web site, then call to check. But, don't call a week later to see if the manuscript has been accepted.

By following simple rules and guidelines that publishers set in place, an author can turn a simple submission letter into a great working relationship. Good luck

Although the characters in your short stories are not real, you have to make those characters seem real, if you want readers to care for or despise them.

Some writers confess that they based this character or that one on a real person, but the best writers would not leave such characters as they are in real life. Fictional characters are supposed to be just that, fictional, and it’s up to you, the writer, to breathe enough life into them to make them ‘seem’ like real people.

Start With a Character Sheet

If you’ve created a character sheet (a series of questions and answers) then you have a great skeleton to start dressing with flesh and bones. (Read more about this tool in Creating a Character Sheet.) In addition to helping you flesh out a character, this sheet will also help ensure that you don’t make silly mistakes, like describing the same eyes as brown on one page, and as green on another.

Gradually Add Information

Like real people, who grow and change gradually, through life experiences, fictional characters should be allowed to do the same.

While it may seem a good idea to give the reader a full sense of a character all at once, resist that urge. Doing this takes away one of the reasons people read, to continue to learn about the people in your story. By exposing characteristics, beliefs, and other elements of a person a bit at a time, you create mystery, and also maintain reader interest.

Remember, though, because of the length limitations of the short story, you must be careful that you don’t run out of space before you’ve written everything you needed to write about a character.

Give Characters Human Flaws

Since there are no perfect people in real life, it’s a good idea not to create perfect people in fictional life. They won’t ring true, and they will be boring.

Give a character a flaw or two; this is a terrific way to make him or her seem real. When you assign a flaw be sure that it fits the character, and the story you are telling. Making someone an alcoholic, when you’re writing about the reality of marriage versus the illusion of it, could contribute to your theme, but that same addiction might be out of place with another theme. (For more about themes read Write Clearer Story Themes.)

Make Characters Unique

As well as being flawed, each real person is also unique. Give a character a unique trait (or gift) that a reader will remember. Maybe your character is a wonderful story teller who uses that gift to save a person from suicide. Or perhaps your character is musical or artistic, a hopeless romantic or eternally optimistic. Pick the right trait to illuminate your story.

Independent Characters Speak for Themselves

If you’ve added enough flesh and bones, your characters, like people in real life, will want the freedom to speak for themselves. You will know this if you try to make them say something they would never say, and you will hear those wrong words when you read the story aloud, and pause or stumble over the problematic sections.

Have a little faith that the characters you’ve created will lead you in the right direction, to your story’s proper conclusion.

Accurately explaining what your fiction is about can be difficult for a writer, but it is an important tool if you want people to remember your work.

Every piece of writing needs a theme. It has to be about something; otherwise, it’s just a series of words and images that don’t add up to anything special. If your short stories keep coming back from editors with rejection letters, the problem may not be the quality of your writing but the clarity of your theme.

Plot or Theme

As you re-read a story, ask yourself if you are confusing the story’s plot with its theme. This is an easy mistake to make, and many writers make it. Keep in mind that plot is what happens in a story. Theme, on the other hand, is what a story is about.

For example, in the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, the main plot involves a miserly and uncaring man named Scrooge being visited, on Christmas Eve, by three spirits who show him his past, his present, and his possible future. The novel’s theme, however, can be summed up as “change your life for the better before you run out of time”.

Theme Holds Your Story Together

Theme is really the glue that holds all the pieces of your short story – character, plot, place, etc. – together. Each of these elements has to serve the theme you have chosen, or they are a liability to the story.

A clearly defined theme will better focus your story, and help to make it memorable to a reader. Dickens’ universal theme ensures that anyone who reads A Christmas Carol will remember it.

Be careful, though, not to hit your reader over the head with your theme. While it has to be clear, it should also be subtly woven through your story, not flashing from the page like a neon sign.

More than One Theme

As a writer you can explore as many themes as you wish, but consider having just one theme in a short story. By its nature, this form has a limited length, and it can be confusing to have more than one theme. A novel is a better place to explore multiple themes because it allows you the space to expand on each of them.

When You Should Think About Your Theme

The sooner you understand what you’re writing about the better. While some writers don’t think about the theme of their story until they have a first draft to work with, there is a benefit to knowing your theme before you start writing. It will help you to create characters and scenes that fit the story you are telling, and to leave out those that belong somewhere else.

If you begin with one theme – how romantic love fails people, the terrible cost of war, how we interact with nature – and realize that this isn’t what you’re writing about, change it. After all, the best writing usually happens in the re-writing stage.

Try these tips for putting the right words into your characters' mouths that will not only hold readers' attention, but show them who these people really are.

People speak for a number of reasons. They speak to exchange thoughts, feelings, and information. Some speak because they are uncomfortable with the silence that ensues if there are no words filling it. Others speak to teach or inspire others, to warn of disaster, or to worship. Since fictional characters speak for the same reasons that people do, as a writer you want to ensure that their words do more than just reflect the characters’ surface. Their words need to dig deeper.

For example, if your character is a teenage bully, dialogue may be filled with combativeness and rage, but this is just one dimension. If you don’t push on to discover other aspects to the bully – necessitating other words to help bring out those aspects – then this character will remain a stereotype, and readers will quickly tire of him or her.

An Exercise in Listening

As part of your desire to create better dialogue, try this listening exercise. Tune your radio to an all talk show and focus on listening to the host. As you listen, think about these questions, and jot down some answers, along with the reasons why you wrote the answers you did.

Is the host an animated speaker, gesturing when excited? Does the host lean into the microphone when speaking? Does the host look at the guest during the interview? Does the host do most of the talking? What kind of words does the host use? (Sophisticated? Slang? Profanity?)

Does the host always come across as gruff, arrogant, a know-it-all, or are there times when softness and humility creep in? (If so, when does this happen?) Is the host partial to long speeches or rants? Is there a lot of filler words such as 'you know', 'well', 'ah', and 'like' in the host's speech? Does the host sound like a real person or a stereotypical talk radio host?

Analyze your Notes

Now turn off the radio, and analyze the notes you’ve made. Ask yourself two questions:

1. Do the words I’ve heard, and the actions I’ve imagined, suit the person I think he or she is?

2. Have I learned anything about this person that makes him or her more than a stereotype in my mind?

The Fun Part

Next comes the fun part. Forget about the real radio host, and create your own character. Show another side to this character through dialogue, and then ‘perform’ the dialogue for a spouse or friends, making sure to get their responses to what they’ve heard. You may have written a more believable radio host than the one you were listening to.