J.A. Marlow

Publishers Weekly, a big trade magazines covering traditional publishing has made an announcement about a new quarterly supplement called “PW Select“. It’s dedicated to listing self-published titles and “reviewing those we believe are most deserving of a critical assessment.” On the surface it sounds interesting. Until you look under the surface. You see, out of [...]

This post is part of a blog carnival. To find the other posts in this carnival, go here. The topic of the blog carnival is “Why I am Indie”. Well, I don’t have a book out there yet, but in early 2011 I will, and I’ve already chosen to go indie. I’ve discussed the basis [...]

Okay, back to the business. I need product to sell. From previous posts (and a lot of thinking) I know it needs the following qualities: * New project * Project must be ready for release somewhere between January to March 2011 * Novella length (17,500 to 40,000 words) We talked before about an Idea File. [...]

There are some ideas that come out fully formed, like Athena from Zeus’ head. These ideas are ready to be turned into writing projects immediately. Others need to stew for years. Most are somewhere in-between. Ideas are great, but only useful if they are readily available when you need them. That means time and effort [...]

“July Novel Writing Month” is over as of midnight last Saturday night. While the result is the lowest word count of any July or November writing month so far, it was far from a failure. I went into it with 3 outlines. Saturday night, well before the deadline, I finished the first draft of the [...]

Yes, I’m still alive and kicking. In fact, I’m writing like crazy! I’m participating in July Novel Writing Month, and I’ve already finished one novella and started on the second. More details about the novellas as the E-Book Experiment series continues. As for word count, out of the 50k to win the month, I’m already [...]

Where do ideas come from? Simple answer: They come from everywhere. And that simple answer drives new writers nuts. They look all over the place and don’t see any ideas! What is the crazy person talking about? I understand the frustration. I was there once. What I have learned is that, yes, the ideas are [...]

I have never had a will. Even when I was young, this bothered me, to the point I recall once writing something out to give everything to my parents and sister in a school notebook. Now I’m writing up a storm. If something were to happen to me, I want the benefit of my writing [...]