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3 reasons why romance writers should send regular newsletters to readers.

In Creative Writing, Guest Articles by RWA Blog CoordinatorLeave a Comment

You hear other authors, publishers, and book agents telling you that you need an author newsletter, but sometimes they don’t say why? What’s in it for you? Well, here are 3 top reasons why romance writers should send regular newsletters to readers. #1. Your author newsletter doesn’t have to fight with any social media algorithms Whenever you sign into social media, you are subject to their terms and conditions. In other words, it’s borrowed land and you’re just a guest at their online global cocktail party. What you post just gets lost among the other 300 million photos that get …

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The Power of Backstory Revelance

In Creative Writing, Guest Articles by RWA Blog Coordinator1 Comment

With Author Sandy Vaile Creating compelling backstory is essential for developing rich well-rounded characters that capture the interests of readers. But it needs to be relevant to the story you are writing to be effective. The wrong backstory can turn into an information dump or irrelevant information, which slows a story’s pace to a yawn and disengages readers. Backstory is there to support the main plot and add dimension to characters; therefore, it needs to be relevant to the entire story, as well as what’s going on when it’s delivered. Make Backstory Relevant to the Character When thinking about your …

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Should a romance writer invest in a website?

In Creative Writing, Guest Articles, Uncategorised by RWA Blog CoordinatorLeave a Comment

Should a romance writer invest in a website?  Yes. But not just any website. You want a website that’ll grow with you and your author career, making it one of the most important assets as part of your author platform. Here’s why… The top 3 reasons for a romance writer to invest in a website:  1. Basically, your author website is a marketing tool that shows you off to the masses in a noisy digital world.  2. It gives you credibility by showing the world you mean business! Especially when it comes to attracting publishers, book agents, and the media …

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DO ROMANCE WRITERS NEED AN AUTHOR BRAND?

In Creative Writing, Guest Articles, Publishing Industry by RWA Blog CoordinatorLeave a Comment

Most think of February as the month for romance, proposals, flowers, chocolates, Hallmark Cards, and overworked cupids. For weeks we’re blinded by flashes of red hearts and roses, as lovers get high on the possibility of romance – especially romance readers. But if you think about how well branded Valentine’s Day is, romance writers prepare months in advance just for this annual event, ensuring they fit the brand of V-day. Branding. It’s a thang. And when it’s done well, readers don’t realise they’re following a brand – like 80% of the people on social media do. Do you think romance …

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Want to set some author goals for 2023?

In Creative Writing, Guest Articles, Uncategorised by RWA Blog Coordinator2 Comments

It’s that time of the year when authors reflect over the past year and start focusing on their future, making it the best time to start planning your author goals. WHAT ARE AUTHOR GOALS? Author goals list out your desires, helping you to work out the steps you’ll need to take towards achieving them. It’s where you map out a way to turn your dreams into realities. And it’s not that hard. DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF AUTHOR GOALS? According to some goal-setting geniuses, there are three types of goals. For an author we have: To achieve …

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Creating A Monthly To-Do List For Romance Writers

In Creative Writing, Guest Articles, Uncategorised by RWA Blog CoordinatorLeave a Comment

Have you ever thought about creating a monthly To-Do list as a romance writer? I asked around and came up with the following 10 quick tips to help you with the month ahead… 1/- Ask yourself, what matters most to you as an author? Take five to ask yourself the above, and then what can you achieve this month? It’s all about knowing your author goals. While you’re thinking of the answers… From the book Your Author Goals >> 2/- Let’s begin with the worst first, by cleaning up your writing space. If you’re anything like me you’ll have paper, notes, …

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Aussie Audiobook Production? Easier than you think! By Amy Soakes.

In Guest Articles, Publishing Industry, RWA Academy by RWA Blog CoordinatorLeave a Comment

Online publishing has thrown open the door for authors everywhere to launch their work to the world, without the need for a traditional publishing deal. This free-flowing market has nurtured authorship in an unprecedented way, and – importantly for us Aussies – removed the ‘tyranny of distance’, allowing direct access to the major markets of the US and UK. And we’ve taken to it like ducks to water, happily splashing around in the same pool of publishing opportunity as our cross-ocean counterparts. But while Aussie authors have ridden waves of publishing success through text, our uptake of audio has languished. …

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How to tap back into your creativity with Sarah Gates

In Creative Writing, Guest Articles, RWA Academy by RWA Blog CoordinatorLeave a Comment

I teach writing workshops in school and libraries. Sometimes it’s the same workshop (with just a few variations) that I’m asked to deliver to 13-year-olds as to adults. I’ve observed that something happens to our creativity when we hit adulthood. Kids and teens will throw out the wildest of ideas. Once you break through the shyness, it’s a free-for-all. When I ask a group of adults in a writing workshop to throw ideas out, a silence falls. The ideas tend to come slowly, in dribs and drabs. They often stay within the box. Adults will say things to me like, …

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How to calculate your word count goals for romance writers with Mel A Rowe

In Creative Writing, Guest Articles by RWA Blog CoordinatorLeave a Comment

In response to the many amazing romance authors who contacted me over the previous post, Why should word counts matter, what follows is how to calculate your own word count goals for romance writers. Why bother with a daily word count? Writing a book is a long process, so cutting it down into bite-sized goals makes this process achievable. Having a daily word count goal can help you create a writing habit. It can also help you beat the overwhelm of having too many words to write, which causes some of us to binge something on Netflix instead of writing. …

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2023 RWA Sydney Conference Workshop Submissions are now Open!

In Conference, Events by Louisa West1 Comment

The 2023 RWA Conference will be held at The Sofitel Sydney Wentworth from the 11 – 13 August 2023. We are seeking a range of confident presenters with the skills to deliver presentations on topics relevant to a writer’s success in the romance writing industry. If you have a great idea for a presentation or a workshop idea for our Friday workshops, now is the time to let us know! Presentations will be filtered through the following criteria: Does the presentation promote excellence in romantic fiction? Will the presentation help aspiring writers get published? Will the presentation help published authors …