By Nick Daws – Author of Write Any Book in 28 Days – Or Less!

If you’re a writer and don’t have your own website to advertise yourself, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities. How do I know? Well, I’ve had my own site for about seven years now, and during that time it’s brought me dozens, possibly hundreds, of work opportunities. Here are just a few which came my way as a result of people seeing my site…

* Hamlyn Publishing (UK) wanting me to write a couple of two-page spreads for a proposed book.
* A retired gangster living in Ireland wanting me to help write his memoirs.
continue reading "Nick Daws: Why Every Writer Needs a Website"

While I would much prefer to celebrate the new year by listing the births of new writers, my clairvoyant talents are sadly lacking in that direction, so I will just have to do the opposite and bid a fond farewell to some of the writers, some well-known and some not so well-known, that we lost in the past year:

May their works live on forever even if they couldn’t….

Two I’ll miss the most are Robert Jordan and Madeleine L’Engle. How about you?

If you’ve been looking for some research and writing tools, but haven’t wanted to spend tons of money to try each out to see what would work for you, then you might want to check out WritersGiveaway

Perfect for professional authors, new writers, screenplay writers and short story writers, this site is giving away writing goodies, such a software and eBooks, which would sell separately for as much as $3780, for just signing up for their twice-a-week free newsletter. (You could even sign up, get the software and unsubscribe if you wanted, but you’d be missing out on the ongoing great writing info they provide weekly.)

Currently, just some of the free writing tools included for signing up are:

• Novel Writing Software
• WriteSparks! Software
• EXCLUSIVE Jo Condrill Interview
• EXCLUSIVE Nick Daws Interview
• Great Ideas for Fiction!
• Mugging the Muse!
• Sticky Notes Software
• 25 Screenplays
• The Art of Writing
• How to Structure Your Short Story
• and more

So if you’ve always wanted to be a writer, but didn’t think you could afford the tools and guides needed to get you started, here’s your chance to get some or all of what you need for free. Check out WritersGiveaway for more information on all the writing tools they’re offering.

Whenever I find an author I like, I try to read all his or her works, but some have sooo many pseudonyms, it can very hard to find everything that person has written, especially when they cover many different genres. It can also make selling or collecting books a bit tricky as sometimes the true first edition of a book is under one name, but later re-issued under the author’s real name (or ‘current’/most famous pseudonym), making that book look like a first edition or printing, but it’s actually what is called a ‘first thus’ (a version that is different than the true original, but still the first of its kind…)

An example: J. D. Robb’s first book, NAKED IN DEATH, was issued as a paperback (the true ‘first edition’), but then it was later reissued as a hardcover with the author listed as Nora Roberts Writing as J. D. Robb. Many people, seeing that hardcover book with its complete numberline (10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1) think it’s the first edition, when it’s not. (That’s an example of a ‘first thus’ – first time in hardcover, but not first time in print.) Either version is a good read, but the paperback version is the more valuable since it came first.

Some authors use pseudonyms to ‘remove’ themselves from an unwanted association with the past, such as Juliet Hulme: she changed her name to Anne Perry (using her stepfather’s last name and a new first name) after she had served time for her part in the infamous New Zealand murder of her friend’s mother and wanted/needed a fresh start for her life and writing career. Other authors use pseudonyms because they are so prolific that their publishers are afraid too many books from just one person would ‘dilute’ the market/’brand’ so they have the writer use different names when writing in different genres (such as ‘Nora Roberts’ writing ‘romance’ while ‘J. D. Robb’ writes ‘sci fi/crime’ novels.) Others just don’t feel their original names are ‘literary’ enough or want to sound more ‘neutral’ (not male or female so they appeal to all) so use just initials or change to something they feel will ‘sell’ better.

For just an idea of how fun it can be to try to find all the books by an author, here’s just a small list of some writers and their pseudonyms (some familiar and maybe not-so-familiar ones):

For anyone who is a rabid book collector or just a connoisseur of pseudonyms, then don’t forget to check out Hawk’s Authors’ Pseudonyms III (filled with 61,000 entries with authors from all over the world!) Libraries, bookdealers, book collectors and genre fans have all found Hawk’s Authors’ Pseudonyms to be an invaluable reference when trying to figure out who’s who…