Earlier this year, before acquiring an agent, I wrote a very short, like back-of-book-blurb, romantasy proposal that I sent to an editor I had access to. She asked for a full proposal (a full synopsis, 3 chapters), and that’s been on a back burner while I’ve been doing a thousand thousand other things. But yesterday I got to get started on it, and… I’ve talked often about how I tend to get to the 1/3rd mark in any book, no matter how long, and hit a wall that I have…
I have been remiss in mentioning that CAULDRON BORNE, Book 5 of the Walker Papers* is available for preorder and will be out in a few days! *formerly WALKING DEAD, Book 4 of the Walker Papers! this whole renumbering thing is confusing enough without changing a book name, but I did anyway! I actually had to re-read this one to write the back cover copy, because while I remembered the graveyard scene and the name of one of the characters who was murdered, that was almost literally everything I remembered…
IRRITATED RANT INCOMING I just got one of my trad publishers’ for-the-authors newsletter arrived and one of their topics is “how to grow your newsletter organically!” You know what the #1 best way to grow it would be? The NUMBER ONE BEST WAY to grow it would be for THE TRAD PUBLISHERS to let us put OUR NEWSLETTER LINKS into THEIR EBOOKS But they don’t want to do that. Not because it’s hard, because it isn’t: they could just put it into the About The Author at the end, or…
So I got about forty responses from my question a few weeks ago about what was critical to have on an author website, and the overwhelming response was that these, in more or less this order, are what readers are looking for: What’s New What’s Next ALL THE BOOKS Reading Order, particularly if that’s different from the publication order CURRENT! INFORMATION! Okay, so this was pretty interesting! I’m gonna go into some of these more, and then touch on some of the less-widely-asked-for-but-still-requested features! WHAT’S NEW – well, this is…
My friend and fellow writer Emma Newman is asking, over on Bluesky, “When you have been to an author’s website in the past, what have you been looking for? What info is critical for you?” I think this is a great question, and am always looking for the answers to it, myself. I streamlined my professional website (catiemurphy.com) significantly the last time I updated it, and it’s basically just What’s Out Now, What’s Out Next, and Here Are All My Books. There’s a contact form, but not a heckin’ lot…