Bryan Thomas Schmidt

You know, watching Celebrity Apprentice, a guilt pleasure, has actually brought back unpleasant memories this year of my days working in theatre and why I burned out. There’s something that happens when you get creative people together that can be very unpleasant: a clash of the titans, I mean, egos. If you’re artistic, you’re passionate, if  [ Read More ]

Well, this is a departure from my usual Write Tips post and I hope I don’t bore everyone, but I have a writing related issue to discussed and I thought I’d include it in tips because it might be useful to others. I’ve blogged about this before in Write Tips, the need for discipline to  [ Read More ]

It’s common wisdom that writers make terrible self-editors, even those of us who edit for others on a regular basis professionally. It’s a natural thing given the passions at play. Writers get so close to their work that it’s easy to gloss over missed words, typos, etc. We know what we meant to say and  [ Read More ]

In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Steve Martin talks about how important diligence has been to his success. And the website Study Hacks, which explores how some people succeed and others don’t explores his comments. I also recently read that a high percentage of Robert Frost’s most acclaimed poems were written after he’d reached  [ Read More ]

One way to be sure your manuscript is ready to submit is to make sure you get a good developmental edit. Now unless you’re making a lot of money already, paying someone may be out of the question. Most submissions editors will reject anything that’s not at least ninety percent there. They do line edits,  [ Read More ]

Our recent Write Tip on 9 Free Ways To Market Your Book has been popular but people have asked me how NOT to use those techniques, so I thought it appropriate to do a follow up post. First, here’s a refresher on the 9 Free Ways which are: 1 ) Author Site/Blogs  2 ) Author Profiles/Blog Interviews   [ Read More ]

I know it’s not obvious but I’m not a patient person. I hate waiting. I hate lines. The only form of delay I enjoy is procrastination. I’m awesome with that one. But because of this problems have developed from time to time. I always heard people talk about how important it was to get distance  [ Read More ]

This post originally ran as part of the blog tour for my debut novel, The Worker Prince,  at the blog of Patty Jansen. Social Media has taken over the world, or at least parts of it. Its rise in popularity has been stunning. It’s literally changed the way most of us use the web forever.  [ Read More ]

In our previous Write Tips post, we talked about Why Your Book Needs A Sell Sheet How To Make One. This time, let’s focus on how to use the Sell Sheets once you have one. Right off the bat, here are some ways you can put Sell Sheets to work: 1) Market To Bookstores – When given  [ Read More ]

Book sell sheets are a key component of publicity for books in traditional publishing. Having a professional sell sheet can help distinguish your book from thousands of others and really help it get noticed. It’s important that it stand out from the crowd, because a mid-size bookstore can receive a hundred or more sell sheets a year. For  [ Read More ]

As my Holiday gift to fellow writers, who have been so supportive of the tips offered on this blog, I’ve compiled a list and brief descriptions of 15 really top writing resources to help you move forward in your growth as a writer. Links to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble are included for those  [ Read More ]

A modified version of this post first appeared on the blog of author Jeremy Ship on October 27th. A companion piece on heroes appeared around the same time on Adventures In SF Publishing’s blog. One of the traditional tropes of much science fiction and fantasy has long been the damsel in distress. Naturally, modern women often  [ Read More ]

Two of the most valuable skills one must cultivate as a writer are being hypersensitive to write passionate, powerful, emotion-filled prose, and having a thick skin to handle criticism. Ironically, these two skills are often diametrically opposed. How can you be thick skinned and sensitive at the same time? In truth, I don’t know anyone  [ Read More ]

Writing dialogue can be a challenge for some writers more than others, but it’s an extremely important part of good fiction. There are many tools and techniques one can use, the most important being to use your powers of observation. By listening to dialogue of the real people around you, you can learn how people  [ Read More ]

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, thus, no legal advice is implied nor offered in the following post. What I offer instead are resources and ideas for how to inform yourself and prepare for understanding and negotiating contracts with better satisfaction and success. You’ve written a book, run it through beta readers, then polished it  [ Read More ]

Well, my first book tour and first ever blog tour was a lot of fun. Truly a blast. And I think all the bloggers and readers who participated. The comments were encouraging and helpful. The posts were fun to write and participate in. Timing was fairly smooth in most cases. And I think we provided  [ Read More ]

I love when I come across an article, as I recently did on a blog, where a person is so enamored with their way of writing that they insist it’s the only way to do it correctly. Pantser v. Outliner: it’s an old debate. And I think it takes most of us a long time  [ Read More ]

If you’re like me, you may have been a long time fan who rarely or even never went to Cons. So much of the mainstream publicity surrounding Cons leaves it kind of mysterious about what’s going on. Panels? Is that lectures? Who wants to pay for that. I had enough in college, thanks. Or even  [ Read More ]

Humor can be an important part of both character development and reader engagement. When used well, it can endear both writer and characters to readers. When used poorly, it can ruin an otherwise successful tale. Here’s some tips for how to use humor effectively in your stories and novels.  1 ) The Running Gag– This  [ Read More ]

If you’re at all concerned with marketing yourself or your products, by now you’ve probably heard a million times how important Social Media has become for marketing yourself and connecting with/building an audience of customers. The challenge can be knowing exactly how to go about it without coming across as pushy or self-centered and alienating  [ Read More ]

Interviews are a fact of life for successful people–especially entertainment people like writers. At some point, you’ll be asked to do an interview about your work. How do you prepare? How do you stay calm and fight nerves? How do you overcome introversion or shyness? Interviews require different things from an interviewer and an interviewee.  [ Read More ]

One issue writers who work around dayjobs face is finding time to write. From job demands to family demands to everything else, it can be a real challenge. So how do you do it? Here’s some suggestions: 1) Write When You Can. Carry your laptop or notebook with you and write whenever you get a  [ Read More ]

We all have our favorite tools we use when writing. But one of the advantages of the modern age is having a lot of great resources available right here on the World Wide Web. What are the tools you never write without? Here are 15 of mine: 1) www.dictionary.com This great website is a quick and  [ Read More ]

One of the most important tasks for a writer is creating character names. Everyone has their own approach. Some find it more challenging than others. Here’s 10 Tips which might help you with the naming. 1) Keep A List. Mary Robinette Kowal kept a spreadsheet of names when writing Shades Of Milk And Honey as a  [ Read More ]

It’s the bane of any writer’s existence–Writer’s Block–like a monster in the closet, creeping out when you least expect it and stalking you with relentless determination. It can be devastating to your sense of creative flow in a project and frustrate your word count and other goals, when you’re on a deadline. For years writers  [ Read More ]

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been a fan of action. Movies like the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard series always entertained me. I like action in my reading, too. Space opera is my favorite science fiction genre and sword & sorcery tops my fantasy favorites. Is it any wonder that I find myself  [ Read More ]

One of the things I’ve learned in the past year from working with editors and beta readers is how important a role these folks play in the creative success of any published product. Now there are good editors and bad editors, good beta readers and bad beta readers. I’ve been lucky with my editors so  [ Read More ]