Welcome to the October 29, 2012 edition of tips and tricks for writers and authors. We’ve got insights into self-publishing, writing and book marketing this week. Thank you to the participants, and we hope you find these tips useful!

Self-Publishing

Laura Howard presents What Not To Do If You Self-Publish posted at Erin Reel, saying, “This is a list of the five things NOT to do when self-publishing!

Writing

Sybil Stershic presents Confessions of a Reluctant Business Author posted at Quality Service Marketing, saying, “Few people have the nerve to ask a woman who just went through childbirth when she’s going to have her next baby. Yet as soon as an author publishes a new book, some people think it’s ok to start pushing for the next one!

That pressure is what inspired my post, “Confessions of a Reluctant Business Author,” in which I share what I’ve learned in coping with writing challenges and frustrations based on my experience in writing two business books and maintaining a niche blog.

Karin M. Ryder presents Submitted Short Fiction: Rejection Lessons Learned posted at Karin M. Ryder, saying, “You’ve carefully selected the publications to submit your work. You’ve written (and rewritten) your absolute best work. You followed all the submission guidelines. So, why did the editors bounce your short story from their desk into the rejection bin? How much does an editor’s personal bias influence the decision to reject a short story?

Most of the time, when you get a rejection from a literary publication, you aren’t given any reason at all specific to why your submission got bounced. Instead, like me, you receive generic statements that your story is “not what we’re looking for a this time” or even worse, “yours was among hundreds of quality submissions but we’re going to have to turn it down. This is not a reflection, necessarily, on the quality of your writing…”

Book Marketing

Carolyn Howard-Johnson presents Criticism Turned to Self Reflection: What Style for Newsletters? posted at Sharing with Writers, saying, “I once asked my readers about my plain-text Sharing with Writers e-newsletters and they voted overwhelmingly for keeping them long and simple rather than short, colorful, and in HTML.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of tips and tricks for writers and authors using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.