Grael Norton

16 April, 2013

A quick tip to mentally reprogram your brain to write better in ten minutes

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:29:47-07:00April 16, 2013|Resources, Writing|Comments Off on A quick tip to mentally reprogram your brain to write better in ten minutes

Chapter One:

It was a dark and stormy night…

Stuck in a rut? Can’t figure out how to get started with a bang for your opening chapter?

Try this copy-and-paste method:

Find an opening paragraph of a book that you like.

Copy it.

Then copy it again. One more time.

Now, close your work and write your own opening paragraph. It will have the flow and essence of what you just copied but be in your own words.

This is not plagiarism. The only copying you did was as a writing mental exercise.

For instance, let’s say you copied the opening sentence “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Naturally, you don’t want to use the same words, so you change.

In fact, you change quite a bit:

“It was another dark night with the wind blowing as if it determined to beat the hell out of someone.”

It’s quite different now, actually. It’s definitely a take of the “dark and stormy […]

19 March, 2013

Break through writer’s block with Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:30:01-07:00March 19, 2013|Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Break through writer’s block with Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art

Resistance.

No one quite cuts to the bone about writer’s block better than Steven Pressfield in his book, The War of Art. Published over ten years ago it still remains a popular, no-nonsense book for getting writers to write.

It’s not about whether you are good enough writer to call yourself a writer. If you write you are a writer. The more you write the better you will write.

It’s not about how good a writer you should be or want to be. It’s simply: Are you writing now?

While dreams of sitting at home and writing a bestselling book is a common American dream, the reality of it is much more painful.

It’s not about “Are we having fun yet?” so much as are we “Still sticking to it.”

Jodi Picoult, the bestselling author of 16 books (and counting) puts in a solid eight-hour day from 7:30 in the […]

15 March, 2013

Do you have what it takes to be a self-publishing success?

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:30:21-07:00March 15, 2013|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Do you have what it takes to be a self-publishing success?

Deborah L. Jacobs outlined her path to self-publishing success on Forbes in July of last year. It’s a three-page online article that gets into the nitty-gritty, practical details of doing it all yourself. In the comment section, she replies to one reader with this insight. “While I was in the throes of it I used to tell people, ‘It’s not a learning curve—it’s a learning mountain.’”

Deborah’s book, Estate Planning Smarts, is a bestselling book about estate planning for baby boomers and their parents. The mountain that she had to climb for success is daunting. It would scare off most faint-hearted authors with rose-colored dreams in the first paragraph. She states candidly that, “For more than one year after self-publishing my book, Estate Planning Smarts, promoting it was practically my full-time job.”

If you read the article she wrote for Forbes magazine, How My Book Became […]

1 March, 2013

Stephane Hessel, 95-year-old international publishing phenomenon

By Grael Norton|2018-03-29T11:09:33-07:00March 1, 2013|News|Comments Off on Stephane Hessel, 95-year-old international publishing phenomenon

On Tuesday, February 26, 2013, Stephane Hessel died. He was 95 years old. He was not well known outside of France until three years ago when, at the age of 92, he wrote and published a small, 4,000-word pamphlet. The original print run was 8,000 copies. It was 29 pages and bound with two staples.

It took France and Europe by storm. The same defiant spirit that had caused Hessel to be a hero in the French Resistance sixty years ago burned anew with the same vigor and energy. His words were few but they were strong and ignited a crackling flame of resistance.

He urged young people to unite against the injustice of a nation out of control. He called for a peaceful rebellion against what he called the dictatorial forces of international capitalism.

His plea was that the privileged classes must help the less fortunate, not grind them beneath their feet. […]

21 February, 2013

7 surprising reasons why you should use demographics to sell more books

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:30:50-07:00February 21, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on 7 surprising reasons why you should use demographics to sell more books

Almost every author wants to sell more books.

New authors think if they can just get one lucky break the yellow brick road of fame and fortune will magically open and their worries will disappear.

If only that were true.

The truth is even if an author does get a few lucky breaks there will still be periods of time when they will have to grab their bow and arrows and go hunting for readers.

In order to do that successfully you need to find the hunting grounds where your readers are feeding.

Your readers.

Not the reader of another author who writes in a different genre than you do or appeals to an audience that has nothing in common with your style of writing.

Finding the common threads between your book(s) and your book buying audience is the basis of target marketing for authors. There are many different factors in breaking down an audience demographic. Some […]

18 February, 2013

7 ways Goodreads helps authors to sell more books

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:32:54-07:00February 18, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on 7 ways Goodreads helps authors to sell more books

To sell more books you have to let more people be aware of them. If your audience is small, the number of books you sell will be small. If you have a large audience but no one sees your book, you have to work to make it stand out. This article will show you seven ways to make your book stand out among the 14,000,000 readers on Goodreads.com.

1. Become a member of the Goodreads Author Program

This program is completely free. It is designed to help authors reach their target audience and promote their book(s) to them. Over 44,000 authors, including New York Times bestsellers and other national bestselling have their books listed with an author profile. If you are not on it, don’t waste any more time! Sign up and get started.

2. Advertise your book. Yes, sometimes you have to put […]

14 February, 2013

7 offbeat book-marketing ideas

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:33:06-07:00February 14, 2013|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on 7 offbeat book-marketing ideas

If the standard way of marketing your book doesn’t seem to be making any connections perhaps it’s time to try something new.

Something not everyone is doing; something that makes your book stand out above the crowd of 15 million other books being dumped on the market in 2013.

Granted, it may not make enough difference to put you on a bestseller list but often even a small incremental push in sales can put you on a new level of recognition in the book world. Sometimes doing something different creates a buzz that builds in bigger ways than you can imagine.

So, ready to go into vistas where the author stampede is not as thick and heavy? Try one of these ideas. They might be what works for you or, at the very least, kick start your imagination into finding your very own offbeat marketing idea.

1. Sell your book in a shop or […]

23 January, 2013

7 myths about being an author

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:33:23-07:00January 23, 2013|Marketing, Publishing, Resources, Writing|Comments Off on 7 myths about being an author

Ever dream about becoming an author? Today it’s easier than ever. And I will be first in line to encourage you to pursue your dream. But making your dream come true means one also takes into account the cost, the reality, and the practicality of how to make that dream actually happen.

The following seven “dream-busting” myths are not meant to discourage you but rather to toughen you up for the exhilarating but often difficult journey almost every author encounters.

1. Publishing a book will make you an instant celebrity. The truth is, it may make you a celebrity in your circle of family and friends but there’s a lot of book competition. In 2011, three million books were published in the United States and the count has been doubling, tripling, rising steadily every year.

2. Becoming a published author will make you rich. The average book sells 500 copies. That’s an average. […]

21 December, 2012

19 Pinterest board topics for authors

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:33:55-07:00December 21, 2012|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on 19 Pinterest board topics for authors

More and more authors, libraries, and publishers are finding creative ways to use Pinterest to draw in new readers. Even the big players like Random House and Scholastic have pin boards that are actively pinned and promoted.

This got me thinking about different board topics that authors might use to promote themselves. I decided to create a small list of topics that would give authors newly jumping onto the Pinterest platform a source of ideas.

Once I got started, I found that there were more topics than I ever dreamed of. Dozens and dozens of creative ways that authors were pinning themselves with reckless delight and abandon for book promotion. Most of these authors, libraries, or publishers have 30, 40, or 50 boards each, so I’m only including a few boards that struck me the most. Specifically, those that closely tie into book promotion.

This list then […]

20 December, 2012

Make Goodreads a part of your book marketing strategy for 2013

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:34:09-07:00December 20, 2012|Marketing, Publishing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Make Goodreads a part of your book marketing strategy for 2013

I had a friend once who carefully and patronizingly explained to me that if you want to catch fish you have to go where the fish are. The more fish, he stated, the easier it is to get a nibble and make a catch. As an author, if you want more readers you had better follow this same advice, pack up your book tackle and head on over to Goodreads and lay down some hooks.

If you’re not experienced with Goodreads you’re in for a surprise. It’s sort of like the super mall of the universe for readers. It was created in December of 2006 by Otis Chandler as a privately run cataloging site for books. One year later it had over 650,000 members and over 10,000,000 books in its system. Now, five years later, the numbers are astounding. 330 million books have been rated. It has almost […]

Grael Norton

About Grael Norton