A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End by Avi

I picked this book up a little while back because it looked like a cute little book on writing. Well, it was a cute little book, and it had some writing humor in it, but it was admittedly heavier on the puns than the advice.

Edward the ant had a lot of tips on writing (even though Avon the snail was the one writing a book — which makes me think — how often are you given advice by non-writers, as if they know what they are talking about?). Here are few of the more memorable tips:

* Write first. You can always figure out what you've written later.

* Never take shortcuts in your writing, but once you've written, it's wise to make lots of short cuts.

* Many writers think that when they write, it's the words that matter. Not at all. It's punctuation that's most important.

Isn't that one especially true? And now here's my favorite: the rules of writing...

1) Write what you know.
2) Write about what you don't know.
3) Write about what you don't know as if you DID know about it.
4) Make sure that when you're writing about what you don't know as if you did know, conceal the fact that you don't know what you're doing.
5) Always leave your readers guessing.

Finally, a conversation between Edward and Avon:

"What kind [of writer] were you intending to be?"

"A writer you attracts readers."

"Then for heaven's sake, don't write writing. Write reading."

This is the kind of thing in the book — not necessarily useful advice, but little truths about writing told in a cutesy way. It's a short book and fun to read, but more as a diversion than something to learn from.

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

It had been way too long since I updated this blog, so I decided it was about time I read another writing-related book. (Believe it or not, I have a whole shelf full of unread how-to books on writing and related topics.)

This book is ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett, two highly successful bloggers. Of course, it's highly unlikely that your blog will become the next ProBlogger network, but even so this book has a lot of good tips for both writing and monetizing a blog.

ProBlogger has a little something for everyone. It doesn't go into major detail about how to write and maintain a successful blog, but it does provide some information about optimizing a blog for search engines, writing posts, cultivating a strong readership, etc. It's a pretty straightforward rundown of all the basics, and definitely information worth noting.

The book also talks about the different ways to monetize a blog. One way is, of course, advertising. The authors aren't big fans of AdSense — their message seems to be that a successful blog can do much better with advertisers that they contract with directly. They also mention affiliate programs, such as Amazon's affiliate program, where you earn a commission for products you sell via your blog or website.

Obviously I'm no stranger to either approach, as I use both AdSense and Amazon ads on my blogs. But I also appreciated that the book addressed another way of earning money from your blog: by using it to attract customers or clients for a product or service that you offer. (Examples: Doll Stringing Extravaganza, which I use to attract potential buyers for my short ebook, and my writing blog, which is connected to my professional website and helps to build my reputation as a writer and a blogger.) Selling products, services, or even selling yourself as a ghost blogger are often overlooked, but no less valid, ways to monetize your blog.

The book also has a chapter on buying and selling established blogs, but I skipped and/or skimmed most of it. I have no plans of doing either right now. I enjoy my blogs too much to part with them, and I have no interest in buying someone else's!

Overall, this is a great book. It has everything you need to know about maintaining and monetizing a blog, whether you are a newbie or a seasoned blogger. It is also written in a very blog-like style — short, to the point, and easy to read. Of course, not everyone who reads this book is going to go on to earn six figures — in fact I'd say it's highly unlikely — but at the same time, it does give you the information you need to develop a decent blog and earn a respectable side income if you so desire.

Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business by Entrepreneur Press and George Sheldon

Weeks ago, when I was browsing the business section at Tattered Cover, our biggest independent bookstore here in Denver, I ran across this book: Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business and More, by the Entrepreneur Press and George Sheldon.

Although I'm not really a startup freelancer anymore, I thought this book might be of interest to some of my readers. It's a pretty handy guide to freelance writers who are just starting out. It covers a lot of topics that newbies often ask me about, such as:

* Getting started
* Daily schedules
* Finding work
* Querying
* Marketing
* Expenses

The book also talks a bit about copyediting and proofreading, and provides a chart with standard copyeditor's marks (something you'll need to know if you want to get into copyediting).

What I found really interesting was what the book had to say about magazines. The author adamantly insists that you should NOT write for markets that pay on publication, because they can hold your manuscript without publishing it or paying you for however long they want. For a discussion about this hardline approach, please see the post about pay-on-publication markets on my regular blog.

If you are a newbie freelance writer, or just wanting to break into the business, this book does a good job of painting a well-rounded picture of everything you need to get started.

Tax Deductions A to Z for Writers, Artists and Performers

With 2007 coming to a close, I'm already thinking about tax time again. So when I happened across this book — Tax Deductions A to Z for Writers, Artists and Performers — in my library's online catalog, I went ahead and placed a hold.

Anne Skalka's book is a great overview of the tax deductions you can take as a writer. Unless you have something specific in mind that you want to look up, I think it's best just to skim the entire book to get an idea of what deductions are available. Remember, as a freelance writer you are self-employed — even if you still maintain an hourly or salary "day job" — so your business expenses are deducted from your self-employment income on 1040 Schedule C.

As a side note on this book, it's great as an overview, but isn't incredibly detailed. When you actually sit down to do your taxes, you will probably want a book that goes into a little more detail about things like the home office deduction, amortizing home office equipment, and other more complex expenses.

BAM: Book a Month by Cyn Mobley

I ran across BAM about a month ago in the Writers Weekly newsletter. As a past NaNoWriMo participant, I immediately thought of how useful this book might be for other NaNo-ers.

Before I say too much, I want to make it clear that I did receive a complimentary review copy of BAM so that I could review it on my blog. However, I also want to point out that very few (if any) of my posts are harsh or critical, so I am not in any way going out of character by raving about BAM. I loved this book, and it has nothing to do with the free copy — in fact, I told Cyn Mobley that I would be buying her next writing book, First Pages, which is due out next week.

But now, down to the review.

BAM is based on the premise that in order to be able to write quickly, you first have to have a thorough outline to follow. Some writer — I don't remember who now — once said that writer's block, in her opinion, was the result of not having thought the story through well enough before beginning to write. That's basically what BAM is circumventing.

I always thought I outlined well enough, but after reading BAM I know I was wrong. My outlines were not nearly detailed enough. Nor did they address the critical elements every good story must have. Instead, I was pretty much winging it.

BAM basically walks you through a formula for creating an outline for your book. It's not just a skeleton outline, though, like the ones I used to work off of — you plan the book out, act by act and chapter by chapter. BAM also makes sure you work certain important elements, such as conflict, into your outline, thereby making sure it all gets into the right place in the novel.

That alone is probably not all that unique. Plenty of writing books tell you how to outline (although I honestly haven't come across any that are as no-nonsense or effective as BAM). What is unique is that BAM shows you how to do all this — outline and write your novel — in one month.

I'm not going to give up Ms. Mobley's secrets — you'll have to pay the $12 for those — but as someone who has written a novel in a month, I can tell you that it would have been much easier had I done it the BAM way.