Guest blogging with Bob Sanchez today

Bob Sanchez asked me to blog about creative non-fiction today. That was perfect timing since I'm hoping for a late 2012 release of Confessions of a Cougar. The title pretty well gives you an idea of the topic. It is a true story--coming of age at 42 with a European adventure and it's about 90% true with a little creative pizzazz thrown in. A perfect example of creative non-fiction and a truly fun read, so watch for it to come out. In the meantime, visit Bob's blog to get a good look at writing creative fiction. http://bobsanchez1.blogspot.com/

Cartoonists have fun with writers today

Ah, one of my favorite pursuits--reading the morning comics. Well, it hasn't been as much fun in recent years because many of the strips  I enjoyed have disappeared from the L.A. Times and others have simply become silly.

In my humble opinion, two that stay consistently funny or timely are Pearls to Swine and Doonesbury. Today didn't disappoint as they aimed their humor at the writers' community. Better than talking about it, let me show you what I mean.

How true! The father tries to get his point across that shipments and sales are two different things, but the son who is high on presumed success views it as jealousy. As authors and publishers know, book stores can return unsold books, without having paid the bill, months after the shipment. 50,000 books. If only 20% were sold, imagine the impact. Returns can arrive in any condition, resaleable or not.

If you are not a New York Times bestseller, or have a high profile or a ton of fans, try to head off possible heavy returns by cautioning a bookstore to order light for a signing. Most of them will allow you to supplement from your own stock, then they order that amount of books to replace the stock you've "lent" them. Of course, we all hope every book they order sells out, but that is not always the case.

There are so many blogs out there now, how do you get yours noticed? Like everyone else, I've been addressing the issue. Interesting content brings people back once they've found you, but how do they find you?

I just took some of the advice Stephanie Campbell offered in her article about blogging in the November issue of the Writers' Tricks of the Trade newsletter and have begun listing my blog with blog directories. Putting the news of new posts on Facebook and Twitter is important, of course, but for the most part I think the same people see them each time.

Directories expose you to new "eyeballs" and hopefully they will like what you have to say, come back often and share your link with their friends.