In this week’s video, Chris talks about how to come up with an overall plan for mailing lists and autoresponders. He shows the spreadsheet organization of his lists to track outstanding work needed, autoresponder sequences, and the last time links were updated for every book in his backlist. Check out the video below for more…
Worldbuilding #5 – How to Make Character Names That Don’t Suck
In this week’s video, Chris talks about how to create unique character names that fit the genre and have the right feel for your book. He goes over four ways that names have developed throughout history and how you can apply them to your own characters. For more details, check out the video below!
The Creative Gap
In today’s motivational video, Chris talks about what he calls the “creative gap.” The creative gap is the gap between what a creative person sees in their head versus what comes out when they try to create something. How do you narrow that gap to produce better work? It mainly comes down to practice and…
Mailing Lists for Authors Part 2: Starting a Re-Engagement Campaign
Today’s video is the second part in a series on mailing lists for authors. In it, Chris talks about how to start a re-engagement campaign with your mailing lists. What is a re-engagement campaign? Over time, people who have signed up to your mailing lists may lose interest and stop reading the emails. A re-engagement…
Mailing Lists for Authors
In today’s video, Chris talks about how he uses mailing lists as an author. This is the first video in a series about mailing lists, and you can see a few details about the different lists Chris uses. Check out the video below for more!
Does Your Author Rank Really Matter?
In today’s video, Chris talks about Amazon author ranking, and why it might matter to you. He goes over the advantages and disadvantages of having a high author rank. Ultimately, author rank matters to some authors, but not to others. Watch the video for more details about Amazon author rank:
3 Tips to Improve Description
In today’s video, Chris gives three tips on how to improve description in your writing. These tips include what Chris calls the power of inheritance, showing how the character is impacted, and using the scenery. For more details and some examples of each of these, check out the video below!
Cover Design for Non-Designers
In today’s video, Chris gives some tips for how to design a book cover that will sell books, including three rules he follows when getting the cover made. He also shows how he makes mockups of his covers to give to artists, and some of the steps he takes to refine his artwork with the…
Why I No Longer Write Trilogies
In today’s video, Chris explains why he no longer writes trilogies. The short answer is that longer series are easier to sell. He gives some numbers for two of his trilogies that are really both part of a longer series, and shows how they sell better as a single long series. Check out the video…
The #CockyGate Author Scandal
In this week’s video, Chris addresses a recent event in the author world, nicknamed “CockyGate”. Recently an author named Faleena Hopkins was granted a trademark to the word “cocky”, which resulted in quite a scandal. Chris explains what exactly happened, the results of Faleena’s actions, and what lessons other authors can take away from the…