Glossary of Children’s Writing Terms ADVANCE: money paid to author by publisher once book is under contract. ½ of advance is generally paid upon signing of the contract, ½ upon delivery of final manuscript. Advances are paid against future royalties (see below), so the author won’t receive any additional payments until the royalty earnings have surpassed the amount of the advance. BACKLIST: book...

Ghostwriting for Fun and Profit We’ve all heard of ghostwriters. For some, a ghostwriter is the ghostly assistant to junior detectives on a PBS kids’ show. For most, however, a ghostwriter is someone who writes for another, in the name of another. Many celebrities use a ghostwriter in their forays into writing. Probably the most-noted ghostwriting project would have to be the books by V.C. Andre...

Ghostwriting – Making Money by Being Invisible My bookcase take up one whole wall in the family room, from floor to ceiling. It shows my eclectic reading tastes… fiction, non-fiction, Harry Potter next to murder mysteries and metaphysical literature. Also there are books I’ve written for the business sector – on negotiation, writing letters, communication skills, real estate sales and a lot more....

Getting Your Short Fiction Published: The Hard Truth The short story market is one of the hardest to break into. There are thousands of well-known writers pumping out short fiction, and thousands more just like you, struggling to get themselves published for the first time. But there are several things you can do to set yourself apart from the rest and start working your way to the head of the p...

Getting Started in Column Writing You’ve written many articles for Websites, newsletters and now you’ve even conquered the territory of getting published in a magazine. What’s the next step, you ask? How to I make the editor ask for my work weekly or monthly? Enter: the column. Before you march up to an editor’s office or send her unsolicited mail asking to write regularly for a publication, le...

Getting Motivated By A Motivational Speaker? In the past years, there has been a sudden rise of motivational speakers. They appear in television and in magazines as well as sold out seminars that are just brimming with people who are just craving to get some direction with their lives. A motivational speaker, instead of focusing on the financial gains that he or she will most probably get from t...

Don’t Mock Me! My favorite part of the Noah’s Ark story is not that he listened to his god and therefore managed to save mankind and the animals, and it’s not the rainbows, or even the dove as a symbol of divine peace and love.  My favorite part happens long before the rains begin to fall.  I love that no matter how much people laughed and scoffed at what he was doing; Noah still went right on bu...

Don’t Let Go Of Your Dreams – Not Again! Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.Edgar Allan Poe You wake up screaming! Your spouse calms you down; reassuring you it was just another nightmare. Even as you settle back and start drifting into slumber again, you wonder why the only dreams you have nowad...

Don’t Clone your Book or Business Marketing Remember that the miracle of cloning sheep has its drawbacks. The main one–dying young. Don’t let your business die young by following the herd. Instead, think of the natural ways you like to market. Here are some marketing ideas that make big promises, and don’t always deliver. And, when followed by investing a large amount of money and time, only a ...