As 2015 comes to a close, I wanted to pull together some kind of Divas Rec that summarized my thoughts for the year. That proved to be more challenging than I’d thought until I came across Shannon A. Thompson’s article Top 5 Tips I Gave Out This Year as an Editor and Marketer on her blog.
Shannon’s top five pieces of advice combine editing and marketing tips to authors. My very favorite editing tip is to keep track of your stylistic choices. This is a huge help to your editor, especially if you write a series. As the author says, “Editing is often a matter of preference. While some rules are definitely not debatable, many aspects of the English language are.” So if these preferences are tracked and shared with your editor, they’ll be more consistent throughout your book and your series.
As for marketing, my favorite tip was regarding branding. Just be yourself. “You are not competing with others. They are them; you are you.” I couldn’t have said it any better. Stop the comparisons and be the best you you can be!
Check out Shannon’s article for her other three top tips for 2015. What were some good tips you received in 2015? Feel free to leave some in the comments.
Happy writing!
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