Cheryl Cowtan on Writing

NetGalley has over 175,000 reviewers, media, booksellers, bloggers and librarians!  NetGalley is a conduit for authors to get their books noticed, read and reviewed. Many years ago, I was a reader for NetGalley. I thought it was a great deal - getting free ARCs in exchange for honest reviews. However, what I found was that I would load up too many ARCs and then eventually lose interest in writing reviews. I'm sure there are many readers on NetGalley who have experienced the same initial enthusiasm followed by a decline in activity. That's why if you're going to invest in NetGalley, you will want to have control in choosing your own reviewers. Reviewers are rated on their activity, so you can sort through those who don't follow through using the NetGalley dashboard. NetGalley offers an incredible dashboard that allows you to control who gets your books, which also ensures the readers getting your novel are interested in your genre. Readers who aren't might...

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I've been watching YouTube videos of authors, and I have to say, some videos made me feel closer to the author, some impressed me, and some made me wish I had never watched it. Presenting yourself in video can be a great way to connect to an audience. The question is, "who" do you present? Do you show them your funky, home personality, or dress up and be professional, or get quirky and align yourself with your genre? I think these questions have to be answered by the person filming themselves. Usually, I go for professional, but today I killed two hours (and cracked myself up) creating an instructional film called Don't be a You-Boob on YouTube   I believe this film might be the beginning of my author-platform evolution from words to video. Watch the film to learn and laugh about the many things (namely 10 ... or 11) that you can do to improve your YouTube production.

The Synopsis Often publishers and agents ask for a synopsis of your novel manuscript. The synopsis functions to provide the barebones information about your plot, character and the stakes of your story. It is usually no longer than one page, which is what makes writing it difficult. The synopsis includes what happens, so it's like a mini-arc of your story. We start here, this happens, we go here and then that happens and we end up there. The SynopSnip Creating a SynopSnip is much more fun, more visually stimulating and is for a different audience--the reader. Consider the SynopSnip to be a very succinct snapshop of your synopsis. It is also in a format that makes it easy to distribute on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter etc. Take a look at the one below to see what I mean. The Example: The Fergus She Novel: The Fergus She Characters: Rachel (protagonist) Scarlet (antagonist) Grafen (antagonist) Angus (love interest) Plot: Rachel is the victim of an ancien...