This essay discusses discovering your writing voice, how to train it and use it. It concludes with the advice of being authentic and the importance of writing with passion.

There is talk of how to filter some of the noise in your life, advice on avoiding the lure of distractions and how to overcome the challenge that time management poses at times.

In this essay, I point out that reading is part of the writer’s job description and explain how I’ve been finding reading material recently. It seems that I have a never ending supply of novels to choose from.

The essay talks about the availability of free high-quality ebooks and what this means for those who aspire to write novels for a living. See Writing for the Love of Writing.

There is a simple system you can use to create a memorable story. It takes the concept of a narrative arc to another level. Read the short essay on how to structure the plot of a novel.

It’s not just bank tellers who are at risk, even journalists aren’t safe. Computer technology has advanced to the point where software can prepare a quality news article from a database of facts. In one instance, a machine outperformed a human writer. It’s a sure bet that the software algorithms will get better and the computer processors will get faster.

Creativity may be our last line of defense.

A wizard can accomplish amazing feats and magicians are like modern-day wizards. We can all learn a thing or two from magicians. The tools and tricks of the trade allow them to make things disappear before our very eyes.

Even if you’re not a wizard, you may be able to create your own magic.

1) The first article was published in Forbes magazine. The title says it all: How Publishers Can Ready Themselves For Digital Media’s Evolution? The article nicely summarizes what’s at stake. They “need to start thinking of themselves more as publishing engines that can drive content creation, distribution and consumption in an innovative and scalable way. For many, this will be hard and challenging – if not downright impossible.” (Does the prescription sound like what Amazon is doing?)

2) The second article is an excerpt from an article by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.  It argues that writers are undervaluing their talent and should look at writing as a business.

3) The third article is a short blog post by literary agent, Jane Dystel entitled A Sure Thing? It expresses her disappointment at publishers for their “narrow-minded” approach in limiting themselves to signing what they believe will be a best-seller.

4) The fourth article highlights the growing number of indie titles that populate the top of the best-seller lists on Amazon’s site.

Telephones are the classic example used to show the value of a network. Economists use the term network effect to describe the phenomenon of goods and services that increase in value the more widely they are adopted. Every person who opts in for telephone service, without wanting to, adds value to the existing network. It is a powerful network precisely because almost everyone is connected to it.

In this blog post, I point out that belonging to a small network can have benefits that large networks are unable to deliver.

It’s generally not good for public relations when any internal company memo is leaked. It’s much worse when it is the memo of an industry-leader that explains why the industry is still relevant.

Below is a short excerpt from the absolutely hilarious response by Eisler and Konrath, two successful, self-published authors.

Publishers should stop trying to convince themselves and others that they’re relevant, and start actually being relevant. Here’s how:

1. Offer much better royalties to authors.

2. Release titles faster. It can take 18 months after a book is turned in to be published. I can do it myself in a week.

3. Use up-to-date accounting methods that are trackable by the author, and pay royalties monthly.

4. Lower e-book prices.

5. Stop futilely fighting piracy.

6. Start marketing effectively. Ads and catalogue copy aren’t enough. Neither is your imprint’s Twitter feed.