Jane Friedman
Publishing industry analyst and educator (The Business of Being a Writer) sharing nuanced insights for authors on business models, marketing, and industry trends.
Memoir Healing Reveals Two Hidden Narrative Challenges
Some memoirists have undergone awful experiences, then they heal and sometimes achieve incredible things. That healing journey is remarkable, yet if you're writing a memoir about it, you'll encounter two problems in trying to create a narrative from it. @lisacooperellison discusses: https://janefriedman.com/the-question-every-memoirist-needs-to-ask-but-almost-no-one-does/
BookCon Highlights Publishing's Author‑Indie Consumer Shift
This year's BookCon definitely underlines one of the greatest transformations in book publishing in the last 10 years. It is more author-driven, indie-driven, and consumer-driven than ever before. BookCon can succeed and grow; the industry-facing BookExpo remains as dead as...
Write Disability Characters Carefully; Understand Their Daily Reality
Writing a main character with serious physical challenges—ones you do not have—carries great risk because their daily experience is so different from your own. That can be hard to keep up for 350 pages, let alone a series. Here are three...
Librarians Confront AI's Pitfalls and Potential Benefits
Librarians already deal daily with the problems presented by AI: catalogs increasingly filled with low-quality AI-generated work and the burden of countering false or misleading information. But there are also opportunities to use AI to support their mission. The BISG recently...
Finish Your Memoir Even When You Want to Quit
"Reliving my dark, dramatic coming of age story all over again—in a kind of high-speed time-lapse—got my scoliosis spine all flared up. ... So, for the sake of my health, I shelved it." That's when Anne Pellicciotto's writers group asked her,...
Don’t Pay for Bookstagram Followers: It’s Counterproductive
"It quickly became apparent that building a following on Instagram required a volume of work that I was disinclined to undertake. Bookstagrammers, on the other hand, seemed to provide a way to potentially outsource this labour to someone else." Author...
Readers Crave Insider Memoir Writing Guidance, Says Free Workshop
Author @melissafraterrigo designed and hosted a free memoir-writing workshop for anyone who purchased her forthcoming book, and discovered that many readers were eager for an insider’s perspective on how to draft a memoir. Here's how she did it: https://janefriedman.com/teach-your-book-designing-a-class-around-your-memoir/
Three‑Star Reviews Signal Neutrality, Not Rejection
"I’d be lying if I said my first three-star review didn’t give me pause. I stared at it longer than I care to admit, rereading it as if some hidden meaning might appear. ... What did they miss? What could...
Interview Deeply to Build Stronger, Structured Memoirs
Extensive interviewing is not unusual in memoir work and produces a stronger memoir. It adds depth and structure, fills in gaps, and jogs memory. Jacqueline Salmon offers examples, plus talks about additional necessities for memoir writers—a theme and a story that's...
Spite Drives Drafts, Revenge Won’t Write Better Books
"Some writers are motivated by a desire to 'show them' or make someone truly understand how they’ve hurt us. Spite helps motivate us to finish drafts but revenge doesn’t make good books." @guerillamemoir discusses why family might not be all that...
Most Newsletters Fail; Competition Is Easy to Beat
Just about everyone I know has jumped on Substack or otherwise started a newsletter. Most of these efforts don't amount to anything. It's not wasted time (not necessarily), but the newsletter is probably not achieving the writers' goals either, assuming they...
Student Loyalty Drives Event Success Beyond Great Teaching
The success of a retreat, conference, or event (live or virtual) depends on two things: 1. The experience participants have when they attend. 2. The number of people who want to come. And that #2 factor? It's driven by students who follow a...
Genre Guides, Not Governs: Use It to Elevate Writing
I recently wrote about the downfalls of obsessing too much over your genre. That has sparked author Andromeda Romano-Lax to argue for how genre can inspire and instruct rather than limit. Her take: https://janefriedman.com/genre-as-delight-not-dictator-how-learning-about-genres-helps-you-write-better/
Skeptical of Human‑Authored Certification for Creative Work
I feel conflicted about certifications that a work is human authored. It's not something I'd obtain for my own work. Here’s why: https://janefriedman.com/my-concerns-about-the-authors-guild-human-authored-certification-and-their-comprehensive-response/
Use Three Transitions to Preserve Reader Capital
Every time you make a jump in the story without building a bridge, you’re spending down your earned "reader capital." Author @sethharwood describes how to build three types of transition: spatial, temporal, point of view: https://janefriedman.com/build-the-bridge-3-kinds-of-transitions/