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Indie Versus Traditional Publishing ND Richman   If you stacked all of the books published in the United States in 2012, end to end, you’d surround a hockey rink with a twenty-six story1 wall (yeah, I’m Canadian). Fifty seven percent2 of those books were independently (also known as Indie) published. The proliferation of Indie books has sparked media criticism, with concern expressed over the quantity of poor quality publications and the lack of earning potential for authors....
Confessions of a Creative Writing Professor Part 1: My Life As a Student Writer By Gillian Murray Kendall   When I was an undergraduate at Stanford University, my teacher in Creative Writing 101 encouraged me, praised me, told me my writing was strange and asked me out on a date.  The class was a heady, unsettling and new experience and I took full advantage of all it had to offer, except the invitation to date the professor.  In that class, I produced my first good little piece...
Where Do Ideas Come From? by Claire Merchant I’ve written twenty novels. It’s a bit insane when I stop and think about it. I hope that I never run out of ideas, and considering that I’ve got four new stories that I’m working on, I seem to be doing okay so far. A lot of people have asked me how I come up with the ideas for my stories. The short answer is that there are a lot of different things that spark them. However, since I am a writer, I feel the need to expand on...
THINGS I’VE LEARNED FROM TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING Gillian Murray Kendall 1. GOOD WRITING IS A LEARNED SKILL Shakespeare, certainly the greatest writer in the English language and arguably the world’s greatest writer, had talent. People speak and write a lot about that talent, that genius, that brilliance—but not nearly as much is said of Shakespeare’s hard work at learning his craft. He learned quickly, granted, but he learned; as his career grew, he acquired skills...
LitPick Student Book Reviews (www.litpick.com) was created by college students to help promote reading and writing. Today, thousands of students worldwide review books for LitPick. Listed below are reasons why students enjoy being part of the LitPick community and how their participation has helped foster their love for reading. Free Books LitPick provides free eBooks to students in exchange for their honest reviews of those titles. The books do not need to be returned to LitPick, so students...
The Knack of Writing Fiction (With Deference to Dilbert - The Knack, https://youtu.be/TvGYIALoKRk) by ND Richman   “How does a linear thinking, left-brained, techno-geek, automation engineering technologist get to write children’s fiction?” I get that question a lot, in varying forms, and my responses have been limited to a shrug and a chuckle. So tonight I snuggled into my writer’s chair, a worn and comfortable Lazy-Boy recliner, and with the aid of a tall rum...
**Tynea Lewis, LitPick Site Administrator, has submitted this article on behalf of Claire Merchant.    When I first started writing novels, I never thought that I’d be writing stories with sequels. It’s not that I had anything against sequels, but I always thought that if a character’s story ended then there was nothing more to say. Like, why wouldn’t I just keep writing if the story wasn’t finished? It’s not always that simple. I suppose you can...
Hi. Hello. Hey. Aloha. Ciao. Konnichiwa. Hiya. Bonjour. Sup. Hola. G’day. by Claire Merchant   My name is Claire Merchant. I write books and I live in one of the most isolated cities in the world—Perth, Western Australia. Yes, I am Australian, but let me just clear a few things up. I don’t have a pet koala, I can’t surf, I have never had a ‘shrimp’ from a ‘barbie’, my preferred mode of transport is a car and not a kangaroo, and I consider the...
Now that my book is out, I’m savoring the finer reviews―and skipping right over a few others! I’ve combed through (and written) enough book reviews to make a few observations that might help with review writing, and what better place to post them than an award-winning review site with so many young reviewers! 1. Good reviews are clear, yet fun to read. Letting your distinctive voice come through can add flare to your reviews. 2...
  Many years ago, I was just a dad trying to encourage his fourth grader to read.  It was a challenge competing with Pokemon, yoyo's, baseball cards, and a packed academic and athletic schedue.   At the same time, I was learning how to build websites so I told my son Seth that we could build a website and feature his reviews of books that he read and reviewed.  Penguin discovered his online site, sent him boxes of books to review, and the rest, as they say is history...

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