Carmen DeSousa

No...I haven't read  Fifty Shades of  Grey ... not even the sample, but... Before you think that I'm a prude, hang in there with me ... you might agree. The thing is...I  have no trouble with the book  Fifty Shades of  Grey --or most erotic books for that matter. In fact, it shocked one of my writing communities when I--a Christian--disagreed with Smashwords attempt to censor books. See ... the way I see it, if we start censoring books, eventually they'll start censoring everything. And who draws that line? Some people have even accused me of writing  Mommy Porn . I assure you, I don't, though. But that's the point. Someone will always have their clean monitor set higher or lower, so who knows where that fence is. I do, however, think anything regarding underage children or abuse against beings that cannot defend themselves, should be censored, because one, it's vile, and two, it's an illegal act. T wo consenting adults, though... I just don...

The answer might surprise you... I n my case, it's because I want you to read it. In general, authors write because they love writing. Most of us didn’t just decide in college that this was our career choice; we’ve been writing as long as we could hold a pen. We were great pen pals, journaled, didn’t mind writing our grandmothers a thank you note, passed messages back and forth in school, and usually drove our boyfriends/girlfriends  crazy with our four-page love  letters .  But there’s one thing every writer I know loves more than writing, and that’s "being read." And more importantly, readers reading our writing and then letting us know it touched them. As most writers, I tend to check my book stats. But there’s something I do that proves my above assessment about myself — and I assume other authors  — is true . When I jump behind my laptop in the morning to see how my book fares in the notorious Amazon ranking system, if I see there’...

I know we’ve heard this before, but I wasn’t sure if anyone had put it in social media and writing vernacular, so here goes: Make Friends:  I don’t follow everyone, but if we share a common interest—this usually means writing, reading, thinking about writing or reading, or know someone who writes or reads and supports them—I usually follow people back on Twitter and Facebook. Do Onto Others : Again, I don’t share everything, but if I read something I think my friends would have interest in, I retweet and share posts, especially when it’s from someone who shares my posts.  J If you can’t say Anything Nice… :  Really, this  should go without saying, but I still see it. Nothing wrong with having your opinion, but that’s exactly what that is: your opinion. Don’t get in a fighting match; that’s what the ‘ unfollow ’ button is for. Remember ... it takes two. Say  You’re  Sorry : If you do offend someone, say you’re sorry. Play Fair ...

After twenty years of virtually no writing, I sat down one day, put my fingers to the keyboard, and just started typing. Two months, a neglected house, and very few restful nights later, I had a 120k-word novel. When I write, I do nothing but write. Writing literally consumes me morning, noon, and night. I don't want to eat or sleep. You thought I was going to say "or drink", didn't you? If you are a writer, you know that is the one thing writers do not give up—drinking. And for me, it's not alcohol, it's a steaming-hot latte in the morning, an iced latte in the afternoon, and then only because I have to feed the machine, I may throw in a protein smoothie of some variety in the evening if I don’t have time to eat. If it's not prepackaged and easy to prepare, I'm not interested. Only the writing matters. But there is one thing that sidetracks me—Twitter. I've taken advice and shut down my Internet Explorer, turned off notifications on...

This is a question I hear every day. Along with other comments such as, "Readers aren't buying anything but free books anymore", or "If I promote another author's book, I'll lose a sale." A little recap from the previous posts in this series before you look at the list below. Although Amazon's algorithms are confusing, authors and book aficionados like myself, who watch the book market daily, have come up with an estimate of what it takes to be on the first page of Amazon's bestseller list. A bestseller rank of 3 to 8 means you’re selling about 4,000-plus books a day! Do the math on my first star pupil below with 483 days in the top 100. That's almost two million books. Yes! Readers are still  buying  eBooks, even if they're not four-star rated, and even if the eBook cost more than the Wal-Mart paperback version. Reviews of top-selling books on Amazon 13,500 revs avg . 3.8 483 days in top 100 5 star : (5,...