You can learn a lot about how to write a book from book reviews.

For example this review Books of The Times – Caught – By Harlan Coben – Never Look Away – By Linwood Barclay – Mom and Pop Thrillers – Review – NYTimes.com tells you how to create a believable character:

“David’s love for his son, bewilderment about his wife and anger at his newspaper’s new business practices (like outsourcing local reporting to workers on other continents, who have no idea how to paraphrase idiomatic phrases like ‘not enough room to swing a cat’) all serve to make him likable and to make readers share his worries. And in terms of regular-guy realism, this thriller reveals a major clue when David and his dad try to fix the leak behind a bathroom sink.”

Become a Highly Paid Professional Writer

Writing Genii shows you how — fast. Get the skills you need, to make the income you want.

IPad madness is here. Developers are creating applications for the platform, even though most haven’t even handled one of the devices. And Ars Technica believes that Apple sold 20,000 to 25,000 of the devices PER HOUR in pre-orders.

Apple will sell millions of iPads in the next couple of years.

Booksellers are getting ready.

The iPad App Derby Gets Under Way – NYTimes.com reports:

“Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble are working on apps for buying and reading electronic books, even though both companies sell their own e-reading devices and Apple will offer its own iBooks app. The expectation is that the iPad will give a big lift to the e-book market, benefiting the whole industry. “

What will the iPad mean to authors?

What does this frantic activity mean to you as an author?

Primarily, it means that ebooks will be big, and that includes self-published ebooks.

You can convert your word processor manuscript into ePub format (software to do this is available), and you can start selling your ebooks to be read on the iPad. You’ll have millions of potential readers, and endless ways to get your books in front of them.

It’s an exciting time. If you haven’t been tapping your fingers to the bone, get moving!

You’ve started writing your book, so it’s time to sell it.

Selling your book on a partial (three chapters and an outline) is common practice whether you’re writing fiction, or nonfiction. However, if you haven’t published a novel before, be aware that you’re unlikely to get a contract until you’ve completed the novel. Publishers aren’t as picky with nonfiction — you should be able to get a contract even if you’re unpublished.

Your primary sales tool is your query letter, which you send out to publishers and to agents. You’re hoping for interest: for a request to read your partial. The ONE sentence describing your book is the most important part of your query letter.

If you can’t sum up your book in a sentence, it’s unlikely you’ll make a sale.

So what does that ONE sentence look like?

Here’s an example from Publisher’s Marketplace, New Deals for March 19, 2010.

Edgar Nominee Pat Rushford’s ARTISTIC LICENSE, in which a woman working to turn an old northwest mining town into an artist’s colony discovers a murderer intent on staving off development at all costs, to Susan Downs at Summerside Press, in a nice deal, for publication in 2011, by Sandra Bishop at MacGregor Literary (World).

(By the way, in Publisher’s Marketplace’s terms, a “nice” deal is one in which the advance against royalties is somewhere between one dollar and $49,000.)

Write your ONE sentence NOW

Can you sum up your book in a sentence like: “a woman working to turn an old northwest mining town into an artist’s colony discovers a murderer intent on staving off development at all costs”?

If you can’t, keep thinking about your book until you can. Not only is that one sentence vital in selling your book, if you can’t summarize it, you’ll have trouble writing it.

Practice summarizing — summarize five books which you’ve read recently, similar to the one you’re writing, into one sentence.

Write more – become a pro writer

Yes, you can write more and become an expert writer – even if you’re a world-class procrastinator.

Did you know that when you write more, your writing improves? Many of my writing students experience this. They find that when they write more, writing is easier for them – they’re not dominated by their inner editor.

My new writing class, “Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process” is based on lessons I developed for my private coaching students to help them to write more, improve their writing, and make more money writing.

If you’re struggling with your writing, the class will help. The techniques you’ll learn in class with help you write fiction, nonfiction, and copy for business.

Discover how you can write more, improve your writing, and sell more of your writing to higher-paying markets.

Here’s an interesting experiment at the Boulder Book Store in Colorado. Print on Demand (POD — self-publshed) authors sell their books on consignment on the bookstore shelves, and pay for the privilege.

The Boulder way: A bookstore’s experiment with microdistribution » Nieman Journalism Lab reports:

“…The store charges its consignment authors according to a tiered fee structure: $25 simply to stock a book (five copies at a time, replenished as needed by the author for no additional fee); $75 to feature a book for at least two weeks in the ‘Recommended’ section; and $125 to, in addition to everything else, mention the book in the store’s email newsletter, feature it on the Local Favorites page of the store’s website for at least 60 days, and enable people to buy it online for the time it’s stocked in the store.

And for $255 — essentially, the platinum package — the store will throw in an in-store reading and book-signing event.”

If you’re a new author, and haven’t set up your own marketing, it sounds like a great offering to me. You’re getting your book out there, and that’s important.

Few bookstores will stock POD books, so let’s hope that more of them develop this distribution model for their local authors.

End your writing procrastination: become a prolific writer TODAY

Are you procrastinating? If so, you’re feeling frustrated and guilty. You know you can write, and you know you should be writing, but you can’t.

Now you can. You can end writing procrastination for good. Discover how you can become the prolific writer you were born to be with my bestselling ebook “Top 70 Writing Tips To Help You To Write More”.

You’ll discover 70 ways in which you can write more, no matter who you are, or what your level of writing experience.

The 70 tips will help you to plan your writing time, stick to a writing schedule, and get more energy, so that writing is a pleasure for you.

End procrastination for good today, with “Top 70 Writing Tips To Help You To Write More” – you can make writing easy and fun.

You’re writing your book, and you’re a bundle of nerves: what if no one wants to read it?

These days, you can lay those fears to rest. I’ve been recommending that you blog your book on this blog, but there are many other things you can do.

I love this idea, for example Synergizing the Book and Web: The Future…? | Digital Book World:

“The Amanda Project is a first of its kind transmedia experience – ‘an interactive, collaborative fictional mystery for girls ages 13 & up, told across a variety of different media including an 8-book series, a website that features games, writing, art & social networking, and a related series of blogs, satellite sites, music, and merchandise.’”

Can you create a synergy between your book and the Web?

Remember, your aim is to get readers. Once you have readers, getting an agent (and a publisher) is a piece of cake. Get creative — there are many, many ways you get can readers for your book using the Web.

Become a blogging maestro with Lazy Rich Blogger: whatever you want to do, a blog makes it possible

Want to write a book? Blog it.

Want to sell your writing services? Blog about it.

Want to write and sell information products? Nothing beats a blog for building a readership and sales.

Learn to blog, and clients will clamor for you: businesses need blogs and writers to write them.

Blogging is the single, essential tool for writers in 2010 and beyond. Lazy Rich Blogger reveals my blogging secrets and tricks, learned over a decade. If you’re a writer, you must blog.

Get the complete blogging training you need.