Working Titlez

No, you're not seeing in quadruple! The publisher (me!) was so enamored with the four vibrant proposed colors for the cover, that the book was printed with all four. Cartons arrive at the bookstores with all four colors, which make an impressive display on the shelves.

Oft-published author Maralys Wills shares trials, tribulations, and plenty of tips in a far-ranging interview with Paula B. on The Writing Show. The hour-long audio interview can be downloaded from the site or via the podcast section on iTunes.

Wills is the author of some dozen books, the newest of which is DAMN THE REJECTIONS, FULL SPEED AHEAD: The Bumpy Road to Getting Published.

Says Ray Newton (former National Coordinator for Reader’s Digest Writing Workshops): “Wills takes readers of the fast-paced freeway into the colorful scenery of a bumpy, but genuinely educational secondary roads to show them the realities of the highly competitive writing and publishing industry. The book is possibly one of the best professional road maps on the market.”

Rejections are the predictable bane of the writer’s world. Maralys not only tells of her own sometimes unconventional approaches that have resulted in published books, she shares her wisdom of twenty-plus years teaching novel writing at the college level. Damn the Rejections is an adroit interweaving, chapter by chapter, between the BUSINESS of writing and the CRAFT of writing.

Many of you know that I drive back and forth between Southern California and Las Vegas nearly weekly. Many nights across the dark and vast desert, I’m kept company with Paula B. and her guests, discussing all things related to writing. The Writing Show website has many resources with the weekly podcasts are my favorite. You can listen to the podcasts right from the website or you can download via iTunes as an .mp3 file. Check the archives and you’ll find a treasure chest of topics and fascinating interviewees. Paula is an adroit interviewer, and I know, since she just interviewed me.

Listen to Publishing Economics for a wide-ranging discussion on the process of publishing, who makes the money, how books get from the author’s mind to the bookstore shelves. Paula and I discuss what’s wrong with the book world these days and she even asked me what I’d change if I were Queen of Amazon.