QueryTracker Blog

Helping Authors Find Literary Agents

Friday, October 12, 2012

Publishing Pulse: 10/12/2012

Success Stories

Congratulations to our latest success stories, Angela Quarels, Richard Thomas, and Janet Johnson!

Amazon Author Rank

If you're a published writer with a book on Amazon.com, you've probably already been traumatized by your personal Amazon Author Rank email, which said:

Today we have added a new feature, Amazon Author Rank, the definitive list of best-selling authors on Amazon.com. This list makes it easy for readers to discover the best-selling authors on Amazon.com overall and within a selection of major genres. 
Amazon Author Rank is your rank based on the sales of all of your books on Amazon.com. Just like Amazon Best Sellers, it is updated hourly. The top 100 authors overall and the top 100 in selected genres will be displayed on Amazon.com. You can see your Amazon Author Rank trended over time in Author Central.

Essentially, this new feature benefits the top best-selling writers...and that's it.

The people I've talked to have received rankings in categories that don't even remotely resemble what type of book they've written. For example, my Writer's Guide to Psychology is listed under Diet, Fitness, and Health. Whut?! Where did you end up?

If you haven't yet heard of Amazon Author Rank, you can read more about it in the Los Angeles Times, and on Darcy Pattinson's blog.

Around the Internet

Planning on participating in this year's NaNoWriMo? Rachelle Gardner gives you 4 Tips on Writing a Quick First Draft.

Are you stuck on your story, unsure where to go next? Author Jess Keating suggests creating an imaginary panel of authors (and characters) you admire to help you out: Creating an Imaginary Panel to Get Unstuck.

Meanwhile, Janice Hardy urges you to "force the issue" and Add Conflict to Your Scenes. Her suggestions are different from most!

Need help with characterization? Adventures in Children's Publishing brings you Five Tips for Writing Brilliant Characters: Guest Post by Nicole from the Word for Teens blog.

Or maybe you need help with your story premise. Here's a great post called Six Tests of a Solid Story Premise and Eight Ways to Write One.

Have a great weekend and we'll see you next week!


Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD's book, THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment, and Human Behavior helps writers avoid common misconceptions and inaccuracies and "get the psych right" in their stories. You can learn more about The Writer's Guide to Psychology, check out Dr. K's blog on Psychology Today, or follow her on Facebook

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your writing links are always VERY helpful, but you outdid yourself this time. Thanks so much for pointing me to several fabulous learning opps.