Another Friday, another session in the digital classroom that is Author 101, the class for authors who love to learn and are learning to love Twitter. If you did your homework last week, you’re already signed up for Twitter … Continue reading →

Ah Twitter. Nowhere is the Reluctant Author more reluctant than on Twitter. We know this because during the course of many a social media session, we’ve watched an author’s eyes become glassy as we explain Twitter until they just go … Continue reading →

Welcome back to Author 101, the author class for classy authors. Today, we’re talking about Goodreads, or as I like to think of it OMFGsomanybooksmyheadjustexploded.com. In our quest to help authors find crafty ways to promote themselves, we thought Goodreads … Continue reading →

Do you ever have that experience where you don’t realize you know that much about something until you start talking about it, and then all of sudden you think: Hey, actually I do know a lot about this compared to … Continue reading →

When I had my first baby in 2008, I left my demanding job-with-a-commute (at the book packager becker&mayer!) in order to have more control over my time, and to spend more of that time with my newborn daughter. I can … Continue reading →

I was recently asked which of the 25 walks from my book I would do myself if I were to find myself in Paris for a day. What a lovely—albeit challenging—question to ponder. The fact is that after researching the … Continue reading →

This post appears today from Gotham Ghostwriters in response to a scathing New York Times piece that made writing for hire sound like prostitution in the salt mines. Read the original, see the response (including feedback from GFP), and share your own stories … Continue reading →

These past two weeks, I’ve been immersing myself in the collected blog works of Jen Dziura (for work purposes! My job is the best sometimes). I highly recommend doing this if you are feeling that late February lag that so … Continue reading →

My first boss, the amazing literary agent Gail Ross, often says she’s in the book biz because she truly believes that books change lives. I was twenty-two and more than a little green when I started working for her, and … Continue reading →

As some of you know, I’m currently finishing up Uncle Dave’s Cow (coming this fall from Skipstone), a book on buying meat the old-fashioned way: one animal at a time. It all started with a quarter of a beef and a freezer … Continue reading →

The very nicest thing happened yesterday. I heard a loud thump on my front doorstep when our mail woman delivered the mail. A thump is always promising (and unlikely to be bills), so I immediately got up from my desk … Continue reading →

Ah, writer’s block. The chupacabra of literary types the world-over. But is writer’s block a real thing or just an excuse not to write? What do we even mean when we say writer’s block? Writing regularly takes a lot of … Continue reading →

Big Brother is watching you, or at least Winston and Julia, and boy oh boy, they better watch out. Like for rats. Anyone remember what’s in Room 101? For many of us, the last time we read 1984 was in…1984. … Continue reading →

The Girls Friday are on a new assignment that requires us to read a classic book or play each month. Rough life! My November was filled with The Importance of Being Earnest, which I had not previously read. I thought … Continue reading →

I admire Sherry Jones’ work and that I think that she made some salient points in her October 11th piece on the Huffington Post: Self-Publishing: The Elephant in the Room. However, I also think she missed some major ones by … Continue reading →

Most people think of writing and editing books as a desk job, and most of the time, it is. But in the course of our work the Girls Friday occasionally get to leave our chairs, venture into the wider world, … Continue reading →

Rethinking Self-Publishing There’s no getting around it: I’ve been a bit slow to jump on the self-publishing bandwagon. Lots of people are asking us about it these days, and I’m always a bit reluctant to tell them to go for … Continue reading →

After our morning routine—making coffee, getting the kids off to school, walking the dog—many of us then sit down at our desks to start work. And of course it makes perfect sense to link productivity with sitting down in front … Continue reading →

I took some time out of the office this summer. Though my children will tell you I am always at work, or always working, let me put it out there that I’m very good at being gone. Give me a … Continue reading →

Here at Girl Friday we find a multitude of ways to keep busy, from writing Web content to editing annual reports, yet one of our most perennial clients is the book author who needs help deciding whether to seriously pursue publication through traditional … Continue reading →