S. W. Raine

For the past few years, there has always been a lecture/workshop hosted by Ellen Dugan about the writing and publishing world, but this year, it seemed that it just wasn’t meant to be. Her class submission hadn’t been accepted this year.

It was unfortunate that presenter Kenn Day fell ill and couldn’t make it this year, but when the convention staff looked to fill the now open time slots, Ellen Dugan’s workshop appeared. I was pretty excited and eagerly anticipating to eat up all the information that I could.

Her workshop, this year, was called “So, You Wanna Write Paranormal Fiction?”. Even though I do not write in the Paranormal genre, I knew that there was still a lot that I could learn, and a lot that I had already learned that I could get a refresher on. Here are 3 things that I learned during this workshop:

1. Your cover needs to pop.
   In the days of endless Social Media and website scrolling, your cover has three seconds to grab the reader’s attention. This goes the same for blurbs, once the reader has clicked on your cover.
2. Pronunciation and definition lists.
   When sprinkling another language throughout the book, add a list of the words with their pronunciation and definition at the end of the novel.
3. Market, market, market!
   Social Media is your friend. Cross-promote with other authors of your genre. And use hashtags!

I am definitely going to keep these in mind for current and future novels.

Ellen Dugan is known as the “Garden Witch”.  She is a certified Master Gardener, but is also an award-winning non fiction author and novelist, with over thirty books written. If you want to learn more about Ellen Dugan, or check out her awesome books and novels, you can find here here at http://www.ellendugan.com/

Raine