In those nether-moments between reading fiction, I like to cleanse the pallet by taking in some non-fiction. Lately it's been lots and lots of How To Write types of books. The Kindle app on my phone is a tempting mistress. I can't seem to resist her. I'll be reading a How To book, minding my own business when the author suddenly recommends another book. Curiosity gets the best of me and I flip on over to the Kindle app and three little clicks later another five or ten or twenty (and once, fifty) dollar debit will appear on the credit card. It's a slow leak that happens weekly if not daily. But there are a limited number of hours in the day with which to read these books, so eventually I'll settle down and make a renewed commitment to not buy anything for awhile.
Below are the books I've been reading most recently. Most are great. I do manage to take some time before those fateful clicks to make sure each purchase is properly researched. I've gotten something helpful out of these and maybe you can too. Happy How To-ing!
Do It Yourself Masters of Fine Arts Degree
Well maybe it's not quite an acknowledged degree program, but I've been conducting my own personal study course with the following books.
- Elements of Fiction Writing: Conflict and Suspense by James Scott Bell
- Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
- GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction by Debra Dixon
- Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver
- Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Dave King and Renni Browne
- The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner
- Writing Fiction for Dummies by Ray Ingermanson and Peter Economy
- How to Write Best Selling Fiction by Dean Koontz
- How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James M. Frey
- The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi
I'm also reading about publishing and have found these books to be helpful
- The 4 Hour Publisher-Why, When and How to Publish on Kindle... by Suzanna Stinnett
- Building Your Book for Kindle by Kindle Direct Publishing
- Self-Publishing Attack! The 5 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws for Creating Steady Income Publishing Your Own Books by James Scott Bell
- How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! by John Locke
And I've found these works on freelancing, marketing and copy writing to be great as well
- The Renegade Writer's Ultimate Guide to Marketing Your Freelance Writing by Linda Formichelli
- Are You There Blog? It's Me, Writer by Kristen Lamb
- We Are Not Alone: The Writer's Guide to Social Media by Kristen Lamb
- The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott
