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Hello, and welcome to this week’s WEN-zine nuggets.

After watching the weather news from around the the country this week, guess there’s no point in grumbling about my own backyard! I see no sympathy on the horizon ... so let’s get on with it ...

1. Now that we’re past Quitter’s Day

Supposedly, research has shown that people quit their resolutions for the year by the second Friday of January; and thus the reason for Quitter’s Day, which this year fell on January 12. It is intended as a day to recognize those who set new year goals and fail to achieve them, and to encourage and equip them to try again and ultimately succeed.

Whether you set goals or not, are on schedule or not, you may find helpful Charlie Gilkey's five critical questions for rethinking your resolutions (aka plans) and beating the odds of failing to stick to them:

          • Do my New Year’s resolutions take past failures into account?

          • Do my New Year’s resolutions focus on outcomes or actions?

          • Are my New Year’s resolutions mere aspirations or concrete priorities?

          • Do my New Year’s resolutions come from a place of “should” or real desire?

          • Do my New Year’s resolutions outweigh any risks?

2. “A Better Way to Sell Books” by Roland Hughes

In a new WEN blog post – https://writerseditorsnetwork.com/a-better-way-to-sell-books/ – Roland discusses how he’s set up to sell his books (print, e-book and audiobook) from his own website – with images showing the discounts and other details.

3. Literary fiction’s death is greatly exaggerated

From yesterday’s Simon Owens’s Tech and Media Newsletter:

There’s this widespread belief that “literary” fiction — which I guess could be defined as realistic storytelling that places a high emphasis on writing craft — doesn’t sell very well and is mostly written to appeal to MFA grads and other aspiring writers. That’s not necessarily true:

While granting the usual caveat that “literary fiction” is a vaguely defined and easy-to-critique label, literary fiction sells quite well. Look at the NYT bestseller list in any given week. By my count, about 50% of the current NYT hardcover list would get that label. Publishing isn’t giving huge advances to the Jonathan Franzens, Sally Rooneys, and Donna Tartts of the world for giggles or because of a CIA-MFA conspiracy. They do it because those books can make a lot of money. Publishers make bad bets, surely. There are plenty of famous big money literary flops. But there are plenty of big money flops in YA and other genres too.

4. FYI items

▪ How To Build A Book Marketing Strategy by A.J. Sieling – free today on Amazon Kindle

▪ Your Million-Dollar Book: Triple Your Leads and Revenue with a Bestselling Book by Chris O’Byrne – also free today on Amazon Kindle (Not sure about this one, though – not much of an author bio, and Google search brings up a website selling author services.)

▪ TypeLit – Practice your typing speed and accuracy on dozens of the most famous novels of all time. https://www.typelit.io/ (Thanks to Morning Brew)

Stay warm!

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To Your Writing Success,

Dana K Cassell

Editor

(Dana Cassell is founder of Writers-Editors Network, and has been freelancing/creating full-time for 47 years. In addition to writing, editing, and fact-checking for numerous business clients, she has published more than 2,000 articles and has ghosted or authored more than a dozen books.)

Not a Network member? Join now: https://freelancekeys.com/join-now/ Temporary discount codes:

Save $10 on Basic options: use TESTING coupon code

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