Author and technology consultant Scott Steinberg visited our self-publishing course online today.

We caught up with Steinberg while he promoted The Modern Parent’s Guide to Video Games, sharing timeless advice about he shared columns and essays on a number of sites–reaching out to new readers at major outlets like CNN.com, All Things D and ESPN.com.

In this encore edition of the  Morning Media Menu podcast (embedded below), Steinberg shared tips for pitching online outlets about your book.

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Do you wish you could send your fans a digital autograph? Or dream of getting your digital book autographed by your favorite author? Writers and readers can use the free Authorgraph service to send, request or receive autographs.

Sign up for Authorgraph at this link. If you have the digital signature delivered to your Kindle through Amazon’s Personal Document Service, you could be charged for the transmission. Here’s more from the company:

One of the most distinctive features of Authorgraph.com is the ability to actually draw your signature. This signing takes place completely in the browser window using a mouse (or your finger if you use a tablet). However, there is also a default option that allows authors to print their name in a script font if they don’t want to use the signing feature … Every Authorgraph goes only to the specific reader that requested it so an author can write a custom message for each reader. In addition, readers can include a short message to the author in order to provide a bit more context for personalizing the Authorgraph.

Would you travel to visit a book club and talk about your book? Fill out our free and simple form and we will add you to our directory of writers who will travel, host Skype visits or accept telephone chats with book clubs.

Want to spice up your book club? Explore our Authors Who Visit Book Clubs directory and invite a nearby author to visit your group. You can also download the directory as an Excel spreadsheet to explore (and sort!) the genres, websites and contact information for more than 1,500 writers around the world.

As bookstore options dwindle and publicity budgets shrink, authors have to work for every fan through readings, Skype and book clubs–we hope this list can help them connect. (Image by Lasse C)

If you have ever considered using Scrivener writing software, Amazon is currently selling the writing app at a 50 percent discount from the list price.

Literature & Latte publishes the software, selling the PC version for $40 and the Mac version for $45. Over at Amazon, the PC version currently sells for $20 and the Mac version for $22.50. A number of published authors have praised the software. Journalist and author Jonathan M. Katz called the program “the Bruce Lee of word processors.” Here is more from Katz:

I know books were written before Scrivener, but I’m not sure how. And I certainly don’t care to find out. This program made it possible for me to think, compose, edit, and effectively use research, all while protecting the good people of Brooklyn from thrown laptops. Its only major shortcoming is that everyone doesn’t use it yet, meaning constantly jarring and injurious returns to Microsoft Word once a chapter was in the world. But other than that, five stars, and my heartfelt admiration. Scrivener is.

At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last weekend, three writers shared advice for aspiring children’s book authors.

During the “Pictures on the Page: The Art of Children’s Books” panel discussion, Blue Chameleon author Emily Gravett, Hang Glider & Mud Mask co-author Brian McMullen and Not a Box author Antoinette Portis talked about their craft and writing lives.

Below, we’ve collected their advice for aspiring authors…

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A Rutgers PhD student recently lost five years of work when a computer was stolen, and they posted a heartbreaking message that has since earned more than a million views online (embedded above).

This is the perfect reminder to BACK UP YOUR WORK. Social Times rounded up the Top 8 Free File Sharing Sites, enough free storage to save every bit of digital work you have ever created. Here are two free offerings from the long list:

1. Box: gives you 5 GB of storage for free and lets you organize your files into folders in the cloud, just like you would on your desktop. You can share links or entire file folders with others and see when they’ve been viewed.

2. Bitcasa: stores up to 10 GB worth of free files, photos, playlists, videos and docs that can be accessed from any device (and reportedly goes up to infinity for paying customers).

 

Avon Romance has launched a new site called Share Your Book, a chance for all kinds of writers to get feedback from romance readers and find new fans by posting excerpts. Here’s how it works:

Share Your Book is a unique experience: contributors can receive comments and critiques from their peers, as well as Avon editors, who will pop into the forum with occasional advice on individual submissions.  Romance enthusiasts are thrilled that their excerpts live alongside those published by Avon’s authors, who also use the site to promote their own books.  Visitors to the site “favorite” the submissions so readers and editors can easily see which are the most popular.

Submit your book to the free site at this link. If you are trying to get a manuscript published, you can also submit your book for consideration by the Avon Impulse imprint editors.

Can you name all the trees, flowers and birds around you? According to legend, the great novelist Vladimir Nabokov once met a Cornell University who asked Nabokov for writing advice. The writing student received this curt reply:

Nabokov looks up from his reading he points to a tree outside his office window. ‘What kind of tree is that?’ he asks the student. ‘What?’ ‘What is the name of that tree?’ asks Nabokov. ‘The one outside my window.’ ‘I don’t know,’says the student. ‘You’ll never be a writer.’ says Nabokov.”

Debut novelist Brian Kimberling published Snapper this week, a novel drawn from his own experience as  a bird researcher. His book is filled with careful and unexpected descriptions of nature, so we caught up with Kimberling for some nature writing advice…

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How do you prepare for pitching your next article or book? On today’s edition of the Morning Media Menu, we spoke with Daniel Pink, the bestselling author of To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others.

Pink explored his new book, sharing some unexpected rejection advice for writers. He also explained how he used Qualtrics Research Suite to gather reporting for his book. Here’s an excerpt:

If you’re going to pitch a book or pitch an article to a magazine editor, the conventional view is that we should pump ourselves up that we should say to ourselves, “You can do it!” Positive, affirmative self-talk. What the research shows is that it’s actually more effective to questions your abilities. To go from “You can do it” to “Can you do this?” Because questions, by their very nature, elicit an active response. So when you say “Can you do this?” you have to answer. And in that answer is the preparation, the rehearsal and the review of the strategy. I’ve used that a lot, going from positive, affirmative self-talk to interrogative self-talk.

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Over at The Atlantic, Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid discussed one of his “all-time favorite passages in literature,” a quote from the Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

Talking about his own journey as a writer, Murakami explained: “writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.”

If you want to get in shape this year, we found some free fitness apps for writers to help you feel better as you write. Also check out our how to write like Haruki Murakami post, taking writing wisdom from his epic novel, 1Q84.