by Andrea Lundgren
I’ve been thinking about how we humans clean things up. Sometimes, we do it begrudgingly, sometimes compulsively. How we feel (and how close we are to a deadline) usually determines whether our efforts are frantic or methodical. When rushed or pressured, we can get rid of stuff we really should’ve kept, and I think this applies to editing, too.
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by Michael Cristiano
Not being able to write is a sad fact of life for a writer. There’s laundry to do, there’s food to cook, there’s sleep to be had. Worse, I have this pesky illness that eats up a lot of my time. I toil day in and day out to keep it at bay and under control. Sometimes, it creeps into my evenings, just when I think I’ve escaped. Worse, the horror of it all often keeps me awake at night and the dread fills my dreams with terror and sadness.
Oh, I’m not sick… I have a 9-to-5 job.
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This is a guest post and infographic by Ted of iceCube Marketing, a digital marketing agency in Singapore that helps local small businesses acquire leads from channels such as Facebook and Google. It offers a wonderful examination of what a successful author home page may consist of and can even serve as a great checklist for you when you design a new one or update yours.
The title of your landing page is important. It serves as a hook to grab visitors’ attention. It also gives them a reason to look deeper into your website. The title of your landing page may or may not be the same as that of a book. Either, have a title that is benefit-driven and arouses curiosity.
The first thing visitors should see is an image. The image…
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I always look forward to Fridays. The end of the week, the start of the upcoming weekend. However, I hate to see this week wrap up. Why? I’ve been on vacation. My husband and I have spent the past three days in a cabin near Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Not our fanciest vacation and certainly not the farthest place we’ve been, but these few days of rest and relaxation is just what we needed.
We lucked out on the weather. The temps were cooler than usual. It rained on Wednesday. It was nice to sit inside the cabin and hear thunder and the patter of rain on the tin roof.
Wednesday night we went to a local pizza place and tap room known as Grateful Head. (The owners are Grateful Dead fans.) Thursday we drove through Beaver’s Bend State Park and took a few photos of the lake.
I did a…
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Thanks to the authors and bloggers below for these useful tips. This will be the last Friday Roundup for a couple of weeks, as I’ll be on holiday and do not intend spending most of it sitting in front of a computer!
1. Anne R. Allen for these writing scams:
http://annerallen.com/2018/06/new-writing-scams/
2. Alison Williams on writing a synopsis:
3. A. C Flory on barcodes for Indie authors:
https://acflory.wordpress.com/2018/06/05/barcodes-for-indie-authors/
4. Jean M. Cogdell for this info on how not to write like a newbie:
How to avoid writing like a newbie
5. Felicity Annora gives 5 ways to deal with writer’s block:
Five Tips for Dealing with Writer’s Block
6. Jordan Jolley gives 6 tips to be a great author:
6 Tips to Become a Great Author
7. Anna Hubbel on Facebook advertising:
https://nicholasrossis.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/5-ways-to-create-the-perfect-facebook-creatives/
8. Damn Girl Get Your Shit Together has some blogging advice for us:
One Year Blogiversary: DG Blogging Tips
9. …
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The Federal government is in the process of revising the Copyright Act. If you don’t think that matters to writers, think again.
I’m always surprised to see blank stares on writers’ faces when I launch into a speech about copyright. Some of them aren’t clear why copyright really matters. Others aren’t sure what copyright even is. Fair enough—it’s not the sexiest topic in the writing world. But even if you don’t notice it, it’s fundamental to our business.
Here’s why. I am a non-fiction author of six books and a magazine writer. To earn my living I sell the right to use my work, either to publishers who pay me advances and royalties or to magazines who pay me fees to publish my articles. For most of my twenty-five-year career, this revenue has constituted most of my income.
Simply put, copyright law is what makes it possible for me to…
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Originally posted on Nicholas C. Rossis:
This post was originally posted on the Azure Fire Publishing website. Creating The Perfect Newsletter For many authors, the Perfect Newsletter is like the alchemist’s philosophical stone: if we get it right, we can…
by Doug Lewars
Either a villain is fleeing from the forces of law-and-order or your hero is fleeing from overwhelming danger, but in either case you need a chase scene. Any form of transportation can be used and the overall structure of the narrative will be reasonably uniform although the specifics will change in each case.
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The New York Times recently published the following article (click the link below to read it) entitled,
Why You Can’t Really Trust Negative Online Reviews
The article is fascinating—and not what I was expecting.
From the headline, I was expecting to see research into ulterior motives (like products being slammed by competitors).
Rather, I learned a few things about the habits of people who write both positive and negative reviews.
And it really makes you question whether we should place so much trust on the opinions of a very small percentage of product users.
If you’re going to read Amazon reviews, the article included a few tips to help you utilize them better.
Write Happy, Be Happy
Author of the Improve Your Math Fluency series of math workbooks and self-publishing guides
When Rachel from Rachel’s RandomResources wrote to me about the Cuttin’ Heads Book Blog Tour I decided to step out of my sweet scented, frilly pink, romance genre comfort zone, join the tour and read D.A. Watson’s book.
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