“Random Writes” and Why I Love Them

A Writer's Path

by Samantha Fenton

In a world where time is hard to divide and hours of pure concentration take much energy and effort, random writes have come to save me. Random writes are defined as followed:A short, 500 – 2,000 word, non-edited dabble in whatever the author wants to write about.

I have also heard these referred to as “flash-fiction,” “quick writes,” or even “warm-up writing.”

I have a folder on my computer titled “Random Writes,” which I’ll write in whenever my brain feels like writing something new. Mine tend to be fiction, mostly narrative types, but I also do this with poems. Random writes are a great way to lay down some creative energy when, say, in the middle of line editing a novel.

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How to Follow your Dreams through Writing

Nicholas C. Rossis

Getting started with a writing project can be daunting. It is difficult to know if the ideas in your head will look any good on paper, and whether anybody else will want to read them once they’re written down. It can be especially intimidating when you’re starting a project that’s close to your heart, a project of passion that showcases your own creativity and unique ideas. The best way to approach it is to have faith in yourself, follow your own dreams, and stick to your guns… but remain flexible.

So, how you can achieve this and realize your vision in writing?

Find your niche

Photo by rawpixel / Public Domain

The internet as a whole, and Amazon’s book-buying empire in particular, has made self-publishing much easier today than it was even 10 years ago. This is fantastic in that it gives writers the opportunity to reach a wider audience…

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Friday Roundup -19th October

Stevie Turner

Thanks to these authors and bloggers for the following writing tips:

1.  Jasmine  Eclipse, guest of Nicholas C. Rossis, for these sites that pay for your writing:

https://nicholasrossis.wordpress.com/2018/10/05/sites-that-pay-you-for-your-writing/

2.  Joanna Penn with 7 tips for selling more books on Kobo:

https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2018/08/31/7-tips-for-selling-more-books-and-reaching-more-readers-on-kobo/

3.  Stephen Bentley says let experiences and emotions fuel your writing:

https://www.stephenbentley.info/let-experiences-and-emotions-fuel-your-writing/#comment-221

4.  Erica Verrillo with 3 new agents seeking submissions:

3 New Literary Agents Seeking Literary Fiction, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Memoir, Women’s Fiction & more – by Erica Verrillo…

5.  Janice Wald in making your content go viral:

https://www.mostlyblogging.com/go-viral/

5.  Dave Burnham with advice on proofreading:

20 Tips to Proofread Like A Professional

6.  K.M Weiland with advice on structuring your story:

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/story-structure/#

7.  Mae Clair with 5 things every writer needs:

Five Things Every Writer Should Have

8.  Meg Dowell asks writers 3 important questions:

Your Answers to These 3 Questions Will Determine Whether or Not Writing is Your True Calling

9. …

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3 Valuable Lessons I’ve Learned from Writing

A Writer's Path

by Kelsie Engen

What is one valuable lesson you’ve learned since you started writing?

That’s a hard one, because I feel like I’ve learned many things the more I write.

In fact, writing is one of those things that makes you learn, even if you want to or not.

Or perhaps it just takes an extraordinarily stubborn person to not learn something while learning a new skill in order to truly not learn anything new. ; -)

So in the interest of brevity, I’ll share the three top lessons I’ve learned as a writer.

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Looking for CreateSpace? What’s the Best Alternative Now?

chrismcmullen

THE BEST PLACE TO PUBLISH A PRINT-ON-DEMAND BOOK

For 10 years, I have heartily recommended CreateSpace for self-publishing a paperback book.

But now if you visit CreateSpace, you will be directed elsewhere.

So what is the best place for print-on-demand now?

The two major options are Amazon KDP and Ingram Spark. There are a couple of other options, such as Lulu and BookBaby.

AMAZON KDP

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is Amazon’s original self-publishing service.

kdp.amazon.com

Although it used to be exclusively for Kindle eBooks, it has recently expanded to offer paperbacks.

It has also evolved so that it either matches or surpasses CreateSpace in the most significant ways.

CreateSpace didn’t disappear. Rather, CreateSpace simply merged with KDP.

KDP’s paperbacks print on the same facilities used by CreateSpace.

You get the same quality with KDP as you could expect from CreateSpace.

Since KDP is Amazon’s company, KDP is the natural feed…

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KDP Keywords Revisited

Nicholas C. Rossis

Readers of my blog will no doubt be aware of the importance of the categories and keywords your book uses. From using Amazon categories to increase your rankings to the perils of using keywords like Free, Bestseller, and Kindle, they can be used to optimize your book page. But, as I often say, book marketing is like building on quicksand: everything changes every other month.

No, it’s not that keywords are suddenly any less important — in fact, quite the contrary. It’s just that the way Amazon uses them to identify which books to display when a reader searches for a book to read seems to have changed lately.

Amazon Keywords, The Old Way…

As David Kudler of The Book Designer explains, it used to be that you could use natural-sounding phrases of two to five words for your keywords, especially those which returned between two hundred and a…

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How to Write Grieving Characters

A Writer's Path

by Whitney Carter

Putting grief into words is futile. And trying to do so would bankrupt the vocabulary of all languages. -Mark Twain

Grief is a heavy and relatively ever-present part of life. Just as surely as we are born, we have to die too. While it’s true you and I, by virtue of sitting here, are still alive, we’ve all had to say goodbye to someone, and regardless of how deeply felt that loss might have been, grief changes who we are on a fundamental level. It makes us question our existence, how we function on a daily basis and what we really want for the short time left to us.

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Kindle Unlimited per Page Rate * Increase * for September, 2018

chrismcmullen

HOW MUCH DID KINDLE UNLIMITED PAY FOR PAGES READ IN SEPTEMBER, 2018?

In September, 2018 Amazon paid $0.00488 per KENP page read for books participating in Kindle Unlimited through KDP Select.

That’s nearly a 10% increase over August, 2018, which paid $0.00449 per page.

This is a nice surprise, as the per-page rate has been very steady for much of 2018.

The KDP Select Global Fund hit yet another record high, this time $23.4 million for September, 2018.

Compare with August ($23.3M), July ($23.1M), June ($22.6M), and May ($22.5M).

Write Happy, Be Happy

Chris McMullen

Author of the Improve Your Math Fluency series of math workbooks and self-publishing guides

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On Choosing the Right Word

A Writer's Path

by Julianne Q. Johnson

I was taking part in a conversation between various writers today about word choice. Some participants were arguing the point that using fancier word choices was the way to go. They were quite fierce about it and mentioned how it was nice to build their readers’ vocabulary, and besides, Kindle and the like make it so easy to look up a new word. That’s fine. That’s their writing style.

It’s not mine.

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How to Optimize your Book Page on Amazon

Nicholas C. Rossis

This post is based on an article I helped write for SearchNurture titled How to Hit Your Target ACoS on Amazon.

Optimizing your Book Page

Amazon is, in effect, a giant search engine of products. To ensure that your book shows up first, you must target specific keywords both organically (i.e. based on your product description) and through Ads. However, no matter how successful your Ad is, all it can accomplish is lead shoppers to your product page. It is up to that to convince them to buy your book.

Ideally, everything on your book page will be tailored for your target audience. Let’s take, for example, my book, A Heaven for Toasters. I want shoppers searching for “sci-fi crime romance” to buy my book. What can I do to make sure they do so?

Title

Start with your page title. Think of it as a hook. Let…

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