It's All a Matter of Perspective
99.3% truth, .7% blatant lies. In between lies my perspective on life.
When I first heard of Twitter.com, I could not imagine why I would want to use it. Several writers I know dragged me into it, and after a few weeks, I began to see its value. Here are just a few reasons why writers should use Twitter: 1. Train yourself to write a complete thought Read More …
“Great images” don’t have to be slick, magazine-quality, professional photos. But if you want people to share your posts, learn to make or find illustrations that increase the odds by 50% or more. Read More …
Kevan Lee gave us 30+ Ultimate Headline Formulas for Tweets, Posts, Articles, and Emails. Or 30+ templates for headlines that make us click, even as we roll our eyes… Click-baity, Upworthy-style, BuzzFeed-type headlines work, because they have the backing of human psychology. These headlines whet the reader’s appetite and tug at the brain until we’re compelled to Read More …
Is your approach to blogging and social media data driven, or intuitive? Mine’s generally been a spotty combination of intuition, common sense, intuition, and wishful thinking. When we say things like, “Don’t be a spammy spammer” or “never use those nasty pop-ups” and “be real, be vulnerable, be a people person” we are, to some Read More …
Do your blogging efforts sometimes feel a little haphazard – just a bit too “hit or miss”? You may have heard, “You need a blog!” but still don’t have more than a vague notion of why or what to do with one. Are you an inconsistent blogger – enthusiastic and energetic, one day, while forgetting you Read More …
Step into my author blog. It is a holodeck for my brain. Today, it is a tiny library lit by the amber glow of a banker’s light atop a heavy, burled walnut desk. The bookshelves stretch from floor to ceiling; there is a trap door with a spiral staircase, just behind the desk, that leads to Read More …
Writers have been learning the importance of “shameless self-promotion” for over a decade, but it’s still more comfortable for many of us to promote other people than to toot our own horns. Oh, we’re learning – but that doesn’t make it “comfortable.” It’s not really our “happy place.” Most authors would prefer to have a small Read More …
Last year, I had an epiphany: I should have chosen “The Dictionary” as my theme, and called it “Stick a Pin In It.” I might not have felt so constrained, and it would have been impossible to run out of material. It might have felt like cheating – a little – but I would have made it Read More …
Not all authors are introverts. However, many of us are slightly bewildered at the thought of readers being interested in us, and fail to fully grasp why it’s important to play on the social media playgrounds with readers and other writers. In Amazon Author Central, we explored some of the reasons readers are interested in Read More …
It was a little “slice of life vignette,” a bit of self-conscious dialogue stuck between humorous, unlikely, and cliché – spoken between oddly-named characters in a stereotypical café – yet my creative writing professor’s only criticism was, “Nobody wants to read about writers.” Imagine my fleeting resentment when Stephen King’s Misery skyrocketed to fame and fortune. It was an Read More …
My friend Willard Campbell asked, “Since I don’t often read children’s books I’m not familiar with your characters. Do you write other books? How do your characters find their way?” Find their way? I don’t know – it’s my job to get them lost and make that a challenge for them. You’d have to ask Read More …
I was wrong. I said that June 5 was the deadline for the 250 votes needed to keep 4RV Publishing in the running for a Chase small business grant of $100,000. It turns out that June 5 was the deadline for submitting applications for the grant. Whew! It would have been tragic to be out of Read More …
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