July 30th, 2010
Have you ever read a book, or watched a movie, only to walk away thinking “wow, that character didn’t have any depth”? This is a common problem that we see in today’s fiction market place, and there’s a really good reason as to why we walk away thinking that the characters have no depth – because the writer didn’t know enough about the characters. Most writers will immediately write down all of the important information about their main characters, such as name, age, job, ethnicity, appearance, residence, ect, but how often do you think a writer will write down most of this information about their secondary characters? And in many cases they don’t have enough information about their primary characters to give good depth to the character.
One great tip is to know more about the character than you’ll ever write about them. Why is this a good idea? Let’s say we have a character named Sally, and we know that one of Sally’s favorite hobbies is to play chess. Now we may never show Sally playing chess in the story, but we may be able to reference it briefly. Say, for instance, that Sally is watching the primary characters argue, she could say something like “checkmate”. The average reader may not think “ahh, Sally likes chess”, but they will know that Sally understands chess, which, believe it or not, may actually show that she’s an intelligent person, as chess is associated with people who are very smart.
The point is that it’s vital that you know a great deal about your characters. You can even make yourself a spreadsheet and can fill it out for each character. Make sure to put information like favorite foods, friends, phobias, faults, secrets, illnesses, nervous gestures, sleeping patterns, marriage status, religion, and so on in your spreadsheet. This will not only help you to get to know your characters, giving them depth, but will also give you something to reference back to if you get confused with one of your secondary characters.
Tags: writing a book
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July 28th, 2010
Most writers like to write instead of verbally connecting with people. Writing is a much easier way for them to get out their emotions or their thoughts, but that doesn’t necessarily help when you’re talking about marketing an ebook. You may have written your ebook and know that it’s great, but you need to get people to purchase it. One great way to do that is to learn a bit about how to use your verbal skills to your advantage.
It doesn’t matter whether you live in a small town, or a large city, but there will always be speaking opportunities available for you. One option, for instance, may be for you to speak with college students. Do you have a college in your vicinity? If the college has writing courses, connect with the people in charge and ask about talking with the students. You can discuss your writing methods with them and you can discuss your work.
So what does this accomplish? It helps, first of all, to get your name out there. When you stand in front of a group of people, and if you make a connection with them, you’ll know for sure that every person will talk with at least two people, so if ten people talk with two people, and ten of those people talk with two more people, you’ll quickly have a lot of people learning about your work. Another thing that you can look forward to in speaking with groups like college classes is in getting ideas to write! You never know when you’ll run into someone who has an interesting story to tell and who inspires you!
Tags: market ebook
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July 26th, 2010
Are you one of those people who jumps whenever you think about going into an Apple store and being able to play with all of the lovely gadgets that they have on display? Do you try to snag a brand new high tech gadget as soon as it’s available? If you do, then you may actually have, in your hands, the perfect tool to help you with your writing. Most people now have a cell phone or as it’s more popularly known, a “smart phone”. These smart phones allow you to do so many things, including listening to music, checking email, and leaving notes for yourself.
Some of these phones allow you to leave yourself a memo with speech, while others have little notepad applications that you can open. If you have something like this, then you’re golden. How can having technology like this make you a better writer? Let me ask you this: have you ever been riding down the road, relaxed and enjoying the day, only to come up with an amazing idea for a new story or novel? What do you do then?
If you have a phone like this, or some sort of electronic gadget that can take memos, you leave yourself a memo! Pull over on the side of the road (as long as you’re not going to be late for a meeting) and jot down what you just thought. You don’t have to flush it out entirely, but it is very important that you make sure to write down what you’re thinking as soon as you’re thinking it. Waiting too long will mean that you may forget about your great idea, and who knows, that could have been the one that put you on the map!
Tags: writing an ebook
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July 23rd, 2010
There are a lot of misconceptions that go around about authors. To see this in action, do a little experiment. The next time you meet someone new and they ask what you do, tell them that you work in a factory (even if you don’t) and see how they react. Then, when you meet someone else, tell them you’re a writer and see how they react. Most people believe that writers are extremely intellectual, and that people who work in factories are not. This is a huge misconception.
You may have a genius working next to you in the factory, just as a writer that you love may not be all that smart. But these are misconceptions that have been around for ages and that are not going anywhere. Because of this people have a difficult time believing that they can become a writer, especially if they’ve never tried to publish something before. They believe the hype, that you have to be a genius to be a writer who can make a living off of it. That is just not true! Some of the most popular writers out there today not only aren’t geniuses, but many of them didn’t even attend college!
If you wake up in the morning and you want to write, then you’re a writer. It doesn’t matter if you’re not established yet, as long as you’re working towards your goal and are writing on a regular basis, you can consider yourself a writer. Publishing an ebook is very easy (thanks to technology!) and you will find that if you opt to do so, you’ll not only gain confidence in your abilities, but you’ll also be proud to call yourself a writer!
Tags: writing a book
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July 21st, 2010
One thing that most new authors don’t think about is what they’re going to do when someone contacts them. If you’ve got a blog and a website up and running, and a Twitter account and a Facebook or MySpace account, you’ll eventually have people trying to connect with you. The more popular you get, the more people you’ll have contacting you. At first this can be extremely thrilling, but as time goes on you can see how much time it can take in order to respond to all of your fans, so what do you do?
You need to make a decision about whether you’re going to automate your responses or are going to continue to send personalized messages. If you opt to send personalized messages, it can be a good idea to set aside a specific amount of time every week, or every day, depending on your schedule, in order to connect with your fans. Answer the letters quickly, but make sure that the messages are personal and that they don’t sound automated. Use the person’s name in the response a few times and speak directly to something that they wrote you.
If you go automated, make sure that you explain, in the message, why you’ve gone automated. Explain that you’re working on your next book, or that you’re overwhelmed with emails, and make sure that you explain that you do read every message and that you respond to as many as possible. This will help the person to realize that you aren’t simply ignoring them, and make sure that you do answer a few message as often as possible, so that you can stay connected with your fans.
Tags: marketing ebook
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July 19th, 2010
When you own your own business, it’s almost an instant reaction to spend money on advertising. That’s why, when you publish your own ebook, it’s an instant reaction to think about spending money to advertise, or market, your ebook to the rest of the world. But the truth is that you don’t need to spend a great amount of money, or, really, any money to market your ebook. There are a lot of things that you can do to market your ebook absolutely free.
The first thing that you should definitely do is to make sure that you are known on the internet. If you don’t have a website, or aren’t on a social marketing site, then you likely aren’t known on the internet. By creating a presence on the internet, you’re able to get the word out about your new work. Once you’re online, take the time to look for other authors. You will likely be able to find blogs of other authors who write work that is similar to yours. Befriend them! Start by writing a message on their blog (and it’s a plus if you actually take the time to read their work) and letting them know that you’re out there.
Message boards are a great way to get the word out about you and your work. Find some message boards and join them. Answer questions that new people have, and don’t forget to add the address to your website in your signature on the blog. Make sure that you pop in on the site regularly, so it doesn’t look like you’re just there to advertise. It’s also a great idea to join writers groups online, which are similar to message boards, and to get in touch with writers this way! It’s entirely possible to market your book online without ever spending a dime, so make sure that you take advantage of the internet!
Tags: market ebook
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July 16th, 2010
Remember high school English, when the teacher pounded all of the various parts of the sentence into your head so often that you thought you’d be able to tell what a predicate was in your sleep. Years later, however, you suddenly start scratching your head and realize that you can’t remember what all of those technical English terms mean again, or how you’re supposed to use them. The idea of editing, when you start thinking about all of those technical rules, can be very daunting, but in reality editing can actually be very simple.
When you start editing, start by just making sure that all of your sentences are complete. How can you do this? Read the sentence by itself. If you can read the sentence by itself and it makes sense, then you know that you probably have all of the important parts in the sentence. If, however, you read the sentence and it seems odd, you likely have missed something. Take, for instance, these two sentences:
The house was on fire.
The house on fire.
That may seem like a very easy mistake to avoid, but when you’re in the heat of writing it’s easy to think that you wrote a complete sentence when, in reality, you were only thinking of the complete sentence. Make sure that your periods are in the right place. How can you tell? A period should go where you’d stop for emphasis or to take a breath when you’re talking. Writing something, like, this, for, instance, wouldn’t work. You’d sound like you were gasping for air. Writing something like this, for instance, would work. Editing doesn’t have to be difficult. Read what you’ve written and, if something seems off, take time to work with the words to see what sounds better.
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July 14th, 2010
Are you ready to publish your work? Are you sure? There are many authors who complain about their work, wondering why they don’t have as many followers of their writing as they hoped that they would have. Half of the reason why so many authors fail when they first start is because the work that they put out isn’t really ready. The work may be incomplete, or the story may be thin, or it may be simple editing problems that keep the work from being ready to publish. Before you publish your work, check out a few things first in order to give your work the best chance to shine.
The first thing that you should do is to make sure that you’ve thoroughly edited for the basic things, such as spelling and sentence completion. This is done easily enough, and when you do it, make sure that your sentences and paragraphs aren’t too long. A paragraph that is too long runs the risk of boring your readers, which is something that you definitely don’t want to do. The same holds true for sentences. You need to make sure that you justify every sentence that you have in your work. If you can read a paragraph and can remove a sentence or two without altering the meaning of the paragraph, then those sentences likely don’t need to be there in the first place.
It’s also a good idea to have a friend or two read your work before you go to publish it. This not only helps you to catch any mistakes that you may have missed, but also help you to ensure that your work is complete and that the story makes sense. Double check everything and you’ll quickly find that your work becomes better and better!
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July 9th, 2010
There are a lot of writers who are introverted people. They don’t like to talk about themselves, and they have a difficult time marketing their ebooks. This makes sense, as many writers are so good at writing because they don’t like to be vocal about everything. This can make it tricky, however, for marketing purposes. There are a number of ways around this problem that can help you to market your work while, at the same time, staying comfortable.
Starting a website or blog is key. When you start a blog, you’re able to get your thoughts out through writing instead of through speech. One way to make the blog easier is to write in third person. Don’t write “I”, write “she”. It may be a bit strange to get used to doing considering that you’re talking about yourself, but it can be a great way for you to practice your tenses as well as a much more comfortable way for you to get your marketing done and to become more comfortable with the marketing process and talking about yourself.
Another tip is to start by connecting first with people that you know. By connecting with your friends first, you’ll be able to practice your marketing so that you understand what is expected of you and so that you learn how things sound, and you’ll also be able to get more comfortable with marketing. And why not practice talking in the mirror? Speaking to groups in your area can be a great marketing technique, but it’s not so fun if you’re uncomfortable. Instead, start by writing things down and practicing saying them in the mirror. This will help you to get more comfortable with everything!
Tags: market ebook
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July 7th, 2010
When Twitter first started, most people began using it as a way to talk about trivial things. They’d post “Tweets” about how they were making dinner, or about what they wanted for their birthday. But now people realize that Twitter can be used for much more than for just talking about trivial daily stuff. If you use Twitter right, it can be a perfect way to network market and to boost sales of your ebook.
To start, the first thing that you need to do is to open up a Twitter account! Twitter is absolutely free and is very easy to sign up for. When signing up for your account, it’s important that you use some sort of name that makes sense. Don’t use a Twitter name like “Lake Guy”, unless you’re someone who writes only about lakes. Most authors tend to use their real name on Twitter, as it makes it easier for your name to pop up on search engines and it is much more professional looking.
Once you’ve signed up on Twitter, you then need to start posting and to find other people to network with. The first part is easy – post about anything related to your work. Post about your writing process, post little parts of your book through the Twitter (little quotes), post about new works that you’ve got going on. Finding people to read your Tweets can be the frustrating part. When you start looking for people to read your posts, start by finding your friends online. Connect with them and you’ll be able to have a wealth of people available to read your Tweets. The more interesting your Tweets are, the more readers you’ll get, and the more you’ll be able to sell your book!
Tags: market ebook
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