Debbie Ridpath Ohi's Blog, page 163

Making More Time To Write: E-mail Follow-up

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Thanks for all the feedback to my post, Making More Time To Write: Cleaning Up Your Inbox and Improving Your E-mail System.

Thanks especially to Travis for pointing me to Mailplane, a desktop Mac app for Gmail users:

From Travis:

When I used the Gmail interface for my email (via a nice little Mac app named Mailplane), I organized it with the Multiple Mailboxes plugin which is available from the "labs" link. From there, I created various Getting Things Done type boxes where I would file email...

Ruth Ann Nordin: tips to help self-published authors increase sales

Ruth Ann Nordin has offered advice on how authors can increase their book sales, based on her own experience in selling her self-published book. As she points out, her sales are still modest, but her post is a good source of ideas on how to build an author platform in a year. Thanks for sharing, Ruth Ann!

Weekly Wordcount Challenge Check-in (250, 500, 1000 wds/day)

250 wds/day | 500 wds/day | 1000 wds/day

So how did you all do with your daily wordcount challenges since the last check-in?

To find out more about daily wordcount challenges, click any of the links above.

Mary Kole on growing a thicker skin

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One of my favourite blog for children's writers is Mary Kole's Kidlit.com. Mary Kole is an associate agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Quote from her post today:

It's in your best interest to develop a thick skin, learn how to take criticism and rejection, separate yourself from what you've put on a page, learn everything you can about the industry, get realistic, and keep writing every day. The one-in-a-million publication stories are the ones you hear because they're glamorous. Most...

Countdown to January 27th: Anyone else hyped?

Anyone else hyped?

CARTOON EMBED CODE:


(Before embedding, see my cartoon licensing info.)

 

Before entering writing contests, ALWAYS read the fine print

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WorkLifeGroup is running a writing contest that's meant to help them find contributing writers but in my opinion, they're going about it the wrong way. "We're aiming to identify writers all from over the globe to write for us on an ongoing basis; to join WorkLifeGroup as contributing writers (paying gigs, naturally!)." No entry fee, prize is $500. Deadline: Jan 31st, 2010.

Before you enter, however, be sure to read all the terms and conditions. Not only does the story have to be original and w...

Helping Haiti Heal: fundraising podcast Sat 2 pm

Writers and fans are joining forces in a live fundraising podcast this Saturday at 2 pm. You can find more info here.

Prizes include props from the Harry Potter movies, 30 pages of original fiction critiqued by Rosemary Clement-Moore, 20 pages of fiction edited by Cheryl Klein of Arthur A Levine Books, and TONS more.

Scribophile: New Beginnings writing contest

Scribophile has launched the New Beginnings writing contest. They're accepting short stories (up to 3000 words) featuring the theme "new beginnings." First prize is a $100 gift card to Amazon.com plus credit for 3000 words of professional editing service from Elite Editing. 2nd place is a $50 Amazon.com gift card.

No entry fee, but it looks as if you need to become part of the Scribophile critique community AND post some critiques first before you're allowed to enter.

Deadline is March 3...

Interview with Chuck Ingwersen, greeting card writer/designer

Chuck Ingwersen is a freelance writer and cartoonist who posts his "cartoons, short stories and bad poetry" on his humor blog, Words And Toons.

You can find Chuck's greeting cards at http://www.zazzle.com/chuckink.

How did you get into greeting card design?

I've created funny greeting cards for family members for as long as I can remember, and it's been my goal for years to become a published greeting card writer and artist. After more than 20 years as a newspaper writer, editor and page...

Copyscape: effective plagiarism-preventing service or not?

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I came across a "Protected by Copyscape" banner in a writer's blog and was curious enough to check out the service. From their About page:

Copyscape is dedicated to protecting your valuable content online. We provide the world's most powerful and most popular online plagiarism detection solutions, ranked #1 by independent tests. Copyscape's products are trusted by millions of website owners worldwide to check the originality of their new content, prevent duplicate content, and search for...