R. Shannon's Blog, page 4
June 6, 2025
Iron-On T-shirt Design – Father’s Day
Click here to download a high resolution digital copy with everything backwards so you can iron on the design to a T-shirt or other fabric item. Downloads are kept on Google Drive. This is the perfect gift from a young child.
I found this video on YouTube that is short and explains how to use iron-on transfers and also tips on getting the best results!
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Click here to download the entire series for free -- for a limited time!
June 1, 2025
The Ever Expanding Marketing Calendar
WHAT IS AN EVER EXPANDING MARKETING CALENDAR?
I do all of my own book marketing and have created an excel sheet that continually repurposes social media posts, and repeats them twice a year. At the same time, it is easy for me to add a new social post every time I make one. This way, even if I have a holiday week where I'm not working on my books or new marketing, I have 3 to sometimes 10 social media posts that I can use on any given day.
The picture above will show you that I keep everything together for the post, so that it can be an easy copy and paste. I even record the name of the social media post itself. This way, I don't have to shuffle around to find anything.
When I started self-publishing book, I knew I would have to do my own marketing. Even younger authors who are working for the publishing houses, I believe they are expected to maintain and keep up a presence on social media, so book marketing now goes hand-in-hand with writing. Most writers I know don't particularly care for marketing, but I believe the type of marketing I am showing you will work for those who don't particularly care for it. It puts your marketing on autopilot.
HOW DOES THE EVER-EXPANDING CALENDAR WORK?
I hired an excel coder to create an excel calendar with the coding inside of it that can be created with the click of a button. To the right you can see three boxes. The first one is the start date. You will change to 01/01/2025 or whatever year it is.
The second box is for how many posts you want to have the same date. In other words, I started with three which means I had three 01/01/ dates, and three 01/02/ dates. You don't use the year in the dates on this calendar because it works seamlessly from year to year.
Once you fill in the three posts per day, then you can insert a row and put in a fourth one, which is easy enough.
REPURPOSING AND RECYCLING YOUR POSTS:
I make posts for my books, for my blog articles, YouTube videos, free-downloads -- and anything else I think would interest my reader and author followers on social media. I have examples from my marketing calendar posted above.
DOUBLE AND TRIPLE DUTY:Every Post does at least double duty. If I make a post for 06/01/25, then I copy and paste it to appear again six months later on 12/01/25. This way, no one will know it's being repurposed a second time. And after a year or two, I then begin to change the pictures for the posts, and this gives me triple duty for every post.
It only took about four months for me to fill up a year's worth of posts. Now, I was working on it as a main project, so I was devoting time to it, but my point is that it doesn't take a full year to fill up the calendar.
I have a form below to fill out if you are interested in downloading the ever expanding marketing calendar for yourself.
May 30, 2025
Writing Short Stories with 3 Unbeatable Marketing Strategies in Mind
The first marketing strategy is to use your short story as a giveaway. In order to get the free eBook, the reader will need to sign up for your newsletter. This is the most common strategy that is used by self-published authors as well as seasoned authors who are promoted by the publishing houses.
It's common knowledge in the book industry that in today's world, every writer, new or seasoned, needs to continually build their reader list. Readers who sign up to your newsletter have tried your books and know they like them. They are your first line of marketing. They are the most likely customers for any new books you release. That being said, the best way to keep contact with your readership is to send a weekly or monthly newsletter.
Everyone loves freebies and adding a free short story or novelette into your newsletter will keep your readers coming back and new readers wanting to sign up. It will also keep your readership from pressing the unsubscribe button!
Writing short stories in your genre is also a good way to always have a few freebies to giveaway. Many authors write short stories or novelettes around the holidays specifically for this reason: Mystery romance around Christmas time, or a beach romance or mystery for summertime. There are many seasonal strategies to bring extra traffic to your Amazon Author page or your author website.
INTRODUCE YOUR BOOK SERIES WITH A FREE PREQUEL SHORT STORY:
A second strategy for marketing with short stories is to write a prequel to your present book series as a giveaway. You can use this book to swap with other authors on platforms such as Bookfunnel and Story Origin. Plenty of authors with lots of newsletter readers will want to swap with new authors as they already know they need to continually work on building their readership. The more books you have to swap, the quicker you will build your own readership.
A third strategy for short stories is to offer them for free on your author website. Like I said above, everyone loves a freebie. This is a good way to get readers to try you as an author without investing in you financially. If they like your style and writing voice, the chances are good that you will become someone they keep an eye out for.
You can post social media posts about the book, using several different graphics and link them to your website that has a download link to your short story eBook. By giving away a Novelette, which is only a little longer than a short story, you can get traffic to your new author website. Amazon even has categories for short reads now. This means there is a market, a sizeable one, who have readers who have limited time but want to read a good story. Be sure to cash in on this!
UNFAMILIAR WITH WRITING SHORT STORIES? HERE'S A DOWNLOADABLE SHORT STORY TEMPLATE:
If you, like me, started writing novels right off the bat and don't know how to write a short story or novelette, I am offering a free short story template that will make it fairly easy for you. The template contains the means to keep the story shorter than a novel.
A short story usually revolves around one incident or one particular happenstance, so it is much easier than writing an entire novel. Although, keeping within the confines of a short story can also be tricky. That's why I created this template for myself and I'm offering it to you for free. Click below to download it.
May 29, 2025
Coloring Page – National-Donut-Day
Click here to download an 8.5" x 11" png from Google Drive.
Check out my new Brainstorming Workbook!
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Free Download for a Limited Time
Click here to download the entire series for free -- for a limited time!
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
May 23, 2025
Mystery Novel Template in Four Parts
This is the Mystery Novel Template I wish I had when I first started out. Many of the videos I watched on YouTube used the Hero's Journey and some other adventure plotlines to explain plotting, but I never saw anything referring specifically to mystery stories.
I don't have to tell you how hard it was trying to fit a whodoneit into a hero's journey novel template! This breaks down the mystery into four easy parts. In my humble opinion, using a four-part story structure prevents the book from sagging in the middle section that is twice as long as part one and part three in a three-act structure.
Below is the template that you can download from Google Drive. I hope this helps in visualizing the mystery broken down into four parts. I know this helped me a lot when I wrote my own mysteries, all of which can be found on my author page on Amazon.com.
May 22, 2025
Iron-On T-shirt Design – America
Click here to download a high resolution digital copy with everything backwards so you can iron on the design to a T-shirt or other fabric item. Downloads are kept on Google Drive.
I found this video on YouTube that is short and explains how to use iron-on transfers and also tips on getting the best results!
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Click here to download the entire series for free -- for a limited time!
May 5, 2025
FANTASICING ABOUT CAMPERVANS – BUT GETTING SCARED
I had found videos on YouTube about five years ago about van life, people living in vans. The channel that YouTube served up into my recommendations was CheapRVLiving featuring Bob Wells, who is the leader of the pack, so to speak.
He started his channel and has hosted so many other van dwellers, every one of which was more fascinating than the other.
My first interest was pure fascination. How can a person live in a van? Or why would a person live in a van? After only a few videos, I became obsessed by the van dwellers and started to think I would like this lifestyle. It was always presented as a lifestyle as so many people were living in vans full time, as Bob does, for financial reasons.
THE EXPERT SOLAR GUY:
There was a young twenty-something guy, Will Prouse, who has a channel called DIY Solar Panels with Will Prouse. who lived out in California where housing was so expensive and he did diary entries about living in a RV at first, but then he moved into different types of vehicles.
He became an absolute expert at hooking up solar panels and creating converting systems. I used to watch him a lot because he lived right in the city at the time, and he shared a lot of crazy stories about street people he came into contact with. He was a world of information.
SCARYING MYSELF WOULD MAKE ME TURN BACK:As I thought about doing this, I would at times scare myself out of it. I would see how much strength you would need to build out these vans and often they were men building them — young men. I’m retired and close to 70 years old. There’s no way I have the strength of a young man. I never had the strength of a young man, even when I was 20-something myself — but I have even less so now.
Another way I used to scare myself was to see these young girls who had build out vans and were staying free on BLM land, which stands for Bureau of Land Management. The translation is land owned by the government that anyone can stay on for free. HOWEVER, often, these lands are in areas that are far removed from suburbs and even local towns.
I would see these girls camped out next to their vans or minivans — some even in sedans — in an area that seemed so desolate. I must confess, I would be too scared to do something like this. Growing up in a suburb of New York City, and living in the same type of ‘first ring of suburbs’ outside other cities, I’m not comfortable too far outside this area. I’m always afraid of getting a flat tire on any dirt road I have to travel on, even short ones. So driving for miles into these BLM lands? For me, this is out of the question.
The other thing that I would allow to scare me was the constant moving around and driving that many van dwellers seem to do. Because they choose to live in their vans, they’re always on the move. Aside from a few days at a campsite here and there, they seem to always be on the go. This used to scare me too until I realized that they had completely different goals for traveling in this fashion than I did.
For example: The young singles who choose to live in a van to help them pay off their school debt and/or save for a real house or condo, I think these people are brave and brilliant. I could see myself as having done something like this too. I used to live in New Jersey, right outside NYC and the houses that our parents purchased in the 1940s and 1950s for under $15,000 were selling for $250,000 and more. And this was happening in 1988! So any dream of owning property in that area made me move to south Florida where houses were still affordable.
FIGURING OUT WHY I WANTED TO CONVERT A CAMPERVAN:
When I realized that everyone had different goals for traveling, it made me realize that I was interested in a campervan to be a temporary and occasional traveler. I could travel to see family without flying — which I hate now. I don’t like flying because the pace of it is too much for me at my age. The bustle at airports like Miami and NYC, are just too much.
My last experience going through security with the TSA agents was also a nightmare. I had to find the tram that brought you to the gates, manage and lug around my suitcase and large purse,keep my IDs handy to flip out on command, figure out how to get the boarding pass from a kiosk, keep my tablet and laptop separate and ready to put into their own tubs, and then take off my shoes during this process, only to have to put my hands up and spin around in the x-ray machine, I was a nervous wreck by the time I got through it. I know I’m done with flying except for emergencies, and I now think of driving a campervan at my own pace as much easier.
I had to find my own reasons for wanting a campervan: I want to visit family without the stress of flying, driving at my own pace, and enjoying the journey.
The second motivation I found for traveling this way was having seen conferences that I would have loved to go to, but adding the expense of a flight and hotels and car rentals on top of the conference fee, it was too much and I would opt not to go. But if I can plan to take 3 days to get there, I can go to many of these conferences for less than half of the expense.
BEING ABLE TO CONTINUE WRITING:
The other motivation that I found about traveling in a campervan is that I can still write as an author during my rest periods. For example: Traveling four to 6 hours a day is about as much as I can take of pure driving. So if I can find a campground that I can stay in for the afternoon and evening, I can write either in my campervan or I can even go to a local library and write in AC or heating comfort before settling in to go to sleep at the campgrounds.
By traveling with my own sleeping arrangements, I can also visit old friends that I haven’t seen in years. If you visit someone on a plane, you’ve made your decision who you will visit. If the other people you would love to see live more than an hour away, it’s hard to get to see them on the same trip.
Once I find my own motivations for why I wanted to travel this way, I was able to watch the videos of people camping on BLM land and not allow it to scare me out of the idea. I was able to watch for their travel tips.
May 4, 2025
How Grief & Loss Can Affect a Writer’s Mind
I have been writing novels since about two years before I retired in 2020. You can see them all if you click on the picture of them to the left. My life has been very stable and this, of course, makes writing very easy. Writing novels gave my life a certain structure and routine that can disappear when one retires from the workplace.
I moved to central Florida to get away from the craziness of Broward County, Florida, and had two family members close by. My brother lives in Orlando, which is only an hour away, and my cousin Michael moved up to live in my town and only lived two blocks away. My cousin and I had been close my entire adult life, and had gotten closer in the last five or six years. He was my anchor in this area of Florida. I have always been a "family person".
My other relative living close by is my brother Bill who lives in Orlando. It's only about an hour or so away and we met at least monthly for lunch and to catch up.
In the first week of April, my cousin Michael showed signs of not being able to finish his sentences. This happened overnight. I was with him the week before this and he was fine; better than fine. His speech was perfect and his memory was still 10 times better than mine.
Me, Cousin Joanne & Cousin MichaelAfter having to wrestle with him to go to the emergency room, he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and had 5 tumors that were inside his head. The prognosis was not good. My heart was broken for him, but I had to jump into caretaking mode, and that is a physically and mentally demanding role. In other words, there's no time for crying or falling to bits and pieces. I was raised as an Irish stoic of the highest order, and we don't collapse into tears until the mission, whatever that is, is completed.
So I and Michael's sister -- who immediately flew down from the northeast -- started preparing his house to have in-home hospice. His house had fallen to bits and pieces over time. A few weeks before this diagnosis, he had banned me from coming inside. He said it was because it was messy and he didn't want me to see. I am a bit of a neat freak, so I said I understood. However, the house showed signs that it wasn't just a mess; he had lost the ability to take care of himself and his cat. He just hid it well.
Living two blocks away from where Michael would be with hospice, my house filled up with cousins and spouse-helpers. We ran all over town preparing to have Michael discharged and brought home for in-house hospital.
While signing up my cousin for county services, he fell while walking with us and hit his head. This fall suddenly changed everything. He was taken by the paramedics and arrangements were made to have him go to a hospice facility. Instead of needing in-house hospital, he would spend the next two and a half weeks in the hospice facility before he passed away.
The hospice he was in was beautiful, clean, and everyone who worked there was wonderful. We found it through Marion County Services, E.W. & Lucille Cates House, and it was wonderful. The people who worked in the hospice system were all compassionate people who had been called to this type of work -- which is not easy. I am eternally grateful to them for how lovingly they took care of Michael in his last weeks.
During this time, my creative mind shut off. I don't think this is unique to me. I assume this would occur with anyone, especially when you are dealing with caretaking and/or grief. Writing was put not only on the back burner, but the pot was set off on a resting pad for an unknown time in the future.
I did continue my marketing, as my marketing is on semi-autopilot and it is as easy as copying and pasting onto the sites and takes less than 30 minutes. This routine at least kept me tethered to the book author in me.
STRENGTH THROUGH FAITH:Raised Catholic and having embraced the faith myself many years ago, this has given me a softer view of death because I know it's not the end. My cousin, as well as the other family members who went before him and who I still miss, are with the Lord and I believe that I will see them all again. I liken it to being in the world, which is like Disney World, and they got tired and went back to the hotel room. I'm still in the park but I know they are not that far away and I will see them again.
We had our priest come and pray with Michael before he passed, and my cousin and I said a Rosary at his bedside the night before he died. So I take great comfort knowing that we were with him until the end. He drifted off to Heaven without any pain. I consider this, even in spite of the shocking and sudden diagnosis and loss, the blessing of a painless death.
ANOTHER LOSS:About a week after Michael's passing and cremation, my brother announced he will be moving down to Hollywood, Florida to be closer to his children. That's about five or six hours from where I live. Suddenly, my second family anchor is disappearing. This made me feel more unanchored than I felt losing my best buddy and cousin, Michael.
FINDING A NEW NORMAL:I know from past losses that there will always be a new normal. I also know I have to be willing to go through the painful and scary feelings of being lost and untethered before I can find that new normal.
I spent two weeks after Michael passed away running around and taking care of the 'business side of death' which involves lots of calls and running around.
During this time, I opened my last book, and wasn't even sure where I was with things. I write in Scrivener, so it didn't take long to find my place and figure out where I was in the story. I managed to pick up where I last was and wrote a few chapters on the same story. This restored my faith in being able to continue on with my writing.
PLUGGING ALONG:
As an author I am plugging along, but things are still slow and I'm still quite distracted by the grief and losses. Losing my two family members, one to death and one to Hollywood, Florida, led me to buying a minivan to build out as a camper van. I am intending to become a part time campervan traveler. This way, I can visit my other family members who reside in different places all up and down the east coast.
I'm still in the planning and layout stages, but I want to build a minivan where I can continue writing and visiting family. I still feel heavy with grief, but I feel hopeful for the future. I can see the glimmer of a new normal. I'll keep you all posted!
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April 30, 2025
Iron-On T-shirt Design – Feeling Feline
Click here to download a high resolution digital copy with everything backwards so you can iron on the design to a T-shirt or other fabric item. Downloads are kept on Google Drive.
I found this video on YouTube that is short and explains how to use iron-on transfers and also tips on getting the best results!
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Click here to download the entire series for free -- for a limited time!
April 12, 2025
Coloring Page – Cinco de Mayo
Click here to download an 8.5" X 11" pdf from
Google Drive
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Free Download for a Limited Time
Click here to download the entire series for free -- for a limited time!
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
