Rob Bignell's Blog, page 282

Writing Inspiration: Ask key questions

Even if you have the seed of a story idea, imagining how it might grow into something greater can be daunting. Asking yourself some key questions about the story idea, however, can help you develop it. For example, if writing fiction, you might ask: What is the story���s main conflict or what upsets the order of the world? Who is the main character that must solve this conflict or re-establish order? What internal conflict does the main character possess that prevents her from going forward to resolve this conflict? What compels her to overcome this inner conflict and re-establish order?

The above questions work well for fiction, but what if writing nonfiction? Some key questions you might instead ask include: What is the one piece of information that I want readers to get from my book? What are some subpoints to that one idea? What are some different ways that this information can be explained to readers? Why do my readers need to know this information?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Chicago, Illinois, or a small town like Humptulips, Washington, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Boost book sales with promo codes, coupons

Often when a retail store or a business wants to generate interest in a product, it offers coupons. You can do the same with your books.

While you have limited control over your book���s price at online sites such as Amazon.com, you still can offer a variety of promo codes and coupons that drop its cost. CreateSpace has a promo code option for the paperbacks its prints while Smashwords actually offers a coupon generator that can be applied to ebooks for Kindle, iBook, Nook and Kobo sold through its site (KindleDP allows for your book to given away free, though no promo code or coupon is necessary for potential buyers.).

When offering promo codes and coupons, follow some basic guidelines:
��� Set an expiration date ��� A limited time offer creates a sense of urgency in potential buyers. Move your book by relying on their impulse to not let a good deal to slip away.
��� Keep it focused on a lone book ��� Think in advance about what you most hope to achieve by offering a discount. Move a book that isn���t selling? Generate interest in a series? To land new customers? Determine in advance which lone book in your cache of titles best serves your goal and focus on selling that one. Sales of your other books naturally will follow.
��� Promote the heck out of your special offer ��� Provide readers your promo code or coupon at all of your social media networks, your website/blog, and via your mailing list. The promo code and coupon does no good if no one knows about it. Encourage your readers to share the code or coupon.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Miami, Florida, or a small town like Normal, Illinois, I can provide that second eye.

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Ebooks differ significantly from paper books

Often when publishing a manuscript, new authors think of the ebook as simply a digital copy of their paper book. Indeed, the largest producer and seller of ebooks ��� KindleDP ��� unintentionally reinforces this thought by offering a simple online conversion of one���s just-published paper book to ebook. In truth, ebooks are a much more complex product than what a quick online conversion suggests.

Arguably, an ebook is as different from a paper book than a TV show is from a radio production. While both the TV and radio show may tell the same story or provide the same information, how they do so is significantly different. So it is with a paper back and an ebook.

Ebooks differ from a paper book in five major ways:
��� Page numbers ��� Ebooks don���t contain page numbers. That���s because the reader can change the ebook���s font and size on their ereader, tablet or mobile device. Because of this, the table of contents is constructed slightly differently than in a paper book, and an index is all but obsolete.
��� Interactivity ��� An ebook page is essentially a website page. It can contain hyperlinks that actually can take readers away to the book, instantly to other parts of the book, to photo albums, and even to videos. Readers also can change the way the screen shows the ebook page.
��� Article-like content ��� As a website page, an ebook lends itself to shorter writing than does a paper book. Bulleted lists often appear repeatedly in a single ebook. The reading of such quick blurbs would be tiresome in a paper book but are easy to digest in digital form. This is not to say that long paragraphs and swaths of text don���t work on an ebook ��� they do ��� just that quick, list-oriented writing can work better in ebooks than paper books.
��� Not conducive to poetry and tables/charts ��� The line breaks and word placement in poetry tends to get messy when the reader can alter the book���s font size and when the piece appears on a small screen. The same applies to tables and charts, which usually work best on a page/screen that is at least a few inches wide and high.
��� Shorter overall lengths ��� The price of ebooks are invariably lower than paper books if only because the former don���t require extensive production costs, such a ink, paper and the labor to run and maintain a printing press. This affects the structure of the ebook as many writers, to get more return on their investment, deliberately pen shorter ebooks; sometimes, they���d even be too short to be printed or sold as a paper book! Sales figures suggest that readers are okay with purchasing ebooks with low word counts.

As writing your book ��� and especially if you plan to release it first as an ebook ��� you should consider how these differences affect the way you can best present your story or information. You may find yourself creating two at least slightly different versions of the same book!

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like San Francisco, California, or a small town like Nimrod, Oregon, I can provide that second eye.

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Editing client���s essay published in NYC magazine

An essay by a long-time editing client of mine, Los Angeles' Lasher Lane, was published in Volume 1 Brooklyn's Sunday Stories. Her ���An Honest Reflection Serves No One��� tells the story of how her father ��� a Protestant from small town New Jersey ��� met, courted and married her mother ��� a Catholic from cultured New York City. The essay also relates how once married her father tried to avoid entanglements with the mob. The piece can be read online.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Houston, Texas, or a small town like Chicken, Alaska, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing inspiration: Go on vision quest

In a way, writing is like a waking dream meditation (a ���vision quest��� in other parlance) in which the very essence of who you are utilizes the symbols of everyday things to discover the answers to life���s most challenging questions. Which of the ���big questions��� of life does your writing address? If none at all, would your writing improve if you examined the deep questions that you find important?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Augusta, Georgia, or a small town like Funk, Ohio, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing Inspiration: Set steps for your goal

What is your big, seemingly impossible, goal as writer? To write a nonfiction book? To publish a short story? List the steps you must take to achieve this vision. Now work on achieving each one of those smaller steps as you head toward your big goal.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Ogden, Utah, or a small town like Rake, Iowa, I can provide that second eye.

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Five Great Quotations about Craft of Writing

���A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.��� - Garrison Keillor

���Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler���s heart, kill your darlings.��� - Stephen King

���Genuineness is often sacrificed in order to showcase the author's control over the form and subject matter, the end result technically sound but emotionally cold.���- Jennifer S. Davis

���...each part of a story, each word if possible, was to work frontally as well as laterally...��� - William S. Wilson

���One should use common words to say uncommon things.��� - Arthur Schopenhauer

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Dallas, Texas, or if you come from a small town Why, Arizona, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Writing Inspiration: Approach story sideways

If blocked while writing the opening of your story, approach the story sideways. Start in the middle or with a scene that is more fully formed in your head. A sculptor, after all, doesn���t have to start with the feet or the crown of the head but can begin at any portion of the statue. He then allows the other sections to coalesce and grow clearer in his head. You can do the same with a story.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Daytona Beach, Florida, or a small town like Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Get free PR by joining Help A Reporter Out

One great way to information in the media about your book ��� especially if you write nonfiction ��� is to join HARO, or Help A Reporter Out.

Because journalists work on deadline, they often need immediate sources for their stories. The HARO website has become a clearinghouse in which reporters can quickly identify and contact experts who are willing to be interviewed for a news story.

As an author, you are an expert on at least a couple of subjects ��� writing (obviously!) and whatever topic you���ve written about. Reporters prove to readers that you���re a worthy source by listing your qualifications, which usually means giving the title of the book that you���ve published. The published article will generate book sales, and if the article goes online it can continue to sporadically do so in the weeks and months ahead.

Signing up for HARO is free. This contrasts with PR agencies who will charge you thousands of dollars to get publicity and media coverage.

Should a reporter contact you for a news story, always respond immediately. Remember, the reporter is on deadline and you opting to get back to him tomorrow may mean you���ll lose the opportunity to be quoted. In addition, if you develop a good relationship with one reporter, you likely are to be contacted again���and once other reporters see your name in print, they also are likely to contact you for similar stories.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Austin, Texas, or a small town like Bald Knob, Arkansas, I can provide that second eye.

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Consider exercising ���nuclear option��� on ebook

You���ve formatted your ebook in MS Word and uploaded it to Kindle DP or Smashwords. When you open the online previewer to see how it looks, you���re surprised to see tons of odd line breaks, strange characters that weren���t in your original Word document, uneven indentations, and a plethora of other problems. So you go through your manuscript, fix them, and upload again.

To your frustration, you find that many of the errors remain ��� and maybe even some new ones crop up.

Rather than continue battling each of these issues, you may want to consider what those in self-publishing call ���the nuclear option.���

The reason your ebook looks like a mess when uploaded is because somehow in MS Word extra coding (or text instructions) have been added. This usually occurs because the manuscript was not formatted correctly to begin with (such as using tabs for indentations rather than relying on a block style appearance) or errors were added unintentionally while editing the manuscript.

The nuclear option wipes out all of this coding and lets you start afresh without losing any text. After all, sometimes returning to your start point is easier than trying to navigate to your destination from the spot where you���re hopelessly lost.

Exercise the nuclear option by first creating a new, blank MS Word file. Don���t delete the file you���ve uploaded, as you may need that later for reference. Then follow these steps (for Windows):
��� Open the MS Word file that you uploaded. Highlight all of the text (CTRL A) and copy it (CTRL C).
��� Open Notepad and paste the text to it (CTRL V). Save this file.
��� Highlight and copy all of the text you just pasted into Notepad.
��� Open the new, blank MS Word file you created for you manuscript. Paste the text to it. Save this file.

This is now the document that you will work on and ultimately upload to Kindle DP and Smashwords. You will have to style this text before uploading it, though. Also, be aware that the nuclear option will remove pictures, so you will need to add those when you reformat.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like San Francisco, California, or a small town like Nimrod, Oregon, I can provide that second eye.

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