Lizzy Ford's Blog, page 54

Guest Post: "The Adorkable Guy" by Michael Shean

Please welcome Michael Shean to Lizzyland.  Michael is the author of Shadow of a Dead Star and was one of the first authors picked by my dear friends at Curiosity Quills Press.  Michael has been kind enough to write an awesome blog post about the unsung heroes of romance (and other fiction!)

The Adorkable Guy
The Appeal and Use of the Hapless Male in Fiction
by Michael Shean

In a great many stories, the protagonist is perfect.

Especially onerous are the male ones.  You know what I'm talking about.  He's kind, good-looking, and can lift a Cadillac with one arm which ripples like a field of autumn wheat or whatever with masculine power.  He's kind to animals.  He saves puppies from floods!  He even gets along with his ex-wife, which was totally not his fault because she was totally wrong for him.

Yawn.

That's all fine and good, but how many men do you know like that which aren't already dead and canonized for sainthood?  For me, the best kind of protagonist is the flawed one, male or female – I normally write about people with dark flaws, so let's reverse the trend today and talk about someone a bit more upbeat.  I'm referring to the Dorky Guy, the Hapless Dude – or, as I call him, the Adorkable Guy – who in fiction is an endless source of entertainment and reflection through the magic of schadenfreude.

The Adorkable Guy most often shows up comedic fiction – that is, fiction that's primarily meant to be funny.  He doesn't have to be handsome, though he sometimes is (see every role that Hugh Grant has ever played).  He's awkward around his chosen sex, which these days in no way means the opposite one, and generally screws things up in some form or fashion.  He's often either very slovenly or very tidy, though in my experience it's more the latter, and tends to be a deeply romantic person.  So yeah, he's often a nerd.  He's very often the representative of everything we feel uncomfortable about in our lives, every little moment of awkwardness that we possess lives on in him.

This is why the Adorakable Guy is so appealing – and why we like to see him tortured so.  By his trials and travails, we see our own brought out of the darkness, held up to the light, and through the lens of experience made into something that we can not only relate to, but feel sympathy for.  The Adorkable Guy is very effective at this, because he also demonstrates the uncomfortable reality of many men; so much of male culture is about ignoring or outright denying those flaws which he reflects.  If we don't see them, they surely can't exist.  The Adorkable Guy can also serve as a sort of mirror for women as well, either romantically or socially, in pointing out these flaws.  I suspect that's often why women like them.

But a cracked mirror doesn't serve a purpose forever, and this brings us to the most important part of the character.  The Adorkable Guy doesn't remain adorkable, at least not entirely; the whole purpose of his cycle is to transform oneself from the flawed creature he was into a better person.  And this is why he's so appealing – he demonstrates that all the imperfections that make him who he was at the start, and therefore ourselves, can be redeemed.  The often comic nature of the character makes this a more accessible transformation, but that's not enough for me.  I'd like to suggest to writers of all kinds of fiction – from the most lighthearted in which he is most often found to the darkest of fiction where he is so very rare – to make great use of this transformative character.  The Adorkable Guy can be used in any genre, in any tone, and his power can be used to further carry on the message that so many stories convey.  For those who like a darker ending, the imperfect nature of the character magnified so that he becomes monstrous.

Whatever happens in the end, however, I urge for this character and his female counterpart to be used more often; put away your muscular badasses and your unassailable amazons, and give them time to breathe.  Sometimes the dorks need to come out and save the world, and maybe – just maybe – the world will thank you for it.

About Michael

Michael Shean is an author of hard-edged detective Sci-Fi, living in the DC area with his wife and over-sized cats. The first novel of his Wonderland series, Shadow of a Dead Star  is published by Curiosity Quills Press with its offshoot, Bone Wires, serialized every week on the Curiosity Quills website.

Kindle Fire winner announced

The Eclective drew the winning name for the Kindle Fire today!  Sarah Vandermillen from Illinois won the precious! 

Congrats, Sarah, and thank you to everyone who entered!  A couple of us will be hosting another Fire giveaway in March, so stay tuned!

 

Upcoming Lizzyland Events and Book Releases!

A few updates to my poor neglected readers.  You haven't had a Lizzy Ford book in like, 45+ days.  No worries – I plan to remedy that the next few months.  Below are some important dates!

Rhyn Trilogy Blog Tour

March 05 – April 09. I'll share some of the links as I go along. There are tons of fun prizes along the blog tour.

Jenn from IndieSupporter.com is organizing my tour!

Official tour graphics by Dafeenah!

Upcoming Book Releases

March 16: "Rhyn's Redemption"

April: "Rebel Heart"

May: "The Grey God"

June: "Kiera's Sun"

And finally, my first public appearance. 

May 24-27, I'll be an exhibitor at the Phoenix Comic Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. I'll send out more details closer to the date, but you can expect to see some limited edition, anime/comic covers for my most popular books to commemorate my first public appearance, in addition to some other cool little trinkets.  I'll also be unveiling the "Kiera's Sun" cover at the Comicon! (I'm not important enough to make their VIP guest list, but by golly, I'll be there!)

If you're going to be in the area, let me know!

 

Book Feature and Giveaway: "Ladybug Blue" by Laura Yirak

Please welcome newcomer Laura Yirak to Lizzyland!  Today, I'm featuring her children's book, Ladybug Blue, and giving two lucky winners the chance to win any of her books! Check out her Amazon author's page - she also writes thrillers and paranormal romance!

To enter the drawing to win your choice of one of Laura's books: obey the Rafflecopter at the bottom of the post. It's smarter than me and never loses track of people. Ha!

Ladybug Blue is an Amazon Children's Bestseller and Hot New Release!   Red, yellow, green, bright hues, exchange colors with Ladybug Blue. There's a problem outside and this cute bug is going to fix it by swapping colors.

This is a fun and colorful, fully illustrated ebook, for ages 18 months and up.

Purchase from: Amazon or Amazon UK.

About Laura

Laura spent her early years in Scotland attending a very old and supposedly haunted Catholic school. The place terrified her, but she loved the idea that there was a 'Headless Nun' roaming the halls. In her pre-teens she moved to the United States. She spent her first two years in college writing poetry, and managed to lose her entire collection. She knows it's out there somewhere. Writing is her passion. She is currently working on a psycho-thriller set on the Washington coast, a fully illustrated children's book, and a collection of poems. Her inspiration for her children's books comes from her two little ones. Her adult works–that's where she likes to swim.

You can contact Laura via her big people blog, her tot blog, or through Twitter!





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Book Feature and Giveaway: "The World Among Us" by Beth Ann Masarik

Please welcome Beth Ann to Lizzyland! Enter to win Beth Ann's young adult fantasy romance, The World Among Us via the Rafflecopter at the bottom of the post!

In The World Among Us, Hades, the god of the Underworld, plots to take over the world, and remove Gaia, the head Deity, from power.  In order to do so, he plots against his own son, Damien, and cons him into killing his soul mate, the beautiful goddess of the moon, Selene.  Hades does so, because Gaia is his natural enemy, and Selene is her favorite grandchild.  He thinks that by killing off Gaia's favorite grandchild, he will weaken her.

With Selene out of the way, Hades then moves in on the Creatures of the Night.  He wants to kill off their leader, Jason Aysel.  Jason is the go-between person between worlds, and another person that Gaia highly regards.  Hades manipulates and cons Jason's best friend, Leon Greene, into murdering him, by offering him Jason's position as his reward.  Because of these actions, a war is to take place on earth between the gods and other Creatures of the Night.

During this time, Selene is reincarnated, and kept hidden as a secret weapon to win the war against Hades.  In order to win the war of wars, the gods and some of the demons will have to fight together, and learn to co-operate with each other.  Will the Titans and Olympians be able to set aside their differences, and take back the world from Hades?  Or is the world as we know it, doomed to fall under dark shadows, forever?

Purchase ebook format from Amazon, Amazon UK, BN, or iTunes and the paperback format from Amazon or BN.

About Beth Ann Masarik

Beth Ann has been writing since she was 15 years old, and was published in the 2002 Schreiber Times. She took creative writing classes in college, and feels that they helped her become the writer she is today. In addition to writing the sequel to The World Among Us, she participates in an international anthology project, where writers from around the world come together to share their talent.

Originally starting as a writing assignment for college, The World Among Us series has sparked up a role playing group online, and a fan base of over 1000 followers on Facebook, and over 500 followers on Twitter.

Beth Ann lives in New York where she is a legal clerk and volunteers regularly at her church.

Visit Beth Ann at her blog, website, Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter!



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How to Make a Squidoo Lens

Sunday I wrote an article talking about using web 2.0 sites such as Squidoo and Hubpages to create your own backlinks to your main site. Below is an 11 minute video showing a Squidoo Lens being created from start to finish.

All web 2.0 sites have different criteria for determining if outbound links count as votes in Google's eyes (DOFOLLOW) or if they are working links, but links which pass no authority (NOFOLLOW). NOFOLLLOW links are still useful but DOFOLLOW are preferred.

Squidoo makes it really easy to determine if your link is DOFOLLOW. If your Squidoo lens is blue on your dashboard then your lens is "featured" and your links are good. If your Squidoo lens is red on your dashboard then your lens is a "work in progress" and your links are NOFOLLOW.

The algorithm that Squidoo uses to determine if your link can be affected somewhat by visitors, but the main factor is having updated content on your site. With that in mind, here are a few tips to keep in mind when you're making your Squidoo lens.

How to make a Squidoo lens featured

1: Make sure your Squidoo score is 91 after you press publish. Everything except for the "being liked by a giant squid" and "get 20 likes" are 100% within your control and very quick and easy to accomplish.

2: Break your text into separate modules whenever possible.

3: Use modules that will automatically update with no effort on your part. A few of these options are RSS feeds, YouTube feeds and Google News feeds.

4: Check in once a week or so and make sure your lens is featured. If it's gone red, just go add a small amount of content and it should go back to featured status within 24 hours.

I'm sure a lot of you will think up creative ways to utilize Squidoo pages to help support your web presence. Be sure to post them here as I'd love to check them out.

Upcoming blog hop: Avoiding April Showers Blog Hop – 16-20 April

It's almost time for another blog hop!  The Avoiding April Showers Blog Hop is sponsored by Put a Little Umbrella in Your Drink, Seeds of Life, and Taking Time For Mommy blogs. Each stop on this blog hop will feature a prize package worth $25!

 

Stay tuned for details in April on the awesome prize pack this website will offer!

Book Feature and FREE 8 & 9 Feb: "Letters From a Bipolar Mother" by Alyssa Reyans

Please welcome Alyssa Reyans to Lizzyland.  Her novella, "Letters from a Bipolar Mother" is FREE FOR DOWNLOAD AT AMAZON US AND AMAZON UK 8 & 9 February!  It's also now among my top three favorite books of all time.  It's a powerful, moving book about a woman explaining her mental illness to the children she lost. I don't normally read memoirs, but Alyssa's description of the book intrigued me when she sent me her ARC query a couple of weeks ago. As someone who battles with depression, I was rendered no longer alone in my own struggle when I read her book.  It's that incredible.

In "Letters of A Bipolar Mother", Alyssa Reyans tells the story she's never been able to tell her children: of how she lost them in a battle with her own mental illness. she shares with them – and the world – what the mind of a woman suffering bipolar depression looks like, how the darkness she battled on a daily basis almost won, and how, years later, she found the courage to claw her way out of the abyss.

Covering a span of five years, Alyssa Reyans shares both her pain and strength in a struggle against an incurable illness that many women today also share.

Winners from last weeks ebook giveaways

Yay! Time for happy news! We had two ebook giveaways last week, one for Anne R. Allen's "The Best Revenge" and one for Barbara Silkstone's "Wendy and the Lost Boys." Winners are below!

"The Best Revenge" winner

Maria Andrade (who 'liked' the post on facebook!)

Maria – please send me an email! LizzyFord2010(at)gmail(dot)com

"Wendy and the Lost Boys" winners

Michelle Smith (who +1′d on Google+)

Peta Wing (who 'liked' the post)

Tina Rucci (who left a comment on the post)

I emailed or otherwise tagged the three of you! 

Thank you all for participating!

 

Creating Your Own Web 2.0 Backlinks

I've written several articles in the past about the traditional ways to acquire links to your website, which include blog comments, forum posts and link exchanges with other sites within your industry. In my next few posts, I'm going to discuss Web 2.0 backlinks. Creating this kind of backlink is another method to get links to your website to help boost your ranking with Google. This particular method is unlike my previous posts about link exchanges with strangers.  Instead, you will learn how, where, and why to create other mini-sites that link back to your main site. As a reminder: back links are important. A link from a strong site is like a vote of coolness for your website. The stronger the site, the more influence that vote has with Google rankings.

When people first learn about the method Google uses to rank sites in its search results, more than a few probably think "I'll make several websites, point them at each other, dominate the Google rankings and then dive into my swimming pole of money like Scrooge McDuck." There are two main problems with this, mainly that it takes a huge investment in time and money.

The time investment is obvious: building and maintaining a decent website can be a grueling process. The money issue comes from the fact that Google is aware that people try this tactic, so they ignore links to a website from other websites hosted by the same IP address. You would have to have a different hosting plan on different servers for each one of your sites in order to make this method work. I'm far too busy and cheap to make either one of these things happen.

The basic concept of making your own backlinks is getting a little bit easier thanks to "web 2.0″ sites like Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com . Sites like these make it fairly simple to make a small, single-page "micro site" with content about any topic you want. A lot of SEO professionals call the links created from these sites "Web 2.0 Backlinks". These types of sites virtually eliminate the two problems addressed above, as they are easy to make (once you get the hang of it) and they are free. With sites such as these, you can create your personal army of tiny micro-sites that can contain a link to your main site. The reason I'm going to do a different post for Squidoo and Hub is because they are not always the most intuitive sites to use. (Just ask Lizzy.) It's important to understand the different building blocks to make links from the micro-site count as votes in Google's eyes. In addition, keep in mind these are not one-shot solutions. Micro-sites like these are like house plants and require a little bit of time and periodic fertilizing to keep them alive.

What kind of web 2.0 backlinks are right for you?

If you're wondering what type of content to write about, write about whatever people could be searching for that you would like to lead them to you. If you write science fiction books, it's probably not a bad idea to write a few pages about those. Lizzy writes romance ebooks so I made a Squidoo page about… wait for it… Romance eBooks at http://www.squidoo.com/romance-ebooks . Her books are popular with young adult readers so I made a page about young adult authors at http://www.squidoo.com/young-adult-ro... . Now there are two sites about topics related to Lizzy with links to Lizzy's site. Since I keep them up-to-date - and they're not hosted on our server – Google counts them as votes (not huge votes but votes nonetheless) and all is right with the world. Web 2.0 backlinks at their finest and easiest.

Are web 2.0 backlinks worth the time?

If the question in your mind isn't "what should I write about?" but rather "are making these worth it?" then the answer for you may likely be no. Most people don't pay much attention to their search engine rankings and therefore don't care about things like this. However, if you're the type of person who monitors their search engine rankings and is tired of trying to negotiate more link exchanges (more sympathetic I could not be), then the idea of being anti-social and creating your own link may sound like the greatest thing ever.

I'll probably end up doing several more web 2.0 backlinks posts but my first two will be a Squidoo article and video this week (Thursday) and a Hub page article and video next week.  As always, feel free to shoot me any question and you'll receive my uneducated but honest opinion.