Robin Burrows's Blog, page 5

Social Media and App Tutorials 08 – How to Read an eBook If you Don’t Own an eReader

So your favorite author is taking the plunge into self-publishing, but their first release will only sell as an eBook. But you don’t have an eReading device. Are there other ways for you to read the eBook? Yes!

The easiest way to read ebooks without an eReader is by downloading an app for your smartphone. Most of the major eReaders have apps for smartphones. I’d recommend picking one app and buying your books through that app so you can have your digital library all in one spot. I like the Kindle app and use it on my smartphone regularly. I do not own a dedicated eReader. Today, you don’t need a dedicated eReader as long as your app-of-choice is available for your other digital devices. A lot of smartphone apps are also available for tablets.

Don’t have a smartphone? No worries. Some platforms allow you to download the story to your computer in PDF format. There are even apps for reading ebooks on your computer.

Don’t have a computer? Then how are you reading my blog? By telegraph? :P My best tip would be to borrow a friend’s computer or find a friendly library.

What are some eReading apps? Kindle | Nook | Kobo | Sony. These link to the Apple version, but if you are on an Android network, just search your app story for the name of the eReader app you’d like. I think they should be fairly similar to their Apple version.

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Audio Books and the Craft of Writing

Recently I got a new job. Along with that job came a much longer commute and much less free time. I’d already had trouble finding time to read, and the new commute took away even more of my time in the mornings and evenings. So for the first time, I tried an audio book.

I’d never really had a reason to use an audio book in the past. I can read faster than an audio book can read to me. I can get to the good parts, and skip around and reread sections when I get interrupted or distracted. But I discovered audio books are great for long commutes on the open road.

They have given me a reason to look forward to those long commutes. Often, when I arrive at the office, I’m not ready for the commute to end because I want to hear more of the current book. It’s been great because I’ve started to shrink my almost endless “to read” list at a steady pace.

Reading is also important to writers. One of my friends describes reading as filling the creative bucket that you empty when you write. The more you read, the more creativity you have. Also, the more you read, supposedly the better your writing will be.

But after a few months of listening to audio books, I think I’ve discovered another writing-related benefit that no one has mentioned to me. When we read silently to ourselves, we see the words. Sometimes we can hear the words in our heads as we read, but those words are colored by the brain’s ability to read faster than the spoken word. We skip or scan the boring parts. It becomes habit so we don’t notice we do it after a while. But with an audio book in a car, it’s much harder to skip sections while you’re driving (without skipping more than you intended). You are forced to listen to the sections of long dialog, the sagging middles, the endless descriptions… Hearing the words aloud has made me more conscious of how passages read – beyond how they actually look on the page. I feel like subconsciously I’m picking up more about the sounds of words and pacing, and I’ve started to notice some changes in my writing. I look back at things I wrote only a year ago and see significant ways to improve them.

Some people I know say they read their writing aloud before they submit it, but I’d never heard about how listening to audio books could help improve your writing. Maybe it’s just me. In the eight grade I took a test that told me I was an audio-visual-kinetic learner (must hear, see, and do to learn). Anyway, I thought I’d share the tip for other writers out there. Yay audio books. Enjoyment and working on your craft at the same time.

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Social Media and App Tutorials 07 – How to Schedule a Post in Advance on a FaceBook Page or Backdate a Post

Have you ever had the perfect FaceBook post for a certain day, but you would be traveling that day without easy access to FaceBook? Or you might forget to post it later?

There is an easy solution to that. Schedule the message in advance, so it will post exactly when you want it to post, and you will not have to worry about remembering to post it. There are a number of aggregator programs (like Hootsuite) which can schedule posts for you, but today I want to talk about how to schedule posts directly from your FaceBook page. This functionality is not yet built into personal profiles, but it works on “Pages” on FaceBook. However, you can backdate a post on both a professional page and a personal profile.

Schedule a Post in Advance on a FaceBook Page

Log into FaceBook.
Go to your “Page”. Please note this does not work for personal profiles.
Click in the message box.
Type your message in the message box on your profile or page, and add any images, links, videos, etc.
Click on the clock icon and select the date and time. You can also use this function to backdate a post on both personal profiles and professional pages.
Click Post to schedule your message. Then it will automatically appear on your page on the date and time you selected.

Backdate a Post on a FaceBook Page or Profile

Log into FaceBook.
Go to your “Page” or profile. Please note this does not work from the Home Page.
Click in the message box.
Type your message in the message box on your profile or page, and add any images, links, videos, etc.
Click on the clock icon and select the date and time. Personal pages will only let you backdate a post. Professional pages will let you backdate a post or schedule it in advance.
Click Post to backdate your message and post it.

Please note that as FaceBook evolves, this tutorial may become outdated.

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Conferences, Books, and Speaking Engagements

Last weekend I attended the Arkansas SCBWI Conference. (That’s the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference – for those uninitiated.) This was only the second time I’ve attended the conference, but it’s by far the best local writing conference I’ve attended. They always have great speakers, and there’s a family feel to the conference. This year was no exception.

Arkansas writer and educator, Darcy Pattison, held an abbreviated version of her manuscript workshop the first afternoon of the conference. I learned just how much I didn’t know about my manuscript and writing in general during her workshop. But that’s a good thing! Attendees brought “shrunken versions” of their manuscripts and marked portions of the text that met or did not meet certain criteria. Then they could clearly see which portions of their manuscripts needed work.

Karl Jones, an editor with an imprint of Penguin, and Dawn Frederick, an agent with Red Sofa Literary, spoke on Saturday. Their presentations were informative, fun, and timely. Karl even introduced the audience to “prancercising” and did a demonstration to accompany his marketing presentation.

The conference also included the chance to pitch manuscripts or get a critique from the editor and agent. I pitched a couple of my picture book manuscripts. There was some interest in them, so I will be emailing those manuscripts to the editor. We’ll see how it goes from there.

Speaking of conferences, I recently updated my list of writing conferences in and around Arkansas. If you have a conference in the area and you’d like to see it on the list, just send me a message.

During the chaos of the conference weekend, I learned I was mentioned in the Paper Trails column in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. They published a blurb about my article that appeared in the Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers book which was released May 21.

And speaking of books, I will probably postpone the release of my short story ebook for a bit in order to focus on one final polishing of these manuscripts I’m sending to the editor (and to give my artist more time to work on the ebook cover). It will be worth the wait.

In other news, I have booked a speaking engagement this fall with the Saline County Poets. I will do a presentation on tools for poets and writers in the digital age.

I’m off to save the world one word at a time. Happy writing! See you back here next week.

Social Media and App Tutorials 06 – How to Create a Friends Lists on FaceBook and Limit Who Can See Certain Timeline Posts

How do you post a message on FaceBook, without bothering your friends with topics that don’t interest them? How about posting a draft of writing to a limited audience of beta readers? You create friend lists. This is great for aspiring writers who do not want to create and maintain a separate author page yet.

I’ve had friends create friend lists for any number of topics. If you like sports but don’t want to bother your friends with all of the sports-talk during the big game, you can create a list of your friends who will also be interested in the game. Only people in your sports lists will see your sports posts if you use a friend list. This works like “Circles” in Google Plus, but has been around much longer.

How to Create a Friends List

Log into FaceBook.
Click on Home to make sure you are on the Home page.
Find the section called “Friends” in the left column, and hover to the right of it. Click on the word “More” when it appears.
This will show you all of your Friend Lists. It should say Friends at the top of the screen. These are different from Groups. If it says Groups at the top of the screen, you are in the wrong place. Groups are something else entirely on FaceBook.
Click “Create List” in the top center of the Friends list page.
Type the name of the list. Try to keep the name short.
Then start entering the names of friends you want on this list. Enter as many or as few names as you want on the list. Then click Create.
Now you have a Friends List.

How to Use a Friends List

If you haven’t logged into FaceBook yet, log in.
Click on your name to go to your personal profile.
Click in the box to type a new status message, and type a message.
The bottom right of the status box will say “Friends” or “Public” or “custom” depending upon the security settings of your account. Click on it and a dropdown box will appear with all of the default security settings and a few of your Friends Lists. If you do not see your new list, click “See All Lists” and they should all appear.
Just click on the list you want and click Post to post the message for just the people on that list. Only those people will be able to see the message you just typed. For example, if I create a list of poets and use that list when I post poetry, then only those people would be able to see the poems I post on my FaceBook page. Nice, huh? :)

Of course, you don’t want to use lists to limit everything you post, because the fewer people who see your posts, the fewer people who can respond. However lists are handy for gauging feedback from a small group of people without the hassles of the Group feature on Facebook.

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Short Story eBook Coming Soon

As I have mentioned in previous weeks, I plan to release a short story as an ebook in mid-June. I wrote the story a number of years ago, long before the release of a certain un-named movie.  I never did anything with the story until now. After some editing, I’ve decided to upload the story to Kindle and various ebook platforms as a 99 cent ebook. (For the record I only get a small portion of that 99 cents, so everyone should buy lots of copies.)

My friend Tim Robbins has been working on the cover. He’s posted some samples of outer space backgrounds on his facebook page at www.facebook.com/timrobbinsart. I’m sure you can guess a tiny bit about the story based on that. I don’t want to give away too much about the ebook yet. After all, it is only a short story. :)

Anyway, the thing you’ve all been waiting for – the title of my ebook…is… To Dream Perchance to Live. Look for more details about it on my blog as mid-June approaches.

PS- Some of Tim’s space images make great desktop backgrounds!

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A Good Year for Scifi and Fantasy

This is a good year for science fiction and fantasy.

This summer Unfettered, an epic anthology of scifi and fantasy short stories by over 20 authors will be released. If you haven’t gotten your copy, I think there are a few of the hardback trade editions still available at grimoakpress.com.

Terry Brooks will release his third book within the past year in honor of his 35th anniversary year as a writer. These books include interior illustrations which are unheard of these days!

Joss Whedon returns to tv with S.H.I.E.L.D.

This fall ABC and Once Upon a Time are releasing a new spinoff tv show – Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It retells the story of Alice in the style of Once Upon a Time.

And I will be releasing a short story as an ebook in mid-June! My good friend, Tim Robbins, is working hard on the cover art – which looks amazing! I can’t wait to show it to everyone! Hmmm… Maybe next week I should share the title…?

This is indeed a good year for scifi and fantasy!

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Truth in Fiction and Emotional Vulnerability of Characters

On May 1st I attended a workshop by Margaret Stohl about “Truth in Fiction.” She is the co-author of Beautiful Creatures and has a new book, ICONS, coming out this month.

People always say, write what you know. But when you write fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, what you know may have little to do with your story. For example, how relevant is a receptionist in modern dentist’s office to a historical fantasy? Unless that’s your protagonist’s job, it might not provide much fodder for your story, but in the case of a historical fantasy the day-to-day knowledge of the job wouldn’t fit the time period for the story.

The “write what you know” theory goes deeper than what you consciously think you know. It speaks to emotional truths and truths of life. Your entire story may be made-up, but your characters need to feel like real people for your readers to connect to them. In order for them to feel real, you need to share the characters’ vulnerabilities, their flaws, and their emotional truths.

This is one issue I’ve struggled with in my writing. It’s hard to be mean to your characters. It’s hard to give your characters impossible choices where no matter what they choose, there’s no right answer. We all want to give our characters better lives than our own. But the struggle is part of what makes a story interesting.

It’s even more difficult to engrain your characters with the emotions of those conflicts – because people might miss-interpret. Just because I write about a certain topic or emotional state doesn’t mean it relates directly to my own life.

I know a poet who wrote a very emotional piece about a family mourning the son they lost in a war. Several people in the audience at the event assumed the poem was the poet’s own personal story and told him they were sorry for his loss.

It is frightening to let yourself be vulnerable by making your characters show their weaknesses. That is one of the biggest things that holds writers back. But even a New York Times Best-Selling author like Margaret Stohl experiences the same feelings as those of us still struggling to sell our first book.

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Poem – Her Dragon

Her Dragon

By Robin A. Burrows

He came strong

The dragon she never thought she’d see again

No longer trapped in a youngling body

His breath searing the brittle landscape

Flames sprang to life and engulfed the land around her

Burning the distance

He came back for her

He came back to do the one thing he hadn’t done before-

To fight.

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Social Media Tutorials 05: The Difference Between a FaceBook Profile and a FaceBook Page

Social media websites change all the time. So do their layouts and features. FaceBook is no exception. I’m sure as soon as I post this blog, FaceBook will roll out a new round of changes, so I will try to keep this blog generic so it will remain relevant longer into the future.

Today I want to discuss the difference between a Facebook Page and a FaceBook Profile. “Aren’t the terms interchangeable?” you ask. Well, yes, people interchange the terms all the time – usually when they are referring to a profile, but they are actually two different things with separate purposes.

As an author, artist, musician, or other creative person, it’s possible and often likely you have two portals on FaceBook. The first one would be your personal profile. This is what most people use. A profile is a personal page where you can “friend” your friends. They tend to be more personal and have more security options for limiting who can see content you post.

Then there are FaceBook Pages. Pages tend to be more professional. The easiest way to know if you are looking at a Profile or a Page is you can friend a Profile, but you can only “Like” a Page.

Why should you create a FaceBook Page for your business or professional persona when it’s easier to have everyone on your personal Profile?

Well, there are a number of reason. First of all, to create a professional environment, you want to filter out unprofessional personal posts and chatter that may hinder your appearance as a professional. While that is now possible to do with a FaceBook Profile, it is a lot easier to have your own professional FaceBook Page and only post relevant content on the Page. Then you can post anything you want on your personal Profile for your close friends without a strenuous filtering process.

Also, there is a limit to the number of friends you can connect with on a personal Profile. The new “Subscribe” button is a step towards turning a personal Profile into a professional page, because it essentially eliminates the issue of having a limited number of friends. Honestly, the friend limit shouldn’t be an issue on a Profile unless you are 1) famous or 2) using your personal profile for both personal and professional purposes. FaceBook Pages, however, have no limit. They don’t have friends, but followers. You can have as many followers on your FaceBook Page as you can convince to follow you. :)

The biggest reason you should use a FaceBook Profile for your professional activities is the analytics. FaceBook Pages come equipped with analytics tools which tell you how well each post is received. One a FaceBook Profile you have no idea how many people see your post unless they actually comment of like the post. With a Page, you are given charts showing you the number of people who actually saw the post and the number of viral hits the post got. (That’s friends of friends who saw the post because a person who liked your page commented or liked the post and one of their friends saw it.) Viral hits are the chocolate of the internet world. Everyone wants them, but they aren’t easy to acquire. Ideally, you would turn those viral hits into new “Likes” for your page and then their friends would be your new viral audience.

On a Page, you can also see demographics about who likes your page. You can see the age range and location of your audience. This can help you customize your posts to target the type of people who you want to interact with your Page.

Although it’s possible to use a FaceBook Profile as a professional page, I would recommend using a FaceBook Page for that because it really does have a lot more built-in tools designed for a professional environment that the Profile lacks.

Come back in two weeks for the next installment in my Social Media Tutorial Blog Series. If you have any particular social media topics, send me a message or leave me a comment here and I will try to get to them.

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