Sandy Appleyard's Blog, page 14

Website Engagement: Making Visitors Come and Stay

T Image courtesy of http://lthomason.wordpress.com/

In a previous post, I listed ten things you can do to improve website engagement. Prior to implementing these ideas, my engagement was utterly horrible (all visitors stayed less than ten seconds). But after that post, I tracked my Google Analytics, and the results definitely weren’t what I expected.

The first thing I noticed was that new posts didn’t necessarily effect engagement. It was consequential. Engagement only increased marginally for...

Ten Things you can do to Improve Website Engagement

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Update your theme

If you have a monetized theme full of ads (including your work), perhaps change it to a more author-friendly theme like Catch Everest. My previous theme was too busy. This one is much simpler and eye-catching. You can ad information about your books on your main bar. Don’t worry; readers will find it.

Remove all ads

One thing you’ll notice (as I did) is that banners don’t really accomplish much, anyway, because of something called ‘Banner Blindness...

Do the Dawson Triplets Fulfill Grandpa’s Wish?

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Do the Dawson Triplets Fulfill Their Grandfather’s Wish in The Christmas Contract?

Simply put…..I’m not telling ;) There are no spoilers here.

If you’re looking for a sweet, innocent, warm-hearted story about a Christmas romance, this book will be a great fit.

Jan Romes is notorious for creating fun, light-hearted reads about funny, easygoing characters that give a nice escape from reality to readers. The Christmas Contract definitely fills this gap.

Joy, Noelle and...

Creating a Main Character Readers will Love to Hate

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In the last few posts, we discussed why we’re so addicted to controversial characters, both in movies and in books, how we can create them in our stories, and what benefits they would bring to a novel.

When we create controversial characters in stories, we often use them simply for background; to highlight a scene or subplot, or to bring a challenge to another character.

But what about using a bad boy or bad girl as a main character? How does that change things?

Cre...

Creating Characters Readers will Love to Hate

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Creating addictive, bad boy/bad girl personalities in a novel isn’t a difficult thing. What is a challenge is inventing the circumstances in which the character is required. Particular genres lend themselves to these types of characters; like suspense, thrillers and mysteries. Romance can also provide scenes where a bad boy or girl character is beneficial.

However, in most cases, these types of characters would be predictable and almost expected to be there. What...

Why do we Love to Hate Certain Characters?

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Gordon Ramsay’s cutting judgement, Don Cherry’s loud-mouthed insults, even Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s I’ll-smoke-drugs-and-you’ll-shut-up attitude……why are they so intriguing?

Bad boys like Brad Pitt, Charlie Sheen, even Tom Cruise when he had his tantrum on Oprah…..why do we love them?

Because we love to hate them.

It even works with females like Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan and Brittney Spears.

These are all people (characters) that we’re drawn to….why?

For most, we’re...

How to Grow Your Writer’s Toolbox One Word at a Time

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Stephen King wrote about a ‘writer’s toolbox’ in his book ‘On Writing’. What he refers to is all the tools that we have inside our brains, at our disposal, to use when we’re working on a writing project.

These tools can be skills such as editing, writing in general, building suspense, or any number of ‘tools’ that we’ve acquired in our experience with the act of writing.

One of the best ways to acquire new skills or tools is to read. I’m an avid reader and have bee...

How to Translate a Publisher’s Rejection Letter

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Since I’m smack in the middle of submitting two manuscripts, the rejection letters are coming in and while most of them are pretty clear: “No, but thanks”, some leave a little room for interpretation. Read on to see what I mean.

Let’s assume in all these scenarios that you’ve had a response to your query letter, asking for you to send a partial or full manuscript.

Here are examples of three types of rejections you may have received, and my interpretation of what th...

What’s That, Mr. Timer? Yes, I’m Indebted to You.

This post is about focus, goals and maintaining balance. Read on for a new take on an old idea.

The original idea came from my physiotherapist as he was trying to iron out the stiff spots.

Knowing that I’m a full time writer, and pretty much anything I do full time is limited in some way because of Scoliosis, he advised me to get up and do some prescribed stretches every thirty minutes.

I looked at him oddly, thinking he has no idea.

Once I get writing, the only thing that stops me is my bladder....

Can we Treat Book Sales the Same as Product Sales?

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The question sounds simple.

A book is a product, yes?

People buy books in the same places as they buy other products, don’t they? Yes.

But do consumers think about books in the same way they do products?

Hmmmmm…..

Let’s say for argument purposes, when you buy a pair of shoes, what are your criteria for choosing one over another?

In no order of importance, this is what I came up with:

Quality
Need
Brand loyalty
Try something new
Recommendation
Price
Fad
Appearance

Now, let’s tak...