Phillip T. Stephens's Blog: Wind Eggs, page 13

A much-loved painting of a small, out of the way place….Art for Writers

Bridget Whelan finds artwork for writers to use for writing prompts. But before you write, take the time to study her color and style, how she uses a limited palette of earth tones to create the image. How can you adapt this stylized approach to depiction to your own wrtiting?

BRIDGET WHELAN writer

I’m guessing that any New Zealander reading this will recognise this picture of a remote railway station painted in the 1930s. It has become an iconic 20th century image and was voted New Zealand’s most loved painting in a television poll. I’m not surprised as it is strong and unpretentious and the choice of this shed of a station – a very unpainterly subject – says a lot about the artist Rita Angus and the country she was trying to represent.
I gather she developed her own style, independent from whatever other artists were doing and, although her paintings are simple and accessible, almost like a poster, they are rich in meaning.
As a writing exercise, be that man waiting for a train. Or perhaps he is not waiting at all, but has just got off and is now contemplating his next move. He is tiny compared to the mountains…

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Resurrecting Easter

I try to keep politics and religion out of Wind Eggs, except for the occasional Trump joke (which I can’t help). But, I have to admit, I’ve been thinking a lot about resurrecting my blog Righteous Indigestion, and over the Easter weekend, some thoughts occurred to me that I finally decided to share.

Righteous Indigestion

I originally intended to post this on Easter, but realized too many people would react negatively. So I waited a week, which, in America, means everyone will have forgotten the event for another year.

Christians around the world celebrated Easter last weekend, although the official holiday wasn’t until Monday. It wasn’t even a real “official” holiday. The Federal Government didn’t close down, most banks didn’t close, schools may or may not have closed for half-a-day.

In short, Easter is a “holy day,” not a holiday.

Why does Christmas make the cut and not Easter?

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A plea for reviewers – can we open up a dialogue about self-published books?

Why do reviewers prefer to ignore indie books? The reasons rarely involve the quality of a book in question. Roz Morris shares her thoughts.

Nail Your Novel

So I find a lovely-looking review blog. The posts are thoughtful, fair and seriously considered. I look up the review policy and … it says ‘no self-published books’.

Today I want to open a dialogue with reviewers. If you have that policy, might you be persuaded to change it? Or to approach the problem in a different way?

I used the word ‘problem’. Because I appreciate – very well – that in making this policy you are trying to tackle a major problem. Your time as a reviewer is precious – and let me say your efforts are enormously appreciated by readers and authors alike. You get pitches for many more books than you can read and you need a way to fillet out the ones that are seriously worth your reading hours. A blanket ban is a way to fend off a lot of substandard material and save you…

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How To Add A Flipboard Sharing Button To Your #WordPress Blog

If you’re looking to expand your social media presence, you might try allowing your readers to post to Flipboard. I followed Hugh’s instructions and it works (although the button you create may not look like the final button, so check the preview window).

Hugh's Views & News

Flipboard is social media platform I discovered last year. Unfortunately, I never really gave it much attention, but a recent upsurge in traffic to my blog from it has convinced me to give it more attentiveness. However, WordPress don’t have a sharing button for Flipboard, so I’ve found out a way to add one.

In my version, you’ll need a Flipboard account to add the sharing button so other bloggers can share your posts on their Flipboard account. You can set one up by going to the Flipboard site at www.flipboard.com. Once your account is ready, you need never use it unless you want to share the posts of other bloggers to it.

Once you have your Flipboard account set up, take a note of your Flipboard username as you’ll need it to create a sharing button. Then follow my guide below.

Click on WP Admin to access the…

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Fighting exhaustion under deadline.

The best cure for overwork and tiredness is rest. These steps should be taken only when you’re on a real deadline and not on a daily basis.1

The bullet-proof coffee comes with a caveat. The research is out and it only works if you’re on a low carb (pushing ketosis) diet. The theory is that once you eliminate sugar, carbs and fat from your diet, the fats in coffee feed your energy needs.

two or three days, you should still put it aside and get a good night’s sleep. For some people that’s six hours, others ten. With that in mind, I’m passing this infographic to readers courtesy of Chris, the Storyreading Ape.2

How to stay productive when you’re tired [Infographic] by the team at STL

1New parenthood, however, renders deadlines irrelevant. You’ll be exhausted until they move out of the house, and then they’ll call you at three in the morning for emergency cash infusions for at least five years.back
2Who, for some reason, my spell check has decided is Christ, the story telling ape.back

Easy Formatting for Smashwords #WriterWednesday #Selfpublishing #Smashwords

The one thing I can say about Amazon: They make it easier to deliver your book as an eBook every year. Smashwords formatting is as painful as it was when I posted my first book, Cigerets, Guns & Beer. Plus, I always forget picky sh… stuff between books, like the proper way to create hyperlinks for footnotes. (If you don’t name each link exactly right, it disappears in the final file).

D.E. Haggerty offers a few tips to get you started.

D.E. Haggerty

Like most self-published authors, I use two platforms to publish my works: Amazon and Smashwords. Like it or not, if you want to sell books, you need to be on Amazon. And truth be told, their platform is the most user-friendly of the bunch. But Amazon is not the end all be all. If you also use the Smashwords platform, your book will be distributed to all the remaining major booksellers: Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, etc.

A lot of writers have trouble with formatting. As a lawyer, I’m intimately acquainted with Microsoft Word. Not what you expect, but it’s true. Lawyers are always writing documents, and we use a lot of formatting in those contracts you hate. My former law firm once had one of our clients (we specialized in IT) come and give us a class in Word. I’m not exaggerating when I say we knew more about…

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Is Amazon Changing How We Write Books, As Well As How We Buy Them?

Tara Sperling’s post strikes a chord. Online distributors like Amazon steer us toward genres we enjoy, and away from the discovery of literary gems. The more we focus on preferred genres as readers, the less flexible our writer’s brain.1 Our own books suffer and our readers suffer in turn.

1This is a fundamental discovery of neuroscience at the end of the century. A brain you don’t exercise is a brain that ossifies. The more you limit your reading choices, the weaker the neural connections to writing styles and tropes beyond our preferred genre, Ultimately, we cease to recognize the titles as readable at all.back

Tara Sparling writes

Yay for uniformity!

The other day, I tried a little experiment, and attempted to browse Amazon as though it were a good old-fashioned, bricks-and-mortar bookshop. It didn’t end well. It’s a miracle that my laptop survived the experiment, given my frustration.

Most bookshops I know, whatever the size, broadly have 3 sections for adult fiction: ‘Bestsellers’, ‘General Fiction’, and the perennially popular* ‘Crime’.

The bigger bookshops, in this country at least, might have further sections for ‘Sci-Fi/Fantasy’ or ‘Irish Interest’: but broadly, and for decades, booksellers simply used to separate ‘Fiction’ from ‘Non-Fiction’ and ‘Children’s’.

My experiment on Amazon went broadly as follows: first I stupidly thought I’d browse through ‘Bestsellers’. But Amazon said ‘No’. Amazon decreed that I couldn’t merely browse by ‘Fiction’ bestsellers from their home page. There were only 5 Fiction bestsellers available on the landing page, and no option to click through to a longer list.

With some effort I eventually…

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How can we encourage more readers to leave reviews for our books?

I always dedicate a page asking readers to review my book—good review or bad. Sally Cronin’s request page provides guidance to readers not used to reviewing. Authors can use this as a model for their books. Readers can use it as a model for books they’d like to review.

Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life

I am very keen to make reviews a prominent feature of the book promotions and encourage readers to review the books that they buy and enjoy, or not as the case may be.

Word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing tool that anyone who is selling a product benefits from. Authors are no different, and our books tend to be judged by the number and quality that they have received.

Part of the problem is that those who are not writers of books or blogs are uncomfortable in offering reviews and feel that what they have to say is not important. Many who do review a book, leave just one line after their star rating, simply saying that the reader enjoyed or disliked a book, but they do not elaborate.

That is obviously very welcome. But whilst a potential reader does not want to read three pages filled…

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Amazon’s New KDP Print Feature is Bad News for CreateSpace Users

Never, ever use your eBook file to create a paperback. You’ll only cry when you see the finished product. But if you know how to create a book for print, KDP’s new book publishing service may (I stress may) be a better option than Create Space. Or, if you have a Bowker account, get your own ISBN (which you need to market through Ingram Sparks) and use both services. Amazon’s return on Create Space books is terrible.

Diane Tiebert offers a head-to-head comparison from what little information Amazon has made available.

Diane Tibert

The first news I heard about KDP Print was in an email from Amazon on February 15th. Since then, I’ve read articles, blog posts and comments about it and watched the praise given by Amazon for this service dwindle quickly.

In the email, Amazon announced they were making print book publishing easier for writers. They stated, “KDP prints your book on demand and subtracts your printing costs from your royalties, so you don’t have to pay any costs upfront or carry any inventory.”

That’s what CreateSpace does. Sort of. I believe CreateSpace takes the cost of the printing of the book from the sale price, then takes a cut of the royalties. Until I see the numbers and do the math, I am unsure which service will offer a better financial deal for authors.

The message also stated, “It also enables you to receive consolidated royalty payments for paperback and…

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Celebrate Poetry Month with The BeZine

The BeZine, an online journal that tries to combine an emphasis on spirituality with poetry and essays by new and upcoming writers just released its issue to celebrate International Poetry Month. Contributing editor Michael Dickel sifted through countless submissions to pick out the pearls for this issue. If you would rather graze than read the entire issue, I’m including links to individual poets (starting with mine, if course).

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The BeZine celebrates poetry, essays and art with a social conscience.

Poetry and Prayer, Phillip T Stephens

Science Fiction, Phillip T. Stephens

April Fool, Iulia Gherghei

Barricades and Beds, Aditi Angiras

The Burgundy Madonna, Patricia Leighton

Common Ground, Dorothy Long Parma

dancing toward infinity, Jamie Dedes

Don’t Let Fall Go – sonnet, Liliana Negoi

Donatella D’Angelo | unpublished poems 2016

Dreaming of Children, Renee Espiru

A few from the vaults …, Corina Ravenscraft

Four Poems by Reuben Woolley

Full Buck Moon and other poems by Lisa Ashley

gary lundy’s poetics | 5 prose poems

A geography of memories | Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Grandmother, Dorothy Long Parma

having found a stone in my shoe …, Charles W Martin

healing hands …, Charles W Martin

Kali, Gayle Walters Rose

Kinga Fabó | 3 Hungarian Poems in Translation

Lead Boots, David Ratcliffe

levels, Liliana Negoi

luke 10:25-37…, Charles W Martin

Melissa Houghton | 3 Poems

Michael Rothenberg and Mitko Gogov

Ms. Weary’s Blues, Jamie Dedes

not with a bang but a whimper, three poems, Jamie Dedes,

One of My Tomorrows, John Anstie

patriarichal wounds…, Charles W Martin

PTSD Children, Charles W Martin

Rachel Heimowitz | Three Poems from Israel

the red coat, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Socks | Michael Dickel

Spring in my Sundays, Iulia Gherghei

Standing Post: Trees in Practice, Gayle Walters Rose

Teaching Poetry | Michael Dickel

Terri Muuss | and the word was

The Marks Remain, David Ratcliffe

Three Poems by Paul Brooks

Three Poems by Phillip Larrea

Three Poems from Albanian | Faruk Buzhala

To Our Broken Sandals, Mendes Biondo

To the Frog at the Door, Jamie Dedes

Two Poems by Denise Fletcher

Valérie Déus | 3 Poems

BeAttitude

Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, Naomi Baltuck

Short Story

Whispers on an April Morning Breeze, Joseph Hesch

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check out Phillip T Stephens’ books at Amazon.com