Linzé Brandon's Blog, page 59
October 15, 2015
35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 35: A Writer's Journey
While writing a post for this challenge, a few days ago, I reached a total word count of 1.8 million words. I was quite surprised when I updated my word count spreadsheet to see that it had actually happened. One moment I was a few thousand words short, the next moment...there it was.It is something I started about two years ago after a Facebook friend mentioned her lifetime word count. Since I still had every manuscript I had written on my backup drive (I changed computers a few times o...
35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 34: The Last Word - Back Matter
About the Author
This may be the last paragraph in your book, but do not disregard its importance. The About the Author paragraph (or two) provides your reader a personal view into the person whose book they have just finished reading.What should this paragraph entail? It is entirely up to you, but here are a few pointers to help you decide how to word your Author Bio:Don't lie about yourself. This does not mean that you have tell all, but don't say things that are not true to make yourself so...
Cover Reveal: SEEKING REDEMPTION by Madhu Vajpayee
Book Blurb: Story of a girl Meera, who is unwittingly drawn into a conflict from where she finds it difficult to emerge unscathed. It's her journey from being a simple, medical graduate belonging to a middle class family to the uncharted territories of corruption and caste based politics. Her path is crossed by the two men, both compelling yet completely contrasting characters, who are forever going to change her life. If it is Aman who can challenge her ideals and defy her resolves, an...
October 14, 2015
35 Day Blog Challenge – Day 33: Does the Front Matter?
Photograph by LinzéThe front matter in a book is everything listed before the book starts at Chapter 1, excluding the cover. We will look at print books and ebooks separately since the front matter of these are not exactly the same.Let’s start with the ever popular ebook. The first virtual page after the cover deals with copyright, publication info and details about the book itself: the title and the name of the author.There is usually also a space to mention other books or a link to oth...
October 13, 2015
35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 32: To Submit or Not to Try?
For some unknown reason, people are scared to enter writing competitions. I say why not? If you win you get all kinds of exposure, if not a publishing contract. And, it saves you the pain and sleepless nights of having to write a query letter, which seems to be worse than writing an actual novel. There is no pitching an agent or editor, or any of those worries about what they will think of you.The competitions are judged anonymously, and you don't have to do anything except submit a story, lo...
October 12, 2015
35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 31: Blogging a Book
In a chat group someone asked the other day how does one blog a book, or do you just write posts about the book for marketing purposes? Personally I think you can go either way, but as a writer, trying to establish yourself? Write a book.It can be fiction or non-fiction, both can work wonderfully as a series of blog posts. Just one thing to remember: once posted it is considered published because it will be in the public domain. So no entering competitions where it explicitly states 'not...
October 11, 2015
35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 30: Blogging to share
As I have taken part in this Author Blog Challenge, I have noticed that some of the blog sites cannot be shared. If I found a post interesting, I had to copy the link and then go to Google+ (where I prefer to share blog posts) to share the link there.This posed two problems:I had to this manually. I don't mind, but it could have saved time if I had the opportunity to just click, and the post would be shared automatically.This brings me to the second problem: the blogger didn't know that I sha...
October 10, 2015
35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 29: Review Reality - do you dare to?
This is my third post on writing reviews, and this time we will have a look at reviewing non-fiction. Of all the genres, this has to be the most difficult simply because non-fiction is not the same as fiction. Non-fiction deals with real life, real situations and real problems. Before I start on the subject, let me clarify: for the sake of this post, academic and other educational books are excluded. The aim is to look as books available to the general public, you and me, via the normal book...
October 9, 2015
35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 28: When a cold shower is not enough
Their+1Erotica and erotic romance are two of the genres where people often overlook the essence of good writing. Sex sells, right? The more the better, right? Wrong!I am going to tell you two stories - the first was relayed to me, the second I have experienced first hand.A very good friend told me recently that she knows someone who buys erotic romance novels, and then reads everything except the sex scenes. My friend and I both went, what? Seriously? Either this person was lying, or she boug...
October 8, 2015
35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 27: Blowing my own blog horn...sort of
Today I am going to do something, that I don't do very often: blow my own horn...sort of. The days of the traditional publisher spending loads of money on marketing campaigns are long gone. In the same vein, self-published authors only have their own resources available and in many cases that resources are limited to non-existent.That is where the network of other self-published authors and blogging enthusiasts pull their combined resources together to help out. I belong to both categories: s...
