Orrin Jason Bradford's Blog, page 12

My Top Tools & Resources for Writers for 2016

2015 was an exciting year for being an indie authorpreneur. I made great strides, had a lot of fun, and had more than my share of successes. But just like it takes a village to raise a child, success as an indie author takes more than one person. It also takes the help of other people and resources like the ones listed below.

I’m not going to list the obvious ones like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or the other online stores. Also not listing resources like Kindle or Createspace. For the most part, the following list is of new resources that I discovered and used during 2015.

Here are my Top Five
Your First 10 K Readers Course

This has to be my #1 top pick for 2015. Nick Stephenson’s course on how to attract your first 10,000 readers is not only the best online course I’ve taken in years but the ongoing support from the included Facebook Group has been worth the tuition even if there hadn’t been a course. In fact, many of the other resources listed here came directly or indirectly from either the course or the Facebook group. So, kudos to Nick and my other 10K Reader authors.

Book Review Targeter (BRT)

I’m not sure if I heard about BRT from the 10K Group, but I do know it was from someone on Facebook. It’s a fantastic tool that has made gathering up legitimate and ethical reviews much easier in 2015. BRT had it’s ups and downs especially during the beta phase, but its creator, Debbie Drum, did an admirable job in persevering through them. I’ve used it many times to connect with avid readers who have given me honest reviews in exchange for a copy of my books.

Grammarly

Typos, misplaced words, and punctuation problems are the bane of a lot of authors. I know they are for this one. Grammarly is an online resource that can greatly reduce such errors showing up in the final product. There’s also a free version that you can load into your browser that will help clean up your blog posts as well as email messages. Grammarly is well worth investigating.

Kindle Spy

Marketing and promotion are key facets of being a successful indie author. It’s an ongoing learning curve to discover what works and what to ignore. Along that path, there are a growing number of resources that can help. Kindle Spy helps authors to identify ‘bestselling Kindle niches’ so your books are well positioned to be found by readers. One of its neatest features is that it’s a Chrome browser extension so it’s conveniently located on the upper right-hand corner of your browser.

Fiverr

Fiverr claims it’s “America’s leading marketplace for services, starting from just $5.” I would have to say that claim is correct. I know my initial reaction when I heard of Fiverr was skeptical at best. “How can you get any decent service for just $5?” Well, you can IF you’re discerning, plus the keyword in their claim is starting. Here are a few of the services I’ve used from Fiverr:

Facebook Ad graphic (Used Graphichubs) 5-stars
Female voice intro for podcast introduction (Used Sandravo) 5-stars
Podcast Cover Art (Used CreativePro ) 5-stars

I’m now looking into hiring someone through Fiverr as a part-time virtual assistant. (If you’ve found a good VA through Fiverr, let me know who it is in the comments below.)

Honorable Mentions

Here are a few other resources that I’ve found to be useful and valuable in my indie author career but didn’t quite make the cut into the top five. I may write about more of these during the year. Let me know if there are particular ones you want me to elaborate on.

Mail Chimp
Optimize Pres
Dragon for Mac
NoiseTrade

Not New but too Good not to Mention
Scrivener

Scrivener continues to be one of the most awesome and best-bang-for-the-buck software program for writers. I honestly don’t think I could live without it at this point. I’ll never, ever go back to MS Word or any other word-processing program.

And What May Make the 2016 List
Creativia

My theme for 2016 is “Courageous Creativity and Collaboration.” Shortly after choosing this theme, I heard about Creativia — a “community-driven, independent publisher of bestselling fiction & non-fiction.” I reached out to Miika Hannila, its founder, by submitting a couple of my books. They’ve picked up Amberlin: Divine Destiny and will be publishing one of my nonfiction books later in the year. So, we’ll see. Maybe they’ll be on the top five list for 2016.

Your Turn

If you’re an indie author, please share any resources you’ve found that have helped you. My inquiring mind wants to know.

When Characters Take Over a Story (A NaNoWriMo Update)

As hundred of thousands of writers around the globe move into the second half of NaNoWriMo, I want to give my update and observations.  My update: over 35,000 words and counting.

My observation #1: My characters have taken over my story and I love it. TJ (also known as Todd) has turned out to be a most interesting character in book two of the FreeForm Series, FreeForm Reborn. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he’s part alien who also has shapeshifting abilities but who is trying to stay true to his human personality and form. Unfortunately, (but fortunately for the story) he’s finding this a particularly difficult challenge.

Observation #2: When one or more characters begin to take over a story, it can produce its own set of challenges. For one, it can actually slow down the writing process, at least for a time, and especially if you’ve previously outlined the story as I’ve done with FreeForm Reborn. Suddenly, the character takes the story off in a new direction but it may be a new direction that requires further thought and/or research. Both of these can slow the process…and that’s okay, at least in my mind it is. You see, the ultimate intention is to write as engaging and entertaining a story as possible. This takes precedent even over the word count goal (which is to complete the novel or write 75,000 words, whichever comes first).

These two intentions aren’t mutually exclusive of course, but it is helpful to keep them in the proper order and perspective. So, I’m off my intended word count by just a bit. Okay by a lot. I should be around 42,500 and I’m just at 35, 647, but boy, is the story becoming increasingly interesting.

My advice from these observations? Let your characters take over your stories. In fact, encourage them to do so. You’re likely to find your story will become far more entertaining and will keep you and your future readers much more engaged.

Now, back to words that I can count towards my NaNoWriMo goal.

 

NaNoWriMo – Update #1: 20K+ & Counting

Here’s a short and sweet update #1 as I and some 300,000+ writers from around the world enter week 2 of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I’m pleased to report that I’m ahead of schedule (see graph below) for reaching the 50,000-word count before the end of the month as well as on schedule to reach my personal goal of either 75,000 words of the end of the rough draft of my sequel novel, FreeForm Reborn.

I noticed a couple days before the kickoff that I was beginning to psych myself out with the idea of completing the full rough draft in just 30 days, so I decided I need to add some fun and play to the project. So, I decided to experiment with writing at least part of the novel by dictating it. After all, dictating your writing seems to be one of the hot topics right now among indie authors, in part because many report a significant increase in their writing speed and quality.

So, what the hey, let’s give it a try. More on that to follow in a subsequent blog post, but I’m finding dictating to be a fun and worthwhile experiment. It’s also been helpful that here in the North Carolina mountains we’re experiencing one of the rainiest Novembers I can ever remember, so little outdoor activities to distract me. Okay, that’s it. Stay tuned for more updates soon.

Track Your Way to a NaNoWriMo Win

Okay, tonight is Halloween, but for hundreds of thousands of writers across the globe, it’s also NaNoWriMo Eve. That’s right, tomorrow, November 1 kicks off National Novel Writing Month when those hundreds of thousands of writers will start to write their 50,000+ novel from scratch.

I’ll be one of them, and my plan is to also chronicle my progress and what I learn along the way here on my blog.  Today’s entry is short and sweet. I want to offer other writers a simple and effective way to track your progress over these next thirty days.

I have found that tracking my progress actually increases the odds that I’ll reach my target, so may I present you with your free NaNoWriMo Tracker.

Here’s what it looks like:

It’s simple to use. Just fill in each day the following columns:

Time Start
Time End
Words/Day

When you do, you’ll be able to see your total word count, whether you’re on or off target (column +/- Target), and your words per hours. You can also make a note of anything you like on your daily progress.

I’ve gone ahead and entered a few sample figures so you can see how it works as well as setting the target at 75,000 rather than 50,000 in my example, but feel free to set your own target by changing the daily word target. For example, if you want to complete 50,000 words for the month, set the daily target to 1,667.

I hope you find this useful. Feel free to direct your writing friends to this page so they can download their own NaNoWriMo Tracker.  Now go write (including writing a comment below. I always enjoy hearing from other writers as well as readers.)

Download your Tracker excel/spreadsheet file:

NaNoWriMoTracker2015

NaNoWriMo Prep: Starting with the Ending

In my last blog post, I ended with:

But there’s one question I need to answer before I’m ready to start turning the raw material on my whiteboard into scene files in Scrivener.

What’s is the question that I’ve found helps me prepare to write the next great novel? It goes something like this:

What’s the most engaging, entertaining, exciting, and satisfying ending I can write?

And then I refer back to my initial brainstorming mindmap to begin to answer that question…again in mindmap form. (see graphic)

Answering this question is important because once I know the ending, I can start to create a storyline path to get there.

That’s where the magic of Scrivener comes in so handy.

Writing the Story Scene by Scene Scrivener Style

First, a few basics about Scrivener. The writing program’s screen is divided into three parts:

The Binder
The Writing Area
The Inspector

 

This format allows the writer to create a roadmap by creating individual files that will eventually become fully articulated scenes within the central writing area. Here’s a close up of the Binder showing the scene.

Not quite sure what order you want the scenes? Not a problem. Simply place your cursor over the scene you want to move and drag it where you want it to be in the order.

 

 

Now, let’s look at one way to use the Inspector which is broken down into several sub-sections including:

Synopsis
General
Document Notes

For this discussion, we’ll focus on Synopsis and Document Notes. In the Synopsis area, I like to identify:

the setting,
point-of-view,
characters involved and a
summary of the story point covered. Of course, you can enter whatever you find most useful here.

In the Document Notes, you can enter more details you want to be sure you include in that particular scene.

Imagine

Now, as you prepare to jump into NaNoWriMo, imagine having with such a road map sitting in your Scrivener file for your new novel. Would it not make completing a full novel of 50,000 words plus easier, and maybe even give a stronger, more engaging final novel?

NaNoWriMo Prep: Prewriting with Mind Mapping

Last week I proclaimed October to be NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Prep Month. And for many writers the first step to preparing for NaNoWriMo is to decide which of their many story ideas they want to concentrate on for an entire month.

But that’s just the start to preparing to write at least 50,000 words in just 30 days.

The second step and one of my favorites is to brainstorm the story. My brainstorming method of choice is mind mapping. I use a large whiteboard that I keep in my office. In the center of the board, I write the name of the novel even if it’s just a working title. I then let the ideas flow, oftentimes focusing on the characters and their relationships with each other for that’s where a lot of the conflict occurs in my stories.

I then leave the whiteboard up and add to it over the next several days without monitoring whether or not I’ll use the tidbits once I start writing.

Tapping into the Muse

Another important part of this brainstorming period is to tap into my creative juices as often as possible. One way I do this is to use the early morning time when I’m first waking up. I have found that during this ‘in between time’ I can often come up with some interesting plot twists or other ideas especially if I set that intention the night before.

But how do I turn all this raw material into an actual story that will hang today while entertaining and engaging the reader?

Scrivener to the Rescue

I’ve been using Scrivener for the past two or three years. I believe it’s the best piece of writing software on the market at any price. At under $50, it’s a no brainer especially if you plan to write more than the occasional short story or article. Sure, there’s a learning curve, but it’s well worth the effort because Scrivener does several things very well including:

Makes it easy to write stories scene by scene and then break those scenes into chapters later,
Allows you to keep all your material together in one file including character profiles, settings info, and research,
Easily able to take the final material and format it in whatever form you want including manuscript, PDF, epub and mobi.

But there’s one question I need to answer before I’m ready to start turning the raw material on my whiteboard into scene files in Scrivener.

And we’ll explore what that question is in the next post so stay tuned. What do you think it is? Post your guess below. The first one to get it right will receive the book by me of your choice in the format of your choice (mobi, epub or PDF). Ready? Set…guess.

If November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) What is October?

Simple answer: October is NaNoWriMo Prep Month.

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo at least four or five times over the years, writing such great works of literature as:  Seeds of a New Power, Babble, and Endangered: Book two of the Zak Bates Eco-adventure. The past two years I’ve been a NaNoWriMo Winner, completing at least 50,000 words of a novel in one month.

Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month.

Each year I learn something new about the craft of writing, about myself as a writer, and how to optimize this month-long writing marathon.  Last year I learned about the value of using the previous month of October to prepare, much like a marathon runner prepares ahead of actually running the marathon.

This year my plan is to continue the learning process and to give regular updates both on my progress and what I’m learning that I think might benefit other writers. I hope to inspire a few readers to jump into NaNoWriMo for the first time. Consider this NaNo Blog Post #1.

Why Participate?

I enjoy participating in NaNoWriMo because it provides a supportive structure that helps me to focus my writing efforts on one novel. And while I know at the end of the month I won’t have a publishable novel, I will be much closer to that end goal.

I also like the idea that I’ll be participating in an international writing project with hundreds of thousands of other writers (over 325,000 in 2014).

Why is October NaNoWriMo Prep Month?

Last year I committed to not only writing at least 50,000 words but to actually finish book two of the Kindred series which I estimated might be as much as 70,000 words. (It turned out to be 78,000 words by completion).  I realized that to have any hope of achieving this prodigious goal, I would need to have a better idea what I wanted to write. Over the years, I’ve moved from being a ‘pantser’ (writing by the seat of my pants) to more of an outliner so this was the logical next step in that evolution.

What’s the 1st Step in Preparing?

For me, the first step in preparing for NaNoWriMo is to decide what book I’m going to write. I think most authors have multiple books that they want to write, so it’s not always easy to determine which one to focus exclusively on for a month. This year, I’ve had two books vying to be the novel during NaNoWriMo:

Divine Discontent (book two in the Amberlin series), and
FreeForm Reborn (book two in the FreeForm series).

Divine Discontent started off in the lead, in part because I’d received a timely and very positive review on Goodreads that prompted the reaction, “It must be time to continue the series.” (Yes, such reviews can influence authors; at least this author).

But I’ve been focusing a lot of my writing time on the Kindred Series which includes connecting this series with FreeForm. In the process of doing this I realized there needs to be a sequel to FreeForm. Enter a second timely review from another reader:

“Please tell me you are not going to leave a sista hanging? I loved FreeForm and need to know what happens next! When is the next part of FreeForm coming out?”

Now, I was in a dilemma that I’ve had before during NaNo Prep Month; which of these two storylines to pursue. So, I gave myself a few days to ponder this question. During this time, I started brainstorming and conducting some preliminary research on both. It didn’t take me long to realize that to do a thorough job with Divine Discontent, I’d need to conduct a lot more research into the decades of the sixties. While I enjoy doing such research, it can be quite time-consuming.

Bottom line — FreeForm Reborn won out to be the NaNoWriMo novel for 2015.

Next blog post I’ll explore the process of ‘prewriting’ that helps me to prepare myself to complete a full novel in just thirty days.

Feel free to leave me a message below and let me know if you’ll be participating in NaNoWriMo this year as well as asking any question you might have about the NaNo experience. I’ll do my best to answer them during this blog series.

Fiverr – Gold Mine of Talent for Writers

In the past few months I’ve tried to balance my writing time with my book promotion time with my family time with my Life On Purpose Coaching…you get the idea. A lot has been happening, not always in perfect balance.

However, along the way I’ve learned a lot and have attracted a lot of valuable resources that I believe other writers can enjoy as well. So, I’m adding to my long to-do list to start sharing more about these resources via this blog…starting with Fiverr.

Maybe I’m one of the last people on the internet to hear about Fiverr, but I doubt it. If you’ve not heard about it or not sure what you’ve heard about it, here’s the jest of it in Fiverr’s own words:

America’s Leading Marketplace for Services, Starting from Just $5

Really? Services for just $5. How can that be? That’s what I thought too when I first heard about them, but since using them several times I’m now a believer… with a few caveats.

My first foray into using Fiverr was to promote one of my books. I’ve used a number of different services with mixed results from poor to middle to great. Probably the one with the best and most consistent results is bknights. Now, if you click on that link you’ll end up at one of his Fiverr ‘gigs’ (that’s what they call their service offerings). And you’ll see that it’s not $5, but $10. That’s because it’s two of his gigs combined into one, which is one of the ways Fiverr service providers can do what they do for such low prices.

Another positive experience I’ve had was when Ann and I needed a quality image for our Life On Purpose Coaching Tips Podcast. Here’s the image we got for $5. Oh sure, provided some of the artwork. The background which came from our Life On Purpose book and the photos of our lovely mugs, but still, the graphic artist did a much nicer job than I could have done and much faster as well. I’m pretty sure that came from CreatePro180.

Next positive experience was when we needed a professional sounding introduction to our podcast. Enter Sandravo. Less than two days later, we had our intro. You can listen to it here.

And finally, back to the graphic department on Fiverr. This time I wanted two different types of promotional graphics:

Professional looking image to appear in the front of my free book, Seeds of a New Birth , that would offer a second free book ( FreeForm ) when people join the OJB Readers’ Group. And,
An image for a Facebook Ad offering Seeds of a New Birth for free.

Now, I couldn’t find anyone who exactly offered these gigs, but I did find Cynthia (or graphichubs as she’s known on Fiverr). Here’s her introduction:

“I am a Graphic expert and have worked for several Agency and Digital production firm. I am here to serve you with my years of experience with the use of digital product making sure I satisfy you and giving you the very best.”

I was impressed, but I have to admit what sold me was the cool glasses in her profile pic. What can I say, I’m a sucker for an attractive woman in glasses.

 

And boy did she deliver. Here are the two images:

Image for Seeds of a New Birth book

 

 

 

 

Image for Facebook Ad

(Well, that’s the full ad but it shows off the image well.) Cynthia customized these two images for a combined gig of $15, but she wasn’t finished wowing me.

She promised me a surprise since I’d turned her own to two new gigs she could offer to other writers (or maybe she just likes over-delivering).

A few days after receiving and approving these graphics, what should arrive in my inbox but my surprise.

Here is it! Press the little triangle and be amazed.

New Amazon Feature for Authors?

I found this interesting message from Amazon in my inbox this A.M. asking me, an indie author if I wanted to share my  new book? Well, DUH, of course.

So I clicked on it and shared a message with my ‘Amazon followers’ – whoever he or she is. 

 

So my question is — Is this a new feature of Amazon or have I simply made it to a new level of authorial recognition? Is there such a thing?

If you received anything from Amazon about the Kindred Series Bundle, please let me know, and if you’re an author who also received a similar message, let me know if it came to anything other than just a brief flicker of hope in your heart.

How to Set Up an Amazon Giveaway

Today’s vlog is about a new feature from Amazon that could be a great marketing resource for authorpreneurs and other online business owners.

 

Interested in creating buzz in your business, reward your customers & readers, & attract new followers?
Click To Tweet

Check out the video below. Then post your ideas  in the comment section on how you might use this new feature to help build your authorpreneurial business.

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