Liz Winters's Blog, page 2

Infographic: Perfect length for online user engagement

I've been reading and learning a lot about on-line social media networking and engagement. I'll admit, it's not my favorite kind of research, but whether I like it or not, on-line marketing is a must for a self-published author like me. And if I'm going to take the time to do it, I might as well take the time to learn how to do it right. Heaven knows I haven't been doing it right for the past couple of years and it shows.

Anyway, today I came across this awesome infographic, and I wanted to sh...

Proposition Love Jewelry Ad - So Damn Beautiful

I don't often gush over advertising, but this ad for gay wedding/commitment jewelry is just too gorgeous not to gush about. We need more ads like this, hopefully not just on YouTube but also on network TV.

Should #ebook #covers list story word count?

Personally, I prefer e-books to print. However, as I was scrolling through cover thumbnails of stories saved to my kindle for something new to read yesterday, I realized that E-books are inferior to print books in two ways:

Their covers provide no visual clue as to the length of the book (with print books you can immediately approximate the length just by looking at the book’s spine); and

Too often they do not provide a summary of the book’s contents (which usually can be found on a print book...

June 9-11 stats

Just so I don't completely bore my blog readers daily, I decided to cluster my reports. I am keeping track daily, though.

June 9

Words written fan fiction 330
Words written original fiction 0
Book units sold 1

June 10

Words written fan fiction 0
Words written original fiction 790
Book units sold 1

June 11

Words written fan fiction 0
Words written original fiction 1194
Book units sold 2


Non-fiction project 36% done.

Obviously I could (and should) have done a lot better. My nose will be pressed to the keyboa...

January 8 stats

Oops. Just a little late.

Fan fiction words written: 904
Original Fiction words written: 910

Book Units sold: 0

Non-fiction book project 24% done.

January 7 stats

words written fan-fiction 1772
Words written original fiction 262

Book units sold: 2 (thank you!)

Better than yesterday but there's lots of room for improvement.

January 6 stats

words written fan fiction: 38
words written original fiction: 0

book units sold: 0

yeah, I'm feeling pretty pathetic. But, but, but, I did get 10% done on a non-fiction book I'm compiling. Yes, that's a distraction, but it's also something I can put together fairly quickly and self-publish to hopefully generate a little passive income so I don't feel quite so guilty about the full time writing with almost no income.

Anyway, it wasn't the best day but tomorrow will be better and I know I can't com...

Yikes - I need to speed up

I just saw this article from the Boston Globe: "For indie writers of Amazon, it's publish or perish." It's an article about Kindle Unlimited and doesn't offer much news, except for the personal story shared byKathryn LeVeque, an author who has self-published 44 works of fiction since 2012. That's an impressive number, and one that had me scratching my head until I kept reading and saw that Ms. LeVeque sometimes writes 12,000 words per day.

Wow! That makes the 3000 words I wrote today sound pos...

New Year's Accountabilities

Happy 2015!

It's traditional to make resolutions at this time of year and this year I have a great reason to make meaningful resolutions. Last year at this time I was a corporate drone, but although my job was a good one, it didn't present me with the right kinds of challenges. It did, however, present me with all sorts of wrong and unhealthy kinds of stress. So last fall, after having many long conversations with my husband, I made a decision to leave my job in order to write full time.

The th...

Friday's Favorite: "Slay me," said the dragon.

Today's favorite is a short story from Stephen Del Mar called "Slay me," said the dragon." (Great title, right?)

I read this quite a while back, but think about quite often. It's a fun m/m dragon-shifter/slayer story that manages to do quite a lot of world building in a short amount of time. I really liked the glimpses of dragon society we get in the story and especially the method of slaying a dragon. The ending is slightly bittersweet, but still very romantic, and the whole story i...