Jo Robinson's Blog, page 52

State of the LWI Address.

Originally posted on :

Hello LWI Friends,

First of all I want to thank every single one of you for helping LWI get off to such a great start. I think if people saw the Numbers and heard the Buzz about out site they would be surprised. I know I am. Only because I was not expecting to have a team of such great people working on the site with me.

Now I wanted tell all of those who have;

Provided me with books for reading and reviewing
Sent answers to interview questions
Have agreed to interviews

That I am happily working on all of them and have not forgotten. I know it may seem at times as though an interview or review is long in coming but it does come. Interview response has been tremendous. In fact there may be a week filled with Interviews coming up.

For those who haven���t taken advantage���

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Making your own Ebooks, Part Five – What can you do with your word processor to make your Ebooks better

Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:

Let���s start by looking at a list of the most common Ebook problems. If you recognise a problem then you may have a quick solution coming up. We are looking at EPUB & MOBI files here, not fixed format PDFs.

There are links for all the essential information & software that you will need to be able to test your Ebook and make sure that it is working correctly before you put in front of your customers. All of the software links are to FREE applications that I have used and test on a Windows PC. I have not personally tested the Mac versions but if they work as well as the Wondows versions you should have no problems using them.

(The next part in this series will cover formatting and fixing your files in Microsoft Word.)

What are the most common problems with Ebook files?

Chapter titles, Headers, and���

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From Writing to Book Marketing. This posts for you.

Originally posted on Jen's Pen Den:

Hi, it���s me again. Ronovan from Ronovan Writes. I have returned. Jen has kindly allowed me back to help out while she is writing her, um, self off. I just cannot bring myself to say writing her booty off. It just seems so unseemly of me. It���s her booty she can do what she wants with it but who am I to talk about it, right? I mean she says it all the time but I just cannot do it.

Now on with the show. You no doubt know I���m here with the freebies I���ve found. That���s a hobby of mine. When you haven���t any money, you find things that don���t cost any. Are they the number one advice books on the market? No, but I learn from them nonetheless.

So here we go with:

Ronovan���s Five Free Finds

Why only Five and not Ten?

Cause I���m only half as���

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More Punography of the Medical Kind..

jorobinson176:

:D

Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:

I am going to be working on draft interviews for the Sunday Show and also various other projects today and not wanting you to suffer from withdrawal symptoms thought you might enjoy another run at the Puns���. Medical ones this time and you will be glad to hear that I did edit out the more graphic ones since many of you may be reading this right after breakfast.

If you missed the first batch then there is a link to those too.. Coming up later today the next in the Awards Season as I catch up on the generous nominations in the last few weeks.

COMPETITION

How about you contribute your favourite puns in the comment line ��� don���t be shy and feel free to donate more than one.�� Since it was suggested by Chris, The Story Reading Ape ��� http://thestoryreadingapeblog.com/ ��� First Prize is a night out with him���

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Advertising Your Book

Originally posted on :

Most of the reading public are not part of writers social networks in any big way. They probably all have a personal Facebook or a Google+ presence, and quite a few people these days have Twitter accounts to see what the Kardashians world is up to. A lot of them are on the mailing lists of book recommendation sites though, and that���s why an important part of marketing should be popping your books up on them now and then in addition to your normal tweeting and sharing on your regular sites.

If you can afford trying for a listing on Bookbub then that���s a good option, but not only is it going to get more difficult to get accepted there now that traditional publishers are using it, it���s also quite expensive. That doesn���t mean you have to do all advertising yourself though. There are a couple of much cheaper options���

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So You Wanna Kill a Character?

jorobinson176:

Yes.

Originally posted on Legends of Windemere:

Yahoo Image Search

I was going to be serious and some of these suggestions will be in that category.�� Yet I find myself in a silly mood, which means we���ll see what happens.�� So what are some things to consider when killing off a main character?

Make sure the readers will care.�� If a central character dies and there���s no reaction then something went wrong.�� Maybe you forgot to include them in the previous parts of the book?�� Perhaps you forgot to explain what the character���s purpose was besides getting shanked in the giblets.�� Either way, you might want some beta readers to make sure this doesn���t happen.
Have it be memorable.�� Nobody likes a forgettable death scene.
Have it be simple.�� Only so many ���life story��� speeches a character can do without a gaping chest wound.�� Unless they���re in a Metal Gear game and then they seem to have���

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Is My Novel Ready for Proofreading? by Guest Author Wendy Janes @wendyproof

Originally posted on :

Is My Novel Ready for Proofreading?

I love my job as a freelance proofreader, but sometimes authors make it very difficult for me to do my job effectively.

However brilliant your writing, however delicious your story, if there are too many errors and inconsistencies, you are asking too much of your proofreader to spot everything.

Here are a few examples of things that should have been removed by the author/developmental editor/copy editor prior to proofreading. Just in case you���re wondering, they are all products of my fevered imagination:

A tear-jerking family saga opens with Davina playing with her five-year-old brother, Oliver, on the sprawling lawns of their darling papa���s country estate. When our feisty heroine rescues sweet young Oliver from his evil kidnappers two years later, he is ten years old. The hapless Oliver dies in a fire soon after his rescue, and (miraculously) reappears at Davina���s sumptuous wedding to���

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PS – Pre-made Book Covers

I’ve started loading book covers for sale on my new Pre-made Book Covers tab at the top there. I must admit that it’s quite nerve wracking, but never mind, I love making them so it’s very unlikely that I’ll stop now.

All of them are made with my own photos or sketches so far. I might use stock or public domain pictures in the future, but only ever for very small elements or manipulated to totally individual works. I’ve resized them for web use, so I’m wondering about the visual quality as they are, so I’ll tack on a very high resolution image here just in case anyone thinks the web size is a bad idea. Hopefully easy to see. I’m working on a haunted house cover at the moment – love it – but only in between the scribbling and editing. I’d really love it if anyone has any ideas for covers to make. I don’t want them to be too generic, and I don’t have tons of ideas myself.

Writing your own Ebook ��� Part Four — What Ebook format should I use?

jorobinson176:

Here’s some more absolute gold from the Ebook Doctor.

Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:

Let���s get straight to the point ��� there are only 3 formats to go for: EPUB, MOBI and PDF. There are many other specialist formats for specific readers but these 3 formats will cover you for almost all the market.

Now that you know the answer, here is the thought process:

We have looked some of the technical aspects of E-books but how do we decide on the format to focus on. This may be a trivial question, especially if you are planning to write narrative fiction and are planning to go with Amazon only. But if you have any other kind of book and want to get to a wider market you have to think again.

Will my book work as an Ebook?

Before you start work on formatting your book, you have to decide if your book is going to work as an Ebook.

The Ebook is a���

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I ask you, how can we be alone in the universe?

jorobinson176:

I agree with Jack – it’s nuts to think that we’re the only life around. We’re pretty dangerous too. :)

Originally posted on Have We Had Help?:

When you look at this video, forget the simplistic answers foisted upon humanity by religion since time immemorial, and more recently by certain individuals within the scientific community to explain why the universe exists and our place in it. Common sense and cold hard reality dictates that no mysterious all seeing entity made the universe. Nor did it all happened with a big bang. Both woolly beliefs stretch credulity to breaking point. The universe just is.

As for whether or not we are the only sentient species, how can we be, it makes no sense either. Somewhere out there life, not necessarily as we would recognize it, is going about its business. All I would say to them/it, whatever, is I hope that they fail to discover us, or we them. Our species is totally undesirable, warlike, greedy, arrogant and controlling. We are to be avoided like the plague for���

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