Siobhan Daiko's Blog, page 3
May 6, 2017
Please Don’t Buy My Book
I’m just back from The Smarter Artist Summit in Austin, Texas. I won’t try and capture the magic of the event – Kobo Mark does an excellent job – but I would like to talk about the big takeaway: the dangers of Also Bought pollution.
Also Boughts are probably the most important aspect of the entire Amazon recommendation ecostructure. And also the least understood.
They are much more than a little strip under your book’s description – they power a huge chunk of the recommendations that Amazon serves to readers.
The Also Boughts are what tells Amazon that the readers of my non-fiction also like reading Susan Kaye Quinn, Sean Platt and Johnny Truant. Amazon uses this data to decide who to recommend books to – because Amazon is always seeking to show readers the books they are most likely to purchase.
For this reason, it’s important to monitor your…
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November 30, 2016
***GUEST POST*** No Restraint, Elizabeth Black
I’m delighted to welcome Elizabeth Black on my books blog.
Thank you, Romancing the Past, for having me as a guest blogger. My name is Elizabeth Black, and I’m here to tell you about my new, delicious erotic romance novel, No Restraint. I’m also offering a give-away of one of my two erotic retellings of fairy tales, either Trouble In Thigh High Boots (erotic Puss In Boots) or Climbing Her Tower (erotic Rapunzel). Your choice. Enter the contest and good luck!
I love to eat. I especially love to bake and make treats. My husband specializes in meals, and I specialize in desserts. The more decadent the better. I get out all my baking gear in the Fall .There’s something about Fall that brings out my homing instincts, and you can’t get homier than when you bake pumpkin bread and gingerbread men. So far this season I’ve made maple candy, gingersnaps, pumpkin bread, angel kisses (meringue cookies with chocolate…
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November 23, 2016
The Joy of Taking it Slow! Or why I’ll never do NaNoWriMo #AmWriting #WWWBlogs
We all have different ways of working, but I know I’m not a nano writer. No no no!!!
Every November, Twitter, Facebook and blogs are full of tales from the front line of NaNoWriMo – or National Novel Writing Month. The aim is to write 50,000 words during November and it does seem to galvanize writers everywhere into action.
But while I agree that it is good to sometimes have deadlines and targets, the thought of NaNoWriMo makes me shudder. Can it be good to put so much pressure on yourself?
Writers are terribly insecure beings on the whole. And we’re also our own worst critics. We set ourselves up, a lot of the time, for failure by putting unnecessary pressure on ourselves when we don’t really need to. And I can’t help feeling that for me, and possibly for a lot of other writers, NaNoWriMo could pile on that pressure and add to writers’ guilt.
You know what that is – berating yourself because you haven’t met…
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October 30, 2016
Self-publishing and the snobbery issue
Yes!!!
I work with all different types of authors, those who are hoping to secure a publishing deal, those who are chasing the self-publishing dream and even a couple who have gone on to secure a deal with one of the big five (or six, or whatever it is). Some of these writers are brilliant, some are really talented, some are steady, dependable story tellers who can spin a good yarn, some aren’t that great, some have accepted help and advice and have improved in leaps and bounds, a few I have advised to go right back to the drawing board and there have been a handful who I have had to advise that writing is perhaps not the path for them (this is at the sample edit stage – I never take a penny from authors in this situation).
You might be surprised to know that most of the authors…
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September 25, 2016
Readers All Over The World Are Reading for August Reviews – Are You In? #MondayBlogs
Get reviewing!
August is “Write A #BookReview on Amazon Month”
Readers from all over the world are being inspired to post reviews for books they’ve read on Amazon.
In a Bold attempt to increase reader awareness of the importance of book reviews to all authors, Terry Tyler is leading the campaign to get more people posting those all important reviews on Amazon.
Authors: #AugustReviews is about readers posting a review of a book to Amazon, we would also like to encourage them to share the Amazon Review Post Url on Twitter. An author can take part as a reader, but please don’t use this to promo your own books.
Book Bloggers: We really appreciate your support and know you are likely to already post reviews on Amazon, please keep the Hashtag for Twitter with a link to your Amazon review url only, not your blog post. We don’t want to put off readers who think they need…
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September 21, 2016
Wednesday Wing….#New #Twitter gives you more for your 140 characters #wwwblogs #TwitterTip
More from Twitter.
Twitter Now Gives You More
Yesterday morning whilst writing my morning tweets I thought Twitter was having a funny blip when it gave me more than my usual 140 characters, but in my early morning (just got out of bed) mode, I didn’t think much of it until later in the day when my thoughts returned to social media.
Last evening I found an article which confirmed my suspicions…..read more here is this article by Ash Read
Main points are; @names in replies, media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) and quoted Tweets will no longer be counted against the valuable 140 characters that make up a tweet. Hooray! Let’s get Tweeting!
Wants more useful tips? Check out these Wednesday Wing Posts…
Checking your WordPress is linked to your Twitter helps others share your posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7L2
Writer’s Craft books by Rayne Hall full of REALLY useful tips http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Ma
Hyperlinks, Short…
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September 14, 2016
Meet Steve
Meet Steve!
Sorry it has been a while since I wrote a blog post. If you care to read my newsletter (see here), you can catch up with my latest news. My excuse for not blogging is that I’ve been really busy, but I won’t let that stop me in future. I love reaching out to readers and blogging is a great way to do so.
I’m super excited at the minute as Four will release next week. When I finished writing Three, I really wanted to tell the rest of Max, Lauren and Steve’s story. It’s an emotional, sexy read, and you don’t have to have read Three first as I fill readers in on what happened. Why not add it to your Goodreads TBR? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31282160-four
I’ve been asked why I didn’t use Steve’s POV in the narrative. It was a conscious decision on my part to keep to…
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August 25, 2016
Let’s Talk About #BookReviews Day 4
More excellent advice from Rosie
We are well over half way through “Write a book review on Amazon ” month and this week I’ve been supporting the campaign with some book reviewing themed posts.
At some point in book reviewing everyone will come across a book they really didn’t like, could you still write a review and how could you write it?
Negative and Bad Reviews
I can guarantee this is going to cause a scene.
So what do you do if you really didn’t like a book? People who slam a book and its author publically are often called Book Trolls. Like wise authors who have fans who bully anyone who dares to post a low star rated review, are also connected to the troll label. I suspect this is one of the top reasons why people fear to post a review and it damages the industry as a whole.
Firstly put yourself in the…
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August 24, 2016
Let’s Talk About #BookReviews Day 3 #wwwblogs
More excellent advice from Rosie Amber.
August is “Write a book review on Amazon” month and I’m helping support this with a series of book reviewing themed posts.
Most author’s understand the value of book reviews, our real challenge is reaching the average book reader, for whom writing a book review is not a high priority.
Writing that bookreview – Rosie’s own Point of View. **WARNING – we’re going in deep** Don’t feel shocked, below are lots of points to consider, but only use a selection in a book review. Otherwise you’ll feel out of your depth.
So when I wrote my very first book reviews they were only about a couple of lines long. (Good news: Amazon now accepts really short reviews) I would finish a book, think about what I’d read but I only remembered bits especially if I’d read the book over a week or two. I might write something like this “I really liked…
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