Everly’s Comments (group member since Oct 14, 2011)

Everly’s comments from the Connecting Readers and Writers group.

Jo wrote: "Elle wrote: "I started this group because I saw a major flaw with a lot of the groups on Goodreads. There are a lot af terrific groups for writers and there are a lot of equally wonderful groups fo..."
Great Jo! I hope all the writers here can help answer your questions.

I have a question.

I was wondering how many of you out there, have a writing coach or an editor? I am speaking mostly to the people who self-publish. I have an article on my blog about the benefits of having a writing coach, and I have gotten a lot of mixed responses from people about whether they think you need one or not. Here is the article

http://ellelapraim.com/coaching-writi...

What do you think? Do you have one? Do you want one?

Maria wrote: "Elle, I just tweeted your blog, hope you don't mind. People will find it really useful. I am definitely a faithful subscriber now."

Thank you so much! I hope my blog continues to help you. Here is my Facebook link if you want to check it out and see what I do.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elle-La...
I have over 3,000 fans on there. When I say I spend time on my Facebook and Blog, I mean doing posts and interacting with my followers. It took a long time to get my blog done but now that it is, I just do posts. You can make money from your blog, if you can make money from Facebook, I am not aware of it. You make money from your blog by having ads on it. A lot of people don't believe in doing that, which is fine, but if you can get a lot of people to your blog, you can make a little extra cash that way. I would say most of the money I make is just off of people liking my blog and then buying my books. I hope that helps.

Maria wrote: "Elle, how many hours per week, on average do you spend blogging out of curiosity?"

Great question. I have an extremely active Facebook page as well as my blog. I try to spend 50% of my time on writing, and split the other 50% between my Facebook page and my Blog. You always need to devote more time to your advertising then you think you do.

Paula wrote: "Try this Elle,

What's the ONE THING your protagonist wants more than anything on the planet(or off planet if it's Scy-Fi).

Find ten different words that describe that thing.

One of those could b..."

That's great! I am going to brainstorm on that today. Thank you!

Paula wrote: "Elle wrote: "I have a question. I have a really hard time coming up with titles for my work. I slave away at a story for months at a time. I live, eat, and breathe it and then when it comes to a ti..."

lol, that is still good to hear. I kind of invision your titles like accessories. As if someone goes to complement you on your outfit and you have to say "Oh thanks that's just new title sparkling there"

I just noticed a lot of people seemed to have questions about utilizing twitter. Here is my article about how to best use twitter for authors. This article gets reposted a lot so you may have seen it, but if not, here it is. I hope it helps you get a better understanding of twitter and why it can be so valuable.
http://ellelapraim.com/how-to-utilize...

Annetta wrote: "Elle wrote: "I have a question. I have a really hard time coming up with titles for my work. I slave away at a story for months at a time. I live, eat, and breathe it and then when it comes to a ti..."

lol very helpful. I think I will try the first suggestion. Then when I have a daughter, I will wait 20 years and

I have a question. I have a really hard time coming up with titles for my work. I slave away at a story for months at a time. I live, eat, and breathe it and then when it comes to a title, I am stuck. Does anyone have any tips to finding a great title for their work? What do you do? Do they just come to you?

Everyone here is right; we need to be helping each other out as writers. I know that when I first started writing and self-publishing, I relied on a lot of other people for help and advice. There were blogs that I checked out every day for tips. Now that I am more established I am happy to do that same for others, and that is why I have my blog. I can only hope that someone who has mine bookmarked, will someday write a great blog for someone else. Being a writer is hard and no one really seems to appreciate how tough it truly is. That's why we need to stick together.

The key is trying to find people who have useful information and really want to help, not just promote themselves. It takes a while to find the good blogs but when you do, they are golden.

Elicia wrote: "I am wondering, as both a reader and writer if we are allowed to post that we are willing to read another authors books, and the flip side having a number of books we want reviewed?"

I see where your coming from but review exchange makes me a little uncomfortable, but I am happy to have you ask people to review your work under the review section on this group. I hope that helps.

So it's January and I know that like me, most of you have already given up your promise to eat less cheesecake this year, so let's talk about real goals. The ones we should be making about our career. This is a great place to put your goals in print, that way we can support each other and be able to go back and look at your goal periodically and see where we're at.

Here is mine:

1) So far I have only published short stories, so my goal for this year is to publish two novels.

2) Have a single month sales be over 500 units sold.

3) To have my blog make it over the hump of 700 views a day.

4) To take weekends off and enjoy more time with my family and less time pounding my keyboard.



Ok, your turn.

I have been reading a lot of YA (young adult) books lately. I notice a lot have sex in them. I wonder if that is ok for books that are geared towards teens and pre-teens? On the other hand, I know a lot of adults who read them, but on the other hand they are meant for teens. I have a Facebook page where I help support young female writers. I asked my three thousand followers, and most of them said they thought it was fine, but they are teens, of course they are going to say that right? Is it adult's job to put their foot down and say no? What are your thoughts?

Lynne wrote: "Good stuff, Elle. :) I've been putting explanations of grammar rules in my blog on an irregular basis, and it has gotten some good comments when I've done it. Maybe I should make it a weekly fea..."

Yes! That sounds great. Anything to make yourself original and stand out.

Nowadays, everyone and their mom has a blog. Strike that, everyone and their mom and their mom's dog had a blog. We all keep hearing about how it can be the most effective way to advertise your book for free. The only problem is, a lot of people are just waisting their time with their blog, spending hours a day on it with little to no results. I know that was definitely me in the beginning. I eventually realized I either needed to make my blog work for me, or scrap the whole thing. I put tons and tons of hours into research and development.

Since my blog has become so successful, people have asked me how I did it. Here is my blog post about making your blog work for you.

http://ellelapraim.com/how-to-build-r...

Even if you don't read the article, the one thing you need to remember above all else, is to be authentic. If you just have a blog because you think you need one, people will see that. If you love to write on your blog, and you have a passion for your readers, you will be the kind of blog that people bookmark and check everyday.

Hi All,

I am so glad you all enjoyed it! I love helping fellow writers. That's what this group is all about. Stay tuned because I am going to put up another one of my articles people have been asking me for, all about how to have a blog that actually gets readers to buy your books and not just waste your time.

Elle Lapraim

This question is for the reader to let us, the writers in the group, know what it is about a book description that makes you buy the book? I know for me, that some of my books sell much better than others, and I am sure it has a lot to do with the book description, but I am not sure what about the descriptions is working or not working.

please feel free to share your thoughts and maybe even an example of a book description that you liked so much, you ended up buying the book.
* This is not a place to put the book description of your own book.

So, I wrote this a while ago, but it keeps getting so many comments on other groups I have posted it to, that I thought, why am I not posting it on my own group? Goodreads actually tweeted the article to all one hundred thousand of their followers. So here it is, please enjoy, and I hope it helps.
http://ellelapraim.com/how-to-use-goo...

Here is a great one for self-published authors.
http://editioselfpublishing.com/

Ottilie wrote: "Ah okay I wasn't sure what she meant by craft."

Ottilie- I guess I mean any websites that help you be a better writer. Things from inspiration to technique to structure to grammer.