Blog – Page 42 of 451

5 Powerful Upgrades to Your Writing Software

March 12, 2018March 2, 2018Tools for Writers, Uncategorized

For every challenge a writer faces, there is a helping hand available in the form of a tool or app.

While no tool is a replacement for talent or creativity, there are plenty of options available to make your writing process smoother and more productive.

From comprehensive writing suites packed with powerful pro features, to smaller scale solutions to a single specific problem, there is software available for every need.

We’ll now take a look at five of the best writing tools available, and explore exactly how they can benefit your personal writing process.

Scrivener

Have you ever been frustrated by the limitations of standard writing software like Microsoft Word or Google Docs?

While these tools can be suitable for simple writing projects, they are often far from ideal for longer works, such as full-length books.

Scrivener is a powerful writing application absolutely packed with features. Some of the key benefits offered by Scrivener include –

The ability to store and access your research within the same environment you write in
An easy to use outlining mode to have a ‘big picture’ overview of your book
Free community created resources, such as Scrivener templates
Powerful editing and revision options for longer works

Scrivener is one of the most comprehensive and fully featured book writing software applications on the market. You can also enjoy a fully featured 30 day free trial and a range of Scrivener discounts if you decide the software is right for you.Continue reading

Twitterific Writing Links

March 11, 2018March 11, 2018Twitterific

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 45,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Have you visited the WKB lately? Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox! Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.

New Stuff:

The 8th annual online Nonfiction Writers Conference, May 2-4. The opening session features a conversation with Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, and The Happiness Project. Additional sessions cover how to write, publish, promote and profit with nonfiction books. There is a fee for attending the conference, but here is a discount code for 33% off for my blog readers: ElizabethSpannCraig35

Picture book resources: This was something cool that I stumbled across this week: free picture book templates and other resources from the talented Debbie Ridpath Ohi (@inkyelbows).

I have a post up today on the Alliance of Independent Authors blog for their Sunday Self-Publishing Success stories.

Business / Miscellaneous

Conferences and Events / Miscellaneous

Taking Note

March 9, 2018February 20, 2018Motivation and the Writing Life

by James Mullen

Turner Field in Atlanta, June 1995, I scribbled a note on my knee just before the first pitch:

Mike Deveraux, former legendary Braves player, is sitting behind us. The man next to him asks him to extend his hand as far away from his body as possible so he can take a close-up photo of the finger that has his World Series ring. Deveraux is gracious, smiles, but asks the man if he wants a photo standing with him as well. The fan says no, he just wants a photo of the ring. Mike Deveraux was a big reason the Braves won the Series. I only hope the guy with the camera doesn’t see any adult movie stars during the game.

Red Smith, the legendary NY Times sports writer, reportedly said that writing involves sitting down with a typewriter and opening a vein. But before the bleeding starts, I think certain aspects of writing can be fun, and those aspects will be different for each of us. I hate outlining and knotting up the plot threads. You may love doing that. I enjoy diving deep into the settings and characters, and you may find that tedious or difficult.Continue reading

Making the Most of Book Reviews

March 5, 2018March 6, 2018Promo Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I read a lot about the importance of book reviews to a book’s success. There are tons of articles out there about how to get more book reviews or how to find and contact book reviewers.

But sometimes I think writers don’t do enough with book reviews, when we have them. We allow them to sit statically on our Amazon book page.

I’m guilty of this, myself. But I’ve made more of an effort lately to highlight my reviews, recognizing the importance of social proof.

Amazon Product Page

As I mentioned above, this is usually the repository of many of our reviews… at least, our customer reviews. Although the focus when I first got published was more on reviews in publications like Library Journal and Kirkus, the importance of customer reviews to potential readers has become increasingly important.

But that shouldn’t be the only place on the product page where our reviews are listed. A strategy that works for series is to add up all the 5-star or 4 and 5 star reviews and mention them under the ‘editorial review’ section on the page (we access that through our author central account). That way you end up with something like “readers love Winston Pepperjack! 500 5-star reviews.”

You can also create and format a list of your favorite reviews from other books in the series and list them on the editorial review page (Praise for the Winston Pepperjack series: ___ ).

Back Matter

This is something that I’m trying soon. I have all of my books listed in the back matter of each book (every book is linked to its own page on my website with ordering information for each retailer), but I don’t have any review snippets in the back matter at all.

If I include short reviews, I’m thinking it will help readers crossover from one series of mine to another. I do have some readers who are very loyal to a particular series and reluctant to try another. Reviews could help convince these readers to try something new.

Images

This is something new for me, although I’ve seen others do this really well. Using a free design program like Canva or Visme, take part of a review and create an image with it. This creates a little visual interest for your website. I always feel like incorporating reviews on my site is a bit awkward, and the images help, I think.

I’m absolutely horrible at design, but even I was able to make a couple of serviceable images with the help of Canva.

Newsletters

We can also take the images we’ve created and include them in our newsletter with a link to the book in question. That could be a good, again, for reader discovery.

Finding your best reviews

Some writers avoid their review sections at all costs. But there are ways of finding your most flattering customer reviews without having to trudge through the one-star, discouraging stuff. Just click on ‘5-star’ and Amazon will return the 5-star results.