Posted on May 27th, 2008 — in Hall Of Publishing
Why to write article? Article Directories are the best source
of publishing and generating traffic to your web-site. Several
of these sites will publish your article right away, and because
of higher rankings of these sites, your article will quickly
indexed in the search engines.
Many article directories are looking for new articles that can
be used on their websites, blogs, and in their ezines. Following
are the major reasons why to write articles. 1. Write to reach
more people: When you write good articles, people may visit the
site often looking for new articles and information from you. 2.
Write for free advertising: Submitting your articles to other
websites provides an opportunity to advertise your website
without paying exorbitant fees. 3. Write to gain high search
engine ranking: Optimize your article to make it search-engine
friendly. After you publish your article, search engines will
craw that article and you may get good page ranking from this.
4. Write to increase link popularity: Submit an article at other
sites, be sure to include a link to your site in your resource
box. When these websites publishes your article, you
automatically get a link back to your site. 5. Write to
establish credibility: Through writing good and original, you
not only give your site exposure, but you also create a good
impression with your prospects. How to Write Article: Certainly,
it is good to write your own article, but before begin to write
you should research on writing article styles. A good research
helps you to know where to start, and can help to make the
article smoother.
There are some writers who like to write their articles without
a plan, but beginners, especially, those who are apt to find
them helpful. However, you don’t have to stick to the outline
completely, but can change it around while writing. You can get
some tips from http://www.1888Articles.com.
Submit Your Article to Editors: After completing writing your
articles you can submit it to the editors of E-zines that are in
constant need of fresh articles. Submission procedures are
casual. Many will also welcome unsolicited articles.
Simply send an e-mail to the editor your article with a short
personal note. Most of the websites and ezines have specific
submission strategies they want you to follow. Check ezine web
sites for submission guidelines.
Once the editors realize that you can post them good articles,
you can post your articles into a regular column. Submit Your
Articles to Online Article Directories: If you do a search for
article directories or article banks, you will possibly find
hundreds of them on internet. Submit your articles to various
directories that provide free submission of the article to their
article to their sites. There are many sites out there, which
allow writers and author to submit their articles, for example
http://ezinearticles.com, http://goarticles.com and
http://www.shvoong.com and many more. You can search for
directories on search engines by using keyword like “free
article submission”.
Writing article itself is the most significant part of the
process. Make it informative and interesting to lure the
reader’s attention. It is recommended that you should spend more
time on writing and editing the actual article than on the
research.
About the Author : Allen Brown is a freelance writer for
www.1888Articles.com<http://www.1888Articles.com />, the premier
website to find thousands of free online articles related to
various categories like science articles , health articles ,
feature articles , news articles , technology articles,
management articles and more. He also freelances for
www.1888PressRelease.com <http://www.1888pressrelease.com/>.
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Posted on May 19th, 2008 — in Hall Of Publishing
During the past few months, I have received many questions as to how I have gone from an unknown writer to overcoming society’s adversarial thoughts on what writing should be and even become a well known writer. So today, I was inspired to write on this. Let me present a gist of my story. And like all stories, there’s always more depth.
When it comes to being judged by society’s belief of what good writing is, I thoroughly understand the pressure–been through that. For years I was a closet writer because the feedback I received from writing instructors (from various levels) was, “your writing is…is…is different and I’m not really qualified to comment.” I took this to mean, “I was a lousy writer.” So daily I quietly wrote, read them and agreed, and tossed them into a growing set of boxes.
Years and 72 boxes later, my insides were screaming. The screaming displayed itself in anger in everything I did and with everyone I touched. After my father died, I was fed up with life, society, and all the “shoulds” in my life. I knew I was angry at something but had no idea what it was at that time. With a full level of frustration and disgust, I decided to give up everything, take off a year, and travel to every writing conference, study anywhere I could, with anyone I could, and “really” learn to write. I had no idea what I was looking for at that time. Now I realize that I was looking for my personal voice and my writing voice.
After traveling, I returned home to Virginia not feeling that much better about my writing than when I started. I did notice that my skin was a little tougher but I was still angry, still embarrassed about my call to write. And as far as my skill level is, I didn’t feel there was much improvement. The feedback I was receiving was similar to what I received before. One teacher at a workshop at Puget Sound Writing Conference, Washington State, told me, “If I kept working at it maybe (with a big voice emphasis at maybe) some day in 10 years or so, I will be good enough to release my writing.”
Occasionally a light appeared in my tunnel. One time was when I was attending the International Writer’s Guild (IWG) yearly retreat in Syracuse, New York. There were hundreds of women writers, all supportive, all different in so many ways. The positive energy was empowering. I took away from this that there wasn’t any exact science to writing. Learning to trust my own womanhood at 52 was a completely new eye-opening experience for me. There was a shift in my writing voice.
A few weeks after my year, I woke up crying. Not a gentle sob but a wailing one. I was pissed. I was angry — at the world, at myself, at the lamp shade, it didn’t matter. I kicked shoes, took walks, and wrote pages in my journal trying to understand what was happening. There was a rage, an internal fight between their feedback and suggestions and with my internal dialogue. Later I realized the writer inside me was fighting to get out.
Afterwards, my pissed-off emotions led to, “screw everyone.” I apologize for the language ladies and gents but I’m sharing my truth. I decided to just put it out there and let it land where it may, grammar mistakes, imperfections, whatever emerged. Let the commas be too many or too few.
The first time I had to let go, it took me a week of internal dialoguing and more edits than I’m willing to admit to, in order to let go. (Actually my first experience with over editing.) My emotions changed by the hour. My family ran for the hills and didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t even know what to do with me.
The first time an English specialist sent me his suggestion that I might want to improve on my grammar first, mind you, they never were specific on where or even what they were reading, I would cry again. This would cause me to stop writing for the remainder of the day. The next day, I was back to a “what the he__” again (thank goodness).
Next, I wanted to tackle adding discipline to my writing. Boy ‘o boy, that was easy to say yet hard to implement. I soon learned that I preferred cleaning the refrigerator, even visit the dentist rather than sitting down at a specific time to write. Since then and over time, I learned how this same avoidance rippled its way into other places in my life.
At no given time did I ever suffer from writer’s block. I always felt comfortable writing on almost anything (a blessing and a curse). The curse being, I was spreading my focus too thinly. Yet, I was happy and having a ball and that’s why I kept on doing it that way. Looking back, now I can see how badly I needed to release all my bottled up emotions at that time.
Success at focusing in didn’t come easy. But eventually the excuses ran out and the emotions balanced. It started to come naturally. When I learn to place my needs first, which also meant writing, anger never emerged. In fact, I was downright pleasant to be around the rest of the day. My discipline started with one hour of writing every morning and has evolved into a 5 to 8 morning experience and an hour in the evening reviewing my day’s notes.
The more I wrote, the more outlet opportunities knocked on my door. I began three ezines, including a daily. Then I began writing for other professionals and Internet and Magazine articles.
When I began to allow my writings to go public, even one email about my English skills set me to tears and I couldn’t write the rest of the day. Thank goodness it didn’t last and the next morning I was writing again. At that moment, I realized the importance of a disciplined writing time.
Eventually, I began to receive feedback on how people loved what I wrote, liked my ideas, and bypassed the occasional grammar error. My name even found its place in a few local newspapers including the Washington Post. The positive feedback was far bigger than the “you need to do better” messages. They began with three pats to one scolding. Then moved to six pats to one. Then 30 pats to 1.
And the most amazing part — I was happier than ever. You could find me starting my weekend day writing at McDonalds (the only place open at 6 am), by 10 at the bookstore, by 3 the library, by 6 returning home and satisfied. There were bum times on park benches especially in the spring, museums and shopping malls when the weather was nasty. At my frequent stops, employees or regulars stopped and asked what I was working on and they willingly share their thoughts and ideas on the topic. Some agreed, some didn’t, but the magic was, my writing became richer because of them, because of the environmental switches.
My writing kept improving and what I produced tripled. Occasionally I would read something I previously wrote and sat numb, not believing, “I wrote, that!” My inner critic even stopped punching.
Now my pat-to-grammar-email ratio doesn’t matter. I know there’s more to learn yet I’m so glad my writing is out in the public eye. I write every chance I can and make a space for it in my life. Topics don’t matter nor does first quality matter. Just as long as it’s on a page somewhere and safe.
A little while back, I began outlining (Mind Maps) before writing. Previously outlining wasn’t my thing. I’ve also learned that if there I don’t have a certain number of points, I don’t begin to write. Yet even if I don’t have enough to begin writing with, my mind is still tumbling and building and something better always appears — Something that couldn’t appear without the tossing first.
Over the years, my penmanship has gone from good to worse. What I have also realized is that my first draft is sometimes just me jumping and trying to find my way around on the topic. Almost like a maze. Afterwards, I highlight the good and usually find there is more than one topic to go with.
My advice to people who desire to write — follow your heart. Trust that it will lead you to the right path. Trust today’s writing will always look different tomorrow and your writing will always improve and evolve the more you write. Not by any book you read, writing conference you attend, the best lessons are learned… It is by writing regularly.
One of my favorite quotes is, “Big things come from the smallest actions.” The light will come after you have completed many small actions. The same as I did and the many who preceded me, there is light available in the tunnel and you will see changes within yourself that will transfer onto the pages. Writing will always be an evolving process, even after the Pulitzer.
Worry about the grammar until its time, not before. If you learn one writing tip a week and work it into your writing all week, it can’t help but improve because that’s 52 improvements a year.
You don’t need a lot, one word will do. For one year I wrote 394 articles from one word — honor. Every time I completed one article the word was complete, another appeared. If I had thought I could write this many articles from one word before this experience, I would laugh at you. Eventually I called a truce. It was amazing to watch my bar as it kept getting higher. An experience that fuels my beliefs today, Whenever I began to write another “honor” story I was transitioned to age seven watching my Dad pitch the ball against the steel milk bottles, feeling like I just won the 1st prize teddy bear. Yes, the biggest one on the top shelf, the one that looks twice my size.
At times the thoughts were firing so rapidly it forced me to stop what I was doing and write what I could. Many times I had to pull off the road and get it down.
Even today there are times when my writing doesn’t make sense but I know now that I can’t get to the next point until I get rid of this stuff first. Like many writers, we all have a few boxes or stacks of these.
For everyone who feels a pull to write but hasn’t written, let me quote Nike: “just do it.” Let all the inhibitions go, they are nonsense until after all the editing. Let the commas fall where they may. Write without any attachment to the outcome. That comes later.
It took time for my writing to turn into a hundred thousand dollar business. Even a year ago, I wouldn’t have thought it possible and would have just laughed at the thought. I am happier than ever. No crying, just writing. No kicking the shoes. No more doubting of my possibilities (okay, some but very small). Be free, write and let it lead you wherever it needs to go.
Nothing you or I write will ever be lost. Fight for your writer’s life, it’s worth the battle. Especially don’t let anyone “should” all over you.
(c) Copyright Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Catherine Franz, writer, speaker, marketing master,
specializes in infoproduct development. More at:
http://www.MarketingStrategiesToGo.com and
http://www.AbundanceCenter.com. Including articles
and ezines.
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Posted on April 26th, 2008 — in Hall Of Publishing
If you want public speaking tips, what are the ten insights you can learn from former US President Ronald Reagan who was known as ‘The Great Communicator’.
The news of the death of former US President Ronald Reagan at 93 in June 2004, has
again focussed the world’s attention on both his achievements and great
communication skills.
So what can we learn about life, business and success from Reagan?
Well, after reading the tributes that have poured in for the man they called
‘The Great Communicator’, here are my 10 insights.
1. YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD
While most people are enjoying retirement, others are just reaching the
height of their power and influence. At the age of 69, Reagan was the oldest
person ever to become president of the United States.
What do you plan to do at that age?
2. THE ‘NANCY FACTOR’
There’s a saying that behind every great man, there’s an even better women.
Reagan knew his strengths and importantly his weaknesses, such as a lack of
attention to detail. His wife Nancy made up for this and they became an
‘unshakeable and unbreakable couple’.
This highlights the power of a good relationship with a life partner.
3. A RICH AND VARIED LIFE
Reagan had a rich and deep well of life experiences on which to draw from.
The shoe salesman father, the economic reality of the 1930s Depression and
at 25, the excitement and drama of being a slick sports broadcaster.
All these experiences helped shape his values, beliefs and ability to
communicate with audiences.
4. HUMOUR AND HUMILITY
Despite the early success and attraction to Hollywood as a B-grade actor,
Reagan never forgot his roots.
On the assassination attempt on his life in March 1981, he turned to his
wife in the emergency room afterwards and said, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”
5. INSTANT LIKEABILITY
Like many people with charisma and charm, Reagan had that rare ability to
build instant rapport with people he met. He connected with people on a
personal level and people liked him for that.
How can you use charisma to build your personal brand?
6. SIMPLE CONCEPTS
While many have criticised his lack of detail and intellectual rigour,
Reagan’s great gift as a communicator was to take the complex, like a
solution to the Cold War, and make it appear simple to the masses.
Like Clinton’s often quoted comment, “It’s the economy, stupid’, Reagan was
a master at delivering simple concepts that everyone could understand.
7. HOLLYWOOD STYLE
Reagan know how to dress, network with the right people and manage his
image. Skills learnt early in the cut-throat world of the Hollywood movie
industry.
8. ATTENTION TO DETAIL
There are reports that Reagan’s reign as President was tightly managed and
scripted. So what if there were chalk marks on stage outlining where to
stand and his use of cue cards as memory joggers prior to important
meetings. His background had taught him the importance of attention to
detail. Sports broadcasters around the world are meticulous to their
approach to big matches. Reagan approached presidential duties no
differently.
These are the little things that can make a big difference to the impact of
your message.
9. THE RARE ABILITY TO MOVE PEOPLE TO ACTION THROUGH THE SPOKEN WORD
Out of the millions of presentations given every day, few achieve this goal.
Yet, I believe it should be the outcome of every speech.
Reagan had it. An online biography from ‘The New Book of Knowledge’ takes a
deeper look at this rare skill.
“As a freshman, Reagan took part in a student strike that resulted in the
resignation of the college president, who had proposed cutting back the
curriculum and the teaching staff because of a shortage of funds. Reagan
made the main speech at a rally that won support for the strike from nearly
all the students. He later said that he learned then what it was like to
succeed with an audience. His skill with audiences was to be a major factor
in his successes in later life.” (Source: http://ap.grolier.com)
10. UNFALTERING OPTIMISM
Research shows that optimism is a learned skill and optimistic people
achieve more from life.
This is the one quality I admire most in Reagan. He had it until the very
end, as this quote delivered on November 5th, 1994, announcing he had
Alzheimer’s disease, demonstrates.
“In closing let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great
honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me
home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this
country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey
that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there
will always be a bright dawn ahead.”
Thomas Murrell MBA CSP is an international business speaker, consultant and award-winning broadcaster. Media Motivators is his regular electronic magazine read by 7,000 professionals in 15 different countries.
You can subscribe by visiting http://www.8mmedia.com. Thomas can be contacted directly at +6189388 6888 and is available to speak to your conference, seminar or event. Visit Tom’s blog at http://www.8mmedia.blogspot.com.
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Posted on April 10th, 2008 — in Hall Of Publishing
When you are correcting or making changes in a book manuscript, what you are doing is editing that manuscript. I’ve been in the business of editing would-be books for over the past twenty-five years, and I’ve helped many a first-time author put his or her book together in a way that made it more readable, enjoyable, saleable and finally — marketable.
There are two basic forms of helping an author write his or her own book. One is ghostwriting. That is when you take the material the author gives you, such as through tapes, written materials and/or phone calls, taking notes as you go, and holding meetings and interviews, and then you actually do the job of writing the book yourself. You may supply new material, new characters, fresh nuances, etc. for the book. But ghostwriting can also be on the fine edge of rewriting. For example, the ideas laid out by the original author may fully enter your writing of the book, sometimes as originally constructed by the author. Or you may simply rewrite a manuscript that was pretty much formally written by the author. This is near the finer edges of copyediting, where what you actually do is simply correct the major and minor mistakes made by the original author.
The big difference between ghostwriting and copyediting is not always so pronounced, you see. Some people consider it to be ghostwriting when you simply take an author’s ideas and rearrange them into readable material, while other people consider that to be rewriting. A major job of rewriting might involved adding a new “voice” to the material, or making changes in the general writing style, which may be superfluous, exaggerative, or simply downright dull.
Copyediting or editing, on the other hand, usually involves keeping to the style of the original writing, without adding much if any of your own writing “voice” to it. What you are doing is perhaps rearranging some of the material to reflect greater consistency in the writing along the lines of what the author wants — or seems to want. You might be making changes in grammar, syntax changes which entail remaking word order and perhaps utilizing new words and phrases, correcting punctuation, and changing some of the sentence structuring. You may be adding some of your own fresh material again here, as when you do ghostwriting, but when copyediting and not ghostwriting is involved, this will not usually be major additions of new book material.
However, you can certainly mesh both copyediting and ghostwriting. You may research additional material and either intersperse it where it is needed in places throughout the manuscript, or you might rewrite the opening “hook” so that it “grabs” the readers’ attention in a far more arresting manner. You could also perhaps rewrite or write a brand new ending for the book or for its various chapters, to make the book more dramatic, give it more “flair,” and add more “spice” and substance to it. All this can be done while still mainly keeping to an editing or copyediting style when it comes to the remainder of the manuscript. And you would probably not be changing the overall original “voice” of the book.
Sometimes you will find that a book contains nearly only minor grammatical errors and doesn’t need much actual editing except for grammar and perhaps some syntax or minor structural errors, and maybe some fact checking as well. Fact checking involves making sure that a character’s name is always spelled the same way, that a town remains to the north and doesn’t suddenly slip down south, and keeping to other such factual consistencies. This style of editing is called proofreading the manuscript, and is usually the last thing you do before you turn in your final copy of it to the client, whether you ghostwrote, rewrote, copyedited or simply proofread it.
Charges for the above services, as you’ve probably guessed, vary widely. You would of course charge more for more work involved in the writing, and less for less work involved. It all depends on how much time and effort you feel you need to put into the writing. If you are practically writing the book from scratch, only using the author’s ideas and doing a lot of “side research” where you are looking up ideas for new material and adding it, this would be considered upper level ghostwriting or “ghosting” — and you would charge commensurate to the greater amount of work involved. On the other hand, if all you are doing is proofreading or “proofing” the manuscript, naturally you would charge far less money to properly perform such a service for the would-be book author.
Whenever you receive a manuscript from an author, or a request to “look at” his or her material and judge what needs to be done with it, review the materials the author is willing at first to release very carefully. Explain to the author that his or her own original material is fully copyrighted under the US copyrights law of 1989, and that all nations with copyrights treaties with the US cover this as well. You may also explain that the partially or fully completed manuscript can be registered with the US Copyrights Office. And once you have a good idea of approximately what is needed to turn the material you will have at your disposal into a full-fledged marketable book manuscript, sound out the author on his or her total budget and figure out a decent rate for the actual work you will be performing. You might call it “light to medium copyediting” or “research and ghostwriting” or “simple proofreading.” Whatever you decide professionally by your own standards and what you can get the client to agree to is the best possible course of action for you to take in regard to the manuscript.
Then finally you will begin to work on what will be either your client’s own masterpiece, or if an agreement is struck, a book co-authored by the two of you. That is if the client is amenable to the latter course of action. This way you can get your name on the book spine and in the book jacket, and possibly make more money from the book as an equal partner of the client. Or if you simply want to remain “ghostly,” you might request the client at his or her discretion to consider you to be the “editor” of the book, and ask him or her to credit you somewhere. This is often done on the Acknowledgements page, for example by stating, “This book would never have been accomplished without the help of my Editor, So and So.” That way you have ample hard evidence that you actually worked on the book. But if you feel you did far more than mere editing, you could request of the client that he or she put “Ghostwritten by So and So” somewhere within the book, so that the world will know all about the hard work you actually did. In the bad old days, usually all the byline any such ghostwriter could hope to receive was indeed “Editor,” but nowadays it may be permissible to more often use the terms “Ghostwriter,” or “ghostwritten by.” It largely is up to the discretion of your client.
You will also always need to make certain simple but necessary assessments when it comes to creating a truly fine, hopefully best-selling and clearly wonderful fiction or non-fiction book, and when figuring out what exactly you are going to charge to do the job. Whether payment is made for the actual construction of the manuscript or you are willing to wait and take a percentage of the book’s net sales, or you even agree with the client to use both courses of action, you will have to make these arrangements somehow. Please remember that the work involved is the greatest determinant when it comes to figuring out what you are going to do and how much you are finally going to charge to do it.
The fields of copyediting and ghostwriting are fast becoming much more common nowadays, especially with the greater advent of self publishing services and the ready availability of book writing services on the Internet. And it doesn’t hurt to know exactly what style of so-called “editing” that you will be using to qualify and quantify a new book’s content by polishing the manuscript to its gleaming perfection of beauty, profundity, the information gained from it, or whatever the client’s and your goals ultimately happen to be.
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Posted on April 5th, 2008 — in Hall Of Publishing
When I meet an author with a great book concept, one who’s
definitely the right person to write that book, right away I’ll
often encourage him or her to self-publish. This is because I
know that, if an author is thoroughly invested in what they have
to say, and if they’re determined to create a buzz about their
message, they’ll discover . . . 5 Fantastic Benefits of
Self-publishing
1. Control. When you enter into a contract with a major
publishing house, you’re signing an exclusive agreement that
prevents your having input into most of the important decisions
that will affect your book’s perception by the public, and its
sales. You’ll have very little say about the look and feel of
your book cover, the endorsements that appear on the back of
your book, or the wording of your press release, for example.
And since all of the above elements are critical to giving your
book its best chance for bestseller status, such loss of control
can pose significant problems. “But don’t publishers know better
than I what to do to sell a book?” you may ask. Not necessarily.
Authors usually know more about their book’s subjectand hence,
about their target audience (market)than anyone else. Hey, they
wrote the book!
More food for thought about signing with a major publishing
house: If for some reason your book doesn’t sell quickly and the
publisher lets it go out of print, there’s often a “waiting
period” before the author is allowed to self-publish the book to
get it back on the shelves. In the meantime, the reading public
sees that your book is “out of print” and a great deal of
word-of-mouth damage is done. Self-publishing means that you are
at the helm of your book project. Of course, it also means that
the responsibility for its success rests in your hands. But when
you believe in your message and know that you’re going to do
everything in your power to get that message out to your target
audience, isn’t it a good feeling to know that you’re the one
driving its success in the marketplace?
I suggest a balance of control and delegation. The right
publishing ally can coach you through the process of writing and
editing your book, and will also advise you to design and market
your message in a way that gets optimum results. Your publishing
ally may be a book editor, a publishing consultant, a published
author, or all three. If she’s worth her salt, though, she’ll
know what it will take to get your book published, and she’ll
know how to help you make it happen.
2. Money. Why does it make good business sense to self-publish?
Consider the following: a contract with the book publisher
doesn’t give you an ironclad guarantee that your book will ever
and upon the shelves. If you’re a new author, your publisher
will allocate zero marketing dollars to promote your book. It’s
sink or swim! If your book does sell well, it will be due to
your own hard work and ingenuityand your reward will be a tiny
fraction of the book’s total profits. Self-publishing admittedly
involves more capital risk, but it also means that the extensive
footwork you do to market your book will go to producing income
for the person who most deserves it. After all, you’re the one
who’s doing all the work to ignite word-of-mouth about your
book. Not only that, you wrote it! Don’t you deserve to reap
100% of the profit?
3. No Waiting, No Rejection. The Cinderella story of the little
book that gets discovered by a publisher and becomes an
overnight bestseller is mostly just thata fairytale. Yes , it
happens. But it hasn’t been happening a whole lot lately. In the
current publishing climate, with major houses paying gigantic
advances to celebrity authorstheir “cash cows”not much is left
to spend on developing new talent. Let’s be honest: a publisher
isn’t going to spend a dime marketing a book by an as yet
unknown author. To get your book considered for publication in
the first place, you’ll need to have an extremely convincing
marketing strategy in place which you intend to implement on
your own, at your own expense! Such as the case in every genre
from children’s books to alternative health to historical
novels. First-time authors are being turned away en masse. And
since many nonfiction book projects are
time-sensitivewell-placed offerings intended to respond to a
specific market trendtheir authors often while way their
precious window of opportunity waiting for agents or publishers
to respond to a proposal. It isn’t impossible to get a major
publishing house interested in a book by a first-time author,
but it’s getting more difficult all the time. Self-publishing
removes the wait (and the accompanying weight from your
shoulders) and the discomfort of rejection from the process of
getting your book into print.
4. Independence. Self-published authors are usually people with
confidence in their message. Many have already developed a
following by giving talks and seminars in areas where they live
and work. Experts know when they have a powerful personal
messagethey don’t need a publisher’s approval to pump
themselves up. Such authors, many of whom are already seasoned
professionals, self-publish their books because they love being
in the driver’s seat of their book project. Rather than gamble
that a big corporation will treat their book with the respect it
deserves, such an author takes the publishing reins to ensure
that her message reaches the widest possible audience. No one
cares more about your book than you do.
5. Power of Belief. The power of belief in our words is what
makes promises good and turns dreams into reality. Authors who
self-publish their books believe deeply that others will benefit
from reading what they have to say. They have unshakable
conviction. Such authors often tell me, “I had to write this
book. I just have to get it out there!” Deep belief is the
selfless power that drives all true service and makes a
difference in the world. Authors with a strong sense of purpose
know that they can make their books succeed. They don’t want to
wait around for a publishing house to “accept” their work. Aware
that time is precious, such authors create their own publishing
opportunities. They get behind their own message. They launch a
campaign fueled with belief in the creative power of intention.
A good publishing consultant and editorial coach knows that the
best way to make your book a true success is to create and
market a message that you will both be proud of for years to
come. Creating uplifting books is a passion. Make it yours, and
every one of your books sold will be a vote of confidence in
yourself and the rest of humanity!
Copyright ©2004 Ceci Miller
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Posted on April 3rd, 2008 — in Hall Of Publishing
Before I explain how useful online dictionaries are, let me tell the whole truth: I must have several ancient dictionaries around me at home. For one, they are sometimes faster and offer the background story and language of many words. Also, they contain archaic vocabulary words. I love dying vocabulary words. When I picked Humdinger as the name of my e-zine, it was with the thought that the word humdinger is in danger of becoming archaic. I thought that in some way, I might preserve at least one word. Back to dictionaries, though. Writers need access to multiple vocabulary resources. If you write often, then you know this; if you don’t, you’ll learn soon. What I’d like to do is provide you with some great resources to check and bookmark if you find them useful.
Do you write freelance articles about surprising topics? Need specific words for a certain country, cuisine, or culture? Try this website, which provides pages of links to very unusual dictionaries and glossaries:
Glossarist World Glossaries and World Dictionaries at:
http://www.glossarist.com/glossaries/world-regions-countries-travel/
Do you need to know how to pronounce that odious word you copied from a dictionary and now have to read aloud for an audience?
MSN Encarta (claims to have 100,000 entries):
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx
Would you like to access dictionaries to Spanish, French and Italian?
WordReference.com
http://www.wordreference.com/
Do you need to translate whole portions of text from one language to another (without having to hire someone to do it)?
Try one of my all-time favorites, AltaVista’s Babelfish:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
At Babelfish, you can copy and paste up to 150 words at a time. What a wonderful tool! Mind you, this isn’t for perfect translations, but it will provide enough for you to understand the meaning of the document in question or communicate something important. Incidentally, if you want to provide others with the opportunity to translate your site into multiple languages, Babelfish offers that too at:
http://www.altavista.com/help/free/free_searchbox_transl
Now that I’ve given you so many great resources, let’s add one more unusual one: a slang dictionary list website. Now you can find words people really wish you didn’t know. How authentic you can make your characters sound!
The Alternative Dictionaries
http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/
Note: Some of the slang dictionaries at the above site are pdf. files and some aren’t. Each dictionary varies in size, but the first language listed, Acadian, is not a great example of all the language available there. Keep in mind, though, that the slang provided is of the most colorful variety (not for the innocent).
Revitalize those lethargic manuscripts you have decorating desk space for a final polish, or write new articles, books, or novels with accurate, exuberant, bewitching vocabulary.
Good luck word hunting!
Pen to Paper~
Chris Goebel
Editor, Humdinger Literary E-zine
http://www.humdingerzine.com
Subscribe to Chris Goebel’s newsletter, Jack of Genre: Newsletter for Writers, at:
http://user98512.websitewizard.com/Jack-of-Genre.html
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Would you like to use this article in your e-zine or on your website? Just include the author’s blurb (above) with the article.
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Posted on April 1st, 2008 — in Hall Of Publishing
You’ve just been notified a review of your book has been posted. You’re all excited and can’t wait to see what has been written. You’re clicking onto your book’s page when…Oh no! They hated your book! This bad review is going to turn away customers from buying your book. Wait! This isn’t the end of the world. Here’s 3 tips to deal when you get a bad review.
1. You can’t please everyone!
Example: One of my favorite authors is a bestseller but the author didn’t receive such hot customer reviews.
Another example: I was reading some book reviews and one of the books had one of the worst ratings ever. I clicked the link with curiosity to find over 20 customers had reviewed the book and loved it. In life, you can’t please everyone. Will a bad review discourage future customers? On to my next tip.
2. A bad review doesn’t have to mean bad profit.
Not all customers look at a bad review as their only guide to buying. In fact, if your review is so awful, they may even buy the book to see if it’s really as bad as the reviewer rated it. There’s the saying that curiosity killed the cat, curiosity in this case could help you. Customers also realize that everyone has different tastes. Maybe the reviewer didn’t like your book, but who’s to say someone different won’t? It may be bad publicity, but none the less it may help you. In fact, sometimes a customer may have read the bad review but only remembers your name and or the book’s title.
3. If you’re getting more than one bad review.
It’s understandable if you’re disappointed. It’s expected, but do not allow yourself to become discouraged. If you’ve published an e-book and can easily edit your work, bad reviews can actually help your writing. Now don’t go crazy and change everything! But if reviews are constantly pin pointing on one certain area, review your work and see if and how you could improve it. I know reviewing repeatedly can be hurtful but if it can help your e-book, isn’t it worth considering? Also, don’t start picking apart reviews right away, give yourself time to go over them. Picking apart your reviews the moment you receive them could prove fatal to your self esteem.
About the Author
Content Producer and Children’s Author of Mysterious Chills and Thrills for Kids.
http://www.laurahickey.com
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