Welcome to November edition of Writer’s Tips where I scan the web in my reading travels and discover some worthy posts helpful to writers. In this post we’re covering, reusable blocks in the new editor, online privacy, avoiding four deadly writer sins, blog traffic, New! KDP Hardcovers, 5 Indie mistakes that could cost authors book sales, Audio books, and Pinterest for book marketing.
Hugh Roberts our resident Block Editor Guru is showing us how to create a ‘reusable’ block you can add ready made to any post and How to Increase Blog Traffic
Four Deadly Writer Sins and How to Avoid them, by Ruth Harris at the blog of Anne R. Allen. 5 Indie Author Mistakes that could lose you Book Sales by Tech Author, Barb Drozdowich at the blog of Anne R. Allen and the benefits of creating audio books by William Hahn, guest writer at the blog of Anne R. Allen
Welcome to my July edition of Writer’s Tips. Typically, I clip and save these articles in a folder to share here for my writer friends and readers. We all know there is so much great information out in the ethers, but no way can we all come across the same information because there is just so much information available. From my nightly blog reads to my morning newsletter reads, when I come across a helpful post for writers, I save for future sharing.
I don’t like to overwhelm readers with too many links, but I promise you all that if you are an Indie author in particular, you will find these articles I curate here of interest at some point in bookwriting. So today here are some fine posts I’m happy to share. Today, two successful authors, Effrosyni and David Gaughran, both sharing great lists of book sites where we can promo our books, complete with details and pricing. Natalie Ducey has a new tutorial on creating animated posts with Canva. Marcia and John are both contributors now at the Story Empire, offering valuable tips on writing notes and video lighting. Jessica wrote a great entertaining instructional on the use of Italics. KM Weiland shares a list of editors and their specialties. And Hugh is back with more good ideas on how to re-purpose older blog posts. Check it out and save them for later reference!
Are you an author looking for assistance? Whatever your need, chances are you’ll find a pointer or two here! Browse through Effrosyni’s FREE resources at your leisure and make sure to bookmark this page.
John Howell has recently become a contributor at the Story Empire, and he has a helpful article out on how to use the best lighting when making videos.
Welcome to this edition of Writer’s Tips where I collect and curate articles I come across in my reading travels, and share the good stuff for my readers here. This edition is jam-packed with goodies and has some great information on trending scam alerts, information for bloggers to help keep our blogs safe, tricks to help with Word doc snags, authors unite on editing and head-hopping sharing what they anticipate back from editors – from some of the best in the biz, and as always, more!
Author Melodie Campbell is guest featured at Anne R. Allen’s blog, helping us clear up the sticky bits in our books – looking at acts, scenes, and messy middles.
Roz Morris has a great author feature where specialized writers share their experiences on receiving back the manuscript after the editor has been through it. What to expect.
Welcome to this month’s edition of Writing Tips. Learn about why Amazon isn’t the only game in town from 111 Publishing. Hugh Roberts is back with more great blogging tips. Two great posts from Nicholas Rossis on email video marketing and how to get our digital signatures for documents. And I took the liberty of sharing an important scam alert in these times of Coronavirus where many dirtbags take advantage of ripping off people by email.
Doris Heilmann of 111 Publishing with information on diversifying when it comes to selling books.
Another great find from Nicholas Rossis is Wondershare Sign X. Ever have a document that requires a digital signature and wish you didn’t have to print, sign and scan back? Nicholas shares a helpful app.
And last of all. I came across this informative article from Norton Antivirus, informing and alerting about the new Corona cyber scams going on with emails. Get informed so you don’t get caught!
Hi everyone! Welcome back to my Writing Tips edition. This is the first post I’m sharing of 2020 on tips this year since I was on a winter hiatus. I picked out some posts I found had great information along my blog and newsletter reading, and I think all writers will find these posts helpful in some way. There’s always something in my tips that you may not need now, but more than likely you will need at some point in your writing career, so you may want to create a folder for yourself in your files or in an app file for future reference. I personally, have all my reference files in the Evernote app, in case you’re looking for a recommendation. (No, this isn’t a sponsored ad, just trying to be helfpful.)
Google Keep – a great note taking tool by Jacqui Murray (I use this on my phone. It comes in handy for making lists of things to remember.)
This edition of Writer’s Tips offer some great links for writers and authors – How to use Amazon search words for best visibility, the importance of using Goodreads for authors, The Kindlepreneur with a generator machine to drum up ideas and book titles, and did you know that just by commenting on other blogs your name gets pushed up in SEO on Google? Check them out!
Bookmarketing Tools – using https://www.profitguru.com/ to find profitable book title data on Amazon to help maximize your book’s visibility.
Now, give that generator a whirl by trying it out! Generator is complete with writing ideas, first lines, character and plot generators and more!
Looking for more visibility on Google searches to get your name and perhaps books a boost in search engines? Read up on Anne R. Allen’s invaluable post on why comments are so essential on our blogs, and how just by commenting, you gain visibility!
Welcome to this week’s edition of Writer’s Tips. I’ve curated some informative articles I came across in my blog reading that all bloggers will find useful. From how to update your Amazon author pages to working with the Gutenberg editor and how to maximize your blog traffic and a great instructional on how to back up your blogs, this post has a bounty of invaluable tips!
Harmony Kent over at the Story Empire has an informative post on how to update our Amazon author pages
I received a lovely comment from a newcomer to my blog last week, complimenting me on how nicely I relay information on my blog without adding a ‘lot of filler’ as he put it, and with legible font size and good white-space. What a lovely compliment!
I do try to live my life with the adage of ‘Do unto others’ mantra. That’s what inspired me to share this comment I received. I try my best to keep my blog ‘clean’ and not crowded, and thought I’d pass on a few tips. Now, I do know that sometimes my blog posts will have the occasional wonky formating in them – courtesy of WordPress and theme not playing nice. But I do use the ‘preview’ before scheduling a post to make sure it doesn’t look wonky, and sometimes, there are conditions beyond my control, which I will always state on my blog so that others don’t think I’m being sloppy. So below, I’ll mention a few options we have in our WordPress editors to enhance the reader’s experience.
Some Things to Keep in Mind When Drafting a Post
Are you aware you can alter the font size, color and styles on your blog? Are you previewing your posts before you hit schedule or publish? Are all your paragraphs conjoined without proper space breaks? Are you using sub-headings to break up your points of conversation or information? Is your font too light or too small for some of us with vision impairment? These are some of the things I take into consideration when drafting a post.
How to Give Your Post a Clean and Inviting Appearance
I like to summarize what my readers will find in my opening paragraphs so they can get a gist of what they’re about to read without having to scroll to get ‘to the point’. And using subheadings for talking points is a good way to direct attention.
Leaving enough white-space in between paragraphs and headings make a blog look crisp. Reading a blog shouldn’t read like a newspaper article, but should feel welcoming with white-space to give us a pause.
White-space is kind of like a giant comma where we can take a breath and read (or scan) through a paragraph with ease then take a breath for a pause before reading the next paragraph, enabling us to take what we want from that paragraph with ease, and without having to scroll through mounds of information to find what we’re looking for in a long tome of information not broken up. With no white-space, it’s comparative to talking non-stop without taking a breath where all the information that comes out is in one monotone long announcement.
Font size is also important. I know from my own experience, if I go to a blog with tiny font, it hurts my eyes, and doubly so if there’s barely any white-space. This will often cause me to leave.
Some bloggers, like myself, like to use colored fonts, which is a great idea to make headlines or words stand out, but not so much a good idea if the chosen font is too light – especially when used on a similar colored background for the whole post – not reader friendly.
You can use the ‘paragraph’ drop-down box in the editor to enlarge headings and sub-headings to make them stand out. You can also use the little box underneath the paragraph sizing box to change size of font for the whole post or just for parts you wish to emphasize.
I’m not sure if you all get a choice of fonts in another drop-down box in your editor with free WordPress blogs, which allows us to change the font and to add some flair to a post. My blog is self-hosted, which gives me the opportunity to add any new Google fonts to my font options. If you’re self-hosted or on the WordPress business plan, you will have the option to add new fonts. Have you noticed how I bolded some key words in the above paragraphs? By bolding certain words, it attracts the eye in those paragraphs at quick glance and indicates what the topic of that paragraph conversation is about. The same goes for highlighting and/or bolding and using italics – these tools are all there for the benefit of bettering our blog content.
Lastly, it’s also important to ‘preview’ your posts before hitting publish because trust me, the way we have set up a post in draft does not always display the way we think it will once published if the WordPress gremlins are at play, or if some of your plugins are not playing nice with your theme.
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I hope you found this post helpful, and if anyone would like to add to the conversation, please do so in comments.
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