Welcome to my first post of the year of my collaborated Writer’s Tips. I’ve collected and saved a few of these posts as I came across them while I was away, and I know many of you will find something helpful here for writing, publishing, and/or marketing. From advice on writing the blurb, through some wonderful Canva tutorials to publshing updates and more, there’s something helpful for all writers here.
D.L. Finn at the Story Empire on Writing the Blurb Source:
Welcome to October edition of Writer’s Tips. In today’s post I’m sharing a new author scam alert, Seven S’s of writing Memoir, problems for authors who didn’t move their books themselves to Amazon, a tutorial on how to add video to Canva, marketing with Google, reusable block making on the Gutenberg editor, and two invitations where you can promote your books.
First one is a brand new author Scam Alert. Anne R. Allen keeps us abreast the latest scams and book steals. Today she shares the danger of Facebook, and advice on choosing an Editor who won’t scam.
Attention authors looking for FREE promotion – the great promoter, Sally Cronin is offering a new series at the Smorgasbord – Lucky Dip – check it out and get featured at the Smorgasbord
Author Stevie Turner also generously offers authors and bloggers Free promotion on her blog on Fridays – share a post or share a book excerpt – check it out
Welcome to the July issue of Writer’s Tips. In this edition we have tips on animation text for Canva, Lessons for Authors, How to Slash your Wordcount, Why some writers quit writing, and the new KDP tool for authors, and tips for promoting on BookBub.
Natalie Ducey is back with another fab tutorial on how to animate text using Canva
Just a couple days ago (around July 12 – July 14, 2021), KDP added a new marketing tool to the KDP interface. It’s called A+ Content. It’s NOW available to KDP users. You can access the feature from a couple different places from within your KDP dashboard
Welcome to December edition of Writing Tips. Today I’m sharing some worthy articles for writers on how to maximize your Twitter, how to colorize your photos, a Twitter app scheduler, Mistakes to avoid, and attention authors – Author Central has moved!
Hugh Roberts offers up a new tutorial for those bloggers who aren’t familiar with how to attach your name to your Twitter share button on your blogs.
Here’s an interesting article I came across by the Writing Cooperative – How to get more retweets for your Twitter posts – Twitter does not like external links! And how to make Twitter Threads
For those of you who aren’t aware, Sally Cronin isn’t only an amazing author and blogger, but she is a certified nutritionist. And among her many series she holds at her Smorgasbord Invitation, Sally shares important information about health and simple things we can do to keep our bodies in check – especially as we age.
This a great accompaniment article to Sally’s Cholesterol series, today – Sally educates us on the importance of our bodies getting enough Vitamin D – especially in Covid times, today at Smorgasbord Health.
Sally also explains the link between Vitamin D and statin drugs and how to get enough of the vitamin in our diets, along with proper dosages.
Smorgasbord Health Column – UnSeasonal Affective Disorder – The Missing Link – Vitamin D by Sally Cronin
Normally I would refer to Seasonal Affective Disorder in February as the winter months take their toll on our physical, mental and emotional health. However, reading the various reports in the media on Vitamin D Deficiency being one of the causes for susceptibility to Covid-19 and raised concerns on the levels of mental health issues including depression, the comments from readers who are experiencing lack of energy and focus, I began to see some parallels to SAD, but six months ahead of schedule. You can find more about SAD in Part One
Regular visitors will have read my previous posts on Vitamin D but as one of the key nutrients for the efficiency of our immune system, I will keep banging this particular drum.
First a reminder if you missed the first post in this series of the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Depression
Anxiety
Inability to concentrate
Unexplained weight gain and loss
Slow growth in children,
Overeating of carbohydrates and sugars
Insomnia
Increased infections.
In my recent series Project 101 – Resilience I shared some of the recent research into the nutrient’s connection to the current pandemic.
There have been a number of risk factors identified that put certain groups of the population at a higher risk of a critical outcome from being infected with Covid- 19 – one of these is a deficiency of Vitamin D which is also a key nutrient in preventing SAD.
It was initially thought to be more common in those living in the Northern Hemisphere. However, there is also evidence that shows that middle-aged women in countries such as Greece and Italy also suffer from Vitamin D deficiency, largely due to the fact that they tend to cover up and avoid the sunshine. Many countries now fortify dairy products and other foods and that does appear to help the deficiency status of the population.
There have been a number of studies to determine if in fact having sufficient Vitamin D levels offers protection or minimises the severity of Covid-19, and this is obviously going to be ongoing and interesting to follow. . . continue reading at Sally’s blog.
Welcome to this edition of Writer’s Tips. I’ve come across a wealth of insightful articles these past few weeks that I’m happy to share here for writers and bloggers. In today’s curated articles there’s a plethora of information on everything from better writing tips, publishing with Apple books news, onlines tools for free, self-hosting vs. WordPress.com, editing tips, and how to get more viewers for Youtube. Also, Harmony Kent has been running a series at The Story Empire with a detailed description on how to load our books on the Amazon platform. Check it out!
Author Meghan Ward is guest writer at the blog of Anne R. Allen sharing a wealth of tips of how to keep the action alive in our writing.
Last, and far from the least, Harmony Kent has a writer’s help series at the Story Empire where you will find all the links to each article in-depth on how to publish on Amazon. Below find the first part of the series:
The Sunday Book Review – something a little different – The Ultimate Vegan Mug Cake. I have toppling over my Kindle, so many books. Occasionally, when I’m still reading a longer book not yet finished or reviewed, I’ll dig out a shorter book to read in between so I can have a book to review. I picked up this little book when I saw it on free offer from one of the book sites I subscribe to. I’ve been collecting these instant ‘mug’ recipes along my travels for quick eats or a quick dessert so I was happy to find this little gem with a plethora of delicious, healthy and quick desserts.
Blurb:
Grab A Mug And Try A Warm, Gooey & Irresistible Vegan Treat That You Can Enjoy In Just Minutes!
Fancy something sweet, but don’t want to bake a whole cake or a batch of cookies? Tired of scouring Pinterest for something quick and easy to satisfy your sweet tooth?
Here lies the beauty of mug cakes as you can have a mug of deliciousness in less than 5 minutes! This book is perfect for vegans, vegetarians and indeed everyone else who fancies a sweet treat.
The ingredients are simple and easy to source, as a matter of fact, you probably already have the basic ingredients in your pantry. The difficulty will probably be to decide which recipe to prepare!
★New & Updated for 2020!
All recipes are 100% vegan
NO butter, eggs or milk – and NO compromising on taste, texture or flavour
Fail proof recipes that take no longer than 5 minutes to make
Simple recipes using simple ingredients – in fact you are likely to have what you need in your cupboards right now!
All you need to get started is a mug, a microwave, a few basic ingredients and a few minutes…and VOILA! A delicious vegan mug cake is ready for you to devour!
With so many exciting recipes to try you will be using this cookbook all year.
Try Some Of These Outrageously Delicious Mug Cakes Today!
Cookie Dough
Chocolate Chip Espresso
Red Velvet
Pancakes in a Mug
Gingerbread Cake with Cranberry Compote
Sticky Date Pudding
Gooey S’mores Cake
Cinnamon Roll
Chocolate Brownie
And Many More Delicious Mug Cakes!
Download Your Copy Now! Grab your favorite mug and try one of these easy and delicious cakes today!
My 5 Star Review:
A wonderful little book filled with delicious and healthy quick ‘mug’ recipes. The book begins with an informative introduction to the process of baking these cakes complete with best types of mugs to use, the variety of dairy substitute milks that can be used, the various types of flours you can use, choices of natural sweeteners, how tos for measuring and the nutritional benefits of these main ingredients.
So easy to make and delicious and nutritious. Convenient for the sweet craving you want to satisfy ‘now’ and not have to wait to bake a cake. A wide selection of cake recipes to tempt the palate and ready in 3 minutes! You can’t beat that!
Welcome back to a new year of my Sunday Book Reviews. In this first review of the year I’m featuring my review for Harmony Kent’s – Polish Your Prose. This book is an invaluable guide book for every writer’s desktop to have nearby for both refreshing the seasoned writer and a must have for every new writer.
Blurb:
Polish Your Prose is a powerful new guide that gives essential editing tips for authors.
Lots of books have been written on the art of writing, and here—at last—is a guide that will teach you the essential techniques of editing your own book. This will help you turn a promising manuscript into a published novel. And, it does this without the jargon. You don’t need to know all the grammatical terms in order to make use of this book. You don’t need to know the definition of a split infinitive, a comma splice, or a ‘to be’ verb, as this manual explains these in detail in easy to understand terms, and a lively and engaging style.
Chapters on Passive Writing, Tense, Point of View, Dialogue, and other techniques take you through the same processes an editor would go through to polish and perfect your manuscript.
Good writing is nothing without good editing. Learn the secrets of good editing and writing with this essential author reference, which offers so much more for so much less.
Harmony Kent is an award winning author, and accomplished editor and proofreader. Her passion is helping Indie Authors to successfully achieve their goals and dreams.
New Apple Book Awards Top Medalist Winner 2015
“This book is a mine of useful information. It’s concise and easy to understand. You don’t have to wade through pages upon pages of chatter; Harmony Kent gets straight to the point. ” — Michelle Abbott, Romance Author
“If the complexities of grammar and punctuation sometimes confound you – this gem of a book is for you. This is a guide I’ll be dipping into over and over.”–Wendy Scott, Fantasy Author
My 5 Star Review:
A concise writer’s guide written in simplicity with easy to refer to chapters, no filler babble in these bite-sized chapters to help hone your editing skills. This book succinctly covers chapters on all bibs and bobs of writing a clean and concise manuscript. However, this is not a book about how to write a book, but rather, a complete checklist on the dos and don’ts of writing clean, complete with easy to understand lessons with examples covering all the topics that make for better writing.
In this book Kent covers such topics as: show don’t tell, how to avoid head-hopping, weeding out adverbs and cliches, importance of staying in tense, use of contractions, dialogue tags, overuse of starting sentences with same pronouns, common stylistic and grammar issues, and more! Kent also adds good tips for proofreading, what to include when writing book reviews – and what not to, how to handle bad reviews, and once learning the rules – how they can be broken.
Polish Your Prose also includes added bonus charts on common word replacements from British to American English, and a list of commonly used words that are used incorrectly. Point of view use is also discussed and demonstrated with concise examples.
This book is a handy guide for writers on all levels. For the seasoned writer, it’s a wonderful refresher guide for those moments we are stumped while revising and editing. And for new writers, it’s a must have on every desktop.