10 Great Writing Tips from Authors

 

Writing success boils down to hard work, imagination and passion—and then some more hard work. Use these tips as an inspirational guide—or better yet, print a copy to put on your desk, home office, refrigerator door, or somewhere else noticeable so you can be constantly reminded not to let your story ideas wither away by putting off your writing.

 Tip 1: "Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your novel. If you are writing a plot-driven genre novel make sure all your major themes/plot elements are introduced in the first third, which you can call the introduction. Develop your themes and characters in your second third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries and so on in the final third, the resolution." — Michael Moorcock

 Tip 2: "In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it." — Rose Tremain

 Tip 3: "Always carry a note-book. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever." — Will Self

Tip 4: "Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting." — Jonathan Franzen

Tip 5: "Read it aloud to yourself because that's the only way to be sure the rhythms of the sentences are OK (prose rhythms are too complex and subtle to be thought out—they can be got right only by ear)." — Diana Athill

 Tip 6: "Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." – Anton Chekhov

 Tip 7: "Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too." — Sarah Waters

 Tip 8: "Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!" — Joyce Carol Oates

 Tip 9: "Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful." — Elmore Leonard

 Tip 10: "Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong." — Neil Gaiman

Even famous authors sometimes have a tough time with writing; they also go through periods of self-doubt. Despite this, they always manage to come up with the goods. So, take a lesson from them and stop putting off your writing plans and get started on your publishing journey today.

 

There has never been a better time than now to realize your dream of becoming a published author. Let your voice be heard and let your story be told. Never let your passion for writing wane. Let Sons of Issachar Publishing help make your dreams come true.

 

Tips to Enjoy your writing

 

Many writers like me will always claim we enjoy writing. I tell friends writing is my life and that I don’t think I can do any other thing except write. One might be forced to think I even write in my sleep. But is that really true? Sometimes, we get tired and wary of what we love, no matter how much we love it. Sometimes, I don’t even want to stare into another computer screen and I wish I don’t ever have to write again. So how do I beat this feeling?

Here are some tips that have worked:

1. Clear your head: Sometimes, external pressures are the reason we do not enjoy our writing. There is absolutely no way a person who does not know where his next meal will come from will enjoy writing or doing anything he loves doing. This is something many upcoming writers face. So, what is the solution? There is no cut out way to keep your problems out of your head, but at least you can try. Create your island out of your limited resources by clearing your head because your writing is an extension of your mental state.
2. Stick with what you love: Yes, sometimes we are forced to write on things that are outside our comfort zone. For instance, if I had my way, I will never write another article like this in my life, but I have to get paid. So, what can we do in this situation? Start by writing what you love most to get your creative juices flowing. Whenever I don’t feel like writing, I open a blank word sheet and start writing a short story. It works like a dead car battery that needs a little push to pick up again. Once the juices start flowing, I switch to what I have to write.
3. Reward yourself: For someone like me, I get paid to write. That might be a reward, but that’s not enough reward for me (I know, I can be greedy.) So, what do I do? I set a reward for myself if I can deliver something superb. For instance, it is my lunchtime but I have told myself I would not have lunch till I am done with this article. Note that this is what works for me. For some people in order to get to the lunch quickly, they might just write something below par. By the way, don’t do this when you are writing something long like a novel, or you might just die before you finish. The point is, look for a just reward for yourself, something you are looking forward to when you are done. It can serve as motivation.
4. Try Music: A friend of mine recently discovered Classical music puts her in the mood to punch vigorously on her keypads. I tried it and I felt like jumping off the bridge. So, you have to be careful with the genre of music as not everything works for anyone. But music improves cognition and enhances your memory. It digs deep into things stuck in your head and brings them out for you. So, know the genre that works for you and listen to a lot of it before you start any writing task.
5. Take Time off: Not too much time, but sometimes no matter how much you apply the above points, it probably will not still work out for you. So, take time off to either try to solve your problems or get into a reflective mindset.

Finally, we must recognize that we do better whenever we enjoy what we do. So, make it a point of duty to have some fun writing.

Samuel Ejedegba.

7 branding mistakes your company should avoid

 

Your brand is your promise, and it's important that you build it thoughtfully and deliberately. A brand has never been successfully established by simply uploading a good-looking logo and writing a few lines on social platforms. To create a real identity, brands have to invest a lot of time and effort. There's research to be done, competitors to be identified, and expert professionals to be consulted. Every business should learn what branding is and why it's needed. Whether you're starting a new business or have already established one, mistakes are unavoidable. However, here are 7 mistakes brands make that you'd be wise to avoid.

1. Failure to research the competition

This is especially important if you are a new business. Researching the competition helps you understand what established businesses in your industry have done: where they have failed, where they have succeeded and where you can give your brand an advantage. Your research should include products, services, target audiences, websites and social platforms. If you don't, this could trip you up in two ways: first, being unable to judge the competition properly and second, replicating a competitor's strategies without truly understanding them.

2. Failure to understand your target audience

Before you start selling or even pitching, you've got to understand what kind of audience you're speaking to. You should understand their demands, their expectations, the things they identify with and the kinds of brands they favor. Once you do find your target audience, branding and messaging will get a lot easier.

3. Taking feedback from the wrong sources

Depending on the type of product or service you're looking to sell and the market you want to cover, you'll need to take feedback from the right sources. Limiting your sources to positive reviews won't help you set or measure appropriate goals. Friends, family members, employees and relatives might give you positive reviews no matter what, so think before accepting reviews from them. For any modern brand, the best platform for reviews includes both social media and review sites.

4. It's not just about logo redesign

As already stated, branding's not just about a logo or a tagline. Branding constitutes everything that you represent—even your company's voice and the style of content you create. You will find an audience when you have a competitive advantage and a distinct style. Without that, there's no value!

Some companies rebrand and spend thousands of dollars on logo redesign but not enough on other brand assets. For example, an online fashion brand can't boost sales by just changing its logo design. To build a profitable e-commerce brand, it should focus on its customer care team, product quality, advertising (both online and offline), competitive pricing, and many other factors.

Here's a real-world example. When Marissa Mayer became Yahoo's CEO, she decided to change the logo of the company. It made for big hype among the users, marketers, bloggers and everyone else. But when Yahoo finally unveiled its new logo, all expectations were crushed. It wasn't terrible... but it wasn't exciting, either. It turned out to be just a minor change that didn't bring any significant growth to the Yahoo brand.

5. Inconsistency

Brand consistency has a tremendous impact on your business. Consistency helps build familiarity, loyalty and eventually, credibility. Be consistent with your promotions, personality, communication and every other interaction you make with your audience.

For example, Coca-Cola might just be the most consistent brand in history. Its logo has hardly changed in 130 years. Everyone recognizes its fun-in-the-sun summer campaigns and heartwarming Christmas campaigns. The brand has built such loyalty that no other soda can beat it—even when Pepsi famously won blind taste tests with consumers. Now in the digital age, Coca-Cola has built a huge audience of followers on social media, so it's quite easy to reach its target audience wherever they may be.

6. Not focusing on first impressions

There's no logic in trying to get an audience before you've established what your brand is about. Branding is the first step to entering the marketplace, and you should prioritize it before trying to make money. The first impression is always the product packaging design—the first point of contact between your brand and the customer.

Don't be in a hurry to change the packaging design of your products. Sometimes, it might cost you a fortune. In 2009, Tropicana changed its packaging design and invested $35 million in advertising. Later, consumers rejected the new packaging and Tropicana recorded a loss of $30 million. Pretty quickly, the company decided to revert back to the old packaging design.

7. Not having a Plan B

There are many businesses that think a brand is something you establish and then it takes care of itself. Today, that's completely untrue. You should constantly refine and revise your offerings to deliver better quality and adapt to the changing needs of the market. Not all branding strategies will work the first time. In those instances, you need to be ready with a second plan to ensure that recovery is immediate.

Managing a brand is not an easy thing. But you must always understand that your business is more than just its products and services. Success depends on the way you shape the experience of your customers. This is what defines your brand identity. Once you've established trust in your brand, you'll never want to look back.

Culled from: Lucid Press

How to Write First Thing in the Morning

As I write these words, it’s a little after 4:00 a.m. and my wife and kids are sleeping. The house is dark and quiet, with no TV or music playing, no conversation to distract the voice in my head.

It’s the perfect writing environment, for me at least.

When we write, we are speaking with a voice in our heads, and that voice is communicated through our fingertips and onto paper or the digital whitespace. The more noise that’s around us, the more difficult it is to hear our voice.

That’s why the morning has always been my favorite time to write, before anyone awakes, before traffic starts up or the chickens start making crowing noises. It’s the still of early morning that allows my voice to come through.

 

Why Write So Early?

Sure, it can be done at any time of day. For some people, noise is a welcome relief from the heavy silence. For others, the quiet of late night is preferred. I won’t argue with these people, as everyone has to find a writing time that works for them

 But here’s why “first thing in the morning” works for me (and that doesn’t have to be 4:00 a.m. — it can be whenever you awake):

 It’s quiet. For me, that’s super important. There’s no better time than when the world is still asleep.

Work hasn’t gotten in the way. By mid-morning or afternoon, a ton of stuff has come up that must be done now … pushing back the writing. First thing in the morning, nothing has come up to push back my writing.

Life hasn’t gotten in the way. It’s not just work that pushes back writing, but everyday stuff, like errands and paying bills and parties and family and kids. If you wait until the evening to write, what happens when a social engagement comes up that evening? Writing gets postponed.

Tips for Writing Early in the Morning

So you want to write in the morning … but need some suggestions? No problem. Here are my favorite tips:

Wake earlier. If you normally wake up just in time to start getting ready and then head out the door, you’ll need to wake earlier to make time for writing. That’s why I wake at 4:00 or 4:30 … it gives me a good two hours. Wake just a little earlier at a time — see my tips on doing this here.

Topic. Don’t wake up in the morning with no idea what you’re going to write about. Have your topic chosen and give it a little thought the night before. It’s great to sleep on it anyway — let your subconscious do the work for you.

Research. Do your research the afternoon or evening before. That way, you’re ready to write and don’t have to be distracted by going online to look something up. Just look everything up the day before, and save it all to a text file, so you can write without having to go online.

Start with an outline. It’s hard to just start writing with a blank screen staring at you. So I start typing out notes or an outline, so that it gets my brain and my fingers moving. Once I’ve done that, the actual writing is much easier.

Don’t check email. Whatever you normally have the urge to do first thing in the morning … resist the urge. For me, that’s email. But that can take an hour of your time, and then your morning writing time has been pushed back again. Instead, close your email program and just have the writing program open. Resist the urge!

Have it open. I like to have my writing program open (I use WriteRoom, for its lack of distractions) so that it’s right there when I wake up. I put the title on the screen, along with any research I might have done the day before. Then everything is ready to go … I just need to start writing.

Get a glass of water or coffee. Before I start writing, I make my coffee and drink a glass of water. The water gets me hydrated, and the coffee makes the morning writing experience that much more enjoyable.

Focus. While you’re writing, resist the urge to go on the Internet or play games or watch TV or get up and do something else. It takes a lot of practice, but with practice, you’ll get good at focusing on the writing at hand. Practice makes perfect.

Check email (or another reward) when you’ve done an hour. If you tell yourself that you will be able to check email (or whatever it is you have the urge to do) after one hour of writing — or until you’re done with the thing you’re writing, whichever is sooner — you’ll be motivated to get your writing done. Then you can reward yourself with email (or whatever) and feel good about it.

I think you’ll find that writing early in the morning is a habit that will make you a better and more productive writer.

 

Credit: Write to Done

Creating the Perfect Antagonist

 

Creating the perfect antagonist is as difficult as creating a protagonist. If you pick up a children’s book about superheroes, you will notice one thing about the antagonists in the book, there is usually no deep motivation behind their actions. Most times it is about “taking over the world”, which works for children but not for adults. Your antagonist must be multi-dimensional and his motivation must be believable to the reader. So since “taking over the world” doesn’t work for adults, how can you create the perfect antagonist?

1. Give them a human side: Many people write antagonists as a device to move their plot forward. It is so clear the antagonist is in the story simply because the protagonist is there. This does not work. Flesh out your antagonist and give him or her a genuine motivation for doing what he or she does. Let your reader empathize with this evil character and come to the conclusion that if he was in the antagonist’s shoes, he will probably do the same thing. The best way to give your antagonist a genuine motivation is by giving him a history an everyday reader can relate to. A painful childhood, abusive parents, a mental illness, etc. However, if your antagonist is not human, try to give it a human touch.
2. No one is purely evil: As stated earlier, this is for children. Many times, our villains become caricatures or just simply cliché. Pure evil is dull and predictable and this should not be how you write an antagonist. George RR Martin’s “A Song with Ice and Fire” books give us a classic villain test. There are a lot of Villains in these books, from the Night King to Cersei and Jamie Lannister to Little Finger and so on. But the villains the readers love the most? Cersei and Jamie of course. Why? Because they are the only two written from their point of view. The reader gets to see the world from their own eyes, and note that no one is evil in his own mind.
3. Abstracts do not work: You might be tempted to make your antagonist a corporation or a company or some form of organization. Truth is, readers cannot relate to this. So what do you do? Give that entity a face. If it is an organization, the CEO can be the face or if it’s an evil secret society, the leader of that occult can be the face. George Orwell’s 1984 stresses the importance of having a face. The Insoc Party was obviously the antagonist in the story, but then there were Big Brother and others like O’Brian who represented the party.
4. Don’t make your Antagonist a wimp: While the protagonist is the hero and will ‘win’ in the end, it is important to make your antagonist equally capable or even more capable than your hero in some areas. There is a lot of tension when the reader knows that his beloved hero can be outclassed by this villain, especially if your hero has flaws and the villain is superior in those areas. For instance, if your hero is impulsive, having a calculating genius as a villain will make for good reading.
5. Give your mysterious Antagonist Proxies: If you are writing a book where the antagonist is a mysterious character, your reader should not know till a certain point. It is wise to give him proxies or pawns that the protagonist can deal with before he gets to the final battle. Also, creatively throw the readers off your scent by placing dummy villains here and there. For instance, if there is a secret killer in the village and no one knows who it is (even your reader), it is wise to keep the reader’s mind wandering by throwing clues in the wrong direction. Let your reader be convinced this killer is other people rather than the actual killer. This is difficult to do, but if properly done, could make a classic crime fiction.
6. The antagonist is not always evil: Think of someone in your life who is holding you back from doing what you want to do because he or she feels they know better? They believe this decision to hold you back is for your good. This person is an antagonist. A husband that does not want his wife to work because he is protecting her, a parent choosing a career for their child despite their child wanting something else, etc. These antagonists love your main characters and their actions are not from a place of malice. That’s another superb quality you can give your antagonist.

 

Samuel Ejedegba.

6 Unique Corporate Event Ideas

 

Because corporate events can be quite boring and often planned without too much thought – here are 6 unique corporate event ideas for you to use to engage your employees and share the joy internally!

#1 Visit a Local Producer

Take your team for a fun and educational experience at a local vineyard or brewery – or for a non-alcoholic alternative head to a farm or local market to see where local produce comes from.

#2 Arrange a “Family Day”

Plan a carnival or fair for your employees to enjoy with their family. This is a great way to connect their work-life with their family-life.

#3 Plan a Company Ball or Costume Party

Plan a classy ball or costume party for your employees. It is a fun and creative way to get them to relax and socialise – and perhaps even compete for a ‘best costume’ prize!

#4 Celebrate the Holidays Together

Since it’s considered the season of giving, plan a Christmas charity event and give different departments the opportunity to raise money for homeless shelters or food banks.

#5 Plan a Volunteering Activity

Get your team of employees together to volunteer for a cause of their choice. Plan something where your company and its employees can ‘give back’. It’s a worthwhile team-building experience!

#6 Break a World Record

This will inspire and motivate your team and give employees the opportunity to create a long-lasting legacy for their company. Breaking a world record is quite the achievement – something that you can keep trying each year!

Culled from: Azavista

6 Tips For Effective Event Promotion

 

Would you like to conduct an effective event promotion? Let’s take your hand and walk you through it.

Read on.

One of the best ways that you can get your business in front of potential customers is by hosting an event. They can come in many shapes and forms, from seminars and debates to conferences and exhibitions, but they all serve the same goal of getting people who are important to your company into the same room and interacting with one another.

As this article from Forbes (emphasis mine) outlines, an event can make your business more familiar to people and help your brand to become more approachable. It’s a chance for you to show your customer base how much you value them by providing quality speakers and content. Your event can also provide valuable time for networking between people who probably wouldn’t have connected otherwise.

However, the main challenge for you as an organiser comes when you have to get your event out there in front of its intended audience. Without effective promotion, the value of whatever you are planning will plummet, taking a lot of your brand’s credibility with it. Taking this into account, let’s take a closer look at our top six pointers for effectively promoting your event.

6 tips for effective event promotion

1. Plan ahead (way ahead)

You should be looking to plan your event with enough time to comfortably organise the agenda and promote it. There is no set recommendation for this, and how long you need can depend on a number of factors. For example, large events will require a lot more time to organise, as well as needing extra time to advertise if you are targeting a high number of attendees. Furthermore, a public event will need wider and more intensive promotion compared to a private affair. You need to take these things into account and set a date you know gives you plenty of time to organise.

2. Find sponsors and use them to aid promotion

Even though the main role of your event sponsors is to provide funding, they can play a valuable role in its promotion too. If your brand is growing and in need of a helping hand to boost your event’s profile, securing a well-known partner can be a valuable asset. Not only could their name grab potential attendees’ attention, but they can use their considerable network of influence to further the reach of your promotion. They have a vested interest in more people seeing their own branding, so they should be more than willing to assist you in increasing awareness.

If you don’t quite know where to start looking for a sponsor, a service like SponsorMyEvent can put your event in front of a large audience of companies looking to do exactly that.

3. Get your event infrastructure in place

In order to conduct an effective event promotion, before you begin you will need to create a landing page or website where people can be directed to get full details, as well as to book their place. If you don’t have the expertise to do this or your website doesn’t have the capability for ticket sales, consider using an automated system, such as EventStop, which has an easy landing-page setup and will allow you to conveniently manage attendance of your event. Not only will it allow people to pay any fees themselves, but its registration, tracking, and reporting features mean that you don’t have to dedicate a whole team of staff to tracking everything, freeing them up for more pressing tasks.

4. Use social media to get the word out

Once you’ve got somewhere to direct people, you can begin to promote the event across your brand’s social media accounts. If you start this effective event promotion process early, you can use the booking of speakers and the addition of sponsors as an excuse to update your message across different platforms. Always remember to share the link to your website, while getting your sponsors to share your posts or create their own about your event. Furthermore, you should always be ready to interact with anyone who comments or asks questions about your social media posts as this will help you to look approachable while fielding essential questions.

5. Use direct marketing to reach everyone else

Another way of letting your customers know about your event is by carrying out a targeted email campaign, where you send out personalised invites directly to their inbox. This is useful if you’ve built up a large customer database over the years or if you have access to the details of people whom you know will be interested in attending your event.

6. Hold a detailed review of your event

Once the dust has settled on what has (hopefully) been a successful event, it’s important that you get your promotion team together and have a closer look at what they did well and what could have been done better. The findings from this kind of review can be used to inform how you go about publicising your events in the future, allowing you to operate much more effectively without wasting resources on things that don’t work.

Follow the six tips in this article and you will be well on your way to planning and promoting a very successful and well-attended event.

How To Market A Paid Event

 

When businesses and organizations have a product, service, idea or cause to promote, they often host paid events for their target markets to attend. Paid events include conferences, networking events, trade shows, webinars, virtual conferences, teleseminars, retreats, seminars and charity. Businesses and organizations attempt to increase event registrations by gaining exposure through online and offline advertising efforts.

1.

Use your existing email list to begin marketing your paid event, if you’ve already acquired email addresses from individuals who have purchased products or services from your company in the past, asked to receive information and updates about your company or its programs and events. Your in-house marketing list is composed of people who have expressed interest in what you do or offer, so they’re the most likely audience for your paid event.

2.

Search for companies who offer complementary products and services, and whose target markets are similar to yours. Find out if they offer advertising placements in their email newsletters or on their websites. If they do, cross-promote your events, products or services, if you have a similar size readership, or purchase advertising space to promote your paid event.

3.

Include information on your company website about the paid event you’re hosting. Add a call-out box of text to the top of the website with the name of the event, two or three sentences that state the purpose of the event, its location, time and a contact number or email address. Make the area clickable so that it goes to a portable document file that details information about your event and registration, or a full web page that includes a sales letter about the event and registration instructions.

4.

Hire a writer to craft a press release you can send to the media about your event. Determine which members of the media, including bloggers, are most likely to have audiences who would attend your event, and then email your press release to them. Your press release should direct people to the area on your website that discusses the event, as well as provide them with a way to get in contact with you for interviews and questions.

5.

Send an email to local business, professional and community organizations, announcing your event, if your event topics are relevant to the groups’ members. Include a link to the page on your website where you’re advertising the event and registration information.

6.

Use social media to push the message about your paid event. Begin posting about the event before registration starts, so that people are already aware that it’s coming soon. Post links to your event information and registration pages, upload videos promoting the event and even host trivia about topics related to the event to get people on your social media networks excited about registering for your event.

7.

Advertise your event in print advertising on a local or national level, depending on the purpose of your event and your target market. Magazines, newspapers and newsletters that target the audience you want to attend can help you increase registrations. You can also send printed invitations and event information to individuals who you already have on your address mailing list, similar to the email marketing message you send.

8.

Get excited about your event and show potential attendees your excitement by developing a series of videos to promote the event. You can use the information to introduce the purpose of the event, highlight guest speakers or showcase testimonials from individuals who attended your events in the past. Use these videos on your website, blog, event-specific websites, in your press releases, email marketing and on your social media profiles.

9.

Offer incentives for signing up early to help increase registration during the initial sign-up stages. You can announce a giveaway that only first responders are eligible for, or you can offer a discount on the registration fee for early bird registrations.

Five Habits to Avoid in Fiction Writing

 

As with personal documents or academic writing, fiction writing can be challenging. Our editors have encountered five problems on a regular basis. By avoiding these habits, your fiction writing will be greatly improved.

1. Generic verbs and nouns

Imagine trying to paint everything in the world using just four colors. The results would probably look pretty generic. When you are a writer, your language is your medium. People, places, and things (i.e., nouns) have names, and it's your job to know what they are.

Precise nouns work wonders in fiction writing because nouns have connotations or meanings that go beyond their dictionary definitions. If one character gives another character flowers, tell readers what kind of flowers. Are they tulips or columbines or snapdragons or peonies? This information could hint at what time of year it is (tulips are pretty scarce in September) and could also tell us something about the character who gives the flowers. Four dozen roses are expensive—does this person have money or like to show off? A bouquet of wildflowers might have come from the character’s backyard—perhaps this person likes to garden.  

A similar thought process should be applied to the selection of verbs. There are at least 12 synonyms for the verb to laugh, and each one evokes a specific image. A character could express amusement by cackling, chortling, chuckling, giggling, guffawing, snickering, sniggering, tittering, crowing, whooping, simpering, or smirking.

Precise verbs contribute greatly to characterization. If a man walks into a room, all your readers know is that he has entered. He could be anybody. But if he limps in, right away readers want to know if he is old or injured or tired. If he runs in, readers know he is energetic or excited about some piece of news. If he swaggers, readers wonder if he is full of himself or perhaps just drunk.

2. The exception: He said, she said

Reading good dialogue makes readers feel like they're actually listening in on a real conversation. Because of this, it can be very disruptive if the author keeps butting in to tell readers that the speaker intoned or declared or asserted or retorted. It may seem like using "said" repeatedly in dialogue tags is repetitive, but in fact the little word is so inconspicuous, it just fades into the background—which is exactly what we want when we're trying to listen in on a good conversation.

The rare deviation is fine (asked, in particular, seems to be okay once in a while), but if you find yourself using a colorful synonym for every dialogue tag in your manuscript or screenplay, you may be doing more harm than good.

3. Adjective/Adverb-a-rhea

Sometimes a well-placed and specific adverb or adjective strengthens or clarifies an image. However, many writers, in a misguided attempt to make their fiction writing descriptive, overuse these words. If you master the use of precise nouns and verbs (see tip number one), you'll almost certainly avoid the bad habit of propping up a weak verb or noun with a host of intrusive modifiers, as in the following example:

Carrying a steaming and fragrant mug, she walked angrily and loudly into his office.

Why write that, when you could have simply said:

Carrying her peppermint tea, she stormed into his office.

The second sentence actually gives us more information using fewer words.

Furthermore, when editing your manuscript, be especially wary of adjectives that don’t actually convey much...

interesting, lovely, exciting, beautiful

...and adverbs that introduce redundancy...

stereo blared loudly (blared implies high volume)

scrubbed vigorously (scrubbed implies intensity)

...or contradict the meaning of the verb or adjective they modify.

slightly pregnant (with pregnancy, you either are or you aren’t!)

very unique (something is either unique or not unique)

4. Inconsistent point of view

An author of fiction must choose the perspective, or point of view, from which a story will be told. In first-person narration, one character tells the story in his or her own voice (using "I"). Third-person narration can be either limited (an objective narrator tells the story by focusing on a particular character's thoughts and interactions) or omniscient (the narrator sees and hears all).

No single point of view is better than another, but once you have made a choice, be consistent. If your story is told in first-person, then remember that the narrator must be present in every scene he describes to the reader; otherwise, how would the character have the information?

Similarly, a limited third-person narrator who hears only Tom's thoughts tells the story for the first four chapters, the reader should not suddenly be privy to the mailman’s daydreams in chapter five.

Of course, there are some great examples of novels that experiment with point of view by switching between narrators. But even in these stories, some kind of predictable pattern is imposed for clarity, such as a change in narrator from one chapter to the next, but not within a chapter.

5. Unnaturally expositional, stilted, or irrelevant dialogue

Read your dialogue out loud. Does it sound like the way people actually talk (without all the ums and ahs and boring digressions, of course)? Do the characters rattle off factual information you are trying to jam into the story? Are they talking about the weather? Because if they're talking about the weather, you'd better have a good reason for it. Otherwise, the reader will feel bored, and a bored reader closes his or her book and turns on the TV.

All of this advice is important, but by far the worst habit a fiction writer can develop is the habit of giving up too easily. Keep writing every day. If you need help, remember that our manuscript editors are available 24/7 and that they can help you tackle all of your manuscript mishaps.

Culled from Scribendi

10 Easy Marketing Tips for Increased Brand Visibility

 

Marketing your business can seem like a daunting task, and sometimes we just need a little guidance to set things in motion.

Here are some tips that you can easily implement into your monthly routine to ensure that your brand is communicating properly with your target audience. Follow these steps and you will be on your way to engaging your audience and seeing progress in your success!

Be personal and authentic in your communication

With social media at the forefront of our marketing and communications platform, it is imperative that you communicate on a personal level. People are more inclined to participate with your brand if they know there is a real live person behind the brand identity who cares about them. Newsletters are more appreciated if they’re written from a personal perspective, addressing the individual with expert advice that can help the audience reach their goals.

Leverage your Network

Your friends, colleagues and social network are your biggest asset. Ask for referrals and testimonials from people you know or have done great work for. As is tradition, we are more likely to purchase a product if our friends have had a great experience with it. Create a “Friend Referral Program” or provide other incentives — like deals, discounts and rewards on your services — when people say good things about your company. Doing this consistently will greatly expand your network reach to a genuinely interested audience.

Google rankings

As we all know, getting to the top of Google can be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. Have no fear: there are lots of ways to build your search engine optimization rankings without blowing your budget.

Our number one recommendation? Put your business on Google maps: this is a great way to get to the top of the list! Being consistently active on Twitter and Google Plus are fun, easy ways to increase your Google ranking, while adding shareable links to your Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest posts drives traffic to your website or blog.

Create your own TIPS

People like tips! A quick, fun list is a great way to provide useful information to your audience. If you want to kick it up a notch, create a video for them! Video is a great way to show the face behind the brand, creating an indelible personal connection.

Photos are king

People love to share inspirational, sarcastic and funny photos. Join the trend by putting together some current text and quotes that appeal to your crowd and the type of people you think would appreciate it. This is a great way to access your fans’ network without being “markety.” People will see who created the image and share it via the original source (you), creating brand visibility and adding a few likes along the way. Plus, you’ll probably make someone’s day!

Collaborate with the competition

Working with other like-minded business owners can help promote new ideas and products. Because your audience already exists on social media — and so does theirs — collaborating is a natural and friendly way to seek out social media users who are interested in learning more about the products or lifestyle you offer.

Create contest giveaways

People love to win things! Especially if those things are highly valuable, unusual or difficult to acquire. Make sure what you’re giving away is a conversation starter, something that people want to tell others about. Use Facebook ads to further promote your contest, as the ads employ a targeted tagging system to ensure you’re reaching the right people.

Knowledge is power

Know your audience and your competition. Follow the old corporate adage: don’t try to be something for everyone, aim to be everything to someone. Before you jump in the deep end, learn to understand whom it is you’re communicating to and what value your product or service can add to their lives.

To do: create online polls using Survey Monkey, pay attention to Google Analytics and Facebook Insights, and most importantly, listen carefully to responses. Offer an incentive for participating, like a free coffee or a gift card. Speaking of listening, keep your ears open to what the competition is doing. Be bold and willing to stand out and strategize over the long-term!

Partner with a charitable organization

Choose a cause you love and partner up with an organization whose mission is similar to yours. Get your staff and team out there helping out with a soup kitchen, throw an event and split the proceeds, or host an auction. You’re already a good Samaritan, so why not share your social consciousness with others? This alone helps your brand stand out and become a valued part of your community.

Capture information

Almost every message you put out there should come with a call to action. Add a newsletter sign-up form to your website, make a database of loyal clientele, and reach out to them on a regular basis. Offering incentives — “Sign up to our newsletter and receive 10 tips to...” or “Share this contest for more chances to WIN..” — is the strongest way to get your audience to participate, and it lets you find out what works for different segments of your market niche. Show them that you are grateful: a simple reward goes a long way.

Marketing is the key element to a successful business. TRW Consult, a brand and marketing agency, works on marketing campaigns regularly and can help your business make the best decisions. So contact them now!

 

 

Huffington Post

 

When Literary Agents Screw Up: 7 Ways That Things Can Go Wrong

 

We like agents. Like and respect them.

Their job is exceptionally demanding: nearly all reading work is done outside of office hours and since agents read a lot, that means they’re working late pretty much every night.

And they take risks. When an agent takes on a new writer, they’re committing upfront to a lot of work which will only be repaid if the agent is correct that the writer’s manuscript is or becomes saleable, with the agent’s help.

Given how fierce the competition is, it’s impressive that agents have the confidence and commitment to keep fishing from the slushpile – yet fish they do.

What’s more, an agent’s skills are very varied. Literary excellence lies at the heart of things, of course, but they need to be as pushy as car salesmen when it comes to auctioning a manuscript, as tough as lawyers when it comes to negotiating a contract, as silky smooth as a diplomat when it comes to smoothing ructions between authors and publishers and, of course, a good agent always has a firm strategic overview of their client’s career development.

So – we repeat – we like and respect agents in general, but there are always exceptions. Agents who are no good, or decent agents who mess up now and again. We’re not going to name names in this post but there are patterns that do recur and which really, really shouldn’t.

#1 The three-year-old good-bye

Sometimes, things don’t work out. That’s fine. An agent takes on an author. Tries to sell the manuscript. Can’t. Hates the second MS that the author produces. Decides that enough is enough. That story – or variants on it – are common enough. And that’s okay. Picking manuscripts from the slushpile IS a chancy business and agents can’t get it right all the time.

But it matters how an agent breaks the news. A professional client phones the author and says, ‘Look, I loved your first MS and made an honest effort to sell it. I didn’t succeed. In all honesty, I don’t like this second MS and I’m not sure that I’m still the right agent for you. I wish you the very best of luck in your future career, but I think we need to part company.’

Obviously no author loves that. On the contrary, any normal author will obviously feel upset and alarmed. But at least the conversation is direct, truthful and non-accusatory. It is, in fact, a professional way to break bad news. What we hate – and what is far, far too common – is that agents break the bad news in incredibly bad and stupid ways. The classic version of this is that the author emails the agent.

No answer.

Politely reminds the agent that he/she had a question, and asks for a response.

No answer.

Repeats the reminder, pointing out (still politely) that the question is (a) important and (b) still unanswered.

At which point the agent tantrums back, ‘Well, if you keep hounding me like that, I think it’s pretty clear you no longer trust me as an agent, and without trust, what are we? GOODBYE!’ [And slams phone down, forever.]

That’s not okay. It’s just not how any professional behaves ever. Yet we do hear stories along those lines at least once a month, and involving numerous agents, some of whom work at very well known and prestigious agencies. For sure, sometimes the author in question has been too pushy, or even crass, in demanding excessive amounts of the agent’s time. But not always. Sometimes the agent has simply failed to deliver bad news in a professional way. That’s not fine.

How often does this happen? Often. It’s the complaint we hear most frequently.
How bad is it? 3/5 bad, where 5 is worst

#2 Agents don’t communicate key info

Agents are agents. You – the writer – are the principal. That means that while your agent may execute business on your behalf, they are only ever a proxy for you.

And obviously, you’re nicely brought up and you won’t ask stupid, excessive or intrusive questions. But you do, for example, have a perfect right to know things like this:

– how many publishers have seen my work?
– which editors at those publishers did you send it to?
– why – briefly – did you choose those editors/publishers?
– what (roughly, and maintaining any necessary confidences) did those editors say in response?

It’s YOUR work and you have every right to know those answers. Indeed, you shouldn’t really need to ask those questions: it should be completely routine for agents to discuss those things with you. You may, of course, choose to say, ‘Look, you know this area vastly better than I do. I trust your judgement, just go out there and do what you can.’ But if you ask the questions mentioned – or others of equal significance – then you should damn well get answers. Yet some agents are feeble about giving answers. Again, not okay.

How common? Fairly common – much more so than it should be.
How bad? 4/5

#3: Agents don’t guide you through the publication process

You’re an industry newbie. Your agent isn’t. So a non-negotiable part of their job is to hold your hand in your journey to publication. That doesn’t mean you get to talk over every tiny detail with them: agents have limited time and you need to be sober about how much time and attention you (and your particular project) can demand.

That said, we recently heard about an author who had never been to a meeting with their publisher, and hadn’t even seen their book cover prior to publication. That’s appalling behaviour by the publisher, of course, but an agent should not have allowed that to happen. It’s not okay. Ever. Under any circumstances.

How common? Very rare, fortunately.
How bad? 5/5

#4: Not properly considering an author’s priorities at auction

What does an author want from a book deal? Well, publication certainly. Money, yes. But what else? Might you want a prestigious publisher? Or an editor with whom you have excellent personal chemistry. Or one who has a more holistic and flexible view of your likely career path than another.

In short, you may have numerous motivations, only one of which is cash. And your agent has to respect that. He or she needs to get the best available offers, then lay them in front of you and ask: which is it to be? Obviously you’ll rely on your agent’s intelligence and advice in making that choice. You’ll want to meet, or at least speak to, your putative editor. Then you’ll make your decision taking everything into account, not just the money.

Most agents we know will totally respect this. Indeed, if you probed them about it, they’d suggest – rightly, in our view – that if Publisher A offers 10% less cash than Publisher B, but is a better fit in all other respects, that ‘lower’ offer would prove more lucrative in the long run, as your career prospects will be better. So most agents will respect your non-financial motivations and will work hard to find the right fit as well as the right cash.

But not all agents. Again, we heard about one agent recently who boasted to a senior publisher that she never allowed her clients to take anything but the highest advance. She made that seem like a feat of machismo, of negotiating prowess. But that’s bullshit. It’s terrible agenting and it betrays the client. It shouldn’t happen.

How often? Hard to know. We think rare, but we could be wrong.
How bad? 2/5

#5 Talking crap in public

Most agents we know are open, approachable and warmly encouraging of new talent. That extends even to those senior agents who, realistically, aren’t going to get most of their new clients from the slushpile. But even those guys know that some of the biggest stars on their roster started out as total unknowns, and they respect the huge community of unknown writers toiling away out there.

But.

There are also agents who – in public, and to audiences containing wannabe authors – speak incredibly disdainfully of unpublished authors. When agents do that, it’s incredibly corrosive. The stories instantly spread on the internet and a false, but highly destructive, meme gets spread that agents hate writers. That the industry is snobby and exclusive. That agents are always secretly laughing behind the backs of the as-yet-unpublished.

Our Festival of Writing is a place for agents to meet writers, offer feedback on work, mix and mingle, answer questions. That helpfulness, that warmth is the real truth about agenting, but one snobby and stupid comment can destroy those good impressions in a moment. We don’t like those attitudes and we wish they would vanish.

How often? Rare, it just gets highly reported.
How bad? 1/5 [it’s normally only a moment of stupidity]

#6 Consorting with muggers

Some agents have ties with vanity publishers – the old-fashioned sort who demand stupid money upfront for a product that they know damn well will never sell in any meaningful quantity.

We have no problem with self-publishing per se, but for almost all purposes these days the natural entry route is e-publishing. That’s cheap (or even free) and reaches a massive audience. The idea that agents, of all people, should be inviting writers to hook up with vanity publishers is simply disgraceful, yet we know at least one agent who has a habit of doing just that.

How common? Not too common, thankfully.
How bad? 5/5 This behaviour is utterly unethical in our view.

#7 Charging reading fees

No literary agency should ever charge you to read your book, to send it out to publishers, or levy any other compulsory upfront fee. This matters because agents are kept honest by having to work on commission. If they think your book isn’t going to make it with publishers, they won’t make money from it, so they will politely reject your work. If they could make a few bucks just by stringing you along, then unscrupulous ‘agents’ would no doubt do just that.

Luckily, the practice of charging reading fees is exceptionally uncommon these days. We can think of one US-based scammer and two UK-based ‘agencies’ operating like this in the last ten years. And fortunately, the agent-as-scam business model doesn’t work: the scammers always go broke.

How often? Very rare.
How bad? 4/5

Oh, and we know we promised you seven ways that agents can fail, but here’s one last one: a bonus to you for reading so far.

#8 Agents demand exclusivity and then never do anything

Sometimes agents demand your manuscript in a burst of excitement, ask exclusivity as they read it, and then, nothing. Nothing at all. An echoing void.

There’s probably not much more to that behaviour than poor time management, but it can really mess up your life. The good news here is that you don’t have to let it. First, you should never offer exclusivity for more than a week. Secondly, we’d gently suggest that you don’t offer exclusivity at all. If an agent wants your work, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t compete for it. (It’s different if an agent is working on a set of suggested editorial notes: then it IS reasonable for them to ask for something in exchange, like exclusivity.)

And if you feel you’re being ignored, then don’t do nothing. After a couple of weeks has gone by, just drop a simple note that says you want to go on seeking representation and, while you’d warmly welcome that agent’s involvement, you will be going out to other parties as from Monday, or whenever. Don’t pick a fight. Just make it clear that this pause is not forever. Any half-decent agent will totally respect your right to do that, so don’t be afraid to do so.

How common? Yep, pretty common, we’re sorry to say.
How bad? 1/5 – you can always just walk away

Culled from Jericho Writers

Writing Tips: How To Create More Conflict In Your Story

 

Conflict in your story has to be an emotional ride for your readers. Conflict keeps your readers engaged and turning the pages. You may know this, but you’re still wondering how to implement the information.

What is conflict? A conflict in a story is a problem the main character needs to solve to achieve their goal. Without conflict, there is no story and no character development.

Conflict and high stakes relate to one another. If the character doesn’t resolve the conflict, what is at stake? What would your character lose? This is the question you should ask yourself when you’re thinking about the conflict in your story.

Stakes are essential in a story because it keeps the plot moving, challenges your character, and keeps readers turning the pages. Without stakes your plot will become flat, the pacing of your story will slow down, and the conflict will be non-existent.

Now, with deciding what your story stakes will be, it is important not to overdo it. When the stakes are too high, you risk your plot becoming unbelievable and comical.

To keep your readers engaged in your story, tone it down. Use the pull-back method. If your stake is over the top, write it down anyway. After reading it pull back 30-25% and write it again. This method will help keep your stake high but also prevent your story from being overly dramatic.

There is another concept for conflict, and that concept is death.

Why is death a great concept for conflict and high stakes? Because nobody wants to die. The ultimate fear in our society is death.

We know our time in life is limited and we don’t know when we will die, so we try to live our best lives every day. When something or someone threatens that hope, we try everything we can to prevent that from happening.

Physical death is obvious. It is the death we are all familiar with, but today I will introduce four types of death you can use when you sit down to write your story again. They are professional death, psychological death, social death, and ego death.

1. Professional Death

Professional death is when your lead character’s career or life purpose is at stake. In our society as children, they often ask us, “who do you want to be when you grow up?” Or “What do you like to do?”

There is a saying, I’m sure you’re familiar with: Life is not worth living if you’re not doing what you’re passionate about. Being fulfilled and living your life’s purpose is important in our world. There are claims having a purpose or doing the line of work you love prolongs your life.

Example: Let’s say a detective who's sober for many years has lost his daughter. He has broken his sobriety and is under the influence at his job. His boss has given him a warning he will fire him if he doesn’t get it together.

Your character loves being a detective, but he is going through a hard time. He doesn’t want to do anything else in life. His boss hands him a case giving him one last chance to prove himself; a murder that may link to his daughter’s disappearance. He takes up this case hoping that it will save his job and give him closure in life. If he does not solve this case, he can lose his job and career and when you lose something you enjoy it can feel like death its self.

2. Psychological Death

Psychological death is when a part of your lead character will die if they don’t win the conflict. The most common one is love. This death plays on the emotions of your readers.

With love stories, you know at the end of the story the two characters will be together. During the story, to keep your readers turning the pages, create an illusion of your character experiencing psychological death throughout the book.

To achieve this create obstacles and complications that would keep your lead character from getting their true love.

Psychological death applies not only to love. It could be anything that your lead character believes they can‘t live without and holds your character together. Another example, Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye is trying to remain authentic in his life and believes if he doesn’t he will die.

3. Social Death

Social death refers to the condition of people not accepted as fully human by broader society. Diverse scholars applied the expression to describe racial slavery, political economy, and other examples of social ordering.

A loss of social identity, a loss of social connectedness, and losses associated with the disintegration of the body.

Social death is when a group of people have their identities taken away and forced to assume a new more degrading identity. The person being ostracized will adopt the new identity and believe who they are and they deserve to be getting the treatment they’re getting. They will blame themselves why they’re ostracized.

Example: You can have your main character be part of an ostracized group in your story. With their new identity living everyday life living less like a human. Then your character realizes that this isn’t who they are, and they used to be somebody, and the way he and his people are living isn’t right.

First, your main character will have to reject the conditioning the people in power gave to him and adopt a new identity. This will show internal conflict, then he would have to convince his own people of his revelation. Some people will follow and some wouldn’t.

Then he will have to face the conflict with the people in power who don’t want your main character to fight back but want to keep things the way they are. With the example of social death, there is conflict coming from all sides.

4. Ego Death

Ego death is a loss of subjective self-identity. It is a term with significant ties to spirituality, mythology, and mysticism.

Ego death is a symbolic transition that results in a person being spiritually awakened.

The ego is our identity which we have created for ourselves. The ego is made up beliefs of ourselves like our personality, talents, and skills. When we form thoughts about ourselves that we agree with we form a self-image which contributes to the ego.

Ego death is where you have a dissociative experience of self. Everything you’ve identified with fades and a person panics and tries to hold on to these beliefs because without them they would cease to exist.

Example: There are ways to create conflict with the concept of Ego death. You can create a lead character that has everything he/she wants in life, but then realize their self-identity is a false illusion. Now your character doesn’t know what to do with themselves and wants to find answers.

The character is experiencing conflict because everything they once knew and believed can’t be trusted. You can go further and brainstorm how this new realization creates conflict with your character’s family, friends, job, and environment. How does your character resolve the conflicts?

Culled from The Creative Penn

What You Can Learn from Web Analytics

 

Most companies invest a lot of money in the design (or redesign) of their websites — and the sites are usually expected to perform a significant business function that justifies their cost — and even their existence. Therefore, no site is really complete until you’ve added some sort of tracking code. Generally, these codes get integrated into the HTML pages right before launch; fortunately, they’re an easy addition.

Tracking systems allow you to see not only where users are coming from geographically (which is always interesting), but also can tell you what kind of browsers and computer systems they are using, and what pages users spend most of their time on. This is important information for user interface design decisions. For example, if the site analytics show that there is a significant drop off on the payment confirmation page, you may have a design problem that is adversely affecting sales conversions. By looking at the site analytics on a regular basis, you can spot trends and be better informed about where to invest in site upgrades.

Using Google Analytics

Far and away the best free web-analytics package is Google Analytics. To get started, you simply sign up for a Google Analytics account — then you copy and paste the JavaScript code that Google provides into every one of your site’s pages that you want to track. What’s nice about Google Analytics is that if you’re using Google AdWords — Google’s keyword-purchasing advertising program — the analytics reports (like the one in the following figure) include information on how well your keywords are performing. The reports can be saved as PDF files and e-mailed out to your team members.

This sample PDF report dashboard for Google Analytics shows an overview of the things you can track, such as where your site traffic is coming from.

What Google Analytics can show you about your site

What exactly does Google Analytics track about each page of your site and how is it useful? Here is a handy reference with an explanation of each item.

• Traffic sources. For a given time range that you can set, Google breaks down where your web traffic comes from. Organic traffic means that someone found you via a search (whether through Yahoo!, Google, Bing or other search engines). Direct traffic means people entered your URL. Referral traffic shows you what sites are linking to you and what page they are linking to. This data is good to know when contemplating an online marketing strategy. If you see that the bulk of your traffic comes from (say) YouTube referrals, you may decide to focus your marketing there.

• Browsers, platforms, and screen resolutions. Of particular interest is Google’s information on what browsers people are using to view your site, which platform (Mac, Windows, or mobile) they’re using, and what screen sizes they have. This is invaluable data when it comes to optimizing your site to perform well and look good because you know what browser and screen sizes to give the highest priority as marketing targets.

   

• Top pages. Interestingly, your home page is not always the first page — nor the most visited page — of your website. Often an internal page is leaps and bounds ahead of other pages. It’s always interesting to look at these top pages and understand what may be driving so much relative interest. Additionally, you can view your top pages by country (what countries are visiting those top pages).

• Demographics. Google lets you see what countries (and even what cities) people are from that are visiting your site. Clearly, this is useful data because it lets you know where you might target offline advertising efforts.

  

  Google tells you what your top (most-visited) pages are and who’s visiting them.
  

  A map view shows you what countries and cities your visitors are coming from.
   
   
   
  Culled from Dummies