9 Tips For Writing Your Autobiography

 

Writing your autobiography can be a great way to tell your life story and provide a keepsake for friends and family. And you don’t need to be a famous person or a professional writer to do it. Read on to find out how to compose an autobiography that’s both informative and interesting…

You don’t have to be famous to write your own autobiography. Some people create a memoir simply because they enjoy writing, while others want to preserve their life story for future generations. They may not intend it to be read by anyone other than their own family.

Unfortunately, many of those who want to document their life shy away from the project, fearing that composing an autobiography is too difficult for the average person. In reality, anyone can write a memoir suitable for an audience of family members and close friends.

If you’re afraid your life hasn’t been “big enough” to merit an autobiography, don’t worry. Your family will want to know about your personal history and relationships with others. They’ll also be interested in how you felt about events you’ve lived through, and the lessons you learned along the way.

“Look for the times when your life changed the most, and when you changed the most,” recommends poet and memoirist Janice Erlbaum in The Autobiographer’s Handbook (Holt Paperbacks). “Those are the times of peak drama in your life.”

Whatever your motivation for writing your autobiography – and whatever kind you want to write – these tips can help get you started.

1. Get a feel for the work.
One of the best ways to learn how to write your life story is to read some of the great autobiographies that have been committed to print. For example, Benjamin Franklin, Katharine Hepburn, Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela and Billy Graham all wrote excellent autobiographies that are still read today.

You can find examples of how to write an autobiography in the stories of sports figures, great religious leaders, government officials, doctors, railroad workers, singers and actors, along with ordinary people who found meaning in their lives. Choose a category or person that inspires you, and read several examples of how great life stories are shared with the public.

Reading different styles of writing can also help you get a better feel for how to write an autobiography that will best suit your own story.

2. Understand your intended audience.
The next step in the writing process is to determine who your readers will be. If you’re writing your life story to give to your grandchildren as a keepsake, your word choices and tone will be drastically different than if you’re writing for the general public.

Writing for family members requires less detail when describing familiar settings and people. Instead, provide your own memories and perspective on events, and try to include interesting facts and anecdotes that family members may not already know.

Those outside your group of friends and family will need a more complex word picture to grasp the settings and characters in your story. Think of how you would describe these people and events to a stranger: What would someone need to know in order to understand them?

3. Develop a core concept.
Many great autobiographies have a central idea that unifies the entire life story throughout the book. Persevering love, faith in the face of hardship, overcoming tough odds, going from rags to riches, or lessons learned over time are all inspiring themes.

What is key to the story of your life? Determining one main reoccurring theme will help weave continuity and interest throughout your autobiography.

4. Jump-start your memories.
Think about all the different periods in your life. You may recall long-forgotten events and people you haven’t seen in years, or discover new meaning in your memories as you string them together.

Looking through family photos and talking with parents, grandparents, your spouse and old friends can help you remember significant events that are rich with details and entertaining stories. Diaries, letters and even emails can help spur your recall.

Ask each family member to bring one favorite story from your life to the next family reunion. The person with the best story wins a prize, and all of the entries can be used as possible material for your autobiography.

Include all five senses in your writing whenever possible. Rich, detailed writing can bring your story alive for your readers. Think of how you will answer the following questions: Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?

5. Organize your story.
Determine where your journey with the reader will begin. Will you start with your birth, or skip your childhood and begin with your first true love? Some writers choose to list their story chronologically from their childhood to the present day, while others opt to arrange their book according to themes or major events.

Whichever format you choose, having a written outline will help keep you organized.

Some writers benefit from making notes on index cards and organizing them in a recipe box. Others prefer compiling notes and ideas on a computer – they’re easy to search, and quite a few programs and apps are available to help you keep everything organized.

As with any kind of writing, it’s important to set a firm start date, as well as a weekly goal to help keep you on track. Set a specified daily word count, or decide to write one chapter per week. Determine a date when you’d like to have a first draft completed.

6. Keep your focus.
Find a quiet time to write every day – a time when you can get lost in your memories and let your thoughts flow from your fingertips. Some writers prefer early-morning hours, while other write better late at night. Find a time that fits your schedule and set a regular appointment to write your story.

It may be helpful to surround your work area with inspiring items such as family photos, inspirational quotes and your favorite music.

Staying focused on why you’re writing your autobiography may be difficult as time progresses. Write out a mission statement that describes the inspiration for writing your life story, and refer to it when you feel a drop in your motivation.

 

 

7. Keep it interesting.
After you have written out a particular scene or event, go back and read what you wrote aloud. Check for any awkward phrasing or sentences that are bogged down with too many details. Your story should move the reader smoothly from one scene to the next.

Cutting out unnecessary words and overly long sentences can help your writing flow without being interrupted.

You writing should be descriptive. The best way to do this is to “paint a mental picture” with your words. For example, simply stating that Uncle Joe smelled bad after being sprayed by a skunk is not as interesting as describing everyone’s reaction to Uncle Joe when he walked into the room.

8. Use writing tools.
If you find that you’re struggling, autobiography templates can help you get started. Available in books and online (including on some genealogy websites), these tools present you with a series of questions about your life. You simply answer them, and the templates arrange your answers into story form.

A good dictionary, thesaurus, and word processing program are also indispensable tools when writing an autobiography. But don’t use big or complicated words in an attempt to impress your readers – instead, choose language that best helps you tell your story.

9. Edit your work.
Editing and improving your work can be a difficult process, even for a professional writer. Consider having friends and family read a draft – their suggestions could help you finish your autobiography more easily. And they may find spelling and grammar mistakes that you’ve missed.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to make their suggested changes – as the author, you have the final say.

Before you consider the work finished, you may want to set it aside for a few weeks, then read it with fresh eyes. Does it say everything you want to say? Is it missing important events, or are there stories you still want to recount?

At the same time, don’t fall under the spell of perfectionism. Your autobiography doesn’t have to be the greatest book ever written for your friends and family to enjoy reading it. They want to know what really happened in your life!

Writing your autobiography can be an enlightening and enjoyable process. By following a structured plan and working to keep your focus and motivation, your life story may soon be a reality that will be treasured by your loved ones for generations to come.

 

Culled from Everyday Health

How to Write a Bestseller

 

Many authors crave to have the title ‘bestseller’ attached to their books, I mean who doesn’t anyway? However only a few authors tend to know what it takes to write a bestseller, and if you plan on writing a bestselling book, then read on to get a full glimpse into how to write a bestseller.

Writing a bestseller shouldn’t be all that difficult if you follow these steps below.

1. Don’t regurgitate an old idea.

If you’re writing a book to make it a bestseller, then you should be able to bring out a new ‘big idea’ that will interest your audience as well as lure them to pick a copy of your book.  Put ample efforts into research before writing; don’t just write because you want to write.

2. Have your audience in mind.

If you want your book to become a bestseller, then your audience needs to be duly considered. Don’t write like you are your main audience. You need to consider the thousands or millions of people whom you want to pick up your book and enjoy it. Have your audience in mind; give them something to talk about and make your book memorable.

3. Invest in developmental editing.

It is not enough to write and edit for grammar and spell check, invest in developmental editing. That way, you can easily expunge phrases or clauses that might be posing some kind of distractions to your readers. Remove irrelevant and redundant words and edit your manuscript with clarity of mind.

4. Choose the right book cover.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Your choice of cover for your manuscript can either make or mar your entire book. You might want to read my article on Choosing the Right Book Cover for Your Manuscript  to help you learn how to select a befitting cover for your manuscript.  Nobody will pick up a book with a bad cover, and how else do you want to make your book a bestseller if it doesn’t attract readers.

5. Don’t stop promoting your book

The journey to making your book a bestseller doesn’t end in a single promotion stint. New books are published daily, and you need to continue pushing out your book to the public. If you had launched it before, then organise a discussion fest for your book. Talk about your book more often on social media, create a hashtag for it, and just don’t stop promoting your book.

Now that you have learnt how to write a bestseller book, congratulations in advance on becoming the next bestselling author.

Chima Rachael J.

9 Strategies To Revive Your Brand

 

Commoditization is a fact of market. I always remember that great observation by VJ Govindarajan that “Strategy starts dying the moment it is created”. It dies because its (potential) effectiveness dies and with that, its relative value.

That idea, transposed to brand is, in reality, what commoditization is: the (slow) death of relevant value. However, there are strategies you can put in place to reverse the speed and/or pace of that commoditizing effect. Here are nine ways I outlined to a leadership forum in Malaysia recently to decommoditize your offering and reassert its branded value.

In the presentation itself, I focused on actual commodities, but the principles are in fact applicable to any brand that doesn’t command the value that it needs to, or once did:

1. Think of the product in new ways – when you redefine what something is or could be, you reframe its context and it’s much easier to redefine what it can be used for. When you stop thinking of milk as a drink, for example, and start thinking of it as a food, as Fonterra did, you change the scope of the product you’re working with in so many ways.

2. Redefine who you want to be a brand to – if the current audience places a declining level of value on it, think about who might be able to use it in ways that enable you to regain value. Starbucks redefined the value of coffee globally by making coffee hip, urbane and tailored to individual taste. Now they’re looking to do the same thing with tea. In a world that really does believe it’s seen or searched it all, discovery is a powerful consumer motive.

3. Change what it looks like – sometimes changing the value of a commodity can be as simple as changing how it appears to others. Think about the difference in pricing and perception between bottled beer and beer on tap. However, new packaging alone won’t make up for a product that doesn’t add value. What it can do is signal the unrealized value that you want consumers to take up on.

4. Formulate your offer in different ways – the water industry changed how we think of water by adding vitamins and/or carbon dioxide and then segmenting those offers to specific audiences. Today, the world spends more than $100 billion a year on bottled water. What could you do to what you have to make it more than it is right now?

5. Name it in different ways – the deer industry in New Zealand renamed its venison offering “cervena” to differentiate it from deer meat sourced from elsewhere and to make a strong country-of-origin play. If you’re selling copper and everyone else is selling copper, what can you call your copper to distinguish it from what people can source anywhere. Again – renaming alone won’t be enough. In the case of cervena, the change in name spoke to an idea that consumers were interested in, and eliminated the concern, amongst American consumers, that they were eating Bambi.

6. Package it in different ways – the red meat industry is now starting to segment its offer and to assign different perceptions of value to cuts and breeds that not too long ago would all have just been beef. Angus is a classic example. Others are packaging along ethical lines to put daylight between themselves and others and to appeal to consumers who are prepared to pay more for feel good foods. Cage-free and free-range eggs are part of this trend. (What’s interesting for those interested in moral labeling, however, is how those terms and others can be defined in some jurisdictions. It doesn’t necessarily mean what it appears to mean.)

7. Distribute it in different ways – changing the distribution channel can be a highly effective way to transform your white label product into something valued by a more specific audience. iTunes rebuilt the value of music by reinventing the concept of the single into a single digital track and allowing people to buy the music they wanted in a new way, at a new price. Tablets are having the same effect on books and magazines – redefining how consumers access content and buy it. It’s a very different value equation than it used to be – but at least it’s a value equation.

8. Price point it in different ways – This is a particularly effective approach when combined with segmentation. Go after various parts of the market with products that demonstrate various levels of value add and are price pointed accordingly – e.g. a bulk product at a bulk price, a high end or specialized product priced at a top-end price, and a consumer focused product that may even operate at flexible price points. Forced into what was close to a death-spiral for many, the airline industry repriced to find new ways of achieving yield. First, they cemented the front-end profit by giving business and first class passengers more space and more comfort to protect margins. Then they debundled their economy offering, adding new categories like Premium Economy, cramming in more seats in cattle class and instigating fees for service that have kept the asking price low whilst charging at every point for things that were once considered included. This evolution hasn’t exactly been a success from the travelers’ point of view, but it has certainly forced a rethink on what is paid for, and how.

9. Wrap a different story around it – New storylines can change how people perceive a product. Water, beer and wine have all used stories to engage consumers and to deliver a new sense of worth. Increasingly, there are opportunities to link undifferentiated products to differentiating stories around environment, supply chain, conduct, purpose and cause. Psychologist Dr. Norman Holland, in an interview with Stephen Denny, explains why: “When we adopt a brand for our own use, we integrate it into the stories of our daily lives.” Once integrated of course, that storied brand has new value for buyers because now it’s personal.

A note of caution. While, as outlined above, there are a number of ways to stave off deterioration and even to restore value to goods whose value has decayed, there is also no denying that the product or brand you make has a best-before date in terms of margin. Unless you assume commoditization, and continually look for ways to slow its advance or reverse its influence, it will get your brand in the end.

The key to successfully staging a resurgence in the value of your brand is to think of each of the nine tactics outlined above as a multiplier. To an extent, the more multipliers you can employ simultaneously, the greater the chances that you can relift your brand. Focus them specifically on the key needs and unmet desires of your (new) target market. So, for example:

In a market, where your brand has been painted into a corner – I might look to use these three approaches:

Think of the product in new ways X Change what it looks like X Distribute it in different ways

Or if the market you’ve traditionally targeted is treating your brand like a commodity and threatening to start a price war, I might combine these four:

Redefine who you want to be a brand to X Package it in different ways X Price point it in different ways X Wrap a different story around it

When you change how a product is viewed and accessed, you open the door to changing how it can be marketed.

Culled from Brand Strategy Insider

10 Recommended Books to Help You Become a Better Writer

The best way to become a better writer is to write consistently, but another effective way is to read. Thus, below are 10 recommended books you can read if you want to become a better writer.

1. Steering the Craft by Ursula K. LeGuin

2. The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler

3. The Creative Tarot by Jessica Crispin

4. Write. Publish. Repeat. by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant

5. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser

6. Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

7. Several Short Sentences about Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg

8. About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, & Five Interviews by Samuel R. Delany

9. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner

10. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

After reading all of these books, you can always visit a public library and get more similar books to read.

Labeling the Chapters in a Work of Fiction

 

Labeling the chapters in a work of fiction deserves a lot of thought and creativity. However, it shouldn’t be something to fret about. If you have struggled in the past with finding the right title for each chapter in your novel, these easy-to-use tips will make the task of labeling your book chapters much easier.

Use thematic chapter titles for fiction

Just like there is a primary theme for your whole manuscript, there is also a subtheme for each chapter. The subthemes can be twisted into short words or replaced with words nearest in the description for the chapter. However, you should be careful not to spill out everything about the chapter in the label. To avoid spillage, use few words. It could be a word or two to three words.

For example, if a chapter in your book deals with a certain expedition, or even a search for something, whether abstract or not, using a label such as “The Quest” will do just fine.

Another example is if a chapter talks about how a character finds it difficult to forgive another character, then employing the name of the character receiving the action is OK. e.g. “Forgiving Brian”

Other examples include, “The carnival” “Birthright” and so on.

 Use chapter settings

Another way to get creative with your book chapter label is by using the settings. Don’t forget settings in literature deals with time and place. So labeling your chapters with titles such as: “After Dawn”,  “When the moon embraces the sun”, “Oji River” and so on will give more life to the chapter.

While the first example simply talks about sunrise, the second talks about the evening. The last example, however, is the name of a place.

Also Read: Five Types of Fiction That Get the Attention of Publishers

Use suspense-filled words

Your label is not just meant to sit above your chapter content; it can play an effect on your reader. Using labels that arouse the interest of your readers can make them read a whole chapter at once no matter how long it is, in search of answers.

Check Out these Four Common Writing Mistakes Authors Make

For example

Labels such as “Heaven can wait” will spur a reader’s interest to find out how and why, especially for readers who are so avid about religion.

Also, a chapter with a label like “A dance with the devil” can create some thrilling effect for readers.

Finally, you can combine numbers with words when labeling the chapters in a work of fiction. Whichever way you choose, be sure to do it the right way.

Chima Rachael J.

7 Email Marketing Tips For Marketers

 

Marketers should always use email marketing to stay connected with their target audience. Regardless of the different strategies open to marketers today, you’ll find email marketing to be integral to your marketing campaign. This is still the leading channel for getting the best ROI.

But email marketing is not a silver bullet. If your email marketing efforts aren’t effective this is because you aren’t doing the right things. You can’t just do anything and expect it to work. You have to think about your strategy and use customer behaviors to turn it around.

This is how to do it.

Stop Treating Your Customers Like Nameless Faces

What a lot of marketers fail to grasp is that customers don’t want to be seen as a nameless face. They want to be acknowledged as unique human beings. This is relatively easy to do because all you have to do is indulge in some personalization.

Rather than sending out the same emails to everyone, use the feedback you’re getting to segment your email list. That way you can make sure customers feel like you’re reading their minds.

Change The Sales Funnel Based On The Customer’s Journey

The customer journey is becoming more important within the field of marketing. Mapping out the customer journey is about charting the various touch points you’ll come up against. The way customers behave will tell you what content they are looking for.

Combine this with demographical information to customize the sales funnel based on the type of customer you have.

Optimize And Retest

You should always be optimizing and retesting your various email campaigns. A/B testing campaigns are easily run from your mailing list provider. You can harvest detailed stats and begin to refine your future campaigns.

Effective testing will help you to make sure your strategies remain as potent as they were before. It will stop you from allowing the email marketing world to leave you behind.

Give Your Customers Space

It’s true that your customers do want to hear from you. The fact you have a regular email marketing campaign is one of the magic elements boosting your ROI. But there’s such a thing as overkill. Once you come off a great campaign it’s tempting to run the same campaign again in an attempt to get the same results. The chances are you’re going to get diminishing returns.

Customers don’t want to be bombarded by promotional emails every day. Give them a break and don’t make them feel like you’re harassing them.

Define a schedule, based on the feedback you’re getting from customers, and stick to that schedule. If you promise your customers they’ll only receive a weekly email don’t send them more than one email per week. Your welcome email can also come with a form to help customers decide how often they want to be contacted.

Don’t Rely On Automation

Email automation is an essential ingredient of every great email campaign. But this doesn’t mean you should rely on it. You should be using it to eliminate the tedious processes that come with crafting an email marketing campaign. It shouldn’t be replacing you in general.

Solve The ‘Opt Out’ Problem With A Break

Did you know that 54% of the average person’s inbox is taken up by promotional emails?

It’s no surprise to see people opting out of mailing lists faster than ever before. They’re becoming more discerning because they’re tired of so many low-quality mailing lists. Marketers that have this same problem can alleviate it through implementing a break.

Opting down is a better option than giving people the chance to stay or go. For example, you can add a form that allows people to reduce how often they receive your emails. You can still retain your customers without bothering them. It’s the best compromise.

Get Ready For Mobile

What companies are learning, often the hard way, is some people access the Internet exclusively through mobile devices. All your emails should be optimized for mobile. No matter the device someone reads your email on it should automatically adjust itself to fit their screen.

Luckily, optimizing for mobile is easier than ever before. The majority of emailing list providers automatically provide you with optimized mailing campaigns.

Conclusion

Your customers do want to stay in contact with you. Marketers have to be able to do it in a way that provides them with something of value, though. Through following adopting these big corporate practices you can increase your subscribe rates and keep people subscribed for the long haul.

How will you improve your mailing campaign today?

Culled from Forbes

3 Signs You Should Rethink Your Branding Strategy

 

When business growth stagnates, talk inevitably turns to increasing advertising, website redesign, lowering fees, etc. to earn back former clients and entice new prospects. All of those tactics can be effective, but only if they send the right message to your audience. So, if your firm’s growth has slowed, referrals aren’t as strong as they once were, or you’re having trouble recruiting top talent, it may be time to consider a brand refresh.

Having to refine your branding strategy does not mean your brand has failed. On the contrary, the evolution of your brand can be the natural outcome of your growth and changes in the market. But research shows that brands that do not refresh every 5 to 10 years will be out of synch with the marketplace and struggle to remain relevant.

Your Brand—More than Just a Logo

Your brand is more than just your name and logo. At its core, it’s the essential message you send to the marketplace to communicate your story and promise. When done well, your brand will help you to accomplish important marketing objectives, including the following:

• Share your values and vision with the marketplace, which will help you attract both new clients and top talent.
• Increase brand awareness—your firm’s visibility—in your market.
• Encourage referrals by giving influencers a clear and consistent message they can share with others.
• Furnish employees with a compelling and consistent vision that will influence their work
• Encourage employees and clients to be advocates of your firm on social media and in networks.
• Attract top talent
• Command higher fees—The percentage varies by industry, but a recent study showed that top brands can earn up to 32% higher fees than lesser known competitors.

If your growth has slowed, you are entering into a new market or offering a new service, or the visuals associated with your brand looks dated or “tired” it is time to refresh your brand.

Growth rate has slowed

Flat growth or an inability to get to the next level are important indicators that your brand may no longer be relevant. Lack of a clear and compelling brand message makes it harder for prospects to quickly understand what you do and how you can help them.

Prospective clients and top talent commit themselves to strong brands with a compelling vision of the future.  If your message and brand are unclear, influencers can’t articulate your advantage to prospects.  And if your brand seems outdated or unclear to those outside your firm, it will also be perceived that way by your own staff and potential job candidates

Entering a New Market or Offering a New Service

Humans are interesting creatures. We are capable of great depth and complexity, but our internal filing systems are stubbornly simple. Perceptions are not easily changed. Once a business becomes known for a particular service, it’s very hard to change people’s perceptions of that business.

A significant change in your firm will also likely require a change in your brand and your messaging. Unveiling a new logo or tagline are very effective ways to introduce your changes to the marketplace and begin to change how prospects and clients perceive you.

Your visual brand looks tired

We know from our research that 80% of people who are referred to a firm check out that firm’s website before reaching out. If you are hesitant to send prospects to your website or feel sheepish when you present the outdated graphics in your firm’s PowerPoint deck, it’s time for a refresh.

The speed of today’s market drives graphic design trends and tastes. Websites and collateral need to be refreshed every few years to look relevant to the marketplace. A website that looks outdated—or does not address the problems the prospect is trying to solve—can quickly deter a prospect from further interest. And a competitor with a fresher, more on-point message is just a click or two away. Even small tweaks like updated images, font, and new colors can make a big difference.

Whether your goal is to bolster your firm’s growth, increase awareness in the industry, or simply to remain relevant in today’s dynamic marketplace, a brand refresh is something to consider before investing precious time and money in tactics (advertising, brochures, etc.) that will be sending an outdated or ineffective message.

Hinge Marketing

5 Ways to Combat Author Anxiety

 

It turns out Author Anxiety is a Thing. It’s not just me.

I discovered this on the eve of publication of my debut novel, DECEPTION ISLAND, when I was silly enough to Google my shiny new title. Up popped a Netgalley reviewer live-tweeting as she read it. Only she was hating it—pulling it apart chapter by chapter.

I’d had loads of great reviews—in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, RT Book Reviews, on dozens of blogs—but this one hobby reviewer withered my fragile confidence. It was the intimacy of it. I could see what she looked like, I could see what page she was reading, I could certainly see exactly what she thought of the story. And I couldn’t stop refreshing. Because I’m an idiot.

I’ve been a journalist for two decades and I’ve published a bunch of nonfiction books, so public criticism is nothing new. Why, then, did this rattle me?

I did what any 21st century dweller does when faced with a 21st century dilemma. I Googled. And I discovered I wasn’t alone. Not only is Author Anxiety a Thing, but it’s such a Thing that, yes, it deserves initial caps. I set out to find a remedy before this vile feeling paralyzed me from writing another fictional word. In the interests of author solidarity, I’m sharing five of my best cures.

1. Find perspective

Many years ago, to finance my journalism degree, I worked as a TV publicist. A fun job but intensely shallow. (Ask me anything about “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place.”) Even so, like all jobs, sometimes it got stressful. The most important lesson I learned from that two years was from a boss who was fond of saying, “It’s entertainment. It’s not f***ing brain surgery.” Same goes for my novel. It’s a romantic thriller. It’s not important. My bad day at work is when a reader isn’t entertained or moved and I lose that reader. I’m not a doctor who has lost a patient or an air-traffic controller who’s lost a plane. The worst-case scenario? This novel tanks, everyone forgets about it, and I write another one.

2. Embrace imperfection

Don’t tell my publisher this, but DECEPTION ISLAND isn’t perfect. There, I’ve said it. What a relief. I could have spent three decades rewriting it and it still wouldn’t be perfect. There’s no such thing as perfection in creative endeavor. At some point—usually when a deadline hits—you must step away from your manuscript and say, “There, it’s done. It’s the best I can do right now.” That book has become your past, not your future. It’s not even your present, anymore. The only thing that remains wholly in your control is your next book.

3. Get productive

If I read a bad review, suddenly I don’t feel like writing. But you know what? A good writing day blows away my doubt and fear. And studies into motivation have found that the muse kicks in after you begin a task, not before. Don’t feel like writing because someone just told the (virtual) world that you suck? Open your WIP and start somewhere, anywhere. Tinker with a paragraph you wrote a year ago, write a random exchange of dialogue, change the font. Just. Start. Your brain will light up, the motivation will come and the angst will evaporate.

4. Log out

Only one thing will make you a successful novelist: writing novels. Let the virtual world live without you—especially if it drags you down. Forget the rules that you must regularly post on social media and engage online. If bad reviews on Goodreads or Amazon discourage you, don’t read them. If you can’t help flicking onto them—because validation is addictive— but you hate yourself for it, get a productivity app and block those sites, and any others that routinely make your heart soar and sink. (If a review falls in a forest…) Ray Bradbury once said: “You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.” And if you just want the boost without the pain? Ask a friend to email you only the great reviews, in a monthly digest. It’s not a cop-out. It’s sensible.

5. Escape

If that sniping little head of yours is not a pleasant place to hang out, get out of it. Do something immersive: play a card game with your kid, see a movie, whack a tennis ball around a court. When you return, you should find your mind is a more agreeable—and productive—environment. Keep it that way by throwing a little love into the world to offset the negativity. Tweet an author about how much you enjoyed her book—because she may be feeling Author Anxiety today, too.

How do you deal with anxiety and fear? Share below.

Culled from Writers Digest

How to Stop Being Overwhelmed and Start Writing

Are you dreaming about writing a book but simply don’t know where to start?

Start with a plan! What message do you really want to pass across and what kind of people do you want to reach? Do you have in-depth knowledge of the subject that you want to address or do you need to carry out more research? These are questions you should ask yourself before you even start writing at all.

These bits of information will help you develop a framework that will help you plan your book. If you have ever wondered why many people never finish their books, one of the reasons is that they did not start with a plan. So they run out of ideas or simply don’t know how to proceed after the first few pages.

Now, as important as it is to have a plan, you also need to create systems and structures that will make your writing easier. First and foremost, you need to see your book not as an end in itself, but as part of a larger plan.No matter how successful your book is, it will not by itself provide the income and security you desire. Your plan should be to leverage off of a successful book, rather than retire on its earnings. Having created your plan, you need to devise an efficient way of executing the writing process.

Here are some tips on how to do that.

Approach your book like a jigsaw puzzle: Don’t try to write the book sequentially from the first to the last chapter. Many authors make this mistake of linear writing. Another mistake is trying to get away from everything and drop all activities so that you focus on writing your book. This is called marathon writing. Both methods are not usually effective for all practical purposes, and they usually come with lots of stress.

Instead of adopting linear writing or marathon writing, approach writing as you would approach a jigsaw puzzle. You will not always get the entire picture at once; it will usually come in bits and pieces; hence, you need to develop an effective strategy for harvesting your thoughts. It is also important that you develop a writing regime that will help you write consistently.

Have a writing calendar and follow it. Like Michael Hyatt would say, consistency is more important than frequency. It is better to write one hour every day than to write three hours today, two hours tomorrow and not write again for the next two weeks.

Develop a framework for each chapter: It is easier to write when all you have to do is fill in the elements in the framework rather than starting on a blank page. Don’t expect your first draft to be perfect; just get it done. After getting it done, you can rework and revise until you’re satisfied with the final output.

And mind you, you don’t really have to write. If writing is not your thing, simply speak your book and record it. Then get someone to transcribe it and hire an editor to finish it.

Editing will usually be your biggest expense and the stage you are most likely to skip. However, you must avoid the mistake of self-editing, poring over each word and worrying over finding the perfect words for each page. That’s the job of an editor.

Getting a good professional editor is worth the effort. Apart from giving you a better manuscript, you will learn new things yourself. See the cost of hiring an editor not only as an investment in writing your book but also as an investment in yourself as a writer.

How to Select the Perfect Keynote Speaker for Your Event

 

One of the most important entertainment elements to an event is selecting a great keynote speaker and other presenters for the agenda. When hiring an outside speaker to fill the role, event planners may either contract directly with a professional speaker or rely on the expertise of a speakers bureau. Whether it’s an internal executive, industry leader, or a professional speaker, a successful program will identify speakers early in the planning process.

 

Advice From an Expert

Diane Goodman, president of The Goodman Speakers Bureau, Inc. in Windsor, CT is a recognized industry leader in providing professional and nationally-recognized speakers and entertainers for corporate and organization events. She is the expert author of Survive The Search: How To Target & Choose The Best Professional Speaker, a 12-page primer for meeting and event planners.

Goodman structured the guide as a checklist of helpful tips and questions that beginning and experienced meeting planners should address internally before reaching out to hire or select a speaker.

 

What to Do Before Selecting a Keynote Speaker

First and foremost, as with any event, advance planning is always helpful, and at times critical, to landing the best speaker for your event. It’s much easier to secure the best speakers by planning at least six to 12 months prior to the event. The norm for booking a professional or well-known speaker used to be a year. Of course, this isn’t always reasonable or realistic, and today, bookings have been known to be made only a few months in advance. If you can help it, don't leave yourself in a panic during crunch time.

You'll thank yourself later.

So to be prepared enough to start the keynote speaker search, Goodman advises the following steps be in every event and meeting planner's initial internal checklist:

 

1. Determine meeting logistics/scheduling
2. Understand the audience
3. Capture the meeting objective
4. Define the expectations of the speaker
5. Benchmark success

 

Only once these tasks are thought through (and perhaps others specific to your event or meeting), should you begin the keynote speaker search. A keynote speaker can play several different roles in a conference or meeting. Does your meeting require a corporate speaker or would your audience be better served by an inspirational or motivational speaker? Going through this checklist will not only provide a better framework from which to conduct your speaker search, but it will save you time on the back end in getting internal approval on your first choice of speaker.

 

What to Do During the Search for a Keynote Speaker

Once you know the conceptual direction of the meeting, you will have a better experience finding an appropriate keynote speaker. Where most event planners get stuck is not in the search and selection process itself, but rather in the negotiation of keynote speaker fees.

Professional keynote speakers with a published book can run companies upwards of $10,000 to $20,000 not including travel costs for an event. A New York Times best-selling author, on the other hand, can collect as much as $40,000 per speaking engagement. While these numbers can feel extraordinarily high for event planners new to the keynote speaker space, you must approach the fees relatively. How does the speaker's fee compare to say the cost of the catered morning breakfast or the number of people expected at the meeting?

 

The Bottom Line

Since event planners serve as the internal and external face of the business meeting, this type of structured approach to speaker selection will help obtain the needed internal approvals for a budget as well as moving a program forward.

When planning a meeting, one of two scenarios tends to occur: the business meeting date is approved without content, or the business meeting date is not approved without confirmed content.

Goodman’s approach recommends that event planners should have a thorough understanding of the meeting, who will be attending, what messages are being communicated, what type of speaker is needed, and what has worked in the past.

These steps, combined with some scheduling flexibility and advance planning will result in a successful program.

Culled from Small Business

10 Tips to Manage Your Business Like a Pro on Instagram

 

Instagram is primarily a visual medium for sharing memories and moments in pictures and short videos with friends and followers.

However, these days it is currently regarded for doing more than just that. It is fast becoming a business and branding tool for as many who can get a hang of it.

The Facebook-acquired app now boasts over 300 million monthly active users, so it would be great to put it to good use for business just as much as for personal purposes.

Here are a number of tips to put into use:

Set up personal and business accounts

Let there be a distinction between your individual account and a business one. Using one and the same account may not work if you have personal photos you want to upload.

Your business as a brand must have a clear consistent voice with all posts. This also goes for comedians whose humorous persona have become their brands.

Regular posting time

It may be counter-productive to not have a regular time with which you produce content for your followers. Having a regular schedule for posting keeps you organized, and accountable to a large extent.

Be focused

It’s cool to have a specific area that you will become to be known for. Trying to be a jack of all trades will not earn you a loyal following. If you are going to combine topics, then they should most probably be under the same category of interests like football and basketball. If you have a wide range of interests, you might want to create multiple accounts for them.

Hashtag Hashtag Hashtag

Hashtags are not only fun to use, they also serve a purpose, which is to let searchers interested in your type of content easily find it when they key in the hashtag with the search term or keyword. Using too many hashtags, however, is a huge turn-off to many.

A rule of thumb has suggested seven hashtags as the maximum number one should use. That’s left for debate. Just let your instincts guide you with the number of hashtags.

You could also build a brand around a particular hashtag and let people know you for it. Just make sure it fits into your brand objectives.

It goes down in the DM

Well, not that kind of going down. But, heck, whatever works for you.

Do not take for granted the engagement you get from your audience. When you can, deliberately read their comments and respond accordingly to them.

This makes you more human and puts a face to the brand, which creates a loyal following, and potential customers of your business. With DMs you get to build one-on-one relationships with your most engaging followers. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Make your Instagram bio catchy and friendly

As simple and personable as possible is what should describe your bio. You could also draw in more people with a human display picture as against a business logo, not to undermine the importance of a brand logo.

Use tracking codes on your links

When you have a link you want to share that would lead back to your website, create a URL builder and generate a tracking code to help measure the number of clicks that link gets, which would help inform your decision better.

If you are going to use a URL shortener, be sure to let your followers know the content of where you are directing them to because the shortened link doesn’t give a clue sometimes.

Have a dedicated landing page for Instagram

Asides creating landing pages that direct to your website, you could also optimize a dedicated landing page for your social media account like Instagram. Sponsored ads from a Facebook or right on Instagram can do the trick. The key is to make sure the potential visitors are going to meet what they expect on the page.

Move up with video

With video, you usually can’t go wrong. A mix of humour, a friendly presentation and of course armed knowledge of your topic will score you many views, leads and eventual customers. Video gives your brand a relatable dimension and allows the audience to get a more personal experience of behind-the-scenes moments of your business.

Analytics

Instagram analytics helps you have an overall insight into how your audience is interacting with your content. This helps you of course to make well-thought-out decisions going forward. Try out Iconosquare.

Bonus tips: Be AUTHENTIC, NEVER EVER buy followers or verifications; Take advantage of Instagram Live and Instagram Stories as much as you can.

Credit: Pulse

What Are the Major Advantages of Online Book Publishing?

 

Traditional book publishing methods have long been a lengthy and difficult process. Getting your book printed and published can be challenging, not to mention expensive. Have you got a great book but you don’t want to spend the time and money on finding a publisher to print it? Instead, you should consider online book publishing.

The number of ebooks purchased reached its peak last year as there were over 266 million units sold. Now is the best time to start publishing online.

Why Should You Consider Online Book Publishing?

Online book publishing could be the best and cheapest way for you to get your book out there. You won’t have to pay any ridiculous fees, and you get to keep the sales profits!

So, what are the advantages? Here are some reasons you should consider online publishing for your book.

1. It’s Much Easier

The biggest reason why people choose online book publishing is that it’s so much easier. You could either self publish it or go to an ebook publisher.

To do self online book publishing, all you need to do is have the finished book ready to convert into a PDF. Then, all you need to do is make it available on your website. We also recommend you copyright it, which you can do online too.

With an ebook publisher, you’ll need an ISBN for your book and to format it to the publisher's guidelines. After you submit it, it will be available on their website immediately.

Ebook publishers are great for getting your book to a wider audience. They can make your book available in popular online bookstores like Amazon.

2. Get Your Book Seen

If you wait for your book to be printed via traditional methods, you could be waiting for a very long time. It could take many years for publishers to even see your book, never mind publishing it.

But online publishing means your book is available for people all around the world in an instant. It makes it so much easier for people to see and read what you’ve written.

Traditional publishing is ‘the old-fashioned way’ for a reason – it’s outdated. Up to 40% of book sales revenue is down to e-book sales. Online publishing will ensure your book is available to everyone, everywhere.

3. It’s a Great Marketing Tool

Ebooks aren’t only a great way to get your book out there, but they’re awesome marketing tools. An ebook is a great way to express your expertise in your niche. It can help establish your brand as a reliable one.

It’s also a great way to expand your reach. If you have company magazines that are available in print, turn them into digital. Digital magazines mean you can reach a wider audience and boost your readership.

Ebooks can also contain links, so they can boost click-through rates and SEO rankings!

4. You Can Make Edits After Publishing

The problem with traditional print media is that once it’s published, you can’t go and change it. If you want to amend a statistic or add new information, you can’t..

With online publishing, you can make changes whenever you’d like. You can revise your writings as much or as little as you’d like online, that’s the beauty of it.

If you want to add links or amend sentences you don’t like anymore, it’s easy to go in and make those changes.

5. Reach a New Audience

The best thing about the Internet is that it has the ability to reach everyone. With print media, you may have a tough time breaking through to a wider audience or new demographic.

Online publishing lets you push your ebook to a much wider audience. You can promote your book via social media and on your website. If you have an ebook publisher, they can make your book available on popular platforms.

You can also check analytics to see how many people have followed the link to your ebook and who is reading it. You can use this information to further define your demographic and adapt to it.

6. Make More Money

If you publish your book via traditional methods, the chances are you won’t see most of the royalties. If your book does well, you can expect to see only 10-15% of the price of each book sold.

If you choose to publish online, you’ll be able to net most of the profits made. If you go through a company like Amazon you’ll keep up to 70% of the listed price of each book.

7. Longer Shelf Life

When you publish via traditional methods, your book may only be available in stores for a few months. This means there’s not a lot of time for an audience to grow and you could lose out.

But if you opt for online publishing, your book will stay available forever. What goes on the Internet stays there, and this is a great thing for your book. It gives it the chance to build an audience and for people to find it years down the line.

Your book will be available to read at the click of a button. You can write as many as you’d like and people can still find your earlier works with ease.

8. Keep the Rights to Your Book

If you go with a traditional publisher and your book does very well, it can be great! But, it sometimes means you’ve signed away a lot of rights to your book.

When a traditional publisher takes on your book, they will partly own it. If your book does well and has the possibility of becoming a TV show or movie, they will profit off it too. It also means you won’t have full creative control.

With a self-published online book, you keep all the rights. You can do whatever you want with the book at any time. If you do get opportunities like these, you’ll keep your rights to the book.

Online Book Publishing Is the Way to Go

If you’ve been considering whether to publish your book online, now’s the time to do it. Ebooks are a great way to get your book out there without having to rely on anyone else. You can reach a greater audience and keep full control of your book.

Culled from Mag Loft

Seven Books to Help You Build Your Vocabulary

 

If you live and work or study in an English-speaking country, chances are that you’ll find vocabulary building necessary at some point. Whether you’re in the sciences or engineering, whether you’re in sales or only deal with numbers, communication is a phenomenon that transcends all domains. Vocabulary is a key part of communication, and often shows a person’s level of experience and competence in your chosen language.

Just imagine having a big presentation where you have to pitch your idea to potential investors, or you are to speak to a group of people in school or at work. You have the confidence, but then you find it difficult to speak effectively because you can’t find the right words!

A rich vocabulary gives a person room to flow freely while communicating, whether to their peers, colleagues, business partners, employers or acquaintances. It gives you the confidence to put yourself out there and explore new opportunities or optimise new ones!

So, now that we’ve established the advantages of building your vocabulary, an organic way to improve your vocabulary is through reading good books. Therefore, let’s take a look at seven books that can help you in this. 

The Dictionary

This one should be pretty obvious, shouldn’t it? I mean, if we’re trying to build up our vocabulary, we should probably start with the book that contains entries for literally all words in English, right?

The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, is perhaps the world’s oldest and most authoritative English dictionary. It includes numerous varieties of words such as formal, slang, British, American, South American, South African, Nigerian, etc., with real-life sample sentences selected to help you understand the context in which each word is commonly used.

In case you’re thinking it’d be boring and tedious to browse the dictionary, think again. The Oxford Dictionary takes a riveting approach, supplying meanings of words as well as many fascinating ‘usage’ boxes that enlighten the reader on several areas such as frequency in real life usage, appropriateness relative to other words, collocation, native expressions, dos and don’ts, grammatical patterns, etc. It is very engaging and exciting to browse through.

In case you have a thing against Oxford, or it just doesn’t cut it for you, there are a lot of other dictionaries that pack the same kind of engaging content. You could weigh them up and find out which one is the best choice for you.

For better utilisation, you could get a note to record fascinating words, their pronunciations, meanings and usage.

The Harry Potter series

The Harry Potter books are a British series with over half a billion copies sold worldwide. But it’s not the fame or popularity that has caught our eye. It’s the fact that they can help you build your vocabulary by letting you immerse yourself into a world that is just as educating as it is fun. Now those half a billion copies weren’t sold simply because people loved Rowling’s glittering eyes, were they?

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird is read as a literature text in many American high schools. The book adopts such a rich use of language that is guaranteed to improve your mental word bank by the time you’re done turning those 284 pages.

Ulysses by James Joyce

In this book, the writer makes use of at least 30,000 unique words. The rich usage of so many different words will ensure that you benefit so much just from reading one book. Plus, Ulysses packs so much pun, parody and humour into an exciting storyline, so that the last thing on your mind will be dropping the book before you’re done!

Ake: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka

It is Soyinka, and he knows his words. Need we say more? But Ake is slightly different from other works from arguably Africa’s foremost wordsmith. The story is an interesting narrative told from the perspective of a child (a pre-adolescent Soyinka), complete with child-like innocence. Hence, apart from being fresh and exciting, it uses a, shall we say, ‘medium’ diction – in comparison to some of Soyinka’s famed challenging works – making Ake: The Years of Childhood a perfect choice for anyone seeking to improve their vocabulary.

Shakespeare’s Plays

Yes, you heard that right – Shakespeare. Now before you turn away, hear us out. Shakespeare’s plays contain a prodigious amount of words; and furthermore, many English phrases which are still in use today. “Lend me your ears”, “the evil that men do”, “wear your heart on your sleeve”, “foregone conclusion”, “method to my madness” and many other phrases all originated from Shakespeare.

So get a play of Shakespeare’s, give it a read, and go forth to show off what you’ve acquired! For optimum enjoyment and understanding, get a version with meanings of difficult words and phrases.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Surely you must have read this one. But even if you haven’t, surely you must have heard the famous expression, “Oliver Twist asked for more”. Well, apart from being a classic, this book is a solution if you are looking to enrich your vocabulary. So while you build up your word bank, you also catch up on the famous story of the famous boy who asked for more.

 

20 Writing Tips from Fiction Authors

 

Writing success boils down to hard work, imagination and passion—and then some more hard work. Fire up your creative spirit with 20 writing tips from 12 bestselling fiction authors.

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.

Tip1: "My first rule was given to me by TH White, author of The Sword in the Stone and other Arthurian fantasies and was: Read. Read everything you can lay hands on. I always advise people who want to write a fantasy or science fiction or romance to stop reading everything in those genres and start reading everything else from Bunyan to Byatt." — Michael Moorcock

Tip 2: "Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you." — Zadie Smith

Tip 3: "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 4: "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 5: "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 6: "It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction." — Jonathan Franzen

"Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet." — Zadie Smith

Tip 7: "Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting." — Jonathan Franzen

Tip 8: "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 9: "Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." – Anton Chekhov

Tip 10: "Listen to the criticisms and preferences of your trusted 'first readers.'" — Rose Tremain

Tip 11: "Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money." — Jonathan Franzen

Tip 12: "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 13: "The writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement – if you can't deal with this you needn't apply." — Will Self

Tip 14: "Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!" — Joyce Carol Oates

Tip 15: "The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator." — Jonathan Franzen

Tip 16: "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 17: "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

Tip 18: "You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished." — Will Self

Tip 19: "The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter." — Neil Gaiman

Tip 20: "The nearest I have to a rule is a Post-it on the wall in front of my desk saying ‘Faire et se taire’ (Flaubert), which I translate for myself as ‘Shut up and get on with it.’" — Helen Simpson

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.

Credit: iUniverse

Job Hunting? How to Write a Supporting Statement

 

When applying for certain jobs, you may be required to include a supporting statement. This is a part of a resume that allows you to expand on your qualifications, experiences, and skills. It allows you to sell yourself to potential employers, so it’s important to know how to write a supporting statement that’s polished. Follow these five steps to help you craft a solid supporting statement to include with your resume.

Review the Job Description

Start by reviewing the job description. It might help to print out a copy that you can write on. Then, highlight keywords related to the role and skills required to perform the job.

Consider Personal Examples

With the keywords from the job description, start brainstorming personal examples that demonstrate those skills. Try to get specific, but consider a wide range of examples that cover several skills you possess. The examples should also show your personal actions and the results you achieved.

Introduce Yourself

As you plan how to write a supporting statement, start by introducing yourself. Let the hiring manager know who you are and why you are the top candidate for the job. Remember that this introduction is going to create the company’s first impression of you. You want a positive impression right from the start. Start your supporting statement in a way that will catch their attention while introducing yourself as an employee.

Draft Your Statement

Now you’re ready to work on the rest of your supporting statement. Although some companies may specify how long to make the statement, it’s a good idea to keep it under two pages. You should aim to keep your ideas brief and succinct. Also, use headings, bullet points, and other formatting techniques to make your statement easy to scan.

Revise Your Work

Before submitting your supporting statement, be sure to proofread your work. Look for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and formatting errors. And don’t be afraid to ask for help. Have several people read through your supporting statement to check for any errors. You could also ask these people to critique your writing, ensuring that your examples do a good job demonstrating why you’re the best candidate for the job.

After following these steps and completing several rounds of revisions, you’re ready to submit your supporting statement with your application documents. Knowing how to write a supporting statement, along with the best practices of applying for a job, can increase your odds of getting an interview and hopefully landing the job you want. Best of luck!

Culled from Magoosh

Learn to Use Social Media to Sell your Books

 

As an author, do you struggle with using social media to sell books and connect with readers?

Not sure how much time you should be spending on social media and what you should be doing during that time?

Can you really find more readers using social media?

How do you promote my book properly on social media?

If you are wondering about any of these questions, then you are not alone. Many authors struggle with the same sorts of questions.

So, let’s a look at a few of those questions and get tips on how to command the social media ‘beast’ and tame it.

How Long Does It Take for An Author to Build a Presence Online?

This is a popular question for any business, especially authors. They have spent months and months (sometimes even years) writing their books, and they want to find an audience for their books right away, it often doesn’t happen like that!

“It doesn’t take any time at all to BUY an audience. There are easy ways to… there are a lot of marketing strategies that allow you to amass huge followings. I want to be very careful to encourage authors, especially, to BUILD their audience. Slow and steady definitely wins the race!”

Many authors think that they need to find an audience for their book after they already wrote the book. This is the wrong way to look at it!

“As you’re writing your book, I want to encourage people to build that audience in tandem with that. Don’t expect to just write your book and say ‘Okay, I’m going to start shooting it out to an audience!’ I want to really encourage people to build your audience while you’re writing your book.”

Now, if your book is already done, you’re not able to start building that audience while writing so definitely start building an audience now, but if you’re planning on writing another book, start building that audience now!

The best part about building an audience while you are writing, is that you can share bits and pieces about your book as you write it. You can share the covers, you can share samples, you can give teasers. This allows your audience to become invested in your book. If they have spent months becoming invested in the book as you’re writing it, they are much more likely to buy the book when it’s released!

What do I talk about on social media? Do I just talk about my book?

Many authors struggle with what to write about on social media so they end up defaulting to some variation of “Buy my book!”. As many authors notice, that doesn’t get you more sales. People aren’t invested in you, they don’t have a connection with you, so they aren’t going to buy your book!

“You want to be approachable to your readers… I break the mould. Whatever is on my mind, whenever it is on my mind, I post it… I allow my readers to know me, all of me. I am not just going to feed them this part of me.”

Being an author is like running a business. You’re marketing a product: your book.

“Writing a book, that process, it IS a business. How do we manage good social media? How do we manage a business? How do we brand? All of these concepts are going to play into the marketing of your book.”

Which social media platform is best? Should I be on Facebook? Should I be on Twitter? Is Google+ the best for me?

“Is your reader on Facebook? If he is, great, then build out a social media strategy for Facebook! If you find tips for Pinterest, but your reader isn’t on Pinterest, then you shouldn’t invest in trying to get your reader onto Pinterest!”

First you have to define who your audience is, and once you have done that you can take the next step.

“You scroll through bios, and you literally do research. It’s no different than going to the library to do research.”

You have to determine where to find your readers and devote as much attention to that platform as you would engaging individual readers one-on-one.

We’re glad you dropped by. If you have questions or want to be a part of our upcoming training for writers, leave a comment or send a mail to mail@soipublishing.net