Need some inspiration for how women dressed throughout history? User Q1s2e3 at Imgur has a fantastic graphic of women’s fashion in every year from 1784-1970.
tools
Quick Link: How to Set Up an eBook Ad with Amazon Marketing Services
Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.
Did you know you can set up ads for your ebook with Amazon Marketing Services? I didn’t. But at Indies Unlimited,
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How to Set Up an eBook Ad with Amazon Marketing Services
by
A few months ago, KDP opened up Amazon Marketing Services to all eBooks, not just the ones in Kindle Unlimited. Setting up an ad is a relatively simple process, although it can look intimidating in the beginning.
Today, I’m going to walk you through how to set up both types of advertising.
First, go to your Reports page in KDP and click on Ad Campaigns (red arrow below).
You’ll be taken to a screen that gives you the option of creating a new campaign (red arrow below).
Click “New campaign,” and you’ll be taken to a screen to choose whether to do a Sponsored Products ad, or a Product Display ad (see red arrow below).
Read the full post on Indies Unlimited
Quick Links: What Goes in a Press Kit?
Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.
Do you have a press kit? You should. Where else can people find pictures you will let them use and more information about you. If you don’t have a press kit or just want to make sure the one you have is up to snuff, check out ‘s post at Digital Book World!
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What Goes in a Press Kit?
Sample Press Kit
Think of a press kit as a compilation album of your marketing materials, plus a few more goodies.
A sample press kit would have the following:
• An author photo at 300 dpi (high-resolution)
• Cover art at 300 dpi (high-resolution)
• Your book excerpt
• A sheet providing the various descriptions of the work (the one-line, the synopsis, etc.)
• An author bio (short and/or long, depending on the situation)
• Positive reviews (if you have them yet) and copies of any positive articles about you as an author or about your work
A digital press kit might “zip” all of these files into one folder for easy emailing and download. All of the above items are also things you will find in a typical list for a well-thought out author website, so you’re getting extra value out of assembling these materials and putting a press kit together.
About Those Marketing Descriptions
Quick Link: Critique Groups: 6 Ways they May Hurt Your Writing…and 6 Ways they Can Help
Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.
Are you a member of a critique group? Anne R. Allen thinks they are a great resource for all writers. She also has a few cautions as well so whether you are in a group or not, go check out her article.
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Critique Groups: 6 Ways they May Hurt Your Writing…and 6 Ways they Can Help
Critique groups have their pros and cons.
by Anne R. Allen
I often advise new writers to join critique groups. Groups are usually free and they’re a great way to learn the basics of the writing craft. They can get writers out of their “writing garrets” and help newbies navigate the treacherous waters of the ever-changing publishing industry.
But I also warn writers to be wary. Never take what you hear in critique groups or workshops as gospel. Groupthink can be dangerous. Petty tyrants often hold sway and the Dunning Kruger Effect can demonstrate itself on a regular basis. (That’s the scientific theory that the most ignorant people are usually the most confident.)
Even when you’ve found a wonderful critique group that seems knowledgeable, helpful and kind, they can sometimes steer you wrong, simply because of the nature of the group set-up. If your group reads work aloud, you’ll run into one set of problems. If you send copy ahead of time and red-pencil it, you’ll have another. The simple time-lapse can cause hassles too.
Author Tools – Scrivener for iOS Means You Can Write Your Zombie Novel Anywhere
Author Tools – things to help you get your writing done
Hey Scrivener fans and owners of an iPhone or iPad, NanoWriMo is coming soon and the new release of Scrivener for iOS is great news! Hopefully, there will be an android version soon – hint hint Keith Blount! You might be thinking that writing on your phone is crazy but I know that when I am in the midst of Nano I write everywhere I can, which means on my phone, cause every little word counts towards the 50K goal! Anyways, David Pierce has the scoop at Wired.
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Scrivener for iOS Means You Can Write Your Zombie Novel Anywhere
By David Pierce Gear 07.20.16
Every November for the last 17 years, thousands of people have participated in National Novel Writing Month, which is more commonly and less pronounceably known as NaNoWriMo. In 2015, 431,626 people signed up to try and write 50,000 words in a single month. One guy apparently wrote more than a million.
NaNoWriMo has been very good to Keith Blount. Blount is the creator and primary developer of Scrivener, an app made specifically for writers wrangling huge word counts. Scrivener’s first public launch came via the NaNoWriMo forums in 2005, and now Blount and his company, Literature and Latte, sponsor a camp for aspiring novelists every year. A huge group of writers, at all levels of acclaim and wealth and prolificness, rely on Scrivener to do their work on Macs and PCs. And today, after years of development and even more years of user requests, Scrivener’s also available for the iPhone and iPad.
Read the full post (and get the free worksheet!) on Wired
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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.
Author Tools: Improving Your Writing With AutoCrit by Pat Haggerty
Author Tools – things to help you get your writing done
Any tool that can help authors refine and edit their writing is a good thing. AutoCrit isn’t free but it is designed to help authors self-edit their work. I don’t think it would take the place of a professional editor, but it would be a good thing to help get your draft ready for a professional editor and save you time and money in the process. Any users of AutoCrit out there? Let us know how you liked it. Pat Haggerty at Romance University has the scoop.
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Improving Your Writing With AutoCrit
by Pat Haggerty
Every time I think Pat Haggerty can’t out-do his last post on RU, he comes up with another amazing article. Ever heard of AutoCrit? Check out what this software can do for you and your writing!
Have you ever heard the term Meatware? Yea, well that’s you. In a computer based system the hardware is where the computer software runs, the software is the set of instructions telling the hardware what to do and how, and you’re the meatware, running the show. At least for now
One never ending problem for writers is self-editing. It never ceases to amaze how many times I can read the same piece of work only to allow any number of mistakes to slip right past my notice. With training, and there are good books and classes on self-editing, you will improve, but some things are just hard to catch. We can, and eventually should, turn to a professional proofreader and/or line editor but wouldn’t it be nice if we could get a little more out of our self-editing cycle?
Enter AutoCrit.
AutoCrit is a web based, automated proofreader which does an excellent job helping you spot common problems in your drafts. The AutoCrit website says it well: “How do you get unbiased, knowledgeable feedback on your early drafts quickly, easily, and without spending a ton of money on an editor?” AutoCrit, that’s how.
Read the full post (and get the free worksheet!) on Romance University
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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.
Author Tools – Character Development Worksheet (Free Printable)
Author Tools – things to help you get your writing done
Oooh freebies! Who doesn’t like them? Especially if they are as useful as the one from
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Character Development Worksheet (Free Printable)
Read the full post (and get the free worksheet!) on
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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.
Author Tools: I wrote this review of a Freewrite on a Freewrite
Author Tools – things to help you get your writing done
I don’t know that a first draft only mobile word processor is for everyone, but if you want to what one is like head on over to Boing Boing where reviews his.
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I wrote this review of a Freewrite on a Freewrite
Jun 3, 2016
I jumped on the Freewrite/Hemingwrite kickstarter ages ago. It took so long for the single purpose, first-draft-only word processor to show up, I’d occasionally forgotten it was coming. I’ve had it for a few weeks now, and last weekend I typed a review out, on the unit itself.
Thing is, you can’t edit on the unit. The review below is the raw output of my clattering away at the old-timey keyboard.
If there is elegence to be found in simplicity, the team at Astrohaus have done their damnedest with the Freewrite, their single-purpose, distraction-free word processor. Originally billed as the Hemingwrite, I bought into the kickstarter on this years ago, hoping it’d help me focus on some short stories I never get finished while working on my laptop, or bother to transcribe from my notebooks.
I waited a long time for this unit, so I’m a little less forgiving of the problems than I might be with another kickstarted piece of kit. I have absolutely no complaints about the fit and finish. The device is pretty lovely in its gaudiness. It is supposed to resemble a typewriter, I think of the 1920s-1930s generation of my Remington Rand Deluxe Porta 5. It sort of does, the selector switches are mounted in a way to resemble the reels for ribbon, but it more closely feels like a mid to late 1990s portable wordprocessor. It weighs slightly, but not much less. It works about the same, and part of its charm is that it throws back to a mechanical keyboard like they would have used back then.
The keyboard is pretty much heaven, if you come from the days of yore, as I do. It feels like I am jamming along on a Commodore Vic20, or a WYSE terminal. While the e-ink isn’t vac green, its about as slow as the old led based screens would have been. You get just enough text on the screen to let you read back 1-3 sentences. You can’t edit at all, aside from erasing with backspace, so watching as you type and not looking at your fingers on the keyboard is really critical. I find that if I miss a typo by more than 5 words, I try to leave it and not go back.
Read the full post on Boing Boing
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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.
Top 105 Blogs and Websites for Writers and Authors
This post by Hiten Vyas originally appeared on e-Books India on 4/13/15.
Are you a creative writer looking to improve your skills? Maybe you’re a beginner novelist looking to pen your first book. You might be a blogger wondering how to make more money from your blog. Whatever type of writer you are, the Internet has some wonderful blogs and websites that provide advice, tips and inspiration to help you. This article takes a look at 105 of the top blogs and websites for writers and authors.
The blogs and websites have been categorized using the following headings: (1) Writing, Publishing, Sales and Marketing, (2) Freelancing, (3) News, Industry Analysis and Advice, (4) Blogging and (5) Writing Platforms and Communities.
There are of course more blogs and websites relevant to writers and authors. If you think you’re blog or website should also be included in this list, please do comment in the comments box at the end of the article and let us know about you, your blog, what it is about and how it helps writers and authors.
Without any further delay, let’s move onto the 105 blogs and websites!
Writing, Publishing, Sales and Marketing
1. Sameer Kamat
Sameer Kamat is a bestselling author of two books; namely Business Doctors, and Beyond the MBA Hype. He also has a website, which has a list of great articles that Sameer has written based upon his own experiences of writing books and ebooks. You can find advice on both self-publishing and on the traditional route. Many of the articles Sameer has written are geared to helping writers get published in India. These in particular, are great reads.
2. InstaScribe Blog
InstaScribe is an online app designed to help authors create professional looking ebooks. There is also the InstaScribe blog, which provides articles about ebook publishing, writing in different languages, and latest news from across the world in the areas of books and publishing. The InstaScribe blog also has some eye catching visuals in the form of inspiring quotes, and infographics in the areas of writing, and publishing ebooks. You can also read an interview with the founder of InstaScribe, Jaya Jha here.
3. Writers Helping Writers
The Writers Helping Writers blog is run by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. The blog is packed with great articles that help you to improve your fiction writing. In particular, articles at the blog about how to create different types of characters and how to give them various personalities, traits and skills are extremely useful. Interested authors can also submit guest posts to Writers Helping Writers.
4. Nathan Bransford
Nathan Bransford is a former literary agent and author. He also runs an extremely popular blog. He writes articles giving authors advice on how to improve their writing craft, on editing, formatting and get published; both through self-publishing and traditional publishing (and its associated requirements, writing query letters, synopses, finding literary agents etc.).
5. Write to Done
Mary Jaksch is Editor-in-Chief of Write to Done (WTD), which is a huge resource for writers whose archives date back to 2008. The website is updated regularly and contains expert opinions and actionable advice on all aspects of writing including blog writing, writing sales copy, freelancing, writing novels and non-fiction. If you happen to be new to WTD, the blog is well worth a visit.
6. The Procrastiwriter
The Procrastiwriter provides articles that share writing tips to help you to improve your writing, on motivation to inspire you to write, and on how to deal with self-doubt of your ability to be a successful writer. The blog is run by Shanan Haislip.
Read the full post on e-Books India.