Ten Things I love Most in the World…

1. Mother Nature has been the number one love in my life for longer than I can remember. My idea of heaven would be to live in a forest with a river nearby.

2.  The way I feel about horses goes way beyond love. Sometimes I think I must have been a horse in a former life, from the strong and powerful connection I seem to have with them.

3.  I have always been a bit of a freak for thunderstorms. The noise, barely contained power and the majesty of the lightning speaks to me in ways I cannot describe.

4.  Whenever I have spare time, and even when I don’t, I have to track down a puzzle. It can be a jigsaw, a computer game, or a simple game of solitaire. My idea of heaven.

5.  Something about the…

Welcome back to another Monday Marketing post!  Today I’ve been thinking about branding.

Now as writers, we don’t always remember to think about our branding but it is important.  I’ve discussedbeing consistent in your branding, but what about the idea of rebranding?

Proofreading. Some writers love it, some writers despise it. But whatever your feelings, proofreading is your final task when preparing to share your words with the world.

Writers often read their words the way they believe they wrote them, not how they actually wrote them. This means spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors, such as poor sentence structure, wrong choice of words and punctuation can all go unnoticed by the writer. These factors impact the context and readability of the work.

The good news is that proofreading skills can be learned, developed and improved. Where is the best source for information on learning how to proofread, I hear you ask (at least I hope you are).

Fear not my friends, help is at hand and The Haunted Pen is here to save the day!

The best source for hands-on information is a professional proofreader – someone who has spent years…

on Just Publishing Advice:

It is easy to make a book that you will be proud to share

Many years ago, I used to do my own hand book binding. It was a slow process, but I wanted to have a handful of copies of my book for family and some close friends.

Luckily, I had access to a small printing press, but after that, it was all manual.

Continue reading HERE

Making it as a writer is tough. But if you love writing, you can’t imagine doing anything else. Maybe these links, compiled by freelance writer Jasmine Eclipse, will help you find some paid work to help you make a career out of your passion!

Sites that pay you for your writing

Babble

• Pay: This Disney company pays up to $150 per article
• Topics: Family, parenting, lifestyle

Cracked

• Pay: Up to $250 per article
• Topics: Comedy, pop culture, personal experiences

Paste Magazine

• Pay: ~$50 per article (in the form of feature profiles, essays, reviews)
• Topics: Music, TV, video games

Dorkly

• Pay: ~$75 per article
• Topics: Video games, anime, pop culture

Confrontation Magazine

• Pay: Up to $200 per article
• Topics: Short stories, poetry, nonfiction

Affiliate sites for writers

• Mixbook — 15% per sale and $20 affiliate bonuses
• Blurb — 15% per sale, plus affiliate bonuses and free products
• Grammarly — $20…

In today’s post I try not to sound like a grandad teaching his grandchildren to use a computer as I provide an introduction to one of the most popular social media platforms today, micro-blogging site, Twitter.

Just for clarification, I’m nowhere near being a grandad yet, but I am still a relative notice when it comes to social media and in particular for Twitter, having only been using the platform since July this year, so less than two months. I have around 1,730 followers and my top tweet earned 3,000 impressions and 60 people engaged with it. In this short period I’ve learnt so much and I thought I’d explain for those who would like to start using the platform and want a head start, or those thinking about using Twitter as part of their strategy for building an author platform.

As always if I get anything wrong or you…

Hello wonderful SEers! Mae here today with a Friday Five. I hope you enjoy my list of  five things every writer should have in their arsenal. These may be abstract, but I think you’ll recognize their importance:

1. Supportive Loved Ones
Non-writers don’t often understand what authors go through. We seal ourselves away, hunched over a keyboard, and block the outer world. Sooner or later, no matter how diligent our attempts to balance family life and writing, our craft can infringe on time spent with loved ones.

When we’re writing into the wee hours of the morning, or putting off dinner “just one more hour,” it’s great to have family and friends who understand that the life of a writer spins on a different axis.

2. A Tough Exterior
There’s a lot of the obvious in this one. Writers are subject to having  work rejected and garnering bad reviews. Sooner…

Many, if not most, readers have a few go-to or auto-buy authors. Readers support their go-to authors by buying almost everything they’ve released, keeping their name top-of-mind to suggest and recommend to others, and generally feeling a sense of loyalty.

As authors, we long to be on readers’ auto-buy lists. We want readers who support us, share the word about our books, and love what we do.

As readers, we know how we feel about our go-to authors. I don’t expect their every book to be a five-star, keeper-shelf story of perfection, but I know I’ll get a consistently good story that hits my buttons.

And that brings us to today’s topic. Just as we have go-to favorite authors that we know we can depend on for delivering a certain type of story, readers are evaluating us for what we can deliver: What’s our promise to readers when…