One of my summer reading discoveries is Darlene Foster’s six-volume Amanda series. I’m a teacher-author so I’m always eager to find fresh books that my K-8 students will love. When I came across Darlene on her blog, Darlene Foster’s Blog, I have to admit, I was really excited. I’d never found a children’s travelogue series that would appeal to kids the same way fiction does. This series does. In it, kids travel all over the world, to those names that excite every adult–Amanda on the Danube, Amanda in Arabia, Amanda in Alberta, as well as three more fun world locations.

I asked Darlene if she would mind doing an interview for my blog–just one question. That’s all I had:

How do you create readers for life?

Because that’s what these books have the power to do–turn kids into readers. Here’s her answer:

Writing for children…

on Just Publishing Advice:

Occasionally on a blog, a gif is better than a jpeg or png image

You probably associate an animated gif with social media.

They are usually for amusement value and are often small snippets taken from a YouTube video, or even from Instagram videos.

If it is only for fun, you can find thousands of them online if free gif libraries, so there is no need to create an animated gif yourself.

Perhaps if the subject of this post was about books that are real page-turners, I could add something like this.

I know it is not the most exciting gif ever made but is apt to show you that you can add one to a blog post on most blogging platforms.

If you use WordPress, you can load up a gif in the same way that you load all your images in the Image Editor.

Continue reading HERE

An excerpt from: Paul Goat Allen | March 12, 2018, Writer’s Digest. Paul Goat Allen has worked as a genre fiction book critic and written thousands of reviews for companies like BarnesandNoble.com, Publishers Weekly, the Chicago Tribune and Kirkus Reviews.

Novelists live and die by reviews yet uncovering what garners a gushing ovation or blistering takedown is often a mystery. A professional critic lays out what it takes to earn five-star book reviews. For two decades I’d been working as a freelance genre fiction book critic for outlets such as BarnesandNoble.com, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews and the Chicago Tribune. After sharing my credentials with the group, some of the writers began telling stories about mediocre or bad reviews they’d received at different points in their careers from one or more of the companies I’d listed.

As a reviewer, not much has changed since then. I enjoy all genres and have…

on Anne R. Allen:

An Indie Author CAN publish with dignity and rise above the sleaze.

I was at a writer’s conference recently where a woman was upset because the agent she pitched didn’t believe in her book. She wanted more support, more sympathy, more understanding.

The speaker pointed out that the agent’s job is not to be your friend, but to sell your book.

Unfortunately most authors are looking for emotional support. Even after pouring heart and soul into a book and putting it out there, the rejection, apathy and invisibility of the thing they made (a tiny drop in the ocean of newly published books) can sting.

And gradually it fades into feelings of inadequacy. But it doesn’t have to.

Continue reading HERE

on The Creative Penn:

Intro by Joanna Penn:

Getting book reviews can be challenging, especially if you’re just starting out with no audience or email list. But there are ways you can make it easier. 

In today’s article, Craig Tuch from Hidden Gems review service gives us some tips. 

Continue reading HERE

Alivingseries- Author spotlight

Eichin Chang Lim

Genre

Book links:

Amazon US

https://goo.gl/gTyZqD

Amazon UK

https://goo.gl/NYjorq

Amazon CA

https://goo.gl/iMQSC8

Amazon AU

https://goo.gl/5g9aeC

Barnes and Nobles

https://goo.gl/kbc9fm

Note:

Buy Read and Review the books Author work hard to get books publish.

Brought to you by

Alivingseries book blogs and social media marketing

Last post was some tongue-and-cheek fun pointing out how brands (particularly author brands) abuse Twitter. Today, I want to shift gears and chat some about how writers—actually ALL brands—can use Twitter far more effectively.

Currently, too many writers are like Stormtroopers—lots of shots fired  tweets that hit NOTHING.

Continue reading HERE

by ARHuelsenbeck

Disclaimer: I do not have an agent, but I am looking for one, and I have accumulated a lot of information in the process which I am willing to share so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

on Just Publishing Advice:

RSS is nearly as old as email but do you know what it can do for you?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has been around for a very long time. It is also sometimes called rich site summary.

In the early days of the Internet, it was an easy way to gather the latest news in your web browser.

The familiar orange RSS icon was on almost every website, and by clicking and adding the feed, you could read the latest updates in your browser.

In browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, the RSS icon appeared automatically in the address bar to indicate that a site had a feed. With one click you could add it to a feed reader.

The most popular RSS reader at the time was Google Reader. I remember using it every day for years to collect new blog posts and news.

But when mobile devices…