Hold on a sec, I got some thoughts about your memoir

You open your email, and O frabjous day! A publisher has come calling! They’ve seen your work in a literary magazine and wonder if you have a chapbook, or would like to be in their anthology.  Or you didn’t win a contest, but your work “shows merit” and “deserves to be published.” Maybe you wanted a faster process than querying agents, or figured your work better suited a small press, so you cast out to a few publishers, and one has bitten.

You read a little further. This publishing house “considers work for both traditional and hybrid publishing.” If your book is seen as better suited to a hybrid deal—perhaps due to “the difficulty in placing the books of new or untried authors, as well as the general increased competition in publishing today”—the publisher feels “that it may…

As many of you know, in my day job I work as a web developer. Most of my skills I’ve picked up in the past 25 years of web design, from Internet marketing to social media, have proven useful once I started writing. One of them was logo design: I’ve helped a number of clients with their logos; something that is often a slow, arduous process.

Well, no more! I was recently approached by a company called DesignEvo to test-drive their online logo designer and I was amazed. Within seconds, I designed my first logo. Thay have a gazillion templates and graphics to choose from, making the process as painless as you can possibly imagine. Best of all, they store your logos for you so you can edit them in the future, should you (or a client) decide on, say, a new color.

So, are you interested in a…

Digital Social Me – Do I Have Choice?

Social Identity: ‘The recognition of one’s potential and qualities as an individual, especially in relation to social context:

Caring can become the defining characteristic of women’s self-identity.’

Other forms of social identity are how one is recognized in the sporting world, whether as a player or a spectator. How one is accepted by their peers, such as school, family, work, religion, cults, sports, hobbies etc. Even how one is amongst others that simply share their place on the planet. Social identity is how one is perceived by others, and even more importantly how one is perceived by ‘themselves’ in their social circle. ‘Socialization’ enables us to fit into social groups and make adjustments to new situations’ Poole, M & Germov.

The Digital Self
Then there is the ‘Digital Identity’ Deborah Lupton states, ‘Accessing our news, music, television, films via digital platforms and…

A book review — your opinion about a book based on evidence from it. We’ve seen them on Amazon and Goodreads. We may have even read a few… but are we writing them, too?

Wait? Writing a book review? I can’t do that. I don’t know how to do that… Please don’t ask me! Please!

But you can! I promise. (If you want to, that is…) All you need is a little bit of time and a book… I’ll take you through the “Why,” the “What,” and the “How” of writing a review.

Why should I?

Before we get into the how, let’s discuss the why. Why should I write a book review? Why does it matter if I write a review? Why do authors care about reviews? Why do readers care about reviews?

I’ll let a few authors tell you the answers to these questions!

• Book reviews bring in…

Good morning writers, I hope you’ve had a great week.

My week has been quite a drag and full of ups and downs. Good days and bad days. It got me thinking about how to stay motivated, how do you keep writing when life is busy and complicated and you are tired and stressed.

It can be really hard to stick to your story, especially as it can feel like it’s taking a lifetime to finish your drafts and edits. So, I thought I’d share some of the ways I keep myself motivated, in the hope it will help other writers when they’re struggling.

1. Look back on how far you’ve come
Writing is a long process that requires a great deal of patience and dedication. When you feel unmotivated take some time to look back at how far you’ve already come. You can do this by re-reading what you’ve…

As you know, I’m a web developer by day and author by night. So, this guest post by Christina Battons, a web content expert in Los Angeles, was of particular interest to me. Christina is a creative writer who is able to connect various thoughts into a single theme. She loves to stay up-to-date on the latest content marketing trends. Her works have been published on Custom-writings.net and other resources. You can connect with Christina on Twitter.

5 Ways Writers Can Increase Revenue Through Their Website

A website is an important business tool. Image: Pexels

Are you a creative writer searching for ways of increasing the number of visitors to your website–and your revenue?

In this day and age, it is crucial for you to have a website that will stand out and make you popular. A website is a very important business tool. A well thought-out…

We’ve talked about rejection a lot on this blog this year. The more I write about writing, the more I get to interact with fellow writers — and the more in-tune I become with the things you’re all struggling with — like rejection, and self-doubt.

That’s what I love most about running Novelty Revisions. I’m constantly learning right along with you. A good writer is on a continuous quest to learn as she grows.

The best way to learn anything, as a writer, is to pay attention to what’s going on around you as you’re in the midst of the action.

Which is why I don’t think we need to be as afraid of getting rejected as we often are.

Like it or not, each no or lack of response teaches you something new about the process … or reinforces something you still need to learn.

Here’s everything even one…

I haven’t been in my new position as a full-time writer long, but I am already learning a number of things about the process, especially as to how it pertains to online media – like how bad I am at it on this site (in terms of monetization, rapid audience building, or anything else you can think of when you try to come up with ways to actually making a living off writing outside of selling books, which is a whole story for another day), even when the writing itself was good.

For one, I don’t use nearly enough H2 tags in my blog posts, or headers for those not as versed in HTML lingo. Apparently, readers like to see big bold text so they know which words I spent hours upon hours tirelessly crafting are okay for their eyes to totally skip over.

That being said:

Be bold

Readers…