Neil Diamond #SweetCaroline #RRBC

Jul18

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We are old but not that old just yet! Last Friday we attended a Neil Diamond Concert in Wichita, KS. He had last played there in 1967, and this time he was celebrating his 50th Anniversary Tour (since his music began). Amazing that he is pushing age 80, yet he can entertain quite well. Our picture above played on the Jumbo-Tron, and yeah, this was part of our 25th wedding anniversary events. 

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Pre-concert –  signage of Forever in Blue Jeans 50th 

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It boggles my mind to even try and imagine a real diamond of this size!

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As you can see, we had pretty decent seats and I just want to shout it out that his music was delightful! If you like his music, poetry, lyrics, guitar licks, etc. try to catch one of his shows on this tour. A memorable experience!

7 Steps to a User-Friendly Blog

Jul18

D. Wallace Peach's avatarMyths of the Mirror

This isn’t a new topic, but it seems worth a mention every now and then within the WordPress blog community. I love connecting with other bloggers and occasionally a website makes that hard if not impossible to do. Here are a few tips. 🙂

Definitely take a look at these if:

  • You are leaving likes and comments on other blogs and not getting return visits.
  • Everyone likes your old posts and seems to ignore your recent posts.
  • You’ve changed your blog address at any time (WP may still be directing your readers to the old deleted site!)

1. Make sure your links to your site are working. Unfortunately, this isn’t handled in just one place:

  • In your blog profile: Go to WP Admin – Users – My Profile. At the bottom of the page, make sure your website address is correct.
  • In your gravatar: Go to WP Admin – Users…

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This entry was posted on July 18, 2017. 1 Comment

Quick How-To: add bold and italic text to your Amazon book description

Jul17

Ana Spoke's avatarAna Spoke, author

I’ve promised a hurricane of activity leading up to my Literary Speed Dating date on 24 June, and one of them is updating book blurbs. Content is king, of course, but even a king could benefit from a little mascara. Just ask Johnny Depp.

So, speaking of using the equivalent of a Kohl pencil to give your book description that extra impact, have a look at Shizzle, Inc’s updated book blurb. What do you think? Have you always wanted to bold the hell out of your tagline but never knew how to do it? I have good news – it’s easy.

As it turns out, KDP’s supports some HTML for book descriptions. I’ve only used bold and italic so far, but it’s good to know where to go for reference if I ever want to add a horizontal line or something else fancy. If you’ve come across a beautifully composed book…

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Learn how to make your Amazon description stand out

Jul17

Jean M. Cogdell's avatarJean's Writing

It’s important for a book description to grab the reader.

So make your text stand out using bold or italics wording.    

Even if you’re not familiar with HTML, I’ve found a blog post that makes the process easy to understand. All you need to do is open and close the text with codes for Bold <b> or italics <i>.

Check out this quick tutorial and see if it helps you.

Quick How-To: add bold and italic text to your Amazon book description

Now go and update that book blurb.

Did it work?

Do you think we need to use special formatting for our descriptions?

Talk to me, I love your comments.

Please head over and “like” my Facebook page at Facebook at jeanswriting . Or to connect with me, click the “write me” tab. Don’t forget you can follow me on StumbleUpon,  on Twitter @jeancogdell

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If You Don’t Care About Grammar, You Don’t Care About Writing…

Jul17

Chris The Story Reading Ape's avatarChris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

By Lisa Brown  on Just Publishing Advice site:

There are many articles and blog posts out there with grammar mistakes. Some of those mistakes are not as bad as others, but are unnecessary and attentive writers can easily avoid them. A writer who does not spend time correcting grammar mistakes does not care about the quality of the content and therefore, does not care about writing. If you speak to any passionate author or writer, you can be assured that there is a process that takes place after the first draft is written.

With all the tools available to us these days, you can find help for just about any part of your writing. You can find grammar checkers and even an article summary generator. There is no excuse for poor grammar anymore, even if you are not writing in your native language, although I do recommend you write in…

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Milele Safari: An Eternal Journey by Jan Hawke

Jul14

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Milele Safari: An Eternal Journey by Jan Hawke

My review follows Hawke’s book blurb found on Amazon.

“Milele Safari – An Eternal Journey …twines around a single day, in an unremarkable border village that snuffs out the lives of four people and shatters many others, only to draw the survivors back to a different time and, perhaps, a hope of atonement and peace. Step out on the journey and discover an Africa that could have been, is and might one day come to be.

This book deals with strong adult themes, including genocide and war rape. It is therefore NOT suitable for persons under the age of 18, or of a sensitive disposition.”

From the beginning, this book was intriguing. I must admit that I was at a loss (book started out from a human point of view) when suddenly a leopard took center stage and the point of view switched from a human to an animal. Next thing I knew the point of view was from a safari driver who knew he would bring his group back to the kill site of the leopard and her cubs. Until now, I had never read a book such as to the likes of this one, and I find this highly unusual. For those readers who thrive on stories that come from a zillion different points of view and time, then this is a book for you! For me it was confusing with all the different points in time and points of view. This is an adult read for sure, and Hawke does have an interesting way of writing. For me, having suffered a head injury, I found the story line quite difficult and had to put the book down due to receiving a headache in the process. I could only read parts at a time as I was so lost in the story line.  The back has a reference section for African words and with the eBook (the version I read) you could click a link and see what each word meant. This was hard for me to read this way and I think a reader would do much better with a paperback version. Hawke wrote an extremely well-written book, great imagery, and depth. Heads Up: If you suffer from a brain injury in the past, this book is not for you. I give three stars due to the issues of no warning for those with brain injuries and how hard it was to follow.

 

Book Review: ‘The Hearts Journey Home’ by Natalie Ducey. Poetry For The Hungry Heart.

Jul13

Soooz's avatarWelcome to the World of Suzanne Burke.

Hello and welcome to my review of “The Hearts Journey Home.” By Natalie Ducey.

Meet Natalie.

Natalie Ducey Author Pic

 With a BA in Psychology, Natalie has had the privilege of working in the counselling field for approximately 15 years. Through her work and personal journey, she has witnessed the remarkable power of the human spirit.

In her own words she explains, “The potential of the human spirit has always amazed me. Through poetry, I try to capture the essence of the fragility and the resiliency of our hearts – the brilliant beauty of life’s journey. I believe we are connected by similar and relatable experiences. We all love/loved deeply and most likely have been on both sides of goodbye. We know the exquisite and profound beauty of love. We know the immobilizing force of grief and the anguish between letting go and holding on. We know the acute distinction between second chances and…

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