Orbiting distant worlds to bring their stories to you.
2020 somehow feels like it’s already gone by so fast, until I stop and realize it’s only the second week.
Anyway, now that I’ve reviewed the numbers for this site in 2019, it’s time to go back to my book marketing goals for a final check-up. Continue reading “2019 Book Marketing Goals Wrap-Up”
For whatever reason I’ve been thinking a bit about my writing and publishing goals for next year, including my goals for this site. That, of course, leads me into thinking about what I want to do with this site in general.
I’m not going to write my full book marketing goals post for 2020 yet, because it’s 11pm on a Monday, and it’s not quite 2020. However, I’d like to set the stage a bit for how I may approach the coming year, and get some thoughts onto virtual paper. Continue reading “Pre-2020 Goals and Ideas”
This morning I finally gave my presentation to a class of high school creative writing students. Honestly, I think I was as engaged with the discussion as they were, which was an amazing feeling.
Those dreaded words. Plagiarism. Copyright. Infringement. Fraud.
Plagiarism of online work and exploitation of a person’s online profile and platforms are very real fears. As someone who can be very easily searched and found on Google in various results, I know this all too well. Continue reading “Plagiarism and Copyright: The Dark Side of Publishing in the Digital Age”
This one was a sub-headline, but I still have issues with it.
Want to learn how to write good headlines? Check this out. Perhaps it’s time to write a post about creating good sub-headlines…
History repeats itself, if we ignore history we are doomed to repeat it, etc. This sub-headline is essentially those cliche phrases except worded more poorly.
We can glean from this snippet (and the headline if you saw it), that this is for a historical novel. What type of history? That’s a mystery! (Not even the headline made that clear.) Maybe this book is really a detective caper where we have to guess which historical event it’s actually talking about, giving us clues along the way, but then there’s a big twist at the end!
The sub-headline of a press release is supposed to provide those little extra details that are just too wordy for a short snappy headline.
Here’s the how Google populates the press release I sent announcing that WoEM had been published. See that smaller text beneath the main headline? That’s officially called the meta description, but for a press release, that’s where the sub-headline would populate.
My sub-headline isn’t perfect, but it provides at least a little extra information. Notice how Google truncates it after about 150 characters? That makes it even more important that you front-load that summary with information that potential readers can act on.
Just rewrite the whole thing. Replace it with a description of the book, perhaps an actual piece of advice that could be taken from this mysterious history lesson. Or maybe tell us When and Where the book could be purchased.
As it currently reads, this sub-headline is effectively wasted space.
Steve D
My writing pace has slowed down a bit in recent days, and for once, I don’t mean in pure word count.
Maybe a week ago I completed a longer chapter centered on one’s character’s POV. I knew how I wanted the chapter to go, it just took a lot of writing time and words to get there.
I’ve since moved on to the next chapter with my favorite character–Arden–and I think my writing style has shifted a bit. Continue reading “Following that Narrative Thought”
With all of the narrative shifts, outlining, and pondering I’ve done about The Warden of Everfeld: Legacy and related stories recently, I wanted to revive my world-building series.
And boy was I shocked to find that I haven’t written an Exploring Úr’Dan post in over a year! Here’s a refresher for all of us (myself included) of the fantastical ground we’ve covered previously:
Continue reading “Exploring Úr’Dan: The Firelands and the Northern Uplands”
Awesome Con was fantastic. I talked to a ton of cool people, connected with a couple authors, and sold some freaking books.
I wish I had the budget right now to do more conventions, but I’ll just have to be patient. At the very least, I can plan to be at Awesome Con again next year. For now, let’s have a look at how well my first novel actually sold at my first convention. Continue reading “Quarterly Sales Report: Awesome Con was Awesome”
The day of reckoning has finally arrived. In just a few minutes, I’ll be heading down to DC for Awesome Con!
I have parking spots reserved for each of the next three days, and I got my books on time! These are the boxes I have to haul down there.
And here’s my actual merch, my newly printed matte-finish books and bookmarks!
I think the matte finish came out really well, even though it’s not as dark as the bookmarks–that was sort of the idea.
I have 35 books with me, which is probably way too many, but I wanted to have some extra anyway for whatever my next chance to meet readers will be.
I forewent buying flyers for “The Grand Mythos” or a banner, due to budget and time constraints (a.k.a., I’m unemployed, and I did not give myself enough time to prepare), so I printed some promo text on the back of these bookmarks.
I included a blurb for Aston and Jaed, a promo for “The Grand Mythos”, and some info on where people can find me. It’s not fancy, but it was easy to do and it gets the point across.
I’ll be posting pictures from the convention on my Imgur account: WardeOfEverfeld.
And I’m sure I’ll have tons to recap after the event. Today is an 8+ hour day, so I might be a wee bit tired. We’ll see.
Okay, no more delaying! I’m nervous and excited as hell. To Awesome Con!
Steve D
Well, this week came up a lot faster than I had anticipated. We were off on our first road trip with Nugget for the last 10 days, visiting family in Michigan and Milwaukee. We had a great time, but now we’re back in the swing of normal life
Awesome Con begins on Friday, and I still have some logistics to work out. The countdown begins! Continue reading “Awesome Con 2019 Prep!”
