Three Ways to HOOK a Reader & Never Let GO

February 22, 2017February 22, 2017 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ Leave a comment

Kristen Lamb published a post on how to hook a reader and never let go. Thanks for your excellent guidance, Kristen!

Image courtesy of Randy Heinitz via Flickr Creative Commons.

How do we sell our stories? That is the big question. It is the reason for craft classes and editing and cover design and agents and editors and all the time on social media. And while platforms and covers and algorithms do matter, there is one tried and true way to sell more books.

Write a great story.

And not just any story, but a story that hooks from the very beginning and only continues to hook deeper.

Think of great stories like concertina wire.

The danger of concertina wire is not just in one hook, but hundreds. And it isn’t even in the hundreds of hooks. It is the tension created by the coiled structure. If a person is snagged even a little, every effort to break free (turning a page for resolution) only traps the victim deeper in…

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Productivity Tips: How to Stay Focused Admist Chaos

February 22, 2017February 22, 2017 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 5 Comments

I got an interesting email today. Karina from BookMeditationRetreats.com has informed me about an article, Lystia Putranto published February 3, 2017.

Karina wrote:

“To be productive is a something that we all struggle with sometimes and at times, we find ourselves procrastinating on our daily task. On this article, our contributing writer, Lystia, shares a list of practical tips that can help us establish and maintain our focus.”

I found this article helpful and interesting and agree with Karina, that we might find this post very useful.

The title is: Productivity Tips: How to Stay Focused Admist Chaos and Lystia lists five very useful tips on how to organize ourselves.

Make a Daily Schedule and Stick to It
Take Up Meditation
Do One Thing at a Time
Minimize Distractions
Give Yourself Designated Breaks

Each of the points includes more detailed explanations and gives us insight in her studies.

All in all a very interesting and useful blog post.

Please read the entire article here: https://www.bookmeditationretreats.com/news/productivity-tips-stay-focused

6 Signs of Scam Publishers

February 22, 2017February 22, 2017 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 1 Comment

Steven Capps gives us excellent advice on what to look for if we want to find out about whether our publisher is a scam. Thank you Steven. We appreciate your efforts!

Bard & Books

As a warning, I am writing the rough draft of this post on my IPhone while I do cardio at the gym (cue gym selfie below). I am trying to be more efficient and thought that this would be a good time to get in some writing.

Earlier today, I was browsing Facebook and amid the swath of political drivel, I found an advertisement for a publisher looking for authors. Several red flags flickered almost immediately. Though this post is inspired by an actual publisher, I am going to omit their name because when I reached out to them, they deleted the content. It seemed like they were more of a naive kid rather than a malicious con-artist. Regardless, here are 6 Red Flags to be aware of when looking into a publisher.