Kitties always make us happy, even on a Wednesday. Thanks for giving us these smiles, Bluebird!
Day: June 8, 2017
Language Generator for Fantasy and Sci-Fi
Kristen Twardowski informs us with an exciting blog post about “Vulgar”, a language generator for Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers. Thanks so much Kristen.
I’ve talked about my fascination with language before, but sometimes writers need a little help creating words that make sense in their nascent worlds. I recently found something that streamlines that process.
Vulgar (pardon the terrible name) is a constructed language generator. The generator creates fully realized languages; if you were truly ambitious you could learn some of them. The program attempts to mimic real languages, so there are patterns to the words that develop. For instance, in 50% of generated languages, the word for “tongue” is the same as the word for “language”, and words often share roots as is the case for:
pson /pʂon/ n. paint; v. paint
psopru /ˈpʂopru/ n. painter
I’ve played around with the generator quite a bit and am highlighting a few sample languages below.
via Vulgar
via Vulgar
The above screenshots simply capture the summaries for the languages. The full pages, however…
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A Simple Guide to Book Advances and Royalties
A Writer’s Path’ Ryan Lance has written a very informative and simple guide to book advances and royalties. Thank you very much!
by Gary Smailes
When a book publisher offers a book deal to a new author, the contract will talk about ‘advances’ and ‘royalties’. These can be a little confusing to new authors, though a little bit of knowledge will go a long way to helping you fully understand what you are being offered.
In this article, you will learn about royalties and advances, you will discover what is usual for a book publisher to offer and you will find out how the publishing world is changing the way it provides advances and royalties.
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Don’t Advertise With Amazon Until You’ve Read This
Nicholas C. Rossis has provided us with a fantastic blog post about advertising with Amazon. Read this article before you decide to do so. Thank you very much Nicholas!
Yes, this is the long-promised post where I share my experience advertising with Amazon and the things I’ve learned — things that could make or break your campaign.
What I’ve Learned Advertising With Amazon
You may remember my past experiences with Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) and the recent plan I’d set for myself. I started promoting in April with 3 kinds of ads:
Ad #1: Sponsored Products, Manual Keywords
This was the bulk of my promos. I chose up to 1,000 keywords for each book and used them to target potential readers.
How does one come up with so many keywords, you ask? Well, there are two easy ways:
1. Choose The Best-Selling Books In Your Genre
The first strategy requires that you find the genres in which your books sells. Amazon does some automatic choosing for you, and you can sometimes see these listed under your book details…
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More Indie Publishing Tips
Don Massenzio is not only a great author; he’s an excellent advisor too! Thank you, for your very helpful and informative tips on indie publishing, Don!
For me, indie publishing has consisted of a lot of trial-and-error to determine what things work and what things do not. Unlike other types of sales and marketing, as an author it is not only about selling books, but, to some degree, you are selling yourself. This is something I’m extremely uncomfortable with, but I’ve found some ways to adjust my approach to make it more tolerable.
This list consists of some of the things I’ve tried that have worked for me. Your mileage may vary.
- Blatantly asking people to buy your books doesn’t work. Instead, I’ve tried to use my blog, Facebook, and other social media to try to convince people that my work might be worth checking out. I do this by trying to entertain or teach with the material I post.
- Word of mouth is extremely important. Your existing readers are your best salespeople. I like interacting with them…
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OOPS Goes to a Whole New Level…
The Story Reading Ape made me laugh once again with his “Oops” post. I feel the need to share the smiles. Thank you, Furry Friend! ❤
