Analytics for Authors blogs have been edited to reflect the 01/16/2013 Google Analytics update. — Google Analytics is a free service powered by Google that allows you to see “how visitors use your site, how they arrived on your site, and how you can keep them coming back.” Once you sign up for GA and install a short snippet of code into your website, you… [Read More]
You’ve been told that as an author you can’t afford to ignore Facebook with its 3 million followers. So you created a Page and worked hard to gain those “Likes” with compelling content. You stopped complaining that you had to do double duty with both a personal profile and an Author Page to maintain. You even accepted the changes with the new timeline without much… [Read More]
Not everyone has the willpower to sit down and write for an hour everyday. With pop-up notifications, the siren call of the internet, and everyday life getting in the way, sometimes even the formatting bar in your word processor can be enough to drive you away from wordsmithery. This overwhelming feeling of distraction is probably why there are multiple competing software applications aimed at creating… [Read More]
Many memoir writers worry prematurely about the people they plan to write about and whether they might take offense or be hurt by recollections and revelations of past events. Stop worrying. Start writing. Give them something to talk about, as Bonnie Raitt sings. For those who struggle to sit down and inscribe their personal memories, the internal editor kicks in as soon as they pick… [Read More]
Where to begin? Getting clarity on the genre of memoir is a good start. Then writing one memory. It can be intimidating to think of writing your life story beginning at your birth. So, don’t write autobiography. The classical forms of autobiography are called apologia, oration, and confession. Apologia are written as self-justifications for one’s actions. Orations are written to document one’s literary talents in… [Read More]
Military Writers Society of America convenes in Ohio September 27-29 for the annual conference and awards Banquet. An association of more than a thousand authors, poets, and artists come together by the common bond of love for the men and women who defend our nation, and a deep and personal understanding for their sacrifice and dedication. Their stories weave the fabric of our nation’s history…. [Read More]
Do you have a song lyric you plan to use as your epigraph? Is there a piece of artwork you’d like to see between the pages of your book? Do you want a poem to be inserted into the narrative? Have you excerpted a long passage from another book? Do you use trademarked brand names? Are there tables or diagrams, schematics or sketches that are… [Read More]
Blame Aristotle. Blame classical Greek culture. Blame all of Western Civilization. But every story must have a beginning, middle, and end. And more than that. Without narrative structure, a non-fiction book is just a boring recitation of one thing after another. You may think because your book is based on your real life experiences (memoir), historical events, scientific experimentation, or natural observations that you don’t… [Read More]
In 1953 Walter Cronkite anchored the first episode of You Are There with a reenactment of the Hindenberg. The early days of CBS news embraced a style grounded in reporting events based on eyewitness accounts, authoritative sources, and observational methods and packaging them into a story. After the end of WWII, CBS deployed the news editorial talents of Edward R. Murrow, Eric Severaid, and the… [Read More]
This week I’ve read a number of excellent articles and blogs on the subject of publishing. But, as I am continually playing catch up with my e-mail inbox, I must warn that not all of these links are current (i.e. within the past week). “Hashtags – How to Use Them without Abusing Them” – Writerland’s Meghan Ward offers a solid list of writerly hashtags, with… [Read More]
