The Fine Art of Asking for Reviews, Blurbs, and Anything Else

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Excerpted and Adapted from the third in the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers, How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career

To find even more support for your book or your career, we often need to get more comfortable with asking. You can put your reporter’s hat on and ask—tactfully—questions that will help your career or for favors that will help you expand your base (including reviews, blurbs, advice, etc.). Make the point that your contact’s answer or help is a gift to you, and that you would be pleased to reciprocate when the need arises. Try some of these possibilities:

•    Ask fellow attendees at writers’ or other conferences.

•    Ask directors of conferences if they offer a review exchange or provide an area where you can distribute fliers or sell your books. If the answer, is no, ask if they have other suggestions or know of other resources that might help you.

•    Ask instructors and presenters if they have a list of pertinent resources or know where you can find one.

•    When you’re on the Web, look at the resource pages of the Websites owned by bloggers and other online entities to glean ideas and help. Use the contact feature to ask questions or send queries.

•    Think about classes you have taken. The instructors may have a policy against reviewing students’ work but may be a resource for other needs; , ditto for your fellow students. (I hope you would try to do the same for them!)

•    Ask members of your critique groups or business/professional organizations.

•    When you read, make a note of books and their authors, columnists, experts in your field. Almost all magazines, newspapers and journals list publishers, editors, columnists, etc. and you might be surprised at how many might say “yes” to a request for a blurb or a mention of your service or book as a resource.

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MORE ABOUT TODAY’S GUEST BLOGGER

This little how-to article was extracted and adapted from my giant (415 pages) of How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career https://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/getting_great_book_reviews.htm third in the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. There is just so much to know about putting reviews to work for your book and endorsements (for your book or business!) Learn more about my books for writers and visit my free Writers’ Resources pages at http://howtodoitfrugally.com. It’s also easy to use my review blog. Just follow the submission guidelines in the left column at http://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com

Want to Self-Publish a Rhyming Children’s Book? Read This First

As a children's ghostwriter I deal with lots of new ‘authors.’ One scenario I come across now and then is when someone sends me a story with rhyme in it. And, it seems lately I'm getting more clients who try to rhyme their drafts.

When this happens, it’s never done right and it’s my job to guide these authors.

I recently received two such manuscripts. One had rhyming here and there throughout the story. The other rhymed every other line.

Unfortunately, some of the rhyming words were forced. What this means is to make two words rhyme, the sentence is put together awkwardly (unnaturally) or one of the rhyming words is used unnaturally just to make it rhyme.

Two examples of awkward rhyme is:
Whenever I go to the park,
I run around and sing like a lark.

The forced rhyme below is from The Turtles’ “Happy Together” (1967):
"So happy together. And how is the weather?"

Notice the unnatural way these sentences sound.  They don’t make sense. It’s easy to see that they’re put together simply to rhyme the last two words. This causes the reader to pause. Pausing is never a good thing, especially in children’s books.

Along with causing the young reader to pause, 'bad' rhyme can even cause confusion
.
When a child gets the rhyme hook, she will be anticipating that rhythm and pattern throughout the story. At the first spot when it’s not there, you’ve caused a PAUSE. And, if you’ve got rhyme awkwardly here and there, you’ve lost the focus of the story. You’ve lost the message you were trying to convey.

You never-ever want to cause a pause or confusion in a story, especially a children’s story.

But, what if you REALLY want to rhyme?

Below is a slightly more natural way to do this:

Now it’s time to close your eyes my dear. (8 syllables)
Beside you lies your favorite bear. (8 syllables if you if you say favorite as fav-rit)
(Taken from “Days End Lullaby.”)

Keep in mind that even this verse has its problems. For one thing, ‘favorite’ is used with two syllables in that verse: fav rit. Technically, ‘favorite’ has three syllables: fav or ite.

So, you can see that while getting two words to rhyme isn’t that difficult, there’s lots more involved in rhyming ‘right.’

The bare-bottom elements of children’s rhyme:

•    Each sentence needs to be relevant to the story and move the story forward.
•    There needs to be a continuing rhythm or beat to the sentences. This has to do with the stressed and unstressed syllables of each word used.
•    There needs to be a pattern throughout the story.
•    It should be written without forcing words – without using unnatural sounding sentences or unnatural meanings.
•    And, it should all be wrapped up in a great story.

Bottom line.

Taking all this into account, if you’re thinking of writing a rhyming children’s book, read lots and lots of traditionally published rhyming books. And, read those from the major publishers. Analyze how they’re written. Break them down.

You might even take an offline or online course on rhyming for children.

You can also check out Dori Chaconas’ website. She has an example of a syllable template you can use. Find it at: Icing the Cake (it’s at the bottom of the page).


Rhyming can be fun and kids LOVE it, but please take care to do it right.

Sources:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6214232/20-most-forced-rhymes-music-ariana-grande-break-free
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-rhyme.html

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children's author and children’s ghostwriter as well as the founder and editor-in-chief of Writers on the Move. You can find out more about writing for children and her services at: Karen Cioffi Writing for Children.

And, get your copy of Walking Through Walls (a middle-grade fantasy adventure set in 16th century China. Honored with the Children’s Literary Classics Silver Award.




MORE ON WRITING

Keeping Our Spirits Up for the Good of Our Writing Careers

Writing Secret to Getting Ahead

Writing Tips on Revisions - Do a Verb and Word Check

Is Bullet Journaling for You?

Just one example of many from Celeste Bradley Designs

Bullet journaling can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it. It’s up to you. According to Ryder Carroll, author of The Bullet Journal Method, available in sixteen countries and counting, and creator of his unique take on bullet journaling; keeping track of daily, monthly, annual to-do’s, can steer you away from living a busy life wrought with distractions to an “intentional and meaningful” life. You become more productive. You reach your goals and even surpass them. As one woman once said to me, “I’ve stopped allowing my life to manage me. I manage my life now.”

Don’t want to stop at a Task Journal? Go a step further and create a Book Log, a Travel Log, a Finance Log . . . you name it.

Carroll’s Method in a Nutshell
Begin with a blank journal, either one you’ve purchased from the Bullet Journal website or any journal of your choice.

• Index: Open to the first two-page spread and label it, Index, and number the pages as you go.
• Future Log: Label the next spread “Future Log.” Divide the page in three sections, label the sections by the months of the year. Add log to the index.
• Monthly Log: On the left page, list down the left side the dates and days of the month;                  On the right page, list tasks in bullets. Add log to the index.
• Daily Log: On the left page, list the date and day of the week; On the right page, lists the tasks in short bulleted sentences; Events; Notes; Asterisk on important tasks

At the end of each month, set up a new Daily Log; x out completed tasks; migrate incomplete tasks to next month or to the Future Log.

Hooked on Bullet Journaling
At a recent ShopTalk session with the SCBWI-NM chapter (Society of Book Writers and Illustrators), we discussed how Bullet Journaling has helped many of our authors who have been journaling for years. Here are highlights from that meeting:

• Most if not all of the Bullet Journaling authors have done away with the Index.
• A helpful article can be found on Kate Messner’s blog by typing in “Bullet Journal.” The article is dated 1/8/2015, and captures how Kate journals in detail.
• One author journals extensively as a “catchall” for information, keeping track of writing hours spent (with SlimTimer); a collection of meaningful quotes and sayings; her To Do list for life and work; a record of revisions and time spent, which helps her see her progress; gives herself stickers while working on a first draft, the most difficult for her; makes goals of 500/700/1000 words; and even keeps track of family meals so she doesn’t serve the same meal too often.
• For the more artistic minded of us, search “Celeste Bradley Designs” on Amazon and you will find the most colorful and heartwarming designs for Bullet Journals, and many different types of journals as well. A romance author of many books up until now, Celeste has just completed her first children’s book.

My own journey into Bullet Journaling consisted of what you might call a Day-Timeresque experience. Before we retired, my husband followed the Day-Timer method of keeping track of his To-Do’s, business meetings, etc., and he taught me how to do it. We both kept Day-Timers until almost the very day we galloped off on our new nonworking adventures.

Though Ryder Carroll’s method is similar to Day-Timer, his springs from a different place. He had attention deficit disorder as a youth and created his method to declutter his life and to become more productive.

If you're wondering whatever became of me, you'll be happy to know that I didn't drop off the wagon completely. Once officially retired, I replaced my Day-Timer with a simple calendar and have used one ever since.

However . . . it never crossed my mind that I would need to continue Bullet Journaling. That is, not until I attended our ShopTalk meeting. As the information unfolded that those of use who jot down little bits and pieces of information on post-it notes (you know who you are);okay, and napkins, gum wrappers, whatever paper is available at the time, I began to slide little-by-little down in my seat until I disappeared altogether under the table. No one even noticed my slippery decline. I’m just kidding about that, but I was chagrined to realize that I was one of those itty-bitty note takers! Me, of all people!

So, I came home and gathered the notes strewn all over my desk and put them in piles. I got out my over-sized sketchbook and began to make lists: To Do’s, Books to be Read, etc. I only have two piles to go! But my office is soooo much cleaner and my information is in a place where I can actually find it!

If Bullet Journaling is for you, there is no wrong way to do it. As a retired person I didn’t want to do the cross-outs, arrows, migrating, etc. But I did begin to make lists and when I complete tasks, I cross them out. And believe it or not even though my method is simple, it has already made me a more productive person.

If your interest is piqued, give yourself about 20-30 minutes and visit Carroll’s website:
www.bulletjournal.com.
Image Courtesy of: Celeste Bradley Designs

Linda Wilson, a former elementary teacher and ICL graduate, has published over 150 articles for adults and children, and several short stories for children. She has recently become editor of the New Mexico SCBWI chapter newsletter and is working on several projects for children. Follow Linda on Facebook.

Content Curation & Aggregation

Content Curation & Aggregation  

by Deborah Lyn Stanley

What does it take to promote your writing, be it articles, stories or books?  How do you tell your readers or a prospective publisher what you are about?  What is of benefit to your audience?  Your Platform, your Branding, and your Website. 

Let’s talk about growing engagement by diving a bit deeper through Content Curation and Aggregation.

• Content Curation is not creating new content; it is the process of searching out, discovering, compiling and sharing existing content for your readership relevant to a specific topic or subject.

• Content Curation’s purpose is to add the value of a broader view and understanding.

• Introduce the content with your own perspective and ideas, then provide a link to the source article via “To read the original article go to: …”

• Archive, catalog and store curated content for future use.

Adding value is the best path to growing your readership and promoting your work.

• Content Aggregation is the collection of information for a particular topic with one or more related keywords.

• Content Aggregation can grow value by linking to supporting information, to a broader perspective, to hot topics or news worthy content.

• Aggregation is gathering content from various feeds into one easy to access, informative location—your website.

Both Content Curation and Content Aggregation are marketing strategies to grow the reach of your work.

• Pingbacks and Trackbacking are useful tools for notifying the post owner that you have linked to their post as the original source. Pingbacks and Trackbacking can increase web traffic, and provide a connection to influential blogs. By using links to the original source post or article, attention is brought from that site to yours.
• Visit WPeka.com for a helpful discussion of Pingbacks and Trackbacks:  https://www.wpeka.com/what-are-pingbacks-and-trackbacks.html

Additional links for more on Content Curation and Aggregation:

https://www.writersonthemove.com/search?q=content+curation


www.econtentmag.com/Articles/Resources/Defining-EContent/What-is-Content-Curation-79167.htm  

https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/content-curation-learning-and-development  

https://blog.inoreader.com/2018/08/content-aggregation-complete-guide-2018.html

Grow Content = Successful Marketing

 

Deborah Lyn Stanley is an author of Creative Non-Fiction. She writes articles, essays and stories. She is passionate about caring for the mentally impaired through creative arts.
Visit her website: https://deborahlynwriter.com/

Perseverance Pays Off

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Whether they know it or not, many book authors are doing aimless marketing. These authors have no plans or goals and are almost certain to fail.

Yes, I understand I’ve made a sweeping statement which is a bit harsh. Yet from my years of experience watching authors and working with them, I know it’s true. I encourage you to keep reading because I’m going to provide a series of steps so you can change from aimless marketing to a targeted effort for your books. If you take action, then you will move forward with your dreams of reaching others with your books.

The old saying goes “If you aim at nothing you will be sure to hit it.” The first question you need to answer is who is your target reader? Please don’t say “everyone” because no book is for everyone. While some books achieve a broad spectrum of readers, every book has a specific target audience. Write to a specific group of people and you will have your target clearly in front of you. Next write down a secondary group of people who would be your target.

Create what Mark Victor Hansen calls a “Big Hairy Goal.” What is your overall plan to reach your target audience? Set aside anything that your publisher or anyone else is going to do for your book and focus on yourself and your efforts. Do you plan to sell 5,000 books over the next 12 months? Write down your specific goal on the back of a business card, and then stick that card in your wallet or someplace where you will visually see it often. It can serve as consistent reminder of your goal. 

For your next step, break down your large goal into incremental steps. How are you going to take the tiny steps to achieve those book sales? Maybe it means taking an hour a week to focus on having a more active role in an online forum (where you include mention of your book). Or maybe it means you will create a postcard about your book then send it to 1,000 names and addresses. Each goal should be definable and specific. The successful Internet marketer, Dan Kennedy, wrote about the most important component of success in business boils down to “one thing.” Implementation was the “one thing” which means to take action and complete the most important activities in your business. I encourage you to take small steps yet also make consistent action to complete those goals.

If you are going to take consistent action, you need perseverance. Consider the perseverance in the story of Andy Andrews, author of The Traveler’s Gift. A popular speaker, Andy wrote a manuscript which he tried to get published. It was rejected 54 times. How many of us can handle this level of rejection? He continued in his popular speaking work but did not have a book for his audience. One day Gail Hyatt was in Andy Andrews’ audience. She came up to him afterwards and suggested that he write a book.

Looking a bit sheepish, Andy told Gail, “Your husband’s company (Thomas Nelson) has already rejected my manuscript.” Gail asked for a copy of his manuscript and promised to read it. Andy sent her the manuscript. She showed it to her husband (Michael Hyatt,  at the time he was the president of Thomas Nelson, the largest Christian publisher) and the book was published.

Notice the perseverance in what happened next. When Andy got his new book, he gave away 12,000 copies of the book. Most of those review copies didn’t make much of a difference. But one of those copies got in the hands of Robin Roberts, who at the time was a producer of ABC’s Good Morning America. Roberts selected The Traveler’s Gift as their Book of the Month. The Traveler’s Gift sold 850,000 copies and the rest is history.

From my study of publishing, there is no formula to make a bestseller or achieve success with your book. Each author has a different definition of success. For some it is simply creating their book and getting it into the market. For other authors, they want to get on a particular bestseller list. A range of answers lies between these two extremes. What is your goal and how are you going to reach it? Consistent action is the key. Michael Hyatt wrote about The Power of Incremental Change Over Time. I encourage you to take action and turn aimless marketing into consistent marketing. Productive authors have a commitment to marketing their books on a personal and consistent basis.

Have you seen perseverance pay off? Let me know in the comments below.

Tweetable:

How can perseverance pay off? Get insights and encouragement in this article. (ClickToTweet)

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W. Terry Whalin is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. His work contact information is on the bottom of the second page (follow this link).  One of his books for writers is Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams, Insider Secrets to Skyrocket Your Success. One of Terry's most popular free ebooks is Straight Talk From the Editor, 18 Keys to a Rejection-Proof Submission. He lives in Colorado and has over 205,000 twitter followers. 

Writers: How to Handle Feedback about Your Work

We all will need to handle feedback at one time or another in our careers.

For the writer, this feedback is usually the critique of either an unpublished manuscript (from an editor or members of a critique group) or a published piece (a review, for example).

Feedback can be both positive and negative.

Some people are bad at giving feedback and some people are talented at doing it.

But, even if someone who is bad at it gives you feedback about a piece of your writing, you can learn to handle both positive and negative feedback appropriately.

Let’s go over some tips for handling both positive and negative feedback.

Let’s start with negative feedback.

Avoid Acting Defensive

One thing that sometimes happens when we're given feedback is we become defensive when we hear something negative and we immediately want to defend ourselves and our work.

But when we do this, we usually turn off our ability to listen, which is not a good way to react.

If you get like this, take a step back and watch yourself getting the feedback from afar in your mind.

Focus only on what they’re saying, and don’t put your own feelings into it at all.

You can ask questions about how they think you can improve your work, but don’t argue with them about it.

After all, unless they’re your editor, you don’t need to take their advice to heart, but you can probably learn something from it if you can avoid being defensive.

Inform the person that you appreciate what they’re saying and you will consider their suggestions, and leave it at that.

Ask For Clarification

When someone is giving you negative feedback, take the time to hear what they’re saying, then repeat back to them what you thought they said to ensure you really understood.

Sometimes (especially if we have low self-esteem or are new to writing) we can over-interpret something as negative when it’s not.

Ask for understanding and take the time to let it sink in so you’re sure you really do get it.

Negative feedback should actually be constructive criticism as far as manuscripts go.

It shouldn’t be someone simply slamming your work.

Instead, they should be offering you feedback you can use to improve your work.

Sadly, though, many people—especially beginning writers in critique groups—find it difficult to offer constructive criticism (probably because they don’t that much about writing themselves), so they tear a manuscript to shreds.

If you’re in a critique group that operates like that, you might look for a different group with more experienced writers who know how to offer constructive criticism instead of just negative feedback.

Now, let’s talk a bit about handling positive feedback.

As much as handling negative feedback makes people squirm, so does positive feedback, and sometimes we react incorrectly to it.

There really is only one right way to handle positive feedback.

Say, "thank you very much."

Saying thank you is an important way to handle positive feedback and will make the other person feel satisfied that you heard them.

If you react negatively to positive feedback, you could set yourself up to never receiving it even when you deserve it.

Don’t do that.

Say thank you.

Mean it.

Move on.

The truth is, you’ll get both negative and positive feedback any time you let someone read something you have written.

It’s important to put this feedback into perspective and not dwell on it either way.

For example, one day several years ago, I went online to amazon and found a bad review of one of my books.

The review was so bad, I felt terrible about the book.

But later that day, my editor called to tell me that the same book had just won an award.

Right then I realized that feedback, either positive or negative, is really only someone’s opinion.

And that both types of feedback can be learned from.

So just learn from the feedback you get, move on, and keep writing.

Try it!

For more tips and resources to help you become a better writer, get your free subscription to The Morning Nudge.

Suzanne Lieurance is the author of over 35 published books, a writing coach, and editor at writebythesea.com.

The Perfect Perfection Test

One of my favorite phrases is, "Done is better than perfect." 

There's also, "Perfect is the enemy of good." 

And, another fav, "Art is never finished, it's abandoned."

Whatever your perfection philosophy, you have to agree. There comes a point in any project - whether it's a book, screenplay, essay, article, or pitch - where it's time to release it into the world, ready or not. 

But how do you know when you're ready to hit, "send," "post," or "publish?"

Here are five things to think about before pressing that magic button:

1. Does it have a beginning, middle, and an end? Does it need them? Most things do. Know your work well enough to know whether it has all the necessary parts?

2. Did you run it through spellcheck? An editor? For smaller pieces, and even emails, you should always look for those spellcheck and grammar-check squiggles. Larger works often require a second set of eyes. Don't skimp on professionalism.

3. Have you read it out loud? That's the easiest way to catch mistakes.

4. Did you set it aside for a day? A week? If you have time to walk away and read it fresh, before it goes out, that's ideal. And, whereas sometimes it's difficult to step away from an important project, that fresh perspective is invaluable.

5. Are you happy with it? Or are you at least happy enough? Are you excited and ready for it to make it's debut? You'll know when it's time. Just trust yourself.

While it's important to take pride on your work, it's also essential to know when to let your words to speak for themselves. As long as your work is professional and the passion for your project shows through, remember it's all good. And sometimes good is perfect!

For more on Perfection, read the #GoalChat recap on the topic.

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How important is perfection? And how do you decide when something is ready for the world to see? Please share in the comments.

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Debra Eckerling is a writer, editor and project catalyst, as well as founder of The D*E*B Method: Goal Setting Simplified and Write On Online, a live and online writers’ support group. Like the Write On Online Facebook Page and join the Facebook Group.  Debra is the author of Your Goal Guide, being released by Mango in January 2020, as well as Write On Blogging: 51 Tips to Create, Write & Promote Your Blog and Purple Pencil Adventures: Writing Prompts for Kids of All Ages. She is host of the #GoalChat Twitter Chat and the Guided Goals Podcast, and a speaker/moderator on the subjects of writing, networking, goal-setting, and social media.