Webtips for authors & self-publishers
Posted By Sue Collier on March 14, 2012
My team and I come across so many useful websites, I thought it would handy to put them together in a regular blog series. So a couple times a month, I’ll be listing a few of them in a new series called “Webtips for Authors and Self-Publishers.”
If you have or know of a website that would be of interest to my blog readers, please email it to me along with a description; don’t forget to include appropriate links.
Enjoy!
Working on your ebook cover can be child’s play. Wordle is website that conjures up works of art, called “word clouds,” from the words you provide. To emphasize a word, mention it more often in your text. Manipulate the colors, fonts, and layout to your heart’s content. Even create an ebook cover to be proud of. The images are yours to use however you like. Just be sure you don’t save anything to the very public Wordle gallery that you would want to keep exclusive rights to as your intellectual property. If you’d like more information, How to Wordle into an E-book Cover Generator is bursting with great tips on utilizing Wordle to the max.
So, you have writing talent—then what? We all crave approval. But after your mom, your professors, and your Aunt Minnie tell you that you have a rare and wonderful gift, you still have to do the work. How do you sustain your motivation while holding down a 9-to-5 job? What do you do to stay positive in the face of a less-than-glowing review?At Writer Unboxed, Jane Friedman suggests there are 5 Things More Important Than Talent and she counts them off for you. How good are you at transforming rejection into growth? Do you blame, or do you look for another point of entry? Courage, positivity, adaptability, self-examination, and support. These old-fashioned qualities could be the keys to your future success.
“Good writing is essentially rewriting.” So said Roald Dahl—and John Brandon (Citrus County) would agree. In a post titled Speed: Writing Fiction That Reads Fast, author/blogger/workshop director Susan Cushman outlines some tips Brandon shared with authors at the Summer Writers Workshop in Oxford, Mississippi, back in June 2011. It’s no small feat to fashion rich text that challenges readers and hooks their interest. Brandon’s general recommendation is, “Write your first draft. Wait a month, then start cutting.…Think of your readers as gifted third graders—if you bore them, they’ll start burning ants. If you challenge them, they’ll follow you anywhere.” Cushman also lists Brandon’s “7 Rules for Writing Dialogue,” which include, “Resist using adverbs in dialogue tags, e.g., she said uncertainly.” For further help with tightening your prose, read more here. After all, Ernest Hemingway rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times before he was satisfied.
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