Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts

Tuesday 6 January 2015

What? No Happily Ever After?

I recently received a review of my romance novel, Stand By Me.

The reviewer said they were "confused" because my novel doesn't end with a happily ever after.

My romance novel does have an ending.

It has a surprise ending.

It's a great ending.

But it's not a happily ever after ending.

And I think it makes my romance novel better than the rest.

It rolls along as if it's just like any other romance story (only better than most).

And then the end comes.

Boom!

Not what you expect at all.

I could, if I'd wanted to, written an airy-fairy "girl gets guy in the end" type of ending. But that would have been just too boring.

Instead, I provided a surprise at the end that really gets you thinking and makes you look back at their whole relationship in a different way.

It makes you realise that not everything was as it seemed.

The ending really makes you think.

But I guess not everyone wants to think.

You can download Stand By Me (and the free reading app) right now, straight onto your Kindle or your computer, laptop, smart phone or just about any device.

Enjoy reading it today.

And let me know what you think of the ending in an Amazon Review.

:)

Wednesday 31 December 2014

Do You Have Great Writing Plans for the New Year?

Today is the 31st of December. New Year's Eve.

It's a time when most of us reflect on what we did throughout the year and make plans for things we'll do better next year.

And this is especially true for writers. If you're anything like me you already have a whole list of writing projects for the coming year.

I've also made a list of things I want to stop doing too. Things that didn't work out quite as well as expected or that I found I didn't enjoy. But nothing was a failure. It was all a learning experience because we need to learn what we don't want to do as well as what we do want to do.

I've spent quite a bit of time over the Xmas break going through my past and ongoing writing projects and also catching up on a bit of reading that I wanted to do but didn't always find the time for.

And it's been a really interesting time reading about new things and having a good look at what I've achieved and how much my writing business is moving on.

And to wrap up this year I've compiled a short reading list of articles that might help you to review  your past 12 months of writing and make new plans for the coming year.


The Best Way to Make a Living as a Writer
http://www.writersdigest.com/awai-copywriting/the-best-way-to-make-a-living-as-a-writer

The Simple Shift That Lets You Earn More from Your Writing
http://writetodone.com/earn-more-from-your-writing/

Why You Should Do a Year-End Review for Your Writing
http://thewritepractice.com/year-end-review

Here’s How Daniel Pink Writes
http://www.copyblogger.com/how-daniel-pink-writes/

Amazon SEO – Understand Amazon Keywords & Categories
http://thewriteoneblog.com/amazon-seo

50 Articles on Writing to Help You in 2015
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/50-articles-on-writing-to-help-you-in-2015


Have a great New Year.

:)



Thursday 16 October 2014

Write Articles That People Want to Read

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net Stuart Miles
Saying that you should only write articles that people want to read sounds like common sense, doesn't it?

Yet it's surprising how many people don't do it.

There are 3 things that your article needs if you want people to read it.

Thursday 9 October 2014

They are Calling Me "an online writing guru"

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net Ohmmy3d
With my years of experience of writing, freelance writing, and online writing I was offered the opportunity of teaching a course at my local community college.

Yesterday they sent me an email with a link to my new course page.

I clicked through and two things struck me.

The first was that the course is already listed as "sold out."

The second thing was that they have called me "an online writing guru."

Monday 6 October 2014

The Author Whose Readers P*ss Her Off

I was reading an interview with a new fiction author last week and I couldn't believe what she was saying.

The whole point of doing author interviews is to attract readers (or so I thought) and not to repel them.

In the interview, one of the questions she was asked was what "p*ssed" her off the most.

Her response astounded me and I thought "Wow! Just wow!"

Thursday 28 August 2014

"I Can Write A Book In A Weekend" And Five Other Annoying Things Beginners Say

image courtesy of stock images, FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Since every literate person can write, most people think they can be writers. Interestingly enough, we all can speak quite well, but few of us would deem ourselves ‘speakers.’ However, this prevalent belief encourages beginners to say the oddest things that make professional writers want to cringe (or preferably strangle them with a thin wire). If you find yourself saying the following, please stop:

1. “I can write a book in a weekend.”

I’m certain you can mutilate a couple hundred pages with words; however, that doesn’t mean that anyone will want to read them. Yes, I know there are prolific writers who can write a book in two weeks (Voltaire supposedly wrote Candide in three days). Usually they are professionals who have mastered a style and understand the craft of writing. Have you?

Tuesday 19 August 2014

My New Romantic Novel Is Out

This is just a quick update on my latest (in fact, first and only) romantic fiction novel called Stand By Me.

I formated and uploaded it yesterday to the Amazon Kindle Store and now it's published and available for download all over the world.

I'm not sure yet if I'll be publishing more romantic fiction novels, but I probably will. I've enjoyed writing this one so it's an experience I want to repeat.

Thursday 24 July 2014

Most Ridiculous Song Lyrics Ever!

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles, FreeDigitalPhotos.net
This is something that is not educational but it sure is funny so I wanted to share it with you. Go and get a box of tissues first though to wipe the tears of laughter from your eyes.

Depending on your age you may or may not remember this band. They had a string of hits and record albums for years and did really well.

But I always thought that not only did they have a stupid band name but also their songs were the most ridiculous I'd ever heard because none of the words made sense. It was always as though they got drunk (or stoned), wrote down a load of crap and put a catchy tune to it.

And yet somehow they had hit after hit.

But when you see the actual lyrics to their songs written down, you can see just how stupid they are. I have absolutely no idea what their songs are about because they're just load of words that don't make sense at all.

But I'll let you make up your own mind.

Here are the lyrics to just two of their songs.

Are you ready? Do you have your tissues handy?

Here we go (spoiler alert: that is a line in one in their other songs.):

Friday 11 July 2014

Too ill to Write

I've been out of action for a few days now. I came down with some sort of wretched virus that has had me flat on my back since last Saturday.

Thankfully I'm almost back to full health now but I'm still finding it hard (impossible) to breathe through my nose.

The biggest problem with beling ill, though, was boredom.

Bored! Bored! Bored!

We have a cable TV channel called TV Hits and I watched it constantly for days. NCIS, CSI, The Mentalist, Law & Order and lots of other crime shows, one straight after the other, all day every day.

I slept on and off and dozed through nearly every episode.

Bored! Bored! Bored!

Then 2 days ago I felt well enough to sit up (which had been a struggle for a few days) and do limited work on the computer before my eyes began to stream. My creative spark seemed to have been extinguished so writing was out of the question.

But what I found was that it was a good time to do catch up work.

Monday 30 June 2014

Writing For The Love of Writing

Why do you write?

Can you answer that question?

It's a simple question yet it can stumble so many.

A question I get asked a lot is "how much money can a writer earn?"

And I tell people, that is really the wrong question.

A better question is, why do writers write?

The answer is because they love to write.

Wednesday 11 June 2014

My Horoscope Was Spot On Today

astrology image courtesy of Stuart Miles FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I have an astrology app on my iPhone. I read my horoscope every day.

Usually what it says is far removed from my life and how I live it. So I mostly ignore it and give it my haughty snort of derision after every reading.

But this morning  it was so spookily accurate that I had to sit up and take notice. 

It was as though it knew what I'd been doing and what I was thinking.

Monday 26 May 2014

Perpetual Writing Student

image courtesy of quotesnsmiles.com
I’ve been a writer now for almost 20 years (boy that makes me feel old) and a lot has changed in that time.

I used to make money from my writing by typing articles and short stories (on a typewriter) and mailing them to magazines.

If I needed to do research I had to go to the library and write my notes by hand. Sometimes, if I needed a few pages of info, I’d pay to photocopy it and take it home.

Now I email most of my work, write and publish my own books online and Google nearly all my research.

And to keep up with it all I’ve had to be a perpetual student of writing.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Recent Lack of Blog Posts

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/adamrYou may have noticed that recently I’ve not been posting to this blog nor have I been sending emails, but I have a really valid excuse, although there’s really no excuse for not blogging and writing articles no matter how busy I’ve been.

But I have been working hard behind the scenes and there’s even a free offer in it for you.

One of the things I’ve been busy working on is a series of emails and 2 free ebooks that I’ll be giving away to subscribers only.  And by subscribers, I mean those who are subscribed for emails from writeaholics.net.

Thursday 20 February 2014

Is Google Stealing Money from Web Site Owners and Cheating AdWords Clients?

I’ve had my own websites for quite a few years now and I’ve always had AdSense Ads on most of my sites to earn a bit of income on the side.

I’ve never earned very much money from the AdSense ads, but the odd hundred dollar payments are nice.

Most of my online income comes from my own eBooks and from affiliate products that I recommend. So AdSense has always been very much a sideline for extra income. I use it because it’s simple to use. I just place a few ads on my web page templates and then let them do their own thing. It was a really easy “set it and forget it” system.

And it worked really well until recently when I started noticing money being taken from my AdSense account. Not only that but the number of clicks kept disappearing too.

So I started to wonder if Google is not only stealing from website owners, but cheating their Adwords clients too.