I doubt that many of you visiting the blog noticed, but there is no longer a sign-up form on the left side of the page for you to sign up for my “once-in-awhile” Writing Tips Newsletter.
Read more on You probably haven’t noticed, but I killed the newsletter sign-up…
This is just for you bloggers out there reading this: Are any of you making good money running Google’s AdSense ads on your blogs?
I ask because I’ve never been able to achieve more than a few — very few — dollars a week from AdSense, no matter what or how many blogs I use it on.
Read more on Question for bloggers: Are you making good money with AdSense?…
From time to time, I write stuff about affiliate marketing. For those of you who don’t understand what that means — take heart, from the degree of success I am NOT having with it, I appear to be a bit clueless myself.
Read more on Alas, another ‘Affiliate Summit’ coming without me…
I’m writing this from one of our public library study rooms here in beautiful Springfield, MO. My “real” office at home was offline all day yesterday and I was stuck at home — but maybe I can use that experience to impart a useful tip. But first, a little background information is in order.
Read more on Helpful hint: Locate and learn to use public ‘office space’ to stay online…
How many of you out there have ipods or something similar and listen to music (or even watch videos?) while you write? Do you prefer some other sort of noise or activity going on while you write? Or do you insist on a nearly silent, isolated work environment when you’re writing.
Read more on Do you write best when there’s music, noise, or just silence?…
I mentioned in some recent “recycled” posts here that I’m using a plugin which pulls old posts from the “back” or “bottom” of the blog to the “front” or “top” of the blog. I should explain.
Read more on Recycling older posts leads to some date confusion…
How do you know what your blog or website is worth? How do you value your entire writing “business”? Have you ever thought about putting a price tag on your writing?
I don’t mean to obsess over this “auto generated” website design and copy topic, but I just ran onto a site which was done with much better software. It almost looked “real” to me, so I browsed around it awhile and came to this conclusion, to use a cliche: “Close but no cigar.”
Read more on Yet another ‘manufactured’ website, I’ll bet — but better software…
When I search for something on the Internet, I have a habit of doing two things, almost always: 1) I tend to search in Google most of all, and, 2) I often put the word “best” in front of my search term. I think that’s pretty common procedure, isn’t it?
Read more on Share some marketing tips: How do you make your product ‘best’?…
Just between you and me: One of my secret fantasies as a writer was to be a successful travel writer.
Of course, at one time or another I “always wanted to be” a policeman (never a fireman, though), an airline pilot, an astronaut, an astronomer, a history teacher, and a successful best-selling novelist.
Read more on Telling my secrets: I always wanted to be a travel writer…
This is strictly my opinion — trying to write humor and do it well may be the very toughest task for a writer. Why? Because humor is so subjective. One person’s “howler” that reduces him to tears may not even generate a smile for someone else. In addition, much of the vocabulary and syntax used to write humor can be very tricky. Sort of like trying to convey humor online with such emoticons as smiley faces, the ubiquitous “LOL!” and “ROFL!”, etc.
Read more on Writing humor may be toughest type of writing to do well…
I’ve met some very successful novelists who started out writing “soft porn,” and in some cases not-so-soft porn, and moved into mainstream or genre success. I could name a couple of names, but I won’t, although one in particular is someone who’s freely admitted many times in print that he started in porn.
I went through an Internet marketing period when I wanted to create hundreds, even thousands, of WordPress blogs to attract traffic to gain paid clicks on AdSense ads — thus making me a nice income, even perhaps a small fortune. I had been listening to and reading too many “get rich” schemes disguised poorly as “marketing.”
Read more on Another example of terrible writing software … stay away, please…
Which do you enjoy most, fiction with quiet, calm characters or fiction with swashbucklers and quirky rogues?
Be honest about your answer now. No hedging, no hum-hawing around.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. If you’re like most people, I suspect you want the quirky characters with an air of danger, a dash of charm, and a sense of humor. That’s been true with popular fiction since well before the days of television soap operas, or Johnny Depp pirate movies. I recall reading that fans of Charles Dickens would gather along the wharves in New York City’s harbor eagerly waiting for the latest installments of Chuck’s tales. Believe me, they didn’t do it to contemplate the depth of his prose narratives. They did it to see what his rascals were up to.
Read more on How do you create your fictional characters? Here’s one approach…
I’ve spent most of this afternoon setting up “AutoResponder Plus” software to handle a simple Writing Tips Newsletter I’ve been threatening to get started for several months. (You’ll notice a very simple subscription form in the sidebar closest to this content.)
Read more on Making new effort to get newsletter going — look for confirmation email…
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