If you’ve been studying the craft of writing for any length of time, you’ve undoubtedly come across countless writers who think adverbs are evil. As you can see from the previous sentence, I don’t think they’re evil. But I do think you need to exercise caution when using them in your fiction.
We should start by defining what they are. Then I’ll talk about the problem with adverbs in general and offer a demonstration of why they can be problematic.
Lolly Lolly Lolly, get your adverbs here!
The Clockwork Seer by Katherine Cowley: On an island of oddities, a young clairvoyant struggles for normalcy, but deadly automatons have other plans.Purchace your copy here:
Amazon Kindle USA: http://www.amazon.com/Steel-Bone-Nine-Steampunk-Adventures-ebook/dp/B00YQRAIIC
Amazon Kindle UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steel-Bone-Nine-Steampunk-Adventures-ebook/dp/B00YQRAIIC
I know, I know! Things have been very quiet around A Writer’s Journey lately, and I apologize for that. But I think you’ll appreciate why. Because of my limited writing time, I had to make some difficult choices between writing new articles or completing Necromancer Falling, the sequel to my metaphysical fantasy Necromancer Awakening.
I’m happy to report I recently completed the 1st draft, and I’m preparing to go into the revision process within the next couple of weeks.
Until then, here’s a little teaser trailer. I hope you all enjoy it!
If any of you are interested in beta reading Necromancer Falling in JUNE of this year, PLEASE EMAIL ME AT: betareading@erindorpress.com
PLEASE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING INFO:
– Whether or not you have experience beta reading, and in which genres. (What I’m getting at here is this: “Do you enjoy Fantasy?” If the answer to that question is no, you’re going to hate Necromancer Falling. 🙂 )
– Your preferred file format for the manuscript. (MS Word? PDF? Other?)
– Your preferred email address (if it’s different than the “from” address).
RELEVANT DETAILS:
– Necromancer Falling is the sequel to Necromancer Awakening and is book 2 of a trilogy. While it is a self-contained story, it does not resolve the multi-book story arc. You’ll likely want to have read Necromancer Awakening first, as this is a multi-book epic.
– This book falls under the Fantasy genre within the “Metaphysical and Visionary Fantasy” sub-genre. Book 1 (Necromancer Awakening) is a portal fantasy.
– The manuscript will weigh in between 140k and 160k words.
– I expect to have a beta-ready draft by June 15th.
– I MUST have all feedback by July 31st. If you cannot read and provide feedback within this time frame, I won’t have time to incorporate your input in the final draft.
Thanks so much!
I’d like to take an unusual detour this week to discuss a unique new card game that I discovered several weeks ago. The game is called Cuisine a la Card and is being developed by InMotion Software by way of a Kickstarter campaign. But don’t let the word “Software” fool you! Cuisine a la Card is a competitive and unique deck building card game that you play on a tabletop.
If you’ve ever watched and enjoyed a cooking competition show (Iron Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, MasterChef, Chopped, etc), then you owe it to yourself to take a serious look at this game.
I’m going to dig a little deeper into the gameplay, show you some of the cards, and talk about the pros and cons.
Twitter recently rolled out a new feature for profile pages that allows you to keep your vital content visible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This feature is known as Pinned Tweets, and it’s an important part of your content delivery strategy.
And you’re not using it.
You read that correctly. It’s one of the single greatest content delivery features Twitter has graced us with, and you’re completely ignoring it! How do I know? Allow me to explain (in an admittedly roundabout way).
Hello friends and readers!
I had the great privilege of being interviewed by the beautiful people at Whiskey, Wine, & Writing last night on Google Hangouts. We covered everything from Self-Publishing to…MORE SELF-PUBLISHING!
[What else did you think I’d be talking about? 🙂 ]If you get the chance, head on over to the link above and give it a watch. And since they took the time to make this awesome graphic (below), I’m going to share it even though the event is in the past.
Cheers!
Nat
[UPDATED – 7/22/2015]
Did you know there is more than one Amazon.com store? Don’t worry. If you didn’t know there is an amazon.co.uk, or an amazon.de, or even an amazon.co.jp, you’re not alone. In fact, many are unaware there are at least 13 international Amazon storefronts. But until you’re aware of this (and do something about it) you may be sending potential customers to the wrong store, losing untold sales in the process!
Link globalization is something you need to be aware of if you’re attempting to direct people to an Amazon storefront. If you give an Amazon.com link to someone in the UK or Australia, for example, that person will not be able to purchase the product you’ve linked without going through a lot of trouble.
First, they’ll have to navigate to their own Amazon store. Then, they’ll have to manually search for your product. Finally, they’ll have to click the “Buy Now” button.
Link Globalization will send them straight to the store they need so all they’ll have to do is click “Buy Now”.
Image taken from nasa.gov
Hello friends! If I’m slow to respond to comments through my various media outlets over the next 10 days, it’s because I’m out of office with limited access. I promise I’ll get caught up around the 18th-ish of March.
Cheers!
Based on the email I received this morning from Writer’s Digest, it’s that time of year again.
No, I’m not talking about Christmas! I’m talking about the time of year to decide whether you’re entering the annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards.
I want to offer my perspective, since I participated in the 2014 award cycle.
Frankly, I was rather disappointed with the result last year, and it wound up being a $100 (USD) experiment I won’t repeat. Full disclosure: I was not a finalist. However, that’s not my concern, and that’s not what’s driving me to share my experience.
I assure you, the content of this article would be no different if I’d won the contest. All I want to do is examine the value proposition, using my experience as a basis. For those not up on Marketing-speak, “value proposition” is that special something that makes a product or service offering attractive to customers. (As an aside: I hope all of you who read my blog regularly are spinning up on some basic marketing. You don’t need a degree, but a little knowledge will do wonders for your publishing business.)
Independent authors typically have limited resources, and I’m concerned that the advertised value proposition doesn’t accurately reflect $100 expectations.
