Tag: changes

New Year — and changes in the blog

Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2020. I had a pretty peaceful year last year, and I’m hoping this one is more fruitful. How about you? 
  
What’s with the Headings?
You might have noticed the format of this blog post has changed. 
I’m trying to learn a new trick for the New Year, and that is more effective blog posts. I just got a copy of Robert Lee Brewer’s  29th Annual Edition Guide to Literary Agents 2020 (2019)* and I’m using his material to up my social media game.

A couple of things Brewer (2019) suggested in blogging were: 1) shorter sentences; 2) headings 3) clip art. 

How will this affect blogging?
So far, this has been a big change in my blogging, because I have to pause a lot more and think. It’s going to make blogging a lot different, because my almost stream of consciousness blogging will end. But I guess this caters to people’s actual attention spans online.

For you, the reader:

  1. Could you let me know how this is working for you? Like, dislike? I’d love to hear from you!
  2. Check out the book below. Here’s the link: Guide to Literary Agents 2020.


Reference:
Brewer, Robert Lee (2019) 29th Annual Edition Guide to Literary Agents 2020. Penguin Random House.  

* About that discrepancy in dates — American Psychological Association style requires the publication date included, and since today is January 1st, 2020, the book had to be published in 2019.

An Old-Fashioned Girl in an SEO World

​I’m getting bewildered by these newfangled ways of finding readers.

I always thought the situation was “get in contact with agents; if you’re any good, you’ll land an agent.” That doesn’t seem to work for me. It doesn’t seem to wok for a lot of people, given the number of listings on Amazon Kindle that are self-published,  the huge number of volumes on WattPad, the burgeoning indie press movement, a few of which seem little different than the vanity press … 
A friend suggested I try WattPad. I’m building two works through installments, the suggested WattPad way. One of them is a set of short stories about my alternative world where demi-humans with great power live among humans; the other is a romance centering on good Santas, bad Santas, and the secret Santas out there. 
As far as I know, I’m the only one who has looked at them, and I’ve looked at them a number of times because I love to see my words in print. Given the lack of *ahem* acclaim, I decided to look at the advice they give their users:
1. “Find famous people who look like your characters and post their pictures here.” It might just be me, but I wouldn’t post someone’s picture for potentially thousands to see (there are books on WattPad with thousands of hits)  without their permission, no matter how famous they were. (David Chiang, if you are reading this, one of my characters looks like you and I have not posted your picture on WattPad.)
2. “Invite friends.” How many times can you invite friends before they get horribly upset at you? I post on Facebook, and people are free to read or not read — usually, not read, I guess. 
3. An entire section on “How To Get Reads, Votes, and Comments – A Guide.” I can’t wrap my mind around this — this would take up enough time that I would never get to write again.
I grew up in a meritocracy: if you were good, you would get noticed. And, frankly, I was good — I was the first National Merit Scholarship winner from my high school. Things have changed, and for the first time in my life, I’m having trouble embracing change.