Category: Thyme for Writers

More Through the Eyes of An Otherworldly Writer — Roulf Burrell

Roulf Burrell

This week I’m please to share Part 2 of Roulf Burrell’s interview with Jane Choate — More Through the Eyes of An Otherworldly Writer. If you enjoyed Part 1 (and I’m sure you did), you will no doubt enjoy Part 2 with this amazing fantasy/scifi writer.

How do you imbue out of this world characters with human characteristics we can relate to?

By staying with the universals. Life of all types needs to consume energy, wants to reproduce, faces the end of its existence. Most creatures and aliens still take in the world around them, interpret the data, think and feel about it, then act correspondingly. Fiction changes these elements in fun and educational ways.

Do you see plot or characterization as more important? Or are they fairly equal in your writing?

Is the front wheel or the back wheel of a bike more important? Without both, I’m not going anywhere. I love good characters, but I’d rather watch a James Bond film where action abounds, than My Dinner with Andre–boring talk. Besides, the sci-fi/fantasy genre tends to be plot driven. Plot moves the action; it’s the back tire to which we chain the pedals. Think of the old Twilight Zone episodes. You had characters, but they weren’t that deep. A man with a gambling problem. We don’t know why. A boxer who doesn’t want to take a dive. Episodes didn’t feature their past histories but a surprise plot twist that cast events in a different, sometimes bizarre perspective. I lean in that direction.

Which is more important — the front wheel or the back wheel?

What role does humor play in your books? (I know there has to be a lot of humor!)

Webster defines humor, in part, as, “appealing to the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous.” Humor provides entertainment, a needed laugh. Practically, humor assists story tension by granting a needed pause. A smile breaks up dramatic events that would lose their tension if held too long.

What do you see as your biggest strength in writing?

The ability to say a common thing in an uncommon way. From Saint Augustine to Groucho Marx, I’ve spent years collecting picturesque or unique phrases. I practice crafting my own phrases by varying their components slightly. I once became so dissatisfied with my boring description of the sunrise, I forced myself to create 100 different ways of describing the sun coming up, even a couple from the Sun’s point of view.

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A New Start

You belong to a Christian writers group. What role does your faith play in your writing?

My faith is as central to my personality as the fact I am a male or was raised in the Midwest of America. It’s foundational to my thinking and feeling; my humor, my creativity, my word choice or my plots. It shaped who I have become, so it’s reflected in what I say and do, or don’t do. So I don’t try to add my faith to my writing in a conscious way. As C. S. Lewis said, “The world doesn’t need more Christian authors. It needs more authors who are Christians.” I content myself to tell stories and trust my faith will show through.

What are your favorite otherworldly characters? Next week we’ll take a closer look at the writing life of Roulf Burrell. Stay tuned… .

Through the Eyes of an Otherworldly Writer — Roulf Burrell

Roulf Burrell

Today is the start of author, Jane Choate’s three part interview of Roulf Burrell, a self-described otherworldly writer who gives zombies life and other creatures life. Roulf Burrell is one of the most creative writers I’ve had the pleasure to read. I know you will enjoy this interview as much as I did!

How did you start writing?

As a young puddle-stomper, I enjoyed reading fantasy and science fiction. In my room, I escaped an unhappy childhood through books. In college, I tried fantasy role-playing games and discovered my creativity and plotting ability created a fun experience for those who delved into my dungeon. Later, it seemed natural to produce the fiction that I had enjoyed so much. All I had to do was buy a pen, some paper and dash out a story. I did. And the result was… so embarrassing; I spent the next 25 years learning to write fiction.


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Fantasy and Fiction

Why write zombie or “otherworldly” stories?

They’re fun. For example, do vampires need their teeth cleaned? How do they find a dentist? If witches are melted by water, why do they fly on broomsticks in the sky?

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Advanced Science

Be it magic or advanced science, it’s fun to imagine being able to do the incredible: fly, lift cars, see through walls, etc. And people enjoy seeing themselves as an empowered hero. It’s also a chance to remind us that our abilities, great or small, do not change our basic nature. Greater ability leads to greater responsibility. Conversely, unrestrained power will make its own monster out of us.

Otherworldly stories allow people to see preconceptions and biases in a different light. Why can we mistreat machines but not people? Could mistreating robots (or aliens) lead to a hardened conscience? Could our own scientific knowledge overwhelm us? If we presuppose certain creatures are evil, do we ever really give them a fair chance, or are we condemning them for “who they are” rather than “what they do”? These questions all have “today relevance.”

How would you answer these questions? Next week, we’ll discover how Roulf imbues out of this work characters with human characteristics we can relate to.

APODS – Organization: Part Two by Amanda Cabot

We’re going to wrap up our discussion of Organization this month with advice from two experts as well as my own suggestions for how to keep yourself organized.

We’ll start with Steven Covey, whose The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a classic. When talking about organization, Covey has one simple suggestion:

Substitute weekly organization for daily planning.

This may sound counterintuitive. After all, don’t we need to know what we’re doing each day? Yes, of course, but Covey’s advice allows life to happen. By establishing goals for what you want to accomplish each week, you’re setting yourself up for success, not failure. Why risk the frustration of telling yourself that you absolutely, positively have to finish Task A on Monday and Task B on Tuesday when it’s possible that one of those will take longer than you expected or that what was supposed to be a half-hour trip to the supermarket took far longer, putting you behind schedule?

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Weekly Organization

Organizing for the week, assuming that that organization includes the transition and unscheduled time that Marilyn Paul recommends, gives you a higher probability of actually meeting your goals.

The advice from our second expert of the month, Brian Tracy, is a corollary to Covey’s. Tracy, who’s the author of Time Power, urges you to:

Work from a prioritized task list.

This may sound like a part of our earlier discussion of priorities, but it never hurts to repeat it. Prioritizing your tasks for the day and the week helps you avoid detours and time-wasters. While it may be tempting to work on a low priority task simply because it’s easy to finish, it’s important – I’d go so far as to say critical – to tackle high priority tasks first.

Prioritized Task List

Listen to the experts. They’ve “been there, done that,” and lived to tell the rest of us what they learned.

I’m not claiming to be an expert, but here are three ways I’ve found to keep myself organized.

  1. Find your own writing space.
APODS, Amanda Cabot, organize, writer, publish
Organize

Whether it’s a separate room or a corner in the basement that you’ve delineated with duct tape on the floor, if you have a specific place to write, you’ll be more productive. It’s also important that family members respect that space and recognize that you’re at work when you’re there.

2. Prepare to write.

There are two aspects to this.

  • First, have all your raw materials ready before you begin. Remember Marilyn Paul’s “have a place for everything and everything in its place”? That’s a quintessential part of organization and a proven way to increase productivity.
  • Second, reread the last scene you wrote or remind yourself of the problem you want to resolve before commuting, exercising, or going to sleep. This allows your subconscious mind to work on it while you’re doing other things and will often result in a solution popping into your brain seemingly unbidden.

3. Don’t leave home without it.

This was the slogan for a major credit card several decades ago, but it also applies to your writing. Take your work with you, literally. Whether it’s a pad and paper or an electronic device, if you’re always prepared to write, you won’t waste time when you’re caught in a traffic jam, when you’re sitting in an airport lounge, or when your lunch date is late. Instead of being frustrated by the delays, you can be productive and work on your book while you wait.

Take your work with you.

These are all part of being organized. They may not be easy initially, but once they become habits, you’ll find that you’re more productive, and that’s an essential part of reaching “The End.”

We’ve reached the end of Organization, but before I end this post, I have one last piece of advice:

Don’t forget that writing is your number one priority.

All the organizational techniques in the world won’t help you finish your book if you don’t believe that and if your day-to-day actions don’t reflect that principle.

(C) 2019 Amanda Cabot

Amanda Cabot

Amanda Cabot is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city.

Her most recent release is A Tender Hope, the third in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Amanda Cabot, Cimarron Creek Trilogy
A Tender Hope, by Amanda Cabot

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter

Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls — Disclosures

Do you have a website? Blog? If you do, you may have a particular interest in this month’s article on Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls — Disclosures.

In March, 2013, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its revised staff guidance publication, “Dot Com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising.” This document gives us an idea of what the FTC considers unfair or deceptive acts under the law and sets forth certain best practices that online advertisers, which include bloggers, should follow.

Blogger Disclosures

I’m going to touch on some of the points that bloggers need to disclose when you publish a sponsored post or spread sponsored content over your social network, but you may want to check out www.ftc.gov since disclosures in advertising has had quite a bit of activity, especially with the new creative advertising techniques that keep emerging. The purpose of this series is for general educational purposes only and NOT to provide legal advice.

The FTC

Enforces consumer protection laws and regulates commercial conduct in the online and offline marketplace, including online advertising, marketing, & promotional activities.

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Writers Beware the Legal Pitfalls

Disclosures are how you tell a follower, reader, or a fan about the relationship you have with a company, brand, or corporate sponsor. It’s not only the law, but your transparency builds trust with your audience

How, When, and where do you make them?

Let’s look at how:

Blog posts: Include a paragraph that spells out clearly your affiliation and/or compensation.

Tweets, Pins & Status Updates: Use understandable hashtags, like #sponsored.

When:

Immediately, and every time. Every single post that you publish that’s sponsored by a brand, a company or obtained through an affiliation with a media network must include a disclosure paragraph. If you use an affiliate link in a post or on your web site, you are required to disclose them as an affiliate link, not just a regular link to a product or company website. You are required to make appropriate disclosures every time your post is sent out into the social network, and the same goes for status updates and tweets that do not specifically mention your post, but mentions the brand or product.

Where:

Upfront, not buried. You want to make sure that your audience can understand the hashtag or language you use.

Why should I disclose?

You may ask, “Why should I disclose if I don’t blog that much?”

  • Online advertising that’s deceptive or unfair is against the law.
  • By merely appearing deceptive, you could lose your readers as well as their trust.
  • The FTC could investigate and/or fine you or the brand.
  • The brand could pull your direct contracts or sponsorships.
  • Disclosures are most likely already required by your media networks.

Affiliates

Speaking of affiliates, make sure you carefully read the terms of the program before you add them to your site. Also, periodically check afterward to see if there were any updates to their program to ensure you still comply. Also, some states prohibit affiliate relationships. Check the law in your state.

Next month we’ll delve into defamation, privacy, and publicity. There’s more than meets the eye there.

(C) 2018, 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

SEO: Increase Your Hits

The last article in the SEO Series focused on the importance of making your content stand out to increase your hits. The more hits your site gets where the visitor stays a while, the higher your ranking. This article takes a look at more ways to increase your hits.


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Stay A While

Article Length:

Blog length articles should be between 300 and 500 words. There’s a reason for that. You don’t want to overwhelm a reader, but by the same token, statistics show that readers typically only read half of an article. That means, for a 300 word blog, they’ll read 150 words. I was asked to write an informational article with a minimum of 1000 words for The Attorney General of another state (not Colorado) by the SEO firm hired by the Attorney General. They wanted to increase awareness of a new bill and the implications both for and against, and make sure they stayed on the site without bouncing off. The keywords and length were critical to increasing their SEO presence – this was the way the Attorney General was monitoring the effectiveness of the SEO firm he hired. He wanted confirmation that his constituency was informed and had the facts they needed to make an informed decision.

SEO – Article Length Matters

The problem with short blogs is that even if their target audience read the entire blog, they would not be on it long enough to register as “liking it.” Scary.

Update frequently:

At least one time each month, update your content, even if it’s only a paragraph. Google and the other search engines love updated content.

Search terms in additional places:

If you include search terms in places other than your title and page description metatag, you’ll optimize your site even more. But don’t force them if you can’t naturally make it work.

Copyright Basics, Bloggers
Search Terms In Additional Places

Links: The words from your search terms should be used as text links or anchor text (these are words forming a link to an external site or another internal page). Keep in mind that linking to words like “click here” or “learn more” won’t increase your ranking. Also, make sure that external links open in a new window while internal opens in the same window. With an external link in a new window, if they check it out, Google reads them as still on your site as well — they like it.

Headings: Not only do headings and subheadings assist in the organization of your text, but they help readers find what they’re looking for. If you include search terms in the headers, it’ll help your ranking. Search engines can’t read words within a picture, so make sure it appears in regular text.

Text within body: Use the search terms wisely. Don’t overload a page just to try to increase your ranking, not only will it bother your readers, but Google won’t like it.

Images & tags: Images can help with your search engine results. They not only appear in search results, but they can increase your ranking when search terms appear in the filename, caption, title, nearby text, and tag (when you over over an image on a pc, this is the text that appears.)

Next month we’ll look at the importance of mechanics, what search engines “hate” and a great free tool.

(c) 2018 Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

More Reasons for Writers to Use Pseudonyms

It’s Independence Day and we have so much to be thankful for! What better day to talk about an author’s reasons to use a pseudonym. The first article, Why Authors Use Pseudonyms, listed 3 reasons (the first two of which are my reasons) — the name is too long and too difficult to spell, followed by gender. This article provides even more great reasons for writers to use pseudonyms.

Safety

Staying safe is important and there are many instances where your writing may make you a target. If your political views are contrary to those of your neighbors, friends, or your workplace, a pseudonym may be your answer. But your views/position may not be the only reason your safety may be jeopardized. An author I know who writes Christian romance was targeted by a prisoner. As his release date approached, and his obsession continued, she decided a pseudonym would be in her best interest.

Genre

You may be an author who wrote in one genre, but wanted to venture out into another. Your following would be very unhappy if they bought a book they thought was in their favorite genre, only to find this book didn’t even come close to their expectations. Disappointment is an understatement. If an author plans on venturing into another genre, a pseudonym may be right for you.

Writers

Family

A writer may write in a genre that they don’t want their family to know about. When I was a speaker for a nationwide conference, I was invited to a pre-conference gathering which I attended. An author’s shoes prompted me to approach the wearer/author. I had injured my foot and could not wear heals. Yes, I know this is a strange way to meet someone, but sometimes it brings amazing results. This author was sweet, conservative, and very shy. After we discussed where she bought the shoes and their benefits, I asked what she wrote. Needless to say, I was quite surprised to find that she wrote erotica, was the wife of a surgeon, and mother of 4 children. Obviously, she could not write under her legal name or it would seriously hurt her family, income, and way of life, so she wrote under a pseudonym. She’s not the only one to choose a pseudonym for this reason.

Family

work

Depending on who you work for or what you do for a living, a pseudonym might be just what the doctor ordered. If you are a government employee and disagree with their political perspective, no doubt you do not want them to know your political views unless you don’t mind risking the loss of your job. If it’s not politics, it might be something else associated with your position.

Work

In my last article, I asked what your thoughts were on my use of Karen Vann as my new pseudonym. Based on an overwhelming majority of my readers, it looks like this name is the winner. Thank you for your input!

Can you think of any other reasons a writer may want to use a pseudonym?

© 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

APODS – Organization: Advice from the Experts by Amanda Cabot

Welcome back to APODS. Are you ready to talk about organization? I hope so, because I want to share some precepts from experts in time management and organization.

This month’s post focuses on ideas from Marilyn Paul, whose It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys is one of my favorite books on the subject.

Although the entire book is worth reading, I found four of her points particularly useful.


APODS, organization, Marilyn Paul, writers, KISS principal, schedule, task
APODS – Organization
1. Have a place for everything and everything in its place

This should be self-evident, since it’s almost the definition of organization, but the simple fact is, if you can’t find a critical writing tool or even the new ream of paper you need for your printer, the time you spend looking for it is time you could have been writing. On the other hand, if you establish a place for everything you need to write and then ensure that everything is returned to that place as soon as you’ve finished using it, you’ll reduce wasted time and the frustration of having to search for something.

2. Establish your own filing/organizational system, using the KISS principle

There are two key parts to this. The first is that a filing system that works for someone else may not work for you. You need to determine what makes sense to you. After all, each of us is unique, and what seems logical for someone else may be confusing to us. Don’t be fooled into believing that just because a writer you admire uses a system means that it will be the right one for you.

The second part is the KISS principle. You’re probably familiar with it, but in case you aren’t, the acronym stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. While I don’t particularly like the “stupid” part of it, the call for simplicity resonates with me. Why create a system that’s more complex than it needs to be? You’re setting yourself up for frustration if you do that. Save your creativity for writing itself, not filing or organizing.

These two principles have as their goal avoiding wasted time. The next two focus on minimizing frustration.

KISS Principle
3. Learn how much time each task takes, allowing for transition time

Remember back in the Analysis phase when we charted our use of time? Among other things, that taught us how long it takes to do specific things. What we didn’t factor into the equation was transition time. It’s unrealistic to expect to finish eating dinner and go directly to writing a chapter. If you set up a schedule without including transition time, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Don’t do it.

4. Schedule “unscheduled time”

Does this sound counterintuitive? After all, if we’re scheduling our time, shouldn’t we schedule all of it? Marilyn Paul says we should, but that one of the things we need to include in our daily schedule is some time without any task associated with it. Why? Life happens. Things that you didn’t expect will demand your time. If you’ve scheduled every minute, when the unexpected occurs and you’re forced to deal with it, you’ll be behind schedule.

Furthermore, no matter how carefully you schedule, there will be times when a task takes longer than you planned. If you have no free time in your schedule, once again you’ll fail to meet your goals, and that will be frustrating. You want to ensure success, not failure, so give yourself a break … literally. Schedule “unscheduled time.”

Think about Paul’s precepts. Do they make sense to you? Can/will you implement them? I hope so. I also hope you’ll come back in August when we explore two other experts’ advice on how to organize.

(C) 2019 Amanda Cabot

Amanda Cabot

Amanda Cabot is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city.

Her most recent release is A Tender Hope, the third in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Amanda Cabot, Cimarron Creek Trilogy
A Tender Hope, by Amanda Cabot

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter

Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls – Copyright Basics Part 3

This is the last in the Copyright Basics portion of Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls series, but not the end of the series. This article addresses some important issues for writers, and bloggers in particular. As a reminder, every article in this series is to be used as a general educational resource only, NOT as legal advice.

Creative Commons License

Provides a standard way for authors to declare their works as “some rights reserved” (instead of “all rights”). When you are quoting from a source that has a Creative Commons license or public domain dedication, you may have extra rights to use the content. For example, the attribution license allow you to copy, distribute, and display a work as long as you name the original author. Share-alike lets you make derivative works as long as you use the same license for the re-mix. If a work is in the public domain, it’s no longer under copyright protection so you may use it any way you want.

Creative Commons License, copyright
A Note to Bloggers
Of Particular Note to Bloggers

Comments: Comments entered on a blog for public display is most likely giving an implied license at least for that display and the incidental copying that goes with it. To assure clarity, add a creative Commons license to your blog’s comment post page and a statement that says by posting comments, writers agree to license them under it.

“Deep Link”: Most are happy when other websites link to them. One of the features that have helped blogs take off are the “permalink” features to which others can link directly. Some website owners complain that deep links “steal” traffic to the homepage or disrupt the intended flow of the website. So far, courts have found that deep links to web pages are neither trespass nor copyright infringement.

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Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls

Images: Subject to same copyright and fair use laws. Check for Creative Commons licensed images. The safest images are the ones you take yourself — you own them.

If you don’t have one you need, you can buy them or search for sites that offer Creative Commons Zero (CCO).

This means that you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial products without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer and/or designer.

To read the definitions of all the different Creative Commons Licenses, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.

Songs: You may quote the title to a song, but none of the words to a song.

Book Covers: You can post a picture of a book cover you are recommending or reviewing — it’s fair use.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC Sec. 512: Provides service providers who “respond expeditiously” to notices claiming they are hosting or linking to infringing material a “safe harbor” immunity from copyright liability. Sips are not liable if they do not remove content, but the DMCA gives them a strong incentive to take the content down. In turn, that gives anyone who wants your material removed from the internet a strong incentive to make claims of copyright infringement.

If your ISP sends you a DMCA takedown notice and you believe the material you posted does not infringe copyright, you have the option to counter-notify. An ISP is able to put the material back up after a counter-notification and still keep its immunity from liability. You can even use the DMCa’s sec 512 (f) to sue back if you are harmed by an erroneous takedown demand.

Hope this helped. Next month we address disclosures.

(C) 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

Why Authors Use Pseudonyms

Have you ever wondered why authors use pseudonyms? There are a wide variety of very good reasons that we’ll explore in this two part series, starting with the first two which affect me.

The Name Is:

Too Common

When your name is too common, it not only gets lost in the crowd, but chances are that there are other authors with the same name. Hence, the reason I chose not to write as Karen Fischer. There is another. I chose to write under my maiden name, Karen Van Den Heuvel, which is a pseudonym since it is no longer my legal name. It is unique, I could find no other author with the same name, and I actually like my given name. But alas, this brings us to the second reason.

Too Long and Difficult to Spell

What I did not consider was the fact that not only is Karen Van Den Heuvel a long name, but it is difficult to pronounce and spell — the reason I chose another name for my website (I had one too many people being taken to someone else’s website by mistake when trying to come to mine). Although you can still find me at www.KarenVanDenHeuvel.com, it redirects to something everyone can spell, www.LoveBooksandBling.com. I recently made the decision, to continue to write my romantic suspense under a new pseudonym. As my readers, I’d love your input, so I’ll share my thoughts at the end of this article.

Gender

Unfortunately, sexist views on gender still exist. There are men who write romance, but in order to sell their books, they need to write under a female pseudonym. The same goes for women who venture into an area typically controlled by men. They need to either write under a pseudonym or use initials to mask their gender.

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L.A. Sartor

A writer I personally know, won the contract to write, Cry of the Dove. ABC studios thought that she shouldn’t be immediately identifiable as a woman writer due to the intense scenes of prison and war. They felt as a woman, she would be dismissed. She used her initials to mask the fact that she was a woman. Fortunately her initials worked well with her last name, L.A. Sartor. If you haven’t read one of her books, I highly recommend you check her out at https://lesliesartor.com. Once you start, you won’t be able to stop.

In closing, I will bring you back to the use of a new pseudonym for my fiction. I need a pseudonym I can:

  • relate to
  • answer to (in public signings, author gatherings, etc.)
  • won’t get lost in the crowd,
  • is easy to spell,
  • short in length, and
  • bold to attract my readers.

For me, this was a struggle, so I brought my predicament to my writers group. Leslie Sartor made the initial suggestion, followed by the buy-in of others, but as my readers, I would love your thoughts on this potential pseudonym: Karen Vann

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Hooding of Victoria by Her Grandfather

It is an abbreviated part of my name used by my father’s patients for decades so I can relate to it and will answer to it, and there are no other authors with that name.

What do you think about the name, Karen Vann?

© 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

SEO: Make Your Content Stand Out

The idea is to increase your ranking. The more hits the better. In addition to using the right key words, make your content stand out. After all, it’s your content that will make or break you.

Be appealing and useful

Ask yourself this question — What value will your viewers receive from viewing your content?

Be Appealing and Useful
Purpose

Content should have a purpose and plan. If it doesn’t, it will be confusing, bland, and redundant. Once you have an understanding of why you are creating your content, it will be far easier for you to write, video tape or photograph.

Value

Content should offer something valuable to its readers/viewer. For example, if you can make someone laugh from a video, it has value. If people learn something new from a blog, it has value. If a tweet breaks news, it has value.
Be unique. If you can provide your niche with a perspective no one else has offered, your content will stand out. It’s different, not the same old, same old.

Answer a Question
SEO, value, quesiton
Answer A Question

Your content needs to answer a question, even if it’s “Why am I here?” If a person is searching the world wide web for information and so happens to land on your article, will they quickly move on or stay to read your article?

Relate

Your readers like to relate to a video or blog post where they can nod their head in agreement. For example, a video that shows what kids might do in the back seat on a long ride might cause the parents to share the content because they can relate.

Variety

Add variety to your content – mix it up! Experiment with videos, photos, and written content. Remember, variety is the spice of life.

Entertain

Consumers enjoy interesting, educational, intriguing content. If your reader is entertained, they will want to see even more content from you and may even want to buy your book or services.

Visual

Catchy, vibrant, intriguing photos will grab your readers’ eye and they’ll be interested in seeing how it relates to the content.

writing, journey, publishing, Thyme for Writers
Inspire
Inspire

You want your content to encourage a reaction, whether it’s a link to additional information, a call to action, an invitation to share or comment. Your creative content should inspire your readers to take some type of action.

Scannable

Most people do not have much of an attention span on the web (unlike paper print) so make sure your content is broken up into small chunks that is easily consumed replete with headings, images, subheadings, numbered lists, and bullet points. It’s easier for your audience to take away something valuable.

Compatible

Your content should view and read well across all types of mobile platforms.

Wedding Planner, decorations, creative, artists, reception, Hidden Bloodlines, bookclub, Stanley Hotel, Black Friday
Karen & Joni
Shareable

You not only want your readers to enjoy your content, but you want them to love it so much they want to share it with their friends. The more people who share, the more people get exposed to your brand.

Regular Publication

You don’t have to publish daily, but when you are consistent with your posts, people have something to look forward to. For example, if you post your blog every Thursday, like I do, your readers will visit your site every Thursday to check out your new content. Marketing research shows that blogging twice a week is best for marketing your book. Again, consistency is important and if you can manage twice that’d be great.

What value do readers receive from your content? Next month we’ll take a look at four more points to increase your hits!

(C) 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel