Month: October 2019

Publish Don’t Perish – 65 Tips

Today is the start of a new series, Publish Don’t Perish — 65 Tips, in honor of my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary. Sixty-five years ago today, my parents were married. But wait, isn’t today Halloween? Well, yes, but 65 years ago Halloween was not celebrated on Sundays, the day my parents said, “I do.”

Happy 65th Wedding Anniversary — Love you!

Sixty-five years…WOW! With almost 50% of marriages ending in divorce or separation, there is much to learn from this incredible couple after 65 years of marriage. Fortunately, I am blessed in more ways than I can count because they are my parents. For purposes of this series, we’ll focus on what they provided me and continue to provide me in Tip #1: Support.

Types of Support

There are many types of support, including financial, emotional, and personal assistance to name a few. Our family has been blessed by my parents who have supported each and every one of their children and grandchildren throughout all of their lives in more ways than I can count.

Our Family

I have a passion for writing, and a writer’s life can be a lonely life. It’s critical to surround yourself with those who will come along side and support you in your endeavors with encouragement, laughter, shared tears, a break… . We all need cheerleaders in the ups and downs along the journey to publication — success doesn’t come over night in the life of a writer, and life itself is usually not a bed of roses.

My parents supported me throughout each stage of my life with every type of support and encouraged me to keep writing. Thank you, Mom and Dad! You continue to be my biggest fans!

Support throughout each stage of my life. Thank you Mom and Dad!

Other Writers

What better group to obtain support than other writers who understand and have experienced similar ups and downs. It’s one of the reasons I started Thyme for Writers in 2017. Over these past couple of years, I’ve had the opportunity to share the experiences and helpful hints provided by this remarkable group. After all, it’s not healthy to write in a vacuum.

Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

Many of the tips gleaned in this series, will come from what I have learned from my incredible parents and other writers. In the meantime, rally your support team — family, friends and fellow writers who keep us pumped up and moving on.

What type of support have you found most helpful?

(c) 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

APODS — Discipline by Amanda Cabot

When your goal is “Getting to the End,” it doesn’t matter how much analysis, prioritization, and organization you’ve done if you’re not willing to take the next step and discipline yourself to write.

I know, I know. No one likes the word “discipline,” so let’s call this the “Just DO It!” step. It’s not necessarily easy, but this is a case of practice making perfect.

8 Suggestions

Here are eight suggestions I’ve found useful when trying to get to “The End.”

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Thyme for Writers
  1. Schedule a time to write every day and then WRITE during that time. It may seem difficult at first, but like exercise, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
  2. Remember that five minutes of writing is better than none. No matter how busy we are, every one of us can find five minutes each day. I challenge you to find those five minutes and use them. Chances are, you’ll write far longer than five minutes, but even if five minutes of writing is all you accomplish, you’ll have taken the first steps toward making daily writing a habit. And that’s a habit we all need.
  3. Remind yourself that writing is your #1 priority. Now’s the time to dust off those signs that you developed during the prioritization step and post them everywhere you’re likely to be distracted. It may seem juvenile, but visual reminders are powerful.
  4. Do whatever it takes to meet your weekly goals. Again, this sounds difficult, and it may be at first, but the more often you meet your goals, the more energized you’ll be and the closer you’ll be to reaching “The End.”
  5. Optimize your research time. Writers tend to fall into two camps: those who love research and those who hate it. It doesn’t matter where you are on that spectrum. The key is to spend the minimum amount of time gathering the information you need. One technique I use is to avoid doing detailed research during the first draft of a book. Instead, I keep a list of the questions I have – things like “how long does it take to ride a horse from San Antonio to Austin?” When I finish the first draft, I have a better idea of whether I really, really, really need to know that. And, if I do, I can look for the answer to that question at the same time that I’m researching all the other points I listed during the first draft. That’s more efficient than stopping to investigate each point and possibly heading down the proverbial rabbit holes.
  6. Remind friends that you are working. I doubt your friends would stop in for a visit or want to have a lengthy chat during the workday if you were at an office, but the fact that many writers work at home makes us more vulnerable to friendly distractions. Now is the time to politely but firmly tell friends and neighbors that you’re working and can’t be disturbed.
  7. Use voice mail. This is a corollary to the previous point. I consider answering machines and caller ID among the essentials of life and answer calls during my working hours only if they’re from my publisher. Sorry, robo calls. You don’t get answered EVER, but you do get reported to the Do Not Call Registry.
  8. Consider email, texting, and internet surfing a reward. Again, the goal is to keep your focus on the manuscript and avoid everything that prevents you from writing. A number of my writer friends have discovered the same thing I have, namely that if we check email before we begin to write, we’re much less productive. The reason is simple: whatever was in those email messages, no matter how trivial, is competing for space in your brain and lessening your focus. Don’t lose your focus on what’s important: your manuscript.

I won’t sugarcoat it. Discipline is hard, but the rewards are worth the effort. Just DO it!

(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: Defamation, Privacy, and Publicity

A general challenge of publishers (which definitely applies to Indy publishers) originates from the changing boundaries of the laws of publicity, libel, and privacy. Contracts typically contain indemnification clauses protecting the publisher’s interests in this regard.

Mourning Candle

If you publish statements that are false and defamatory, or even private facts that are embarrassing to someone, you can be sued. In this litigious and highly proprietary time, more and more references to individuals (deceased or living) are bringing claims of breach of privacy, defamation, or violation of publicity rights.

These issues primarily face nonfiction publishers, but that doesn’t prevent those publishing fiction to be affected. Let’s take a look at each of these areas.

Please use this article as an educational resource only, it is not meant to provide legal advice.

Defamation

Scorned or Ridiculed

Generally “defamation” is a false statement of fact
about a living individual (though in certain jurisdictions it may apply to deceased individuals and, periodically, to corporate entities) that holds the person up to scorn or ridicule. Note that the law allows more leeway when discussing public figures.

Privacy Rights

An individuals’ privacy rights is a related issue. Typically, this area is more of a challenge to magazine and newspaper publishers because of the nature of the fast paced reporting which may cause the re lease of facts that should not be made public, including financial, medical, or other highly personal information.

Fast Paced Reporting

The reality is that all publishers of nonfiction must be wary of disclosing personal information of a sensitive or embarrassing nature. (And this is in the United States, where the rules are relatively liberal; beware of disclosing personal information about foreigners or about Americans in works published outside the United States.) Where any such information is about to be published, consult with your lawyers to be sure you aren’t at risk of violating a criminal or civil statute here or abroad.

Publicity Rights

Mona Lisa

Publicity is closely related to the right of privacy. (This is technically a subset of the “right of privacy” which, in legal terms, incorporates four related rights: publicity, intrusion, privacy, and false light.) Generally, the right of publicity prevents the commercial exploitation of the value of an individual’s likeness and name. Not only are celebrities protected by this right, but it protects others whose appearances and names have real commercial value. It also prevents the use of anyone’s likeness or name in trade or advertising without their permission.

Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

Are you with a traditional publisher or are you Indy? If you’re with a traditional publisher, check your contract. If you are an Indy publisher, what steps do you take to protect yourself?

Next month we’ll take a look at negligent publication.

(C) 2018, 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer

SEO: The Importance of Mechanics

In our last article, we looked at ways to increase your hits and thereby increase your ranking. In addition to article length, updating frequently, and search terms in additional places, this article will look at the importance of mechanics.

grammar, mechanics, SEO, Amanda Cabot
The Importance of Mechanics

Mechanics

Good mechanics increases readability which then increases your ranking because your readers will typically stay longer. For example:

  • Don’t start consecutive sentences with the same word.
  • Write in active tense, not passive. No more than 10% of the sentences should be written in passive voice.
  • 30% of the sentences should contain transition words.
  • The number of words following each subheading should not exceed 300 words.
  • Make sure your paragraphs are not too long.
  • No more than 25% of the sentences should contain more than 20 words.
  • Paragraphs should start with the most important sentence first.
  • Order your topic. There are different types of ordering: thematic (ordered on topic, aspect, theme), chronological (old-new), problem-solution(s) (first you introduce the problem and follow it with possible solutions), or didactic (easy-hard).
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L.A. Sartor Home Page

If you are looking for ways to improve your mechanics, check out the series by Amanda Cabot on L.A. Sartor’s webstie .

We’ve looked at what search engine’s love, but we need to be wary of what they don’t.

Search engines hate

Search engines hate:

  • Graphics that do not include descriptions
  • Frames – Search engines can’t necessarily see everything inside of a frame.
  • Flash animations – These files cannot be indexed by most search engines. Google can read it, but Macs and mobile phones detest them.
  • Duplicate contents at different URLs – Delete old versions of replaced pages. Even though they may be archived, search engines may just try to index these replaced pages and decrease your ranking because of duplicates pages.
  • Avoid splash pages – usually a website loses its readers whenever a click is required. Although splash pages typically have beautiful animations or images, there is no navigation or content. If you want to use rich media on a splash page, you will want to include a regular HTML link to a page that’s text based for searches. The easiest way to go is to avoid splash pages altogether.

Next month we’ll end this series with a discussion of website topics.

(C) 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel Fischer