Guest Post: How I Wrote A Novella in a Month as a Stay-At-Home Mom

Nicholas C. Rossis

This is a guest post by Iona Caldwell, druid, mother, author, and wife, who has written the British Occult Fiction, Beneath London’s Fog.

How I Wrote A Novella in a Month as a Stay At Home Mom

“Mom!!” How many times have you heard this when you try to sit down to write? Isn’t it funny how you ask them if they need anything and they promise up and down they’re good? It happens again: the fighting, fussing and questions wondering why you have to work since they’re out for the summer.

Worry not, parents, this is not a unique thing.

Let’s face it, we love our kids but it’s hard to sit down and write when you have to play referee. I’ve heard stories of parents who had to wait to write their books until their kids grew and left the house.

I have a six and seven-year-old…

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Video Editing Made Easy: Movavi Video Editor

Nicholas C. Rossis

With video playing an increasingly important role in book marketing, I recently shared the news about Flexiclip, a free online video editing resource. But Flexiclip is largely clip-based. It’s great when you wish to use their stock videos, but editing your own video can be problematic–especially when working with larger files.

So, what’s the alternative? Sure, you could use Adobe Premiere if you can spare $19.95/month. However, is there a solution which will let you edit your own videos without breaking the bank?

I have been using Movavi’s products for years now. So, when I was asked to review their video editor for my blog, I was more than happy to do so (I don’t review anything I haven’t used myself). Please keep in mind that I’d bought version 16 a couple of years ago, and haven’t upgraded yet, so the screenshots may be a little different from…

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A Free Amazon Keyword Organizer Tool

Nicholas C. Rossis

You may remember that Amazon has recently adopted a more flexible way of reading keywords. You see, Amazon provides you on their KDP bookshelf with a set of 7 separate keyword boxes, giving some authors the impression that they should enter just one keyword or keyword phrase per box.

However, each box holds 50 characters and the more keywords you can add, the better the chance a customer will find your book when they search. The difficulty is in fitting your keywords efficiently into those boxes (they don’t tell you how many characters are left or even that you have 50 to begin with), not duplicating words across boxes, etc.

Making that easier is where we come in with Hidden Gems Books’ free Amazon Keyword Organizer tool.

Amazon Keyword Organizer

Screenshot from the Amazon keyword organizer

Simply enter your keywords or keyword phrases into the box at the top, entering…

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How to Analyze your Visitor Data

Nicholas C. Rossis

Google Analytics and your own WordPress Statistics (available through Jetpack, if you’re self-hosted) can be among the most useful book marketing tools. Who visits you and which pages do they frequent the most? Do people find what they’re looking for? How long do they stay?

This is the kind of questions that a simple analysis of your traffic can answer. However, it’s easy enough to get lost among all the jargon. Page views, unique visitors, visits, pages per session… it’s enough to give anyone a headache!

Thankfully, ConnextDigital recently published an Infographic which can serve as the perfect cheatsheet. Bookmark this page and refer to it whenever you wish to remind yourself what bounce rate is and why it matters, or refer to the original post for even more marketing information.

A Useful Web Analytics Glossary

Let’s take a look at what each of the terms found here mean:

AdWords…

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The Fermi Paradox

Nicholas C. Rossis

Have you heard of the Fermi Paradox? Named after physicist Enrico Fermi, is an argument explored by him and physicist Michael H. Hart. At its most basic, it goes like this: if we, humanity, have started our attempts at space travel in the past century and are now already exploring the far edges of our solar system, and with billions of Earth-like planets in the universe, how is it that we haven’t yet encountered any aliens?

Bluesat recently shared an infographic created by Jaime Trosper of “From Quarks to Quasars.” It includes some of the most popular answers to the Fermi Paradox, in an easy-to-remember way that can serve as a great writing prompt as well!

Tip: click on the image to enlarge!

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How to Write the Best “About The Author” Page Possible

Nicholas C. Rossis

Look at me, world!

Writing a book is hard. Still, I’d rather write a 5-novel series than a book blurb. And when it comes to writing a couple of paragraphs about me, aka Author Bio, well, that’s when I really freak out! Why is it so darn hard telling the world a few things about us?

So, I was particularly happy when I discovered this excellent post on writing your About Me page. It comes from a surprising source–Elegant Themes, the makers of my favorite WordPress theme, Divi. Read on for some great tips on creating a killer Author Bio page, courtesy of Lindsay Pietroluongo!

Lindsay’s About Me Page

“If we’re gonna be friends, you should know that I re-heat my coffee as many times as it takes to burn my tongue, I only watch horror movies through my fingers and I seriously dislike elephants, although…

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Anymore vs. Any more

Nicholas C. Rossis

I recently came across Writing Explained, a grammar website that can be an invaluable resource for authors. This little gem is from one of their posts. If you enjoy learning about the English language’s intricacies, this is the perfect website for you!

So, what is the Difference Between Anymore and Any more?

The traditional (although now less common) spelling is as two separate words: any more. In the last 50 years or so, the single word anymore has increased in use and a distinction between the one-word and two-word spellings has emerged.

Any more as a Determiner

What does “any more” mean? When “any more” is used to mean an indefinite quantity of something or even the smallest amount, it is functioning as a determiner. For example,

• Do you want any more food?
• Is there any more pie left?
• I can’t eat any more food; I am completely stuffed.
• I…

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How To Write a Cozy Mystery

Get It Write

—-Lea Wait

So – you want to write a mystery? You don’t know too much about police procedures, or regulations for private detectives, or the law, but you enjoy settling in with a good book in which the bad guys are caught and the good guys (and gals) win out in the end?  Writing a mystery might just be your cup of tea.

Or thimble of arsenic.

Why not try? Traditional mysteries, also known as cozies, are in the Agatha Christie tradition where, it’s often said, “more tea is spilled than blood.” They’ve been popular for decades, and, despite today’s increased popularity of suspense and noir books, are still selling well.

Their readers and authors are predominantly, but not exclusively, women. They even have their own conference, Malice Domestic, held each spring just outside of Washington, D.C., and their own awards: the Agathas, named after you-know-who.

The first book in my Shadows Antique Print Mystery series, Shadows…

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Infographic: March of the AI

Nicholas C. Rossis

My latest book, A Heaven for Toasters, takes place in the 22nd century. Naturally, I refer to a number of novel technologies, including the use of Artificial Intelligence assistants and androids. But AI also includes anything from automatic vehicles to chatbots. Even though we usually associate it only with virtual assistants such as Siri and Alexa, AI is already surrounding us, controlling anything from cochlear implants to Google’s search results.

Techjury recently shared an amazing Infographic with the history of AI… and some amazing predictions:

• By 2025, the global AI market is expected to be almost $60 billion; in 2016 it was $1.4 billion
• Global GDP will grow by $15.7 trillion by 2030 thanks to AI
• AI can increase business productivity by 40%
• AI startups grew 14 times over the last two decades
• Investment in AI startups grew 6 times since 2000
• Already 77% of the devices we…

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5 Tips for More Effective Writing

Nicholas C. Rossis

This is a guest post by Liana Simmons of Ewritingservice.com. Ewritingservice provides effective communication of your message across to the reader. 

Good writing is not necessarily effective writing but effective writing leads to good writing. While everybody has their own idea on what constitutes good writing, defining effective writing is simple: it gets the job done.

When writing, your message should be plain, simple, and well understood by others. Writing is a form of communication. Just as a person may not communicate effectively when talking, one might fail to get their thoughts across in writing, too.

1. The objective

Ask yourself what you want to achieve with your writing. The written word is more than just a means for informing the reader. To achieve the objective of your writing you need to be clear about it yourself: do you want the reader to feel…

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