The internet is old enough now to be new all over again. Ten years ago, “hyperlinks” were all the rage for how to get your website ranked higher in the search engines. Popular sites “recommend” other popular sites by exchanging links with them to produce higher browser rankings for both. Think of it as word-of-mouth advertising with an “e” on the front end or as the geneses of Facebook’s “Like.” Well, links are back in vogue again. Apple, Google and Microsoft make the browsers we all use to surf the web, and they battle each other with light sabers and dark forces for supremacy in this market. Shaking up the sequence algorithm – that’s the crunch and grind of data that decides who gets to be Number 1 – keeps the internet fresh. That’s a good thing because of how large and vast the beast is today, but it does make for more work at the individual website level…
One of the nicest things about running your own business is you get to set the schedule. Running a small business means you are never without something to put on that schedule, and January is one of those months when a lot of things come due. January is the time to compare and to project, too, and maybe make a few resolutions. In the online advertising business, it’s about keeping my clients ahead of the pack, or at least within their budget…
In the novel writing business, it’s hibernation time for me. The fingers are quiet but the mind is still churning out plotlines, ideas that need to ferment in the gray matter a while longer. It’s time to find an agent and a publisher, and I can’t wait to see what Jenna Jinks comes up with for cover art for Broken String, but there is nothing else I can do for the novel itself at this point. I bought the Writer’s Digest’s 2016 Guide to Literary Agents. The book-buying landscape has changed drastically since The Freya Project was published twelve years ago and there’s a lot to absorb inside the Guide’s 330 pages…
Funny thing, the first words you read on the cover are about how to register online to take full advantage of their free, one-year online membership that came with the purchase of this book about how to get your book into print…
When I published Seoul Legacy, The Orphans Flu in the summer of 2012, self-publishing did not have the respectability or acceptability it has today. Fifty Shades of Grey was barely fifty days old. Today, we have Kickstarter.com as one way of funding a novel, and I speak from first person experience when I tell you it can work. The Alice’s Adventures Under Ground Project was an overwhelming success and a class-act to boot. When my printed copy arrived, well before the promised date of Christmas, the first thing I unpacked from the box was a pair of white gloves. They were cheap knockoffs to what the British Library Historian might wear while handling the original Alice, but what a perfect gift for a facsimile book! That’s classy stuff for a classic story. What could I include with Broken String? Something outstanding yet inexpensive? Good ideas gladly accepted here…
February is a leap month this year… What are you going to do with your extra day?
Read On!
-Phil
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Maybe you can form a partnership with a genetic testing facility and include a coupon toward a personal genetic test. 🙂
Author
Now that is a very unique idea!
Hi Phil, Alice got the white glove treatment. Maybe Liz’s readers should get rubber gloves? ? My tainted mind also thought of matchbooks, but that’s just wrong encouragement. A paper bookmark may be a safer bet. Can’t wait to see what you enclose with my copy, when all is ready.
Author
You gave me an idea… What about a bookmarker in the shape of DNA’s string? Maybe broken in the middle?? I use an antiquarian bookmarker now that is two pieces of balsa wood ornately painted and tied together with a red string that has two tiny beads knotted at the end. I found it one of the books we bought long, long ago and It’s been my favorite ever since. Something like that should be within the budget.
I’ll pass on the rubber gloves and matchbooks for the reasons stated. Thanks!
During the extra day in February, I hope to spend the entire day writing undisturbed. Hopefully I’ll get closer to finishing my story.
29th is on a Monday, so you can check out for the entire three day weekend and get three days in!
Perfect! I’m making plans now for a three-day writing retreat even it’s only in my back room.
What to do with the extra day? Great question. Nice touch. Congratulations on so many books. I’m still on the first one, and will probably stay there. I don’t have it in my blood the way you do.
Not really comparable, Joan. Yours is non fiction and a compelling story that, as you are finding out, a lot of people are interested in reliving or relearning. Fiction is strictly for entertainment.