Complete Guide to Self-Publishing Winners

Thank you to everyone who entered my recent blog giveaway.

Many entrants gave great reasons for wanting The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, and I actually feel quite guilty I can't send you all a copy.

The winners were always going to be chosen at random, however, so I picked them with the aid of this online random number generator.

For those who are interested, I numbered all the comments from 1 to 52 and set the RNG to pick numbers between these limits. I continued to generate numbers until I had winners for both the US and non-US draws (as it happened, the first three picks were all for non-US residents).

So I can now reveal that the winner of the prize for a non-US resident was comment no. 26, from Blessing of Harare, Zimbabwe. And the US prize-winner was Cherie Davidson from Washington State, who was - as it happens - the last person to enter before the contest closed, and was therefore number 52.

Congratulations to both winners - please would they contact me with their full postal addresses (and full name in the case of Blessing) as soon as possible using my Contact Me form, or email if you prefer. I will then ask the contest sponsors, Writer's Digest Books, to send your prizes.

Commiserations to those who didn't win this time round, but I hope you are still successful in your writing and publishing endeavours. You can still buy the book at a discount from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

Don't Mess With The Grammar Police!

On a lighter note, here's a video that amused me.

As well as bad grammar it includes some (mild) bad language, so you may prefer not to watch if you're easily offended or in a public library...

As ever, if you're receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to see the video.

Now, all I need is an emergency hotline to report offences against good grammar (such as this one) when they occur...

Review: 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts

I was fortunate to be sent a copy of this new downloadable (PDF) guide by Chicago-based freelance writer Bryan Cohen, who runs the website Build Creative Ideas.

Its full title is 1000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More.

My first impressions were highly favourable. This is an extremely well written and professionally produced e-book, running to a respectable 100 pages.

As the name indicates, the great bulk is devoted to writing prompts. These are basically scenarios or ideas you can use to stimulate writing projects (I'll provide a couple of examples in a moment).

Bryan says the prompts have been compiled from various ideas that have floated in and out of his head over the last two years. He says he has made them as open-ended as possible, so the same prompt could be used multiple times over.

There is a concise but useful introduction, which suggests ways the prompts could be used, including examples. The prompts themselves are then set out under the following headings: Holidays, Seasons, Memories, Life, Health, For the Kids, Literature & Genre, Art, Sports, The Outdoors, The Modern World, The Weird, and General.

To give you a flavor of the prompts themselves, here is one from the Life - Home section:

260. Do you have a restaurant, bar, or other hangout that you feel is your home away from home? It's the kind of place where everybody knows your name, like the show "Cheers." The kind of place where they'd ask about you if you didn't show up for a couple of days. Talk about how this became such a location for you.

And here, by way of contrast, is one from the Weird section:

901. As you are walking down the street, you hear loud sirens. Before you can figure out the reason, you see a giant flash of light and you pass out. You wake up in a giant pile of rubble. What has happened and where do you go from here?

Understandably, the book has a certain US bias - for example, there are sections for prompts devoted to Thanksgiving and the 4th of July, neither of which is celebrated in Britain (where I live).

Nevertheless, for anyone who ever finds themselves struggling for inspiration for a writing project, 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts could be a valuable - and reasonably priced - investment.

Guest Post: Ideas - How to Catch Them, Feed Them, and Finally Set Them Free

Today I'm delighted to be hosting another guest post from writer, film-maker and creativity guru Phil South.

In today's article, Phil looks at the tricky subject of how to catch and keep your ideas, rather than forget and lose them. Take it away, Phil...

Being a creative writer is all about ideas. Readers and potential writers are always asking successful and creative authors the question, "Where do you get your ideas?" - to which the writers often stumble in reply, or have no real answer. It's an unsatisfying transaction every time - so why is it that writers can't say where they get their ideas from? I think it's partly because they don't really know, and partly because the way they collect ideas is individual to them, and so any answer they gave would be no use to the asker of the question.

Maybe they also get tired of saying it, and you can see why. I interviewed Terry Pratchett for magazine articles a few times, and while I was at his house one time at least twice in the hour we were interrupted by fans calling asking stupid questions. He patiently answered the same questions for a few minutes, then courteously got them out of his hair. Later on in one of his books I noticed he postulated the theory in an aside that ideas were like rain. Great thinkers and writers stood out in it and caught as many ideas as they could, while non-writers and non-thinkers sheltered from it. A lovely thought - simple, beautiful and very Terry.

I've always loved this idea. Wonder where he got it from?

Anyway, the point is this: ideas happen. And Terry Pratchett, as always, has it right. The crucial question is not where ideas come from. The important question is: where do they go?

What happens when you get an idea? I'll tell you what happens - mostly you forget it. The reason is that ideas don't happen when you are at the typewriter, computer or a desk with a pen in your hand. That would be like expecting laundry to come to you while you are standing next to the washing machine.

No, ideas happen when you are driving to work, shopping in Tesco, eating, cooking dinner for a group of noisy kids, sleeping or making sweet love. Ideas are inspired by things you read, but also things you smell, things you hear and taste. Coincidentally, we covered those in my last guest post on this esteemed blog. But some ideas are seemingly inspired by nothing around you. They come from nowhere, out of your subconscious, like someone is shooting at you from the shadows. Those are the gems, the pearls, the diamonds. Those are the thoughts you made for yourself.

So what do you do - how do you make sure that no idea escapes you? How do you ensure that a shower of idea rain goes into your pocket and not down the idea drain? The answer is like the song "Pennies From Heaven", where they say "Be sure that your umbrella is upside-down".

Catch them.

Catching ideas is like catching anything that doesn't want to be caught - like a toddler that runs away from you, a tiger that stalks in the underbrush or a lit cigarette in the driver's footwell. You need to catch them now before the situation gets out of hand, and you need a well-practised plan of action to avoid disaster.

Do you carry a notebook? Everywhere you go? Well, start. Now. It doesn't have to be nice or big. It just needs to have a surface you can write on and be small enough to fit in a jacket pocket without weighing you down or making you look like you have one breast bigger than the other. And a working pen. Keep a bigger, nicer notebook - you know, the leather one with the lovely paper in it - in your briefcase or bag, and the lovely fountain pen to go with it.

That's a good start, and for most of us that is enough. You have an idea, write it down. Ideas? Write them down. What do you do with any ideas you have? Yes, WRITE THEM DOWN.

Don't ever, ever, ever think, "That's brilliant, and it's SUCH a good idea I'll remember it and write it down in a minute" because you won't, and you won't. And even if you do, why take the risk? Self evidently you have ideas to burn.

Okay that's level one. Level two, hands-free.

If I'm in a car I use a voice recorder, what we used to call in the olden days a dictaphone. Ironically, now I have one on my phone. I can record messages to myself, ideas, song lyrics, anything that takes my fancy. When I can afford the cost of one of the new Olympus digital recorders I shall upgrade because they are superb - small, high quality and LONG recording time. Plus they have a USB inside to transfer to your PC.

Sleeping or making sweet love? No problem. Have a voice recorder or notebook by the bed, plus again a working pen and in this case also maybe a little LED reading light or torch so you don't wake your partner while you're scribbling or hunting for the recorder. Obviously, writing notes or dictating to yourself while making sweet love, much like changing channels on the TV, could possibly be misconstrued as disinterest, so bear that in mind. Just a tip there.

Myself, I use a combination of notebooks, voice recorders and file cards. I'm a big fan of file cards - you know, those little 5x3 cards we used to put business contacts on in a small box on our desks before the age of computers and databases, and more importantly cell phone address books? Well, there is a new use for those little cards of joy: interactive, battery free, compact note-taking and organisation.

I buy loads of these. I put a stack of them in an elastic band in my pocket, and if I get an idea I pull them out, take off the band, write the idea on the next blank card, put them together again, band em up, and put them back in my pocket. Also, being a bit OCD, I use a nice new Papermate Tempo fibre tip pen and I use coloured cards and match the colour of the pen to add a little frisson of design and colour co-ordination to the process.

I use the fibre tip pens because experience has shown that they make a nicer mark on the paper, they provide a lovely tactile sensation, and you can draw OR write. Plus biros have a tendency to skip on the surface of the card if they've been in your pocket for a while, which delays getting the ideas down.

File cards have the added benefit that if you write down only ONE idea per card you can lay them all out on the table after a while and reorganise the ideas into any order you like. This is also good, because it suggests gaps in the ideas where you can add another card.

Later you can dump all your cards and notebooks into a file box and store them for later use. I call this after William Burroughs (one of the patron saints of my blog, Going Down Writing) an "Idea Hoard". It's a good place to come when inspiration has left you and you need to get new ideas, or at least access ideas you had before but forgot till now. Plus, I find it's an awesome reminder of what a great writer and ideasmith you are.

So that's my strategy for catching Pratchett's Idea Rain. Simple and effective. If you have your own strategies, please do post them as comments below. I'd love to hear your own tips for ensuring you catch and keep all your best ideas for use later on!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Phil South has been a writer and film-maker for 26 years. He started in consumer technology journalism, also known as playing computer games and writing jokes for magazines like Your Sinclair, Computer Shopper and Mac User. After a spell making animated web sites for Disney Channel UK, he now teaches film-making and photography at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. While waiting to have time to make the ultimate British cult movie, he writes the creativity blog Going Down Writing and the Creative Genius Newsletter, which you can subscribe to via his blog. Phil is also on Twitter at http://twitter.com/snouty.

Thanks again to Phil for another thought-provoking guest post. I strongly agree about the importance of keeping a notebook to record ideas as and when they occur. And, as Phil says, I'd love to hear any thoughts YOU may have on the best methods for catching and saving ideas.

Photo credit: 'Magic Apples' by H. Koppdelaney on Flickr.

Win The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing!

Thanks to my friends at Writer's Digest Books, I have two copies of the brand new edition of The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing by Marilyn Ross and Sue Collier to give away.

The publishers say about this book...

In this fifth edition of a self-publishing classic, best-selling author Marilyn Ross and publishing expert Sue Collier empower writers to publish their own work with minimal risk and maximum profits.

Inside The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, writers will find step-by-step guidance on publishing and marketing a book. From print-on-demand publishing to subsidy publishing to true self-publishing, the book provides a thorough explanation of how to decide which option is best.

Marilyn and Sue then help writers jumpstart a publicity campaign with a detailed marketing plan and timetable, as well as appendices filled with marketing contacts, organizations and vendors. Writers will also benefit from valuable case studies and examples of how other publishers have found success.

This expanded and revised edition of the bible of self-publishing also offers the latest information and cutting-edge advice on e-publishing and Internet marketing, with a chapter on ways to leverage social media marketing to create buzz and stand out from the crowd.

With an in-depth discussion of exclusive distributors, plus coverage of the most recent changes in bookstores and the book-selling industry, The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing equips writers with everything they need to publish and promote their books and take control of their writing career.

To win your own free copy of The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, all you have to do is add a comment to this post saying "Pick me!" or similar, including your name and where you live. US residents should provide their state (e.g. George Harrison, Texas), whilst those living elsewhere in the world should include the name of their country (e.g. Hilary Duchesne, France). Just one entry per person, please.

By arrangement with the publishers, one prize will go to a US resident and the other to someone living elsewhere. The winners will therefore be chosen by two separate prize draws. That's why I really do need to know where you live - any entries not including this info will regretfully have to be excluded.

The closing date for this contest is Tuesday 31 August at 12 noon GMT. The winners will be announced shortly after that, so do remember to check back on my blog to see if you are one of them.

Good luck, and happy self-publishing!

POSTSCRIPT: Please, please, remember to include your home country/US state! Without this information I won't know which prize draw to enter you in, so I will have to disqualify you. If you have already posted without this info, please post again to ensure your inclusion. Thank you!

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED AND NO FURTHER COMMENTS WILL BE ALLOWED. RESULTS WILL BE PUBLISHED SHORTLY!

Between You and I, It's Ungrammatical

Today I'm writing about an amazingly common mistake, even among writers.

Or perhaps I should say especially among writers, or scriptwriters anyway. While watching the UK soap Coronation Street the other day, I heard the character John Stape - a dedicated if deranged English teacher - use the term "between you and I" in conversation with his wife.

I found this hard to believe (admittedly, lots of things in Coronation Street are!). The character Stape is a stickler for correct grammar, so I can't believe he would really use an expression like this, even in casual conversation. It looks like a mistake by the writer to me, which wasn't picked up by the script editor.

There's a clear grammatical rule in these situations, which is that a pronoun following a preposition such as "between" must always be in the objective rather than the subjective case. That's me rather than I, him rather than he, and so on.

This mistake is often made by people who are actually trying too hard to be grammatically correct - it's therefore an example of hypercorrection. There's an easy test, though, which is to change the order of the pronouns around. "Between I and you" doesn't sound right, does it? So "between you and I" can't ever be correct either.

And if any Coronation Street scriptwriters happen to read this, for my viewing pleasure I hope they will get this right in future!

Photo: The Granada Studios, where Coronation Street is filmed, by Tasa_M on Flickr.

Blog Copy: A New, Free Monitoring Service for Bloggers

If you have a blog, Blog Copy is a new website you should definitely check out. The site monitors what text and pictures are being copied from your blog.

To use Blog Copy, you first have to register on the site. This is free and takes only a few moments.

Before Blog Copy can start monitoring your blog you have to do one other thing as well, which is add a snippet of code to your blog's HTML. This is, of course, explained on the website. It's quite straightforward, and does not require any skills beyond copying and pasting.

Once the code is installed, you will be able to log in to the Blog Copy website at any time and see what your readers have been copying, and several other statistics too.

I should perhaps make clear that you won't discover who exactly copied your work or what they did with it. The aim of Blog Copy is not copyright-protection, but rather to provide feedback on what sections of your blog your readers find the most interesting/useful. This is obviously valuable in terms of helping you decide what to write about in future.

It is, incidentally, fascinating to discover what gets copied from your blog - I wouldn't even have known this was possible prior to signing up with Blog Copy. The site's rather plain design won't win it any awards, but I've been impressed with how well it works and the usefulness of the information provided. And all for free, of course!

* Disclosure notice: This is a sponsored post, for which I am receiving a fee. This has not affected my review of BlogCopy in any way, though.