 | |  |  |  | | | |
In this recent post I talked about the new Firefox 3 web browser, and why I have been a Firefox fan for some time. In that post I mentioned that one of the main reasons I like Firefox is the ability you have to customize it using add-ons (also known as plug-ins and extensions). In this post, then, I thought I'd share with you the add-ons I use myself, and then invite you to share yours via the blog's Comments facility. As I mentioned before, one of my favourite add-ons is Morning Coffee. This creates a coffee cup icon on the main Navigation toolbar. When you click on this it opens your favourite websites (as entered by yourself) simultaneously in different tabs. I use this feature every day to quickly check my blog, forum and a few other sites I like to monitor regularly. You can customize Morning Coffee to work in various ways, e.g. you can set some sites (perhaps work-related) not to appear at the weekend, or have some only open on certain days. Personally, though, I have all my sites open every day. Work and leisure tend to blend into one for us full-time freelances! Another add-on I use a lot is Tinyurl Creator. As you may know, Tinyurl is a free service that converts long URLs into much shorter ones. I use it all the time when writing newsletters and articles that refer to specific web pages. The Tinyurl add-on gives you an icon you can click on any time; and it will then automatically create a Tiny URL for the page you are on and save it to your clipboard. It's a simple tool, but one that saves me constantly going back and forth to the Tiny URL website. My next add-on is equally useful to me, though I don't use it quite as much. This is IE Tab, and what it does is allow you to convert any tab in Firefox into the equivalent in Internet Explorer. This is great with those (few) sites that don't work or display properly in Firefox. In my case, I find that my Internet banking service doesn't work properly in a Firefox tab - I get error messages when I try to perform certain actions. So I just switch to Internet Explorer mode, and all runs smoothly. A small icon appears in the status bar at the foot of the page, and you click on this to toggle from one mode to the other. Colorful Tabs is an indulgence, but I like it anyway. It gives all the tabs you are using in Firefox a pretty pastel background. All the colours are different, so it makes it a bit easier to distinguish one from another - but really, I just like it because it livens up my desktop! TwitterFox is an add-on for users of the micro-blogging and social networking service Twitter. It allows me to see incoming 'tweets' any time I am browsing the web. It also lets me create my own updates, including (if I wish) the URL of the web page I am currently viewing. This makes it easy for me to fit 'Twittering' around my work. If I come across something I think would interest my followers, with Twitterfox it takes only a moment to circulate a quick note about it. ...Do feel free to follow me on Twitter, by the way! My final add-on is the Text Formatting Toolbar. As the name indicates, this gives you an extra toolbar on your browser, but you can of course switch it off via the View menu when you don't need it. This toolbar lets you quickly format text in bulletin-board code, HTML or Wiki code. I use it mainly for formatting forum messages, but it's also useful for creating hyperlinks in blog comments, and in other cases where you need to create a quick bit of HTML on the fly. So those are my favourite Firefox add-ons, but I'm sure there are many other good ones I haven't tried. If you're a keen Firefox user like me, why not post details of your favourite add-ons here? And if you're not yet a Firefox fan, perhaps I may have given you another reason to give it a try. Here's the download link for Firefox 3 once again. Happy browsing! Labels: resources, software I've been using the latest Firefox 3 web browser for a few weeks now, so I thought in this post I'd share my impressions so far... There's a lot to like about the new Firefox 3, but one of the best things in my view is the 'intelligent' Location bar. This isn't just a bar to display the URL of the site you are visiting any more. It also serves as a search tool for finding bookmarks or pages stored in your browsing history. What this means is that you only have to enter two or three letters in the Location bar and Firefox will display up to six sites including that sequence of letters in either the URL OR the page title. The sites listed come from your bookmarks and your recent browsing history, with the sites you visit most often shown at the top. I must admit I now find this feature indispensable. If I want to visit my forum, for example, I simply type the letters 'my' into the Location bar, and Mywriterscircle.com pops up at the top of the list (along with Mywritingblog, of course). All I then have to do is click on the site I want in order to go there. Another change is the addition of a neat, all-in-one page-back/page-forward icon. It's also now possible to search your browsing history in more ways than you ever believed possible, using tags, date and time of visit, fragments from the page title/URL, and so on. Other changes 'behind the scenes' make sites faster to load, and the whole program seems very stable (it's only crashed once since I installed it). Are there any minuses? Well, I was a bit disappointed that a lot of my Firefox extensions didn't work any more when I first upgraded. I believe this is to do with the higher security standards applied in Firefox 3. By searching online I was able to find upgrades for most of my favorite extensions (e.g. Morning Coffee), however, and others have been found by Firefox itself and installed over the last few weeks. So it hasn't been as big a problem as I first thought. The other thing I'm not sure about is the way Firefox 3 handles downloads. It works perfectly well, and the downloads window appears as before, but not as much information is provided as previously. I didn't know at first where Firefox 3 was saving my downloads - it changed this unliterally from my previous default folder - and I only found out how to check and change this by doing some research on the net. I'm getting used to it now, but I don't personally see this particular change as an improvement. Overall, though, I'm a big fan of Firefox 3. If you're a Firefox user and you haven't yet upgraded, I recommend doing so now. And if you haven't yet discovered the joys of using this open-source browser instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer, now could be the ideal time to take it for a spin. Labels: resources, software I thought perhaps you might be interested in checking out this mini-article I wrote recently for Melissa Jones's WEbook blog. As you'll see, it's a tip that's relevant mainly to fiction writers, though there's no reason why non-fiction authors can't use it as well. Not long ago I ran a workshop on this topic for the Lichfield & District Writers, and their members were impressed by the improvement that applying this one piece of advice made to their work. The article also gives me the opportunity to highlight WEbook again. WEbook is a collaborative writing project that gives authors the chance to work together in a wide range of writing projects centred around the WEbook website. You can read all about it in this article by Melissa Jones which I published a few weeks ago on my blog. And yes, they are still very much open to new members. I'd also like to give a quick plug for the book I used as an example in my piece for the WEbook blog. Painter Man is the first novel by my old friend and sometime collaborator Jeff Phelps. You can hear Jeff being interviewed about his book on WritersFM, and read my blog post about it here. Painter Man, like What Was Lost which I raved about recently in this post, is published by Tindal Street Press, a small, Birmingham-based publishing house which regularly punches above its weight in literary awards. Painter Man is quite different from What Was Lost, but both books are well observed and beautifully written, and I'm disappointed that Painter Man has not (yet) received the recognition it deserves. Anyway, I've included links to Painter Man on Amazon (com/uk) below, in case you're interested in finding out more about this excellent novel. As ever, if you're receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to see the image links. Labels: books, resources, technique, writing UK readers of this blog in particular might be interested to know that my 'new' book Starting Your Own Home-Based Business comes out later this month.
I put the word 'new' in quotes because this is actually a totally revised edition of my popular book 'Start Your Own Home-Based Business'. And no, I don't know why they changed 'Start' to 'Starting' in the title. Publishers move in mysterious ways sometimes!
As the name indicates, the book is aimed at anyone who hopes to join the growing ranks of people running a business from home. It covers everything from deciding whether you are suited to doing this, through generating and evaluating business ideas, to marketing, invoicing, financial record-keeping, making the most of the Internet, and so on. It's written for UK readers, so it refers to British laws, taxes, etc. - but, of course, much of the content would be equally relevant to people in other countries as well.
Apart from the title, there are quite a few changes in the new, 2008 edition. For starters, it's being published in full-colour magazine format, and will be sold via newsagents, kiosks and convenience stores rather than (primarily) through bookshops. This is something of a trend in publishing right now, as traditional bookstores struggle to bring in paying customers. I understand that my publishers hope to attract people who might see my book - or perhaps I should say magazine - on the newsagents' racks and buy it on impulse, rather than the (endangered) bookshop browser.
To get the book down to magazine proportions, some content has had to go. And with the new edition, this is the old Part B of the book, which listed 50 different home-based businesses, giving details of how to get started, useful resources, and so on. I'm sorry to have lost this section, but if you particularly want it, you can still buy the original version of the book at Amazon.co.uk (see below).
The new edition is fully up to date, however, and more attractively presented. Look out for it in the magazine rack of your local W.H. Smith (the UK's leading book and magazine retailer) or other newsagent very soon!
* You should also be able to order the new edition of my book from bookstores or via your local public library. Once again, the title is Starting Your Own Home-Based Business and it is published by Zone Publishing Group. The ISBN is 9781848470002. It isn't yet available from Amazon, but I'll let you know via this blog if (or when) that changes.
Labels: books, resources I just found out that my forum at www.mywriterscircle.com has made the prestigious Writers Digest Magazine 101 Best Websites for Writers list for another year. Huge thanks to everybody who voted for us! The list is actually a great resource for discovering the best and most popular sites for writers. Even if you've been online for a while, there's a good chance you'll find some writing sites here you haven't seen before. I'm certainly planning to check out some of the less familiar names myself. We still need your votes for 2009, however! If you agree that Mywriterscircle.com is one of the top online resources for writers, please send an email nominating the site to writersdig@fwpubs.com with '101 Websites' as the subject line. January 1, 2009 is the deadline for the 2009 list. Many thanks! Labels: resources, writing In this post last week I reviewed the three top UK market guides for writers. Well, as promised, in this post I'm doing the same thing for the US market. But this will be a much shorter post, because there is actually only one major annual guide to the US marketplace for writers. That's the blockbusting Writer's Market, from Writer's Digest Books. Like the UK guides I mentioned last week, Writer's Market is published annually. The 2008 edition - the most recent currently available - weighs in at a massive 1176 pages, and claims to include over 4000 listings for book publishers, consumer magazines, trade journals, literary agents, and so on. The current (2008) edition was published on 1 July 2007, so I would expect the 2009 edition to come out very soon. Till then, here are links to the book's pages at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. As ever, if you are receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to see these. Although I am UK-based I do a lot of work for US publishers, and until recently I bought Writer's Market every year. This year, however, I decided to subscribe to their online version at http://www.writersmarket.com/ instead. This is reasonably priced at $29.99 a year (around 16 UKP), for which you get everything in the printed version and more, plus the market listings are continuously updated. I might still buy the printed book occasionally in the future, but actually I find the online version meets my day-to-day needs very well, and it takes up less space on my bookshelf ;-) Finally, I should mention that although it is primarily a guide to the US marketplace, Writer's Market also lists publishers and magazines in other countries, notably Canada, Australia and the UK. It also has an excellent selection of articles about all aspects of freelance writing. If you write for the huge US market, or hope to, either the printed or online version of Writer's Market is probably going to be an essential for you. Labels: books, resources, writing I thought some of you might be interested to know that Mywriterscircle.com stalwart John Craggs, aka Gyppo, has just launched his own online writing tuition service at http://thewritetuition.co.uk. As he says on the site: Let me ask you three questions, so you can decide if you're interested in becoming one of my students.
Would you like to see the world differently?
To see it with a Writer's Eye?
Write copy which makes the reader sit up and take notice?
If so then you're already in the right place. My main aim in the early stages is to help you discover your abilities as a writer before getting too hung up on the finer details. To help find your own niche as a writer, your strengths and weaknesses. I'll help you develop the essential Writer's Eye, and Writer's Ears, a major boost for fiction writers. It will also help the writer of non-fiction.
Members of Mywriterscircle.com will already know John well in his Gyppo guise. He regularly provides feedback and constructive criticism to forum members, a number of whom have already signed up for his one-to-one tuition service. Even if you're not looking for personal tuition, however, it's still well worth visiting John's new site, as he has a range of useful resources for writers on it, and is constantly adding more. One of his latest additions is an article on guns and how they are used, from a writer's perspective. John has a varied and colourful history, having worked at various times as a baker/confectioner, writing and crafts tutor, postman, storyteller, and arena showman. He is an expert knife-thrower, axe-thrower and quarterstaff fighter. And he's also a prolific writer. You can read all about him in his own words in a fascinating article on Linda Jones's Freelance Writing Tips blog. Check it out! Labels: resources, writing We may not even be half-way through 2008, but already the 2009 market directories are coming out. So I thought in this post I would take a look at the three main UK directories. I'll save the US market guides for another post. As a UK-based freelance, I buy at least one of these guides every year. The content varies between them, but they all include comprehensive lists of UK publishers, agents, magazines, newspapers, and so on. Nowadays, as well, they include a growing range of articles and ancillary information. If you're serious about making a living from your writing, and UK-based or want to write for UK markets, having a current edition of one of these guides on your bookshelf is, in my view, essential. The best known, and longest-established, guide to the UK market is The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, published by A&C Black. I've posted a link to the 2009 book's page at Amazon.co.uk below. As ever, if you're receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to see this. The 2009 WAYB is published on 15 June 2008, and has a foreword by Kate Mosse. It weighs in at 832 pages and is available for 9.89 UK pounds from Amazon. The WAYB is still the favourite UK market guide of many writers. It has a good range of publishers and markets, and unlike the other guides includes information specifically aimed at freelance artists and photographers as well. It has a website at http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/, which includes a free search facility (although the only info given for a magazine or publisher is its website and email address). You won't go far wrong with the WAYB, but its two main competitors are ahead in some respects. The WAYB's longest-standing rival is The Writer's Handbook, published by Macmillan. You'll have a little longer to wait for this one - the 2009 edition is due out on 25 July 2008. Here's a link to its Amazon page... The 2009 Writer's Handbook also has 832 pages and costs 9.89 UKP on Amazon (what a coincidence!). It is edited, as usual, by Barry Turner. The Writer's Handbook has been my favourite market guide for a few years now. There's more information on writing for newspapers and magazines, and more on radio, TV, small presses and theatre companies. The new 2009 edition also apparently includes free online access to The Writer's Handbook website, offering a directory of markets and some additional resources and advice for writers. I don't have a URL for this, however, and assume the site is not operational yet (unless you know otherwise?). The obvious URL at http://www.writershandbook.co.uk/ seems to be owned by someone else and is currently up for offers. I assume some frantic behind-the-scenes negotiation is going on! The last of the three UK directories is the 'new kid on the block'. Writer's Market UK comes from David & Charles and is edited by Caroline Taggart. The 2009 edition was published back in April this year at a slightly cheaper price of 8.99 UKP on Amazon.co.uk. It weighs in at an impressive 976 pages. I bought Writer's Market UK for the first time this year, and was impressed by what I found. The presentation is more attractive than either of the two rival guides, who will have to start looking to their laurels. There are nearly 100 pages of articles on most aspects of writing, as well as a particularly wide range of publishing houses. There is a also a good selection of writing websites. One thing I found a little bit confusing was that some magazines were listed under Publishers - so having looked for, and failed to find, the details for Readers Digest under Magazines, I fortuitously discovered them later under Readers Digest Association in the Publishers section. To be fair, I could have looked up Readers Digest in the index at the back of the book and found it there, but at the time I assumed it just wasn't listed. Buyers of Writers Market UK also get a one-month free trial of their online service at http://www.writersmarket.co.uk/. After that, I assume you have to pay, but despite my best efforts I haven't been able to find out what they charge. These are all excellent guides, but my overall recommendation goes to Writer's Market UK at the moment. When The Writer's Handbook 2009 comes out, with its promised free website, that may also be worth considering. The Writers' & Artists' Yearbook is slightly behind the other two in my view, but if your interests also extend to photography and art, it may nevertheless be your best choice. Labels: books, resources, reviews, writing I'm pleased to reveal that Mywritingblog.com has been chosen as one of the venues on a virtual book tour by the Irish author Paul Kilduff to mark the launch of his new book Ruinair. Here's some info provided by the literary agency which is organizing the tour. Paul Kilduff is excited to bring his first nonfiction work, entitled Ruinair, on a virtual book tour. Paul's book is a witty travelogue which sees him get his own back on the airline that overcharged him and significantly delayed him on a flight from Malaga to Dublin:'Stung by a ten hour delay and a E300 fare to Spain on his native "low-fares" airline, Dubliner Paul Kilduff plots revenge - to fly to every country in Europe for the same total outlay, suffering every low-fares airline indignity. Armed with no more than 10kg of carry-on baggage, he endures 6.00am departures, Six Nations-style boarding scrums, lengthy bus excursions, terminal anxiety and cabin crew who deliver famed customer service.' This book will have you laughing out loud at Kilduff's sharp wit and the hilarious accounts of his misadventures. Anyone who has ever flown with a low-budget airline and has lived to tell the tale will identify with Paul's experiences. Ruinair has enjoyed the position of bestselling nonfiction title in Ireland during its first seven weeks of publication and has received wide critical acclaim. Paul is also the author of four fiction novels, the most recent of which is The Headhunter. He will be happy to discuss all aspects of his work, both past and present, on the day - in particular, the transition from fiction to nonfiction writing. He is also happy to talk about his travel writing or to lend writing tips and inspiration to any aspiring authors out there." My blog will be hosting Paul on Friday 30 May 2008. Full details will be posted nearer the time - but in case you want to know more about the book before then, I've included links to the title at Amazon.co.uk below.
If you live elsewhere in the world, you may prefer to order the book from Paul's publishers Gill & Macmillan, which you can do by clicking on this link.
Labels: blogging, Paul Kilduff, resources, Ruinair, VBT That's the title of a very useful article I discovered recently on the massive Job Profiles website. It lists 50 open source (i.e. free!) resources that may be relevant to writers, including word processors, grammar checkers, personal organizers, and many other handy tools. For each resource, the author - Christina Laun - provides a paragraph of description and a link to the relevant website. Here's an example from the list: wikidPad: This tool is a wiki-style notepad that allows users to to quickly and easily jot down their ideas and notes. Perhaps one of the best features of it is that it allows you to easily cross-reference information, helping you more easily draw plot points and facts together.
There are some great resources in this list, including a number I hadn't seen before and will be checking out in the coming weeks. And, of course, you can't beat the price! Take a look at 50 Awesome Open Source Resources for Online Writers for yourself. I'll be surprised if there isn't something in it to interest you. Labels: open source, resources, software, writing A while ago in this post I mentioned Book Proposal Secrets, the latest in WCCL's range of products and courses for writers. Book Proposal Secrets takes you step by step through everything you need to know to create a book proposal that will knock the socks off a potential publisher. I've had some good feedback from those of you who have bought Book Proposal Secrets, but one comment that came back to me was that some of you felt that at $47 it was a bit pricey. I'm not sure I agree with that actually, as if it enables you to get just one book contract from a publisher, it will have paid for itself many times over. But even so, I appreciate that $47 isn't just small change. So I've found a 'back door' way to get readers of this blog an extra $10 discount. Just click on any of the links to Book Proposal Secrets in this post and you will be taken to a special, unadvertised order page, where you can get Book Proposal Secrets for just $37 (that's just over 19 UK pounds for those of you on this side of the pond). This is perfectly legal and legitimate, but I don't know how long the special price will be available - so if you're interested in buying Book Proposal Secrets, I strongly recommend you don't wait too long. If the link doesn't work, I'm sorry, but it means the offer will have been pulled by WCCL. By the way, if you want to see the full sales page for Book Proposal Secrets you can do so by clicking here, but DON'T order via this page or you will be charged the full 47 bucks. Use the special links in this post. And finally, the links in this post will take you to the standard credit/debit card order page, but if you'd prefer to pay by Paypal - and still get the $10 discount - please use this special Paypal link. Happy proposal writing! Labels: book promotion, resources, special offer, writing Well, I've taken the plunge and joined Twitter. My Twitter ID is nickdaws and you can visit my Twitter profile page here. For those who don't know, I should explain that Twitter is a mini-blogging/social networking service. Once you have joined - which is free - you can post short updates or 'Tweets' of up to 140 characters. Updates are displayed on your profile page and instantly delivered to any other Twitter users who have signed up to receive them (your 'followers'). I'm obviously very new to Twitter and still finding my way around. One thing I am clear on, though, is that I intend to use Twitter as an extension of this blog. So anyone who signs up to follow me will be automatically notified every time I make a new post here, by courtesy of the free Twitterfeed service. In addition, I plan to use Twitter to publish short items that don't really justify a complete blog post, e.g. useful websites I've discovered or other people's blog posts that I think are worth a look. I might also use Twitter when I have some important news to pass on and don't have time to create a blog post. In the spirit of Twitter - which is meant to answer the question 'What are you doing now?' - I will publish some personal updates as well, but I don't intend to overdo this. So don't expect to see many updates from me along the lines of, 'I'm going to the shops now'! Simply, I hope that people who find my blog of interest will get extra value by signing up to follow me on Twitter. Finally, if you have a blog and are wondering whether to sign up with Twitter too, I highly recommend reading this post and this one on Darren Rowse's excellent Problogger blog. This is really what made me realise that it was time to jump on the Twitter bandwagon! But, of course, you don't need to be a blogger already to join Twitter. Labels: blogging, resources, Twitter In this blog I quite often refer to my publishers, The WCCL Network. However, from the feedback I get I know that there are still quite a few misunderstandings about them. So I thought I would take this opportunity to cast a little more light on WCCL (as I'll call them for short from now on). 1. WCCL is the online arm of White Cliff Computing Limited, an international new media group. And despite what some people think, I am not employed by WCCL, and I certainly don't own them! 2. The Managing Director of WCCL is Karl Moore. Karl is an author of two published books on computer programming. He is also a self-development guru of international renown. As well as his homepage, he has a blog at www.karlblog.com and a self-development forum at www.karlforum.com. 3. WCCL is an online publishing company. As such it is quite different from Clickbank, which is simply a self-publishing platform. All WCCL courses, manuals and software products are commissioned from specialist authors and software designers. All WCCL courses and manuals are professionally edited, designed and produced. 4. WCCL currently offers nearly 100 different product lines, in categories including Writers & Artists, Self-Development, Internet Business Tools, Computer Privacy tools, Windows Utilities, and UK Driving Products. In total they sell nearly 2000 different products. 5. WCCL runs one of the best affiliate programs on the internet. If you have a blog or website, you can sign up with them to promote any (or all) of their products. You will then receive a generous commission any time someone makes a purchase via your link. See my blog post about this for more info. 6. WCCL also provides a range of free services for writers. These include the forum Mywriterscircle.com (which I run in partnership with them), the internet radio station WritersFM, the writers chat room at www.mywriterschat.com, and the free Smart Writers newsletter. In addition, this blog is sponsored by WCCL. 7. WCCL are always happy to consider proposals for new courses and manuals that will fit into their portfolio. If you have an idea for such a product (or, indeed, already have such a product) you are welcome to submit a proposal and outline to them in the normal way. If they like your idea, they will make you an offer. I shan't provide contact details here, as I wouldn't like them to be inundated; but if you are keen, I'm sure you can soon discover this information for yourself. 8. WCCL also have a number of free giveaways. These include the writers' giveaway site, the self-growth giveaway, the software giveaway, and their free Motivator software. Thousands of dollars of free software are available from these sites. You may have to sign up to receive a newsletter as a condition of obtaining it, but you can of course unsubscribe at any time. 9. WCCL provide a free online helpdesk service at www.myhelphub.com. This operates 24/7, and offers advice and assistance to buyers of all WCCL products (you won't find anything like this at Clickbank, by the way!). 10. Finally, WCCL have an active program of charitable giving. Among other things, in the last year they have donated sheep and beehives to help develop starving towns in Africa and the East, provided over 6,550 cups of food to feed thousands of starving children, given over 2,500 UK pounds in food to starving and abused cats and dogs in north-east England, organized free relaxation workshops for thousands of nurses in British Columbia, Canada, and provided food for rescued wild horses at the Black Beauty Ranch, Texas. So if you buy any product from WCCL (including any of my courses!), you can be confident that some of your money will be going to support these and other excellent causes! Labels: opportunities, resources, software, WCCL, writing I've mentioned LitMatch previously on this blog. The site offers a great free service for writers who are looking for an agent, and I know from feedback received that many of you have found it useful. So I thought you might be interested to know that the site has recently had a complete makeover. Here's an email I received today from the founder of LitMatch, Christopher Hawkins: LitMatch.net, the largest and most complete database of literary agents and agencies on the web, recently launched a major upgrade to their agent and agency listing pages. The new layout was designed with ease of use in mind, and brings key information to the forefront while organizing the rest in a simple, intuitive format.
The new layout features an at-a glance style, with large, friendly icons that indicate an agent or agency's submission status, if they accept email queries, and if they accept postal queries. Other important information; like response times, comments, and clients and projects; is arranged in a simple, tabbed format on the right side of the page. The tabs keep things organized and allow users to limit their view to only the information that's of most interest to them. Everything from layout to colors to fonts has been given an update for a fresh, clean look in order to make searching for a literary agent as easy and painless as possible.
"This upgrade represents a big step forward for us, and addresses some issues with the site that have been nagging me since the site launched back in September," said Christopher Hawkins, creator and lead developer of LitMatch. "We're excited about the change because it gives our listings a first-class presentation that matches the first-class quality of their content."
Other features of this upgrade include:- Clearer division between content areas for faster browsing and increased readability.
- Contact information that's more prominent and easier to cut and paste into word processing programs.
- A redesigned "Genre Information" section.
- Flag icons that visually identify an agent's or agency's country.
- A reformatted user summary area that keeps all queries to a given agent or agency close at hand.
- More prominent hotlist links.
- An updated look to the submission stats table.
- Reformatted comments and comment entry form.
For more information, clarifications and interview requests, please contact us via email at admin-at-litmatch.net, or visit us online at www.litmatch.net.Chris deserves to be commended for his efforts in creating a valuable - and 100% free - service for writers worldwide, and the latest changes (which have been introduced largely on the basis of feedback from members) make it even more user-friendly. If you haven't yet seen LitMatch - and you're seeking an agent, or may be in the future - I recommend checking it out today. Labels: Litmatch, resources, writing Travel Writing Secrets is the latest in WCCL's range of products and courses for writers, which also includes my courses Write Any Book in Under 28 Days and Quick Cash Writing. The author of Travel Writing Secrets is Mel McIntyre, who has also written several other WCCL courses. It is provided as an instant download in the universal PDF format. It is therefore suitable for all computing platforms, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Travel Writing Secrets is password-protected, but that's only a minor inconvenience. Once you have opened it, you can print out all or any of the pages as you wish. Like all WCCL products, Travel Writing Secrets is beautifully produced, and it has clearly been professionally written and edited. The main manual (I'll get to the bonus items later) is a substantial 220 pages long. It takes you through pretty much everything you need to know to get started as a travel writer. The content is well organised and crammed with useful, practical information. For example, in chapter two alone you will discover the three things travel articles MUST do, the seven types of travel article, and five secrets for gathering information for your articles. Travel Writing Secrets also covers interviewing techniques, outlining and writing skills, and how to pitch ideas to editors. And it has in-depth advice on marketing your work, with details of large numbers of potential markets, mainly in the US and the UK. The market info, which is largely in a separate 'bonus' guide, includes website details (with links to contributors' guidelines where available) and unpublicised email addresses to which you can submit your queries. This is invaluable information; and obviously as the guide has just been published, it is currently bang up to date. If I was to make one very small criticism, it is that Travel Writing Secrets is strongly orientated towards selling travel articles to newspapers and magazines. Nothing wrong with that, but I might like to have seen a little more about selling your work to travel companies, for their brochures and so on. This is referred to as a possibility in the manual, but no more. I'd also like to have seen more details about how you can get yourself invited on free press trips to exotic destinations by travel companies and their PR agencies. Well, I can dream, can't I?! As well as the main manual, you get a range of bonuses. These include the markets guide I have already mentioned, a guide to writing query letters (the best way to get commissions), and a set of 'templates' that take you step by step through writing three different types of travel article. The latter would be great for beginners who are still feeling their way, though later on you might prefer to dispense with them or adapt them to your personal style. Another bonus is a guide to taking travel photographs that sell. Obviously, your chances of selling a travel article will be much better if you can offer photos as well, and this bonus manual is packed with hints and tips on how to do this. It's all good stuff, although rather surprisingly it doesn't include any actual photographs! Overall, Travel Writing Secrets gets my recommendation as a comprehensive introduction to the exciting world of travel writing. Just about everything you need to know is here, written in a chatty, entertaining style, with real-life examples to back up the points made. If travel writing appeals to you, I'd recommend ordering a copy today. Your first commission should cover the modest sale price several times over. BONUS! Readers of this blog seem to like my special bonuses, so I'm offering one for Travel Writing Secrets as well. I've been able to source a half-hour downloadable video that explains how you can make money from your digital photos, even if - like me - you're far from being an expert photographer. The video reveals a range of websites that will let you make money from ANY photo (with a few obvious exceptions), as well as setting out some ingenious strategies for putting your photographic skills to profitable use. The video has been produced to a high standard by an Internet marketer called Dr. C, and I have had to pay a fee to get the rights to it. However, it seemed to me an excellent match with Travel Writing Secrets, as it sets out a range of extra ways you can profit from your travel photos (and any others you take). I'm giving away the video to anyone buying Travel Writing Secrets via a link in this review. It will play on your computer in the free Windows Media Player, and also includes a text file with URLs for all the sites referred to in the video (and other useful links). To claim this extra bonus from me, just forward a copy of your email receipt showing the purchase of Travel Writing Secrets to travel-at-nickdaws.co.uk (change the -at- to the usual @ sign). I will then get back to you with instructions for downloading your extra bonuses. Of course, these are in addition to the usual bonuses being offered at the Travel Writing Secrets website. Good luck, and happy travel writing! Labels: Mel McIntyre, resources, reviews, travel, WCCL, writing Hardline Magazine is a new monthly online publication created by and for writers. It features both fiction and non-fiction writing: short stories, poetry, reviews and articles. Hardline Magazine is co-edited by two members of my forum, Steve Sweeney and Ken Preston. The poetry editor is Amie Saramelkonian (whom forum members may know better as our moderator Saturnine). The magazine exists primarily to showcase the work of unpublished, and self published, writers. It's free to view, and they are not currently paying any fees to contributors. There are, however, plans to run a contest in each issue, with prizes for the winning authors. Even though it is non-paying, the editors are adamant that quality will be key to the success of the magazine. They write: 'Hardline has to be a project that bears the hallmark of quality - it will benefit no-one if the quality of writing is negligible. So, if you are going to submit a piece of work to Hardline, be it fiction or nonfiction, it needs to be tight, well-written and compelling. Hardline needs to showcase good writing if it's to gain attention, and a reading audience - please help us to help you. We eagerly await your contributions.'Hardline Magazine is already attracting interest from established authors and publishers, thanks partly to groups that have been set up at the major social networking sites such as Bebo, Facebook, Technorati, and (especially) MySpace. According to Steve Sweeney, even before its official launch the Hardline Magazine website was attracting around 100 'hits' a day, and this figure is sure to go on rising. If you are interested in submitting work to Hardline Magazine - and Steve has just put out a call for short stories for issue two - take a look at the launch issue, then go to the Contact page to see where your submissions and enquiries should be directed. Note that Hardline Magazine will soon be moving to a new, permanent home at www.hardlinemagazine.com. Labels: fiction, opportunities, resources, writing I thought today I'd draw your attention to a couple of websites that include useful advice and resources for writers. The first of these, Writing Resources, is actually run by my partner, Jayne. She's updated it in the last few days, adding a range of new resources to the large selection already included on the site. There are some great tools for writers listed here (including my own courses, naturally!). Do check it out if you have a moment. The other site I wanted to mention is brand new. It's called Chapter 1 Page 1, and it's been created by Mike Dodds from my forum (where he calls himself Toxophilus). Chapter 1 Page 1 is obviously still a work in progress, but already there are some useful resources on the site. Check out this article called 20 Ways To Keep Your Writing Inspiration And Creativity High, for example. By the way, Mike is keen to get feedback on his site, so that he can improve it. If you can spare a moment to send him your comments, he would be most grateful, therefore. You can email him at info-at-chapter1page1.com. Change the -at- to the usual @ sign, of course! Labels: resources, writing My colleague Karl Moore of the online radio station WritersFM has been extremely busy. As I mentioned in this post, he recently interviewed the British author Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat and a dozen other published novels. Well, now in short order he has added two more interviews. The first is with Jean Macleod, the 100-year old Mills & Boon romance author. Karl chats with her about her 130 novels, life during the war, and the secret to longevity!
And the other new interviewee is Francine Silverman, author of "Book Marketing from A-Z" and editor of the Book Promotion Newsletter. As you might expect, Francine offers some great advice on getting your book into the spotlight.
To hear any of these interviews, you can either wait for them to come round on the station's normal rotation, download them as podcasts, or (probably the easiest option) stream them from the radio station's Podcasts page. As with all WritersFM broadcasts, you will need to have a broadband/DSL Internet connection. WritersFM doesn't work on dial-up, I'm afraid!
Labels: fiction, resources, WritersFM, writing It's April. And in Britain anyway, it's that time when you get beautiful spring sunshine mixed with April showers. Unlike the rest of the year, when all you get here is constant rain ;-) Joking aside, though, it's a bright, optimistic time, and I'm feeling in a generous mood. So I want to make a very special offer to readers of this blog. Buy any of my courses published by WCCL from the list below during April, and I'll shower you with not one, not two, but THREE extra bonus items. My WCCL writing courses are as follows... Write Any Book in Under 28 Days - This is my original, best-selling course, sold on CD-ROM. It is packed with hints and tips for writing any book in the shortest possible time. Quick Cash Writing - This downloadable course is designed for people who want to start earning money from writing as soon as possible. It's a massive course and covers a huge range of writing outlets, from readers' letters and fillers to articles and greeting card slogans. Essential English for Authors - This is my newest course. It is designed to help bring your written English up to a publishable standard in the shortest possible time. How to Win Contests - This course, aimed primarily at people in the UK and Eire, reveals the secrets of winning consumer competitions, especially those that require completion of a 'tie-breaker' slogan. Buy any of these courses by clicking on the relevant link above and I will send you ALL of the following bonuses... 1. My mini-report How to Make Big Bucks Selling Movie Ideas to Hollywood. OK, this is speculative, but it really is possible to devise and sell movie ideas in two or three sentences, and you can have a lot of fun trying to do so. My report explains all! 2. My mini-report on how to self-publish an e-book on Lulu.com. No technical skills required! It's possible for anyone to publish an e-book using the Lulu.com site and then get paid every time someone downloads a copy. This unique report reveals exactly how it's done! 3. My e-book (co-written with Simon Pitt) Fifty Great Ideas for Creative Writing Teaching. This is an actual e-book published on the Lulu.com site. It's aimed at teachers and writers who work in schools, but the exercises could just as well be adapted by writers' groups and individual writers. And, what the heck, I'll throw in a fourth bonus item as well. That's a full, downloadable copy of my electronic tutorial Short Story Acumen. This is my complete guide to writing short stories for fun and profit. This is still being sold for 24.99 UKP (around $50 US) elsewhere on the web, but for April only I'll add it to my list of bonuses when you buy any of my courses. I should just mention, though. Short Story Acumen was written a few years ago, so the market info is rather out of date now (though the writing advice is still cutting edge, of course!). Also, it was written for an earlier version of the Windows operating system, so I can't guarantee it will work with Vista in particular. But it's only one of my bonus items, after all! To claim your bonuses - which I reckon are genuinely worth at least $100 in total - just send a copy of your email receipt showing the purchase of any of my courses listed above to AprilShower-at-nickdaws.co.uk (change the -at- to the usual @ sign) with BONUS CLAIM in the subject line. As soon as I have verified your order, I will get back to you with details of how you can receive your free bonuses. Enjoy your writing, and watch out for those April showers! Labels: bonuses, resources, special offer, writing The Pro Publisher is a brand new guide to writing, publishing and marketing a profitable e-book. As such it joins a crowded field, including How to Write and Publish Your Own eBook in as Little as 7 Days by Jim Edwards and Joe Vitale and The 24-Hour E-book Writing System by Melanie Mendelson, both of which I have reviewed in this blog. The Pro Publisher is by the UK-based writer and e-book publisher Amin. It is sold as an instant download in the universal PDF format. As is customary with this sort of publication, buyers get a main manual and a number of bonus items. The main manual is quite concise, weighing in at 43 single-spaced pages. Even so, it manages to pack a lot of information into those pages. The Pro Publisher is aimed at people who want to write and sell information products (by far the best way of making money from e-books). Amin takes you through each stage of this process. He starts by showing how to research potentially profitable 'niches' for your e-books, using free keyword research tools. This is much the same method used by my own publishers, WCCL, when researching possible new titles, and I found it highly informative. The section about writing your e-book is quite short - if you want a step-by-step method, a better choice might be Melanie Mendelson's guide, or perhaps my own Write Any Book in Under 28 Days. Nevertheless, it covers the essentials, and also looks at the alternatives of outsourcing the actual writing or using free or low-cost PLR (private label right) content and adapting it. There are some good ideas here, based on Amin's own experience. The largest chunk of The Pro Publisher is devoted to marketing your e-book. There is some excellent advice on writing a sales letter and publishing it on the web. Like Jim Edwards and Joe Vitale, Amin recommends the popular Clickbank publishing service, and he explains the benefits of using this service, and how to make the most of it by allowing others to sell your product for you as affiliates. Amin also goes into detail about selling your book using PPC (pay-per-click) services such as Google Adwords. This is information not provided in the other guides mentioned, and it is impressively detailed. I learned some useful things here about easy ways of creating PPC advertisements that I will definitely be applying myself. The guide also has a section about how you can attract more search engine traffic to your site, using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. As previously mentioned, as well as the main guide, buyers of The Pro Publisher also get a range of free bonus items. These include lists of directories and article sites you can use to help promote your e-book sales site (this process is explained in the main guide), along with a free mini-site template you can use to create your sales page, and another free bonus I'm not allowed to reveal here. These are all potentially valuable, although a bit more explanation of how to go about customizing the mini-site template might have been helpful. Overall, The Pro Publisher is an impressive product, and a good resource for anyone hoping to get into the lucrative world of writing and publishing information products. It might not tell you every single thing you want to know, but where necessary it has links to other sites which have extra information; that's a sensible approach, and it explains how the author has managed to keep the main manual so concise. Incidentally, I particularly like the way Amin
|
|
|
|
