Month: November 2018

Being a Better Writer: Scale, Scope, and Ideas

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , ,

Welcome back readers. How was your weekend? Was it good?

Mine was. A Game of Stakes is going into Beta Reading this week thanks to my Saturday, so it’s one step closer to being done! I’m going to try and polish the Alpha off today, which was going to be yesterday, but  … Well, I had a work shift. And for the moment, Being a Better Writer takes precedence. Sorry for the delay, however.

Also, one other bit of cool news. I’m not sure about the internet etiquette for this scenario, so hopefully I don’t mess it up, but I’ve started getting hits from Wikipedia? Why? Being a Better Writer is being used as a source reference!

Again, not sure of the etiquette here. I only just noticed because I started seeing referral links from Wikipedia but … hey, cool! One further notch in “look how far I’ve come!”

Sands, maybe someday I’ll have a Wikipedia page dedicated to it or something. I’d not thought about that angle until this moment. Kind of an awesome thought.

I’d best get to work on building a future where that can happen, then! So, with news out of the way, let’s talk about ideas and scale.

This one is … an interesting topic. One that was brought about, as many of my topics are, by reading. In this case, it was reading two Science Fiction books, unrelated outside of genre, back-to-back and looking deeply at why I enjoyed one so much more than the other. After thinking about it for a time and letting my mind run across a large number of different traits and possible reasons, it was reading a third book that finally made things click in my head. And when it clicked, it clicked.

It has to do with scale and scope, plus ideas, and how those are brought about in your story.

Continue reading →

Colony Keywords and Patreon Rewards

Max Books!, Misc , , ,

Hey readers! I’m making a quick news posts on two topics of interest before diving back into editing work on A Game of Stakes. Read through them both! I promise they’ll be short and one comes with cool feedback potential!

First, since it’s quickest, the October Patreon Reward is live on Patreon. If you’re a supporter of $1 a month or more, you’re getting a sneak peek at … the first two chapters of The Dusk Guard Saga: Hunter/Hunted! That’s in addition to the prologue teaser that went up two months ago. All you need to do to see either of them is be a supporter ($1 or more), so if you are, head on over and check the preview out!

Now, that other topic. Colony keywords? What am I talking about? Well, I’ve got a bit of a request of you readers of Colony.

Amazon Advertising works by lining up keywords with folks’ interests and searches. Things like “Sci-Fi” for example. Or names of similar authors. The more keywords a book has that are representative of it, the better and more focused your advertising is.

Now, I’ve gone through and given Colony‘s advertising a decent list of keywords. But I’m curious, what keywords would you readers choose to describe Colony? Post a comment and let me know what comes to mind. I’m curious to see what keywords you guys come up with that my own view missed!

And with that, it’s time to edit!

A Few of My Least-Favorite Things …

Max Misc , ,

Advertising.

Don’t get me wrong, advertising is a great way to get eyeballs on my work, and by association, cash into my bank account . Advertising is a must-have in the modern world, since well, everyone else has it. With so many shouting voices out there, simply standing with your product hoping to be noticed is akin to being buried.

But while I enjoy the fruits of my advertising, actually coming up with ad-copy tags and little blurbs to attract the eye? Worst part of the job so far.

I’m not alone in this. No joke, I’ve heard one prominent author state that one of the best parts about being a huge success was that they no longer had to come up with ad-copy blurbs or even have anything to do with the advertising process. They just sent the book over and that was that. Maybe occasionally they’d get a question they had to answer to help their advertising agent market something a bit more specifically, but that was it. They could just pass it off in exchange for money.

I long for that day, and find myself very much in agreement on coming up with ads and the like. Unfortunately … I’m not where that author is yet. Given their particular position, I’ve got a long ways to go, really. Which means that right now …

I write my own advertising. And I hate it. Compressing a 355K book down into a 150 character teaser that’s got to appeal to as many eyes as possible in order to get them to click on it? And come up with all the search keywords that can appeal to a possible audience?

Yup. Just did the former one, again. Changing things up to keep things fresh. Only took me an hour-and-a-half this time to do it so … improvement? Regardless, we’ll see what the sales numbers look like at the end of this month, tweak things again …

Yeah, it’s a constant system of change. At least until I make enough money to hire someone else for the job.

Anyway, that unpleasant part of my day done, I’ve got a lot of writing ahead of me. It’s a new month, and I plan to make up for the shortcomings of the last one by surging ahead with a renewed vigor!

Oh, speaking of vigor, the Monthly Patreon reward will go up on Saturday. It won’t be a Jacob Rocke short, sadly. Between getting sick for a week and the rest of my schedule, I wasn’t able to come up with something that satisfied me. But … well, we’ll see. I’ve got a few things I can give advance looks at.

Anyway, advertising is figured out for the next month, thankfully. Hopefully the new changes make it even more capable at getting copies in front of eyes. In the meantime, the next project as far as sales go is getting a “Black Friday weekend” sale going on everything, so if you were thinking of grabbing copies of Shadow of an Empire or Colony as Christmas gifts, look ahead for that!

With that, I’ve got a palace infiltration scene and hunt for a shade to write, so I’ll catch you all later.