Comments for Writer's Fun Zone

Comment on The Value of A Press Kit by Melinda Pierce by Francene Stanley

Francene Stanley — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:57:00 +0000

Interesting. I guess this would be very helpful to young writers.

Comment on The Value of A Press Kit by Melinda Pierce by Jocelyn Kelly

Jocelyn Kelly — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:35:00 +0000

Very helpful! I wouldn’t have thought about the presentation blurbs, but that’s a great suggestion. Thanks!

Comment on The Value of A Press Kit by Melinda Pierce by Dawn Brierley

Dawn Brierley — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:16:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to put together a Press Kit for myself and now I know how to do it! Thanks so much!

Comment on The Value of A Press Kit by Melinda Pierce by Erin Hatton

Erin Hatton — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:13:00 +0000

Thanks Melinda – this is EXTREMELY helpful!

Comment on The Value of A Press Kit by Melinda Pierce by Famous Ashley Grant

Famous Ashley Grant — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:00:00 +0000

I NEEDED this post! Bookmarking NOW! Awesome Thanks!!

Comment on Passion and Voice: An Excerpt from Making Your Creative Mark by Eric Maisel by Beth Barany

Beth Barany — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:26:00 +0000

Carol, I love that quote, too! Thanks for stopping by!

Comment on Passion and Voice: An Excerpt from Making Your Creative Mark by Eric Maisel by Beth Barany

Beth Barany — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:26:00 +0000

It’s amazing how just completing something can release such a lot of energy. Congrats for knitting through it!

Comment on Passion and Voice: An Excerpt from Making Your Creative Mark by Eric Maisel by Kari Young

Kari Young — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:02:00 +0000

#4 is amazing advice. I’m a knitter and the best advice I was given when I was starting out was, “Knit through it!” So, I did. My first couple of scarves weren’t good, but I could see improvement and that kept me motivated.

Comment on Passion and Voice: An Excerpt from Making Your Creative Mark by Eric Maisel by Carol

Carol — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:24:00 +0000

I’m extremely interested in discovering my passion and how to channel it into productivity and creativity. If I went only by talents, I would sadly not be doing much. But because I reached outside my box and tried something totally opposite, I discovered I had a “talent” for it. So the voice I thought I had, has morphed. I love his quote, “a marriage, that is, of marketplace strategizing and of intensely personal work that allows you to speak passionately in your own voice.”

Comment on Why I Love Negative Reviews and How to Help Your Fellow Authors When They Get One by Melinda B. Pierce by Melinda B. Pierce

Melinda B. Pierce — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:39:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

Thanks for stopping in with your comments.

@GR – this might be the time to review the policies on Goodreads about reporting review abuse. This is something that I didn’t discuss above. I believe you are always within your rights to have whoever – Amazon, B&N, Goodreads – monitor reviews that are not actual reviews and ask them to be removed.

But, if you were just “star bombed” and it sounds like you may have been, I think readers are going to pass by this type of review and look to those who took the time to place comments.

I like contests I’ve won a number of books from them, so don’t give up on them just yet. Not everyone comes back to leave a review, but they do tell their neighbors, book clubs, moms, sisters and others about books they’ve won and enjoyed. Don’t discount the power of word of mouth. I think it is mightier than any stars.

Comment on Why I Love Negative Reviews and How to Help Your Fellow Authors When They Get One by Melinda B. Pierce by Jane Riddell

Jane Riddell — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:43:00 +0000

Interesting post. My learning from the two reviews I’ve had on my recently e-published book (Water’s Edge), is to focus on the content and not be too hung up on the number of stars awarded.

Comment on Why I Love Negative Reviews and How to Help Your Fellow Authors When They Get One by Melinda B. Pierce by Frustrated GR author

Frustrated GR author — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:47:00 +0000

This article is so spot on correct in the best way to handle negative reviews. What is harder than a negative review is a negative rating where they leave no review. I recently had a goodreads “person” leave me a 2 star rating on my book because she didn’t win a book in the giveaway. Although, every review I had was 5 star this one little act of vindictiveness dropped my book rating to 4.2 stars. Very frustrating, since authors do not choose the winners of the giveaways. Yes, I know 4.2 is still a decent rating, but if rating of 2 stars dropped it that much is it worth all your hard work to risk it on hosting another giveaway? These are hardcover books where the author must also provide the shipping, not a free ebook they downloaded. I am wondering how you and our fellow authors feel about those situations when they happen. Of course, I hosted another giveaway not willing to be cowed, but it does not make the frustration any less knowing it could happen again.

Comment on Why I Love Negative Reviews and How to Help Your Fellow Authors When They Get One by Melinda B. Pierce by Georgeann Swiger

Georgeann Swiger — Sat, 04 May 2013 14:32:00 +0000

My debut novel comes out in November. I am expecting to get a few negative comments. Even best selling authors are plagued by people wanting to bash their books. I often wondered why some people seem to enjoy being so negative and hateful with the reviews they give. Your article gave me a new prospective. I do agree there are people who revel in being the “mean girl”. It must give them a feeling of power. I just hope I have many more readers and reviewers who fall in love with my story and find it worthy of a good review. I think that will soften the blow of the haters.

Comment on Write a Novel on your iPad or iPhone by Tiffany Turpin Johnson by Tiffany

Tiffany — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:40:00 +0000

Thanks Betty! I love the legal pad look of the Notes app, if it synced with Scrivener I would use it as well. It’s great that you can use it to work across Mac and Windows platforms!

Comment on Write a Novel on your iPad or iPhone by Tiffany Turpin Johnson by Tiffany

Tiffany — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:39:00 +0000

Thanks Steve! And can I just say, ME TOO! Surely it’s got to be coming soon.

Comment on Write a Novel on your iPad or iPhone by Tiffany Turpin Johnson by Tiffany

Tiffany — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:38:00 +0000

Thanks Laurie! I work on my iPhone (don’t have an iPad yet ), which doesn’t have Textilus, but from the screenshots of the iPad app, it looks awesome (and free)! I will definitely check that out if (when…?) I get an iPad.

Comment on Write a Novel on your iPad or iPhone by Tiffany Turpin Johnson by Tiffany

Tiffany — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:35:00 +0000

Great idea, Simon! I wasn’t familiar with that so I looked it up and looks like that could be a good solution.

Comment on Write a Novel on your iPad or iPhone by Tiffany Turpin Johnson by Betty Cross

Betty Cross — Wed, 01 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

I use the Notes app on my iPhone to add words to my novel. I just key in about 200-300 words, then email them to myself. The email echoes back to my phone, so I just delete that. But it also shows up on my desktop, where I can just cut and paste it into a Word document. My desktop isn’t a Mac, BTW.

Comment on Write a Novel on your iPad or iPhone by Tiffany Turpin Johnson by Steve Gossett

Steve Gossett — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:16:00 +0000

Im saving breath for the new Scrivener developer getting the iOS version cranked out, but I do find this information quite helpful. KUDOS!!!

Comment on Write a Novel on your iPad or iPhone by Tiffany Turpin Johnson by Laurie Gienapp

Laurie Gienapp — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:59:00 +0000

Yes, Michael Holley has posted some great information.
For Windows users, Scrivener does not have the sync feature -yet – (but i’m sure it’s coming!)…so we have to do some jumping through hoops, with exporting to Dropbox, importing to Dropbox, and then deleting duplicate info.
For your iPad app, you might want to take a look at Textilus.. I find it as easy to use as Plaintext, it plays well with Dropbox and Scrivener, and it has some nice formatting features.

Comment on Write a Novel on your iPad or iPhone by Tiffany Turpin Johnson by Simon

Simon — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 19:28:00 +0000

Great to read this Tiffany. Smart.

You could get around the “no formatting” issue by writing in Markdown in the text editor in iOS. Scrivener handles Markdown very easily and you can compile to whatever formt you’d like from scrivener n

Comment on Creativity: The Bull That Wouldn’t Die by Gordon Rothwell by Kari Young

Kari Young — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:20:00 +0000

There’s something hyper-masculine and romantic about bullfights. I can’t wait to read your story.

Comment on Creativity: The Bull That Wouldn’t Die by Gordon Rothwell by Wendy L

Wendy L — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:08:00 +0000

I bought this story for my 89 yr old aunty who is in hospital with a broken hip. Gordon, you might like to know she thoroughly enjoyed The Seventh Bull and wished it was longer. I thoroughly enjoyed it too.

Comment on Creativity: The Bull That Wouldn’t Die by Gordon Rothwell by Jocelyn Kelly

Jocelyn Kelly — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:51:00 +0000

Inspiring post, Gordon. Bullfighting and writing are definitely both passions of yours. I’m glad that Beth had you guest post today. This was a treat to read.

Comment on Don’t Go Overboard: Managing Proportion for Novel Writing by Kay Keppler by Kay Keppler

Kay Keppler — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:20:00 +0000

Thanks! I agree, there’s nothing worse than reading six paragraphs about what the character thinks about saying…before he says anything at all. Happy reading!

Comment on Don’t Go Overboard: Managing Proportion for Novel Writing by Kay Keppler by Kay Keppler

Kay Keppler — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:18:00 +0000

Hi Becky–I’m sure Beth and I would both be thrilled if you shared this link with your readers. Thanks!

Comment on Don’t Go Overboard: Managing Proportion for Novel Writing by Kay Keppler by Kay Keppler

Kay Keppler — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:17:00 +0000

Thanks, Rachel, and congratulations on “The 16 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful People.” I’m sure you’ve cut out all the fluff!

Comment on Don’t Go Overboard: Managing Proportion for Novel Writing by Kay Keppler by Rachel Lavern

Rachel Lavern — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:52:00 +0000

Good writing instructions. I, too, an a speed reader and always skip over all of the fluff (it can be aggravating). Rachel recently wrote The 16 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful People

Comment on Don’t Go Overboard: Managing Proportion for Novel Writing by Kay Keppler by Becky Sangha

Becky Sangha — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:29:00 +0000

Wow, great article and I loved the example you gave!

I am a video marketer and blog about video strategy, execution and transformation. I have several articles to help authors market their books, so I think sharing this link with my author followers would be helpful for them!

Comment on Don’t Go Overboard: Managing Proportion for Novel Writing by Kay Keppler by Suzy

Suzy — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:26:00 +0000

Good tips – so agree with proportion and cutting out unnecessary noise. I’m a speed reader and will often skip a lot of guff and if the passage drones on, my interest is lost and the book closed. Nice post.