I was born into a preacher’s family. During the Christmas season we always received many Christmas cards from church members, friends, and relatives. When I was a young girl, I started noticing a certain group of cards addressed differently. They were addressed to a name I hadn’t been accustomed to – Benny McCoy. My dad’s name is Benard Harace, but “Benny” wasn’t one of his nicknames. Curious, I asked, “Daddy, why do these people call you Benny?”

He said, “I worked with these men in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) during World War II, and they called me Benny.”

Years passed and Daddy eventually began telling our family about some of his OSS experiences. Fascinated, I never tired of hearing his stories. After I was married, my husband Greg, also a minister, and I took our family on a mini weekend vacation along with another family. That weekend I brought a book to read and a journal to write in. The book, written by a minister’s wife, inspired me to write down goals for things I would like to do. One of the items on my goal list was to write a book about my dad and his World War II and OSS experiences.

On another occasion, Greg scheduled to preach a revival in Moorhead, Minnesota. So we decided to take the opportunity to visit one of Daddy’s OSS cohorts, Hans Halverson, who lived in Moorhead’s sister city, Fargo, North Dakota. I called Hans and arranged to meet him and his wife, LaVerne. I felt delighted when they asked if we would meet them at a restaurant.  When we pulled up to the restaurant I immediately recognized a man I had seen on pictures tucked in those Christmas cards every year. Hans knew me too, because he greeted me with these words, “I’d recognize you anywhere. You look just like Benny.”

I loved listening to Hans’ stories about the places he and my dad saw on their sightseeing excursions while they were stationed in Paris, France. He showed me pictures he had saved of himself, my dad, and other men they in their group. When he brought the pictures out, he warned me, laughing, “Now, Angie, your dad wasn’t a preacher when I knew him in the war.”

A year later, Daddy arranged for he and I to meet with Hans and two other OSS men they had stayed in contact with, Lloyd Postel and Francis Knapp. We met in Brownsville, Texas at Tipotex Chevrolet owned by Francis Knapp. They talked about their experiences and people they had met and worked with including “Wild” Bill Donovan who was head of the OSS. The men told me, “Angie, if you would have asked us these questions about 25 years ago, we could have remembered a lot more.” They had been sworn to secrecy for 25 years after the war. After keeping the secrecy for that long, they still felt uncertain about sharing things they had kept to themselves. Furthermore, some things had been forgotten by the time they did begin to talk about it.
The Brownsville meeting was recorded, and I began to compile the stories I’d heard. Thus, Phantom Seven, a collection of memoirs about seven men involved in espionage and counter-espionage, was born.

Here’s a sample from the book:

From Mineral Wells, Texas, I took a Kansas City Southern Railroad train to Fort Knox, Kentucky. The trip took several hundred miles. Meals were eaten in a restaurant car. Fifty to seventy-five troops were transferring to Fort Knox on the train. When it was time to eat, the sergeant in charge went to the restaurant car to pay for the soldiers’ meals with a requisition. However, he found out that the requisition didn’t have his name on it. Instead, my name, Private Benny McCoy, was listed on the requisition along with my Army serial number.

The sergeant initiated a search party of soldiers to find me, but the soldiers couldn’t find me. Finally, the sergeant told the train official that the train would have to stop in order to send a wire to report me as “absent without leave” (AWOL).

A boy from Lufkin, Texas, who overheard the sergeant’s request, said, “McCoy is not AWOL. He’s on the train.” He directed the sergeant to me.

The sergeant said, “I thought you were AWOL. I’m glad they found you because your name is on the meal tickets. You’ll have to sign the tickets before we can eat.” I felt flabbergasted by this news. It was quite an experience.

There were signs on trees: “Learn to hate! Learn to kill!” They may not do that anymore. Maybe they have a different way to teach you to kill. I griped every day that I was in training, wishing that I were home. I wanted out. There was another soldier who was also sick and tired of it. When he walked around the grounds, he picked up every piece of paper he saw. He would read it and say, “That’s not it.” They thought he had lost his mind. Eventually, they called him in and gave him a discharge. He looked at the discharge paper and said, “That’s it!”

To read more great stories from this book you can order Phantom Seven online.

In an effort to help solve such problems, giving away freebies has become commonplace here at WinePress of Words. Only today, we’ve decided to do something a little different. Instead, we will develop a custom Facebook Timeline Cover especially for one lucky reader of our online magazine.

The Prize

The lucky winner will receive:

• A high-quality, custom-designed Facebook Timeline Cover set at the proper dimensions of 851 px. x 315 px.
• A custom, HTML-coded “About” page with up to 2 stock photos included
• 2 revision runs
• Complete and exclusive rights to the graphic: you may sell, release, distribute, or do anything you wish with it (the final cover will not be released for download on WinePress of Words)
• All original design files in a Photoshop (psd) format

How Do I Enter?

To enter is simple, just do the following:

• Leave a comment on this post (using a valid e-mail address)
• Follow us on Twitter (optional: only if you would like to receive even more freebies and resources)
• Subscribe to our newsletter (also optional, just more free resources, tools, and articles)
• You’re entered to win!

We will announce the randomly-selected winner on this post: Friday, June 1, 2012 at 3:00 PM PST. Stay tuned and spread the word!

Bonus Entry

As a bonus, we will provide two contest entries for anyone who tweets this post with the hashtag #wpcover in addition to leaving a comment. Or simply copy and paste the following message for your tweet for an extra chance to win:

RT this msg and comment on this post http://wp.me/pgsuJ-3KF for a chance to win a custom designed Facebook Timeline Cover! via @WPofWords #wpcover

Previous Designs

Here are examples of previous designs created and released on WinePress of Words.

• The Editors Strike Back (Poster)
• Style Guides: A Free Icon Set for Writers
• Style Guides 2: A Free Icon Set for Writers and Editors
• National Grammar Day Wallpapers
• ShareShelf: A Free Book-themed Sharing Widget for Your Site

* Disclaimer: WinePress of Words has the right to deny any design requests that are inappropriate, explicit, or otherwise offensive. WinePress of Words will do its best to create requested imagery for the Timeline Cover within reason, however WPofWords cannot guarantee that the imagery or photography will be available to do so. If total design time may not exceed 3 hours.

• Part One – Web Content Strategy for Writers: The Basics
• Part Two – Web Content Strategy for Writers: Research and Assessment

1. Types of Content

Static Page

Standing as a simple, non-interactive page, these assets serve an important purpose. Many websites feature “About Us” or “FAQ’s (frequently asked questions)” as static pages.

Because these are static, such elements should be limited only to “foundational” content. For example, an article entitled “10 Ways to Write Stronger Prose” is more apt for a blog where users can interact rather than a “mission statement” which pertains to the site as a whole.

Blog Post or Article

Many sites feature these types of resources in abundance. One important point to keep in mind however, is that quality always trumps quantity when it comes to content creation, and blogs are no different.

When crafting your posts and articles, keep them concise. If there’s a paragraph that does not help or entertain a reader, cut it. The same applies to an article as a whole.

Individuals who visit your site are on a quest for information. Your job as a content creator, is to serve them such content for which they are searching in a quick and memorable fashion.

Remember that one valuable and informative article is of much greater worth than five which were churned out to stick to a “schedule.” Every article should be written as though it were your only resource.

Graphics and Images

Photo galleries, wallpapers, downloads, and other graphics make up another portion of useful content. While it’s not required for every site to feature a wide diversity of images, it is helpful.

When writing an article, placing a corresponding image helps snag a reader’s attention in addition to breaking up multiple paragraphs of text. If you sell products, photos give visitors a sneak-peek of what they will receive before having to buy.

Charts and Graphs

Readers are visual. Charts, graphs, infographics, and other such elements are a powerful tool for communicating a point. Take these into account for the articles or pages you create where data is the core element.

Readers are interested in stats and facts. The more elegantly you can display them, the more apt visitors will be to listen to what you have to say and as always, acquire professional design whenever possible.

Video and Audio

Video and audio is another form of content that is often overlooked for many bloggers and website curators. Interviews, podcasts, and classes make excellent resources for visitors.

Beyond this, consider taking a shorter article and transforming it into a video. If you cannot afford a professional videographer, have someone who knows how to operate a video camera well film you in a well-lit room speaking the contents of your articles.

Delivering video adds a new dimension of personality to your content with which readers can connect. Use a webinar, for Q and A and you’ve potentially opened up a new door through which to create valuable relationships.

2. Refining the Content

Quality Is Key

Chances are, if you have an idea for content, someone else has already done it. The internet is packed full of blog posts, articles, websites, and videos on a plethora of topics. How then can someone hope to stand out in a sea of content?

Quality. This makes every bit of difference. The old thinking was that if you packed a blog post full enough of keywords, Google would rank your site higher and in turn, you would receive more traffic and sales.

This is not so any more. Build a reputation for a commitment to excellence for everything from your mission statement, to a comment you leave in response to a visitor. Any element of your site could be a first (or last) impression of what you do.

Edit Everything

Many a blog post has been written with the underlying tone that because you cannot catch every mistake, “don’t try to be perfect.” This is by far the wrong attitude. Remember, a visitor will only care about your content as much as you do. By aiming for perfection with every element down to usage and style, you send a message, much further than words alone, of why your work is worthy of their attention.

We will always make mistakes along the way, but by striving to make less of them with every new piece of content, we become a trustworthy source to which readers can return again and again.

3. Seek Feedback and Analyze

Once you’ve created and launched your various mediums of content, measure your success. Do this through site analytics, measuring tools, and most importantly, user feedback. If your presence on the web allows for a wide range of responses, then request openly. For most others who do not have a large following, individual case studies will suffice.

Ask individuals with whom you network most, in addition to those who you do not. From the feedback, the proper data reveals which content readers find most useful.

Once you define your most popular resources, bookmark them and study what specifically made them popular. Was it the headline? Was it useful? Was it funny? Find the reason and replicate it with future content creation, It is through this process that content becomes powerful in the growth of a blog or website.

Additional Resources

Here are an additional collection of resources you may also find useful on this topic:

• Premium Content: The Key to Better SEO
• A Simple Plan for Writing One Powerful Piece of Online Content per Week
• The Benefits of Building a Writing Platform

Your Publisher

The book publisher’s ultimate goal is to sell books; this is how they make money after all. However, their primary function is to produce a quality product that will sell.  They assemble their team of editors, designers, account managers, and printers to select, refine, and develop books that their readers will want to buy. A publisher’s marketing efforts vary from house to the house and are often dependent on the author’s bestselling potential or track record. Don’t expect your publisher to conduct a lot of marketing for your book if you are not well-known.

Your publisher will focus on selling books through their distributors, retail outlets, and catalog circulation. They are responsible for selling their “brand” and  inventory of titles, highlighting their bestsellers. Your vantage point is to sign up with a good publisher represented by a quality imprint that sells.

Your Publicist

A publicist is responsible for building awareness for authors by managing their publicity. A good publicist helps authors gain media attention through radio, television, print, and online. They may also assist you to land speaking engagements, book signings or other appearances. Their expertise and connections help boost author visibility with their audience. As you’ve probably noticed, your publicist will not sell your book for you. Partnering with a publicist supports your goal to reach your audience.

Your Retailer

Bookstores are responsible for the transaction to sell your book, but that is as far as they go. They rely heavily on the publicity and marketing from authors to build interest with their customers to ensure book sales. They are the front line in your queue of buyers, but do not expect them personally to hand sell your book. You can work with your local store as a way to attract customers to buy your book. Gaining local media attention in your area is a great way to get people to come in and buy your book at stores. If your title sells out, your store is more likely to restock!

By now you may have guessed that the real person responsible for the sale of their book is the author.  If you rely on the realistic expectations of a publisher, publicist, and retailer, you can enjoy success in sales. Don’t fire them, partner with them—you can’t do it alone. When all is said and done, it is up to you to build your platform by actively engaging with your audience. Ultimately this is how you sell books.

Additional Resources

Here are additional resources on this topic you may find useful:

• What Are My Book Royalties?
• How to Report Royalties on Your Tax Return

There are two camps, people who outline and people who do free form or as I learned—“organic” writing. Then there is everyone in between who dabble in both. How does it work?

An author working with an outline does a painstaking construction of their plot, characters and scenes. They tend to “see” where the holes are as they build the components and can fill in the missing pieces or sub-categories. They begin with a definite idea of how the story ends.

The organic author uses a sort of brainstorming to get started. Some people begin with a “what if” question, for instance “what if Anastasia did not really die, but was rescued and lived under an alias?” Or they might start with an exciting idea about a locale and see where it goes. Once they begin with a character or a situation, they allow some time for the idea to grow and make notes along the way, about scenes in the reality they have created, or how a character develops. The formulating process could last from a few days to several months. In this mode of writing, it’s all about detecting the story first. The crafting and fine tuning happens on the rewrite.

Barry Crowther illustrates a good example of using both outlining and organic writing:

“Do you have a system for writing? Do you plot or write organically? This is a great question. I was asked this during a recent interrogation, I mean, interview. It was a cool question and made me realize that I actually do both.

. . . Once I move over to the process of writing the scenes, a character sometimes takes a left turn that wasn’t plotted and this might throw a spanner (wrench) in the works. One interesting example of this was from Missing. I knew who the perpetrator of the crime was before I wrote the first scenes, but by the time I got to the last 10% of the writing I woke up one morning and thought that it made more sense for another character to be the actual bad guy. I was already 80,000 words in but was still happier to go back and change the plot than be stuck with a story where I was unhappy with the ending.”

Which camp do you belong to?

If you are more inclined to outline, you can find some great advice and encouragement from Randy Ingermanson on his website: Advanced Fiction Writing.com. He has created a process for authors called The Snowflake Method.

If you consider yourself an organic writer you can delve into a terrific program called Scrivener which helps you organize documents in a visual way, so that you can view your notes side by side, rearrange at will, alter the content and save different versions. It allows you to edit individual segments independently of each other.

Larry Brooks of the blog “Storyfix” describes the core issue in his blog post: Solved: The Outlining vs. Organic Writing Debate

He says it is not really a matter of outlining or being more spontaneous “organic” but whether you understand  writing principles which he calls story architecture. An author who outlines won’t necessarily have it down, and the author who writes organically may subconsciously be doing it already. He distills it down to this:

“As much as some organic writers don’t like to admit it, there is indeed a basic architecture for successful stories, with specific milestones that must appear at quite precise places. Successful organic writers understand this, which means that as their stories pour unrestrained out of their heads onto the page, they do so in alignment with those principles.”

Now we’re onto something! Authors who outline and authors who write organically can find common ground in the underlying structure which every story must have. As all the best writers will tell you–the way to grow and get better at your craft is: continue to experiment, observe, and learn how the experts do it. I hope you enjoy the process as much as I did learning about it!

Sources

• The Snowflake Method
• Solved: The Outlining vs. Organic Writing Debate
• Ruminations On Organic Writing

First, design a landing page  dedicated to selling your ebook. This is essentially a  single page mini-site. Inquire and use suitable keywords throughout this page. This  will help you generate relevant traffic.

Submit your material to other websites with a link back to this page. You can do this by purchasing links in a link sharing program. This will help boost your search engine traffic.

Look for forums or places where people are discussing your topic.  Start answering questions on those sites and use your signature line to link to your ebook selling page.

Submit your ebook for reviews to other websites and bloggers. You can provide a free copy to these reviewers and ask them to put a link to your page at the end of their review.

You can also find affiliates and friends to sell your ebook. You may list your book on ClickBank to get affiliates to sign-up and sell it from their website. You will need to offer a commission rate for every sale.

One of the best ways to market on the web is to write articles about your topic.  Submit these to  free article directories, like ezinearticles.com.  Build relationships with other bloggers,  and then write guest posts for them.

Remember-always include a link to your ebook sales page.

This comic serves as an example of the importance of professional design and more importantly, to seek a designer’s knowledge on the book design/marketing industry. Enjoy!

I was hooked from the first page. He starts off by mentioning E.B. White of Elements of Style fame and Charlotte’s Web. White was a major influence on Zinsser and someone he wanted to emulate. Zinsser describes how he wanted to write a book to complement Elements of Style not elaborate on it. Instead he shows how to apply those principles to non-fiction writing and journalism, subjects like science, sports or business.

He begins with the basics under the heading “Principles” and moves through “Methods,” “Forms,” and “Attitudes.” The book was first published in 1976 and subsequent editions followed every few years beginning in 1980, up to 2006. The 2006 version is subtitled The 30th Anniversary Edition. The continuous popularity of this tome should tell you something.

On page three of the introduction Zinsser states: “I’ve revised it six times to keep pace with new social trends (more interest in memoir, business, science and sports)…new technologies (the computer) and new words and usages. My purpose is to make myself and my experience available. If readers connect with my book it’s because they don’t think they’re hearing from an English professor. They’re hearing from a working writer.”

Absolutely yes! And what makes this fun is Zinsser is an English professor, and an editor. He began his career with the New York Herald Tribune and also wrote articles for magazines. He has written 17 books, taught at Yale during the 1970s, where he was master of Branford College and taught a writing workshop that launched many editors and writers on their careers. He later  taught at the New School, in New York, and at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

I particularly enjoyed chapter three, which discusses “clutter.” He gives a good definition: “Clutter is political correctness gone amok.”  A good summary of this book is what Zinsser says on the first page of this chapter: “Consider all the prepositions that are draped onto verbs that don’t need any help. We no longer head committees. We head them up. We don’t face problems anymore. We face up to them when we can free up a few minutes. A small detail, you may say—not worth bothering about. It is worth bothering about. Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there. “Up” in “free up” shouldn’t be there. Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.”

Every chapter in this book was a good time and I probably absorbed more than I realize right now. I wholeheartedly recommend it to every writer who hasn’t read it yet. Where to find it?

Book Details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Date: 30 Anniversary edition (May 9, 2006)
• Pages: 336
• Price: $14.99

Happy learning! I guarantee you will enjoy this book.

“…These cars are heavily incentivized…”

Incentivized?

I’ve heard of “offering incentives.”

But incentivized? I had to check it out. Sure enough, it’s in the dictionary, and it means “to give incentives to.” Another form of the verb is incentivizing (what a mouthful!).

I stand corrected. Incentivized really is a word. But is it the appropriate word to use when advertising cars — or anything, for that matter?

I hate it when people use big, impressive-sounding words when small ones will do.

What could the car salesman have said instead of, “These cars are heavily incentivized”?

How about:

• Buy this car today, and you’ll get a $2,000 rebate.
• Our cars are priced to sell.
• No one is buying our cars during this recession, and we’re panicking. To keep from going out of business, we’re offering you the best discount ever.

OK, that last one probably wouldn’t work, even though it’s closest to the truth.

Which brings up another jargony phrase that drives me nuts: economic downturn.

Sounds so soft, palatable, and hopeful, doesn’t it? We all know we’re in the middle of a recession; just call it what it is!

Then there’s leverage.

Whenever I attend business meetings, people talk about leveraging this and that. The word started out as a noun that means “power or ability to influence people, events, decisions,” or “to get a high return off one’s investment.” Now converted into a verb, it’s batted around in the marketing world like a beach ball. People must think “leveraging” makes them sound important and educated.

Yes, I understand it’s easier to say, “Let’s leverage our investment” instead of, “Let’s shoot for a high return on our investment.”

But it would comfort me to hear people speaking like human beings and not robots.

Hundred dollar words I detest:

• Irrefutably: Michael Phelps is irrefutably the world record holder in several swimming events.
• I concur: I concur with your hypothesis, Sherlock.
• Wherewithal and doggedly: The detective had the wherewithal to doggedly pursue the kidnapper.
• Precipitate and hereby: Your actions hereby precipitate a lawsuit.

…And even more jargon

(bandied about at a conference I recently attended):

• Knowledge worker set
• Change management
• Best practices
• Green space
• End users
• Information assets
• Enterprise space
• Social technologies

Your turn!

What hundred dollar words grate like fingers on a chalkboard? How many can you cram into one sentence?

This article was originally published at BloggingBistro.com. Reprinted with permission from the author.

We’re laying it all on the table, if you’re an author you MUST have a quality website. Period. If you need a reason keep reading.

#1: Websites Demonstrate Genuineness

Consider the reason why you wrote your book in the first place. You wanted to reach people with your story or message. When someone  wants to find out more about you, where are they going to go? The internet is the #1 place for people to find information and interact. If your readers and potential fans can’t find you online what are you telling them? You are communicating that you really don’t care, and you’re too busy to help or connect with them. Interaction with readers is the goal of every writer. If it’s not yours, you may want to rethink your choice to publish a book. You’ll only gain credibility with your readers when you  invest in a professional website.  Cheap, homemade websites will scare readers awa.

#2: Websites Build Awareness

It’s amazing to me how many authors don’t get this one. As an author, you’re in a business. The only way for people to know what you offer is if you tell them about it. There are over 3 billion eyes online searching for relevant content. Your readers are searching for the answers or entertainment you provide.  Tell them about your offering, build a website.

#3: Websites Sell Books-Sometimes

Joe Author has written a book and has put together a d.i.y. website with information and a link to buy on Amazon. Joe’s really excited and can’t wait to see his book sell. Sadly,  Joe is disappointed when after months, a single book has not sold. He ultimately concludes that websites are useless and don’t work. What Joe hasn’t realized is that it’s not the concept of a website that’s failed him, but  but how he utilizes it.

People don’t buy books because you say they should.  If your website is only about you, how wonderful your book is, and saying they should it buy it to support your career you will not sell books. You must first demonstrate how your title will benefit the reader. Do this by building a website that allows visitors to experience your message (at no cost) and to interact with you and each other.

Perhaps the real question is not, “What Will a Website Do for Me?” but “What Will a Website Do for My Readers?”  When you consider that—all your choices to go online will make sense.