Shop through a blogger's affiliate link to support your favorite writers!

As you buy the items on your holiday list this year, keep your favorite bloggers in mind!

If you're shopping online, particularly at Amazon.com, you can shop through your favorite writers' affiliate links and give them a little holiday gift, too!

Buying through an affiliate link works just the same for you as shopping by going directly to the Amazon (or another shop's) site. You don't pay any more than you would otherwise, but the store itself funnels a few cents over to the blogger as a thanks for the referral.

Do you know bloggers who are struggling this season to make ends meet? Are there writers you'd love to reward for being particularly timely and touching in what they share with readers? Do you just want to spread the holiday love and cheer?

Then make it a point to shop through an affiliate link this season and throughout the year!

To make it easy for you, we have a linky list of bloggers' Amazon affiliate links, as well as a linky of affiliate links to other popular online stores.

If you're a blogger, sign up with your links!

To help you remember to shop through an affiliate link, bookmark a few! Teresa shows how in her innovative tutorial. Simply drag two or three into your bookmarks bar, and name them "Amazon." Now anytime you want to go to Amazon, click on one, and you'll be set to give that blogger a little tip for being awesome!

#NaNoProgMo Profile: Crackerdog Sam

This is one in a series of profiles of our National Novel Progress Month authors and their works in progress. If you'd like to submit your own interview, please fill out the form, and I'll be in touch!

Today's author is Crackerdog Sam (that's his hobo name), my own dear partner and co-parent and a fabulous writer. I interviewed him over pizza with the kids — any insight and hilarity in wording are his, and any errors in transcription are mine.

Sam hopes he finishes his WIP in time to read it to the kids.

What project are you working on?

I am attempting to flesh out or "write" [quote marks his!] the second half of my novel that is currently only outlined. Basically, I'm trying to get a draft out of it. It will be spotty with chunks missing or places that are rambling on too long, but just to get something concrete on the page.

What's the tentative title?

I'm not telling.

What's the genre?

I guess it's a mashup of old-time high adventure with modern conveniences. It follows the same rules as The Princess Bride, but it's set in modern day, which is to say it's romantic and adventurous and has a lot of fantastical creatures, but it doesn't have magic or the paranormal. I don't know what genre that is. There is also no villain, so it's kind of a mix of The Princess Bride and Spirited Away.

What's the target audience?

It's for 8- to 14-year-olds.

National Novel Progress Month: Join me in making progress!

I don't know about you, but I could use another National Novel Progress Month.

I've decided once again to skip National Novel Writing Month, though I'm a huge fan and would love to encourage you if you're participating — as well as National Blog Post Month — since what I need right now is not more writing but more finishing, if you know what I mean.

Last time I hosted NaNoProgMo with the lovely Teresa from Spirit Grooves, but she's busy with holiday sales, so for this month, we're going to keep it low key and my husband, Sam, is hosting it with me. I mean, he's not blogging or anything (unless he wants to guest post), but … I dunno, we're just both doing NaNoProgMo, so that totally counts as a co-host. Tree and I would like to host an all-out ProgMo in January, so hang on to that if these next two months are not your style.

We started NaNoProgMo to support writers who need to finish, edit, research, polish, or publish a novel. I'm also totally happy to embrace writers who are working on non-fiction books, ebooks, articles, or blogging. If you need to make some writing or editing progress this month, come along!

I'd like to offer you some support as you work on your writing in November, in whatever form it takes!

Where to find free images for blog posts

You know that punching up your blog articles with pictures lends a thousand-plus words to your text — but you also want to make sure the photographs and drawings you find are legally yours to use under copyright law and ethical guidelines. You generally can't just grab a photo off Google Image Search or someone else's blog without permission.

There are many stock sites that will allow you to purchase photos, but bloggers rarely want to spend cash for their frequent and frequently ill-paid postings.

So: Here are my top 10 resources for royalty-free, payment-free, copyright-legal, fair-use images for your blog posts.

New Mummy Episode from Castle!

New Mummy Episode sighting:

Castle's Episode 110 from Season 6, "Time Will Tell," deals with oh-my-gosh-are-they-really-real time travelers.

Is this guy really from THE FUTURE?! Spoooky!

You can watch the episode online, so I won't spoil it except to say:

CLASSIC Mummy Episode. Classic.

Vary your characters' names

I recently read a book in which the three main male characters' names were Rafael, Richard, and Robert.

Dude, I could not keep those suckers straight.

I fully admit I maybe read a little too quickly at times, and I also admit names are not my strong suit, but … but … c'mon, authors, throw your readers a bone and choose names that won't be easily confused.

Richard and Robert were the worst, because in my mind they're sort of interchangeable "nice" names that are both two syllables and start with Rs and have an R toward the end as well. As I'm skimming along, I can't distinguish them for beans.

At least Rafael is a little bit more unusual and with a different sound, and it was often abbreviated as Rafe (oh, for a Dickie and a Rob, too!), but is it too much to ask that if there are going to be three important male characters that they not have names that all start with the same letter?

Now, I know writers of nonfiction or fictionalized history might have no choice. And maybe there are certain occasions when sequels or prequels inadvertently force similarly named characters to collide. But, for the most part, you as the author are fully in charge of giving your characters names that won't give your readers fits.

To that end, here are my humble suggestions:

1. Don't name everyone with the same initial letter.

This is surprisingly tempting. Our brains work in logical trains, after all. When we've come up with one good name that starts with a certain letter, it's only natural to think up similar names first. Keep the wheels turning, and don't settle on your first choice.

Keep in mind letters that are different but sound alike: Corrie and Kerry. I'd suggest avoiding even letters that are the same but sound different: Celia and Chris — because in skimming, it might still be easy to mistake one for the other.

Remember last names, too: Mrs. Adamson and Mrs. Allison and Mr. Arlington would drive anyone to another book.

Sunday Surf: Social media ad tests & best posts for Facebook

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

Do social media ads really work? We put them to the test! | TechHive

Experimental ads across five services: Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon. 

4 DAYS AGO -  1

advertising Social media facebook google adwords Twitter linkedin stumbleupon marketing 1 note

Weaving Influence | More Eyes Means More Engagement

Challenging the ideas of what Facebook posts get the most views.

This is in line with my experiences as well (text = most, pictures = not as much). I haven’t tried the idea of a shortened link without a preview, so that’s next on my list!

via Ariadne

1 MONTH AGO

facebook facebook fan pages Social media marketing

(Photo credit: Search Influence)