Cheryl Cowtan on Writing

Wordle is a tool that converts a section of your text into a graphic. The graphic will feature words that are used many times in your text in large font, and words that are less often used in smaller fonts. Believe it or not, Wordle will take up to 90,000 words (and possibly more), which means, you could paste in your entire novel manuscript. Once you see your Wordle graphic, you can determine what words you might be overusing in your manuscript. For example: Is the word "back" in the same size font as your protagonist's name? Doing a quick "Edit>replace" using MS word will allow you to take out redundant words, and then recopy the text back into Wordle. However, make sure you do this on a copy of your MS and not your original. Later, you can figure out how to edit your manuscript to reduce the number of times you use those common words. With Wordle, what you're hoping to create is a mini, visual synopsis of your novel. So character names should...

When a bookstore can't sell copies of your novel, the books get sent back to the publisher, who marks them with a dash, slash or smash and then off they go to a remainder bookstore like BookCloseOuts.com . Gloria Ferris signing  Cheat the Hangman As the author, you'll never see a penny from the remainder sales. However, if you offer to sign all copies at a bookstore, they will think you're wonderful, and your books may never be sent to remainder heaven, because publishers usually don't take signed books. Dianne J. Ferris signing The Purple Doll

Make Book Trailers with Smilebox Authors started using book trailers to persuade viewers to purchase their novels in 2003. Though there are many programs you can use to create your own book trailer, each one requires different levels of expertise. For example: using MovieMaker or another film editing program would require more skill in film editing, and access to copyright free images and music. However, the benefits of using film editing software is the flexibility you have as a designer. If you don't have a lot of film editing skill, Smilebox offers a number of template designs that you can manipulate into a trailer. They also have two to three music choices and a fairly good music library to choose from for each template. The many choices of templates allow you to set your mood in the trailer using imagery, animation, colour and symbols. You can also add your own images. I made this book trailer for my novel "The Precious Quest" in about 2 hours. The novel is a d...

Present yourself to your readers online by creating a multitude of professional profiles. Remember that whenever a reader hears of your book, reads a review on your book, or reads your book, he/she will probably search you online. Set up your profiles on the following: facebook which will give you a personalized URL  http://www.facebook.com/cheryl.cowtan LinkIn which provides a more structured, but more detailed space for your qualifications Google+ offers another place to have an online presence https://plus.google.com  Twitter  https://twitter.com/ All of the above will allow you to interlink between the profiles, which will attract search engine attention. Plus, you now have access to all of the potential readers and supportive writing colleagues, publishing houses and book reviewers.  facebook - over 900 million people twitter - 140 million active users Set up your profiles with pictures you want your readers to see. Make sure there are n...