Month: February 2015

What Is a Street Team and How Can it Help You?

street teams for authorsThere have been a lot of questions recently about street teams and fan clubs. What are the differences and how can they help you? Having been involved with both, I thought I might share my experiences and then you can decide for yourself which might serve you better.  This month I’ll focus on street teams and I’ll cover fan clubs in March.

With some of the limitations being imposed by Facebook algorithm changes, and also the complete flood in the market, it makes it hard to get any kind of exposure. This is where a street team can come in really handy. Continue reading “What Is a Street Team and How Can it Help You?”

Doing a Survey Using Google Forms

GoogleDrive create formIn a previous post I discussed various methods of conducting a survey on your website and a different post even conducted an extensive survey. Finally, here is the promised tutorial on how to do your own survey using Google Forms, the same method as was used in the survey we conducted.

While you can do this by the seat of your pants, if the survey you’re planning is going to have a lot of questions, especially if the answer to some questions is going to determine whether or not to ask follow up questions, it might make sense to rough out the survey, either on paper (maybe index cards) or in a word processor where you can easily rearrange. However, we’re going to fly by the seat of our pants today. Continue reading “Doing a Survey Using Google Forms”

Featured Book: Fleischerhaus

Fleischerhaus by Melissa BowersockFleischerhaus
by Melissa Bowersock
Available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK..

While touring a small concentration camp during her vacation, Julia Martin experiences a spontaneous past-life memory of being murdered in that very camp during the Holocaust. Julia then attempts to uncover the mysteries of her past life in order to achieve justice for the person she used to be.

Use Adverbs Sparingly

National Grammar DayNext Wednesday, March 4th, is National Grammar Day, so I thought I’d celebrate by writing a post about grammar. Although it’s not really about grammar. It’s about one of those rules for good writing.

I learned a lot of writing rules back in broadcast journalism school: write short, uncomplicated sentences; don’t put more than twenty words in a sentence; write in present tense; don’t use the word “yesterday,” lest your listeners think you’re running old news; and on and on.

These particular rules are pretty much useless for fiction writing. Most novelists don’t write in present tense (although I hear it’s a thing in some circles) and nobody cares whether you mention “yesterday” in your novel or not. But among the rules that have stuck with me is this: Don’t use adverbs. Continue reading “Use Adverbs Sparingly”