Author: Stephen Hise

Stephen Hise is the Evil Mastermind and founder of Indies Unlimited. Hise is an independent author and an avid supporter of the indie author movement. Learn more about Stephen at his website or his Amazon author page.

The Facebooks, They Are a Changin’

Some time back, Facebook made the new “timeline” profile available to users. People did not seem to enthuse over the new profile, and the majority of users never migrated to Facebook’s newest version of the Edsel. Here is a link to a JPG file with a diagram to help you understand. Feel better now? It doesn’t matter.

Demonstrating its usual sensitivity to customer satisfaction, Facebook decided to cram the new timeline profile down everyone’s throats whether they like it or not.

The migration is under way, and if you notice your Facebook profile or page suddenly seems to look different, stupid, or just plain wrong, this is why.

It may be that the new Facebook has wonderful features that were not available in the older version. Likely, these are features some of us will never use. It does not matter, though because you are getting it whether you want it or not. They are Facebook. Who the hell are you? You’re nobody. What are you going to do about it—change over to Google Plus? BWHAHAHA! Good luck with that. Hope you have fun connecting with the other ten users over there.

This kind of thing will continue until a new platform comes along that threatens Facebook’s supremacy, or until Facebook has finally improved itself to death. In the mean time, just sit back and enjoy the chaos. If you grow weary of Facebook, and don’t know what to do with your excess social media time, try hanging out here at Indies Unlimited.

This has been a public service announcement from Indies Unlimited. We now return you to regular programming.

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How to Write an Interesting Bio Blurb

[This is a satirical article. If you want instruction on how to write a professional biography from someone  who actually cares, try this article. – The Administrators.]

One of the things an author is expected to do from time-to-time is to produce at least a short biographical blurb. These may be used for an interview, a book jacket, or even an event program in which you are a presenter. It seems a simple enough task to write a paragraph about oneself, and simpler still for a real writer.

Yet, simple though it seems, many writers have difficulty writing a bio blurb that does not have the side effect of producing heavy drowsiness. This is because most of us are boring. We write fiction (in some small part) because real life just doesn’t measure up—we feel the pressing need to create a more interesting world, even if it is imaginary. Continue reading “How to Write an Interesting Bio Blurb”

Introducing the Random Inscription Generator

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never held a book signing. It is not the sort of thing I’d likely do anyway. First off, I have the penmanship of a toy poodle with a seizure disorder. My handwriting could easily be mistaken for some script in a dead and ancient language, shorthand taken by someone who was drowsing off at the moment, or that of a physician.

More importantly, I think it would be difficult to think of what to inscribe. Just putting your name seems kind of pointless. Otherwise, you could just sit there with a signature stamp. I am told that an interesting and personalized inscription can add value to the book. Most people are going to want something in there they can show off. Continue reading “Introducing the Random Inscription Generator”

The Influence of Personality on Authorial Style

Part of the allure of being a writer is the ability to create another whole (albeit fictional) world. We might have very little control over events in the real world, but we can play God in the ones we invent. We choose what happens to whom, who lives and dies, every twist and turn, and we alone decide how it all shall end.

I wondered to what extent those decisions we make as the supreme beings of our story-worlds are influenced by our own personality type.  There are many formal ways to categorize personality types but, as with most things, I have my own way. I classify personalities as: Optimist, Pessimist, Skeptic, and Cynic. Continue reading “The Influence of Personality on Authorial Style”