Author: Carolyn Steele

Carolyn writes websites, copy and nonsense about emigrating. She also occasionally ambles off to do something daft in case it’s interesting enough to write about. Her latest book grew from the blog Trucking in English, and you can learn more at her blog and her Amazon author page.

Yet Another Numbers Game

In the last few weeks Indies Unlimited has crashed through a significant barrier in the world of internet traffic. Our Alexa ranking has fallen below the six figure mark and currently stands at 67,049*. Whoop de woo, totes amazeballs! (It’s a phrase used by young people, M’lud). Ok, I know most of you glazed over just then, and quite right too, but I’m going to explain what’s going on and why it’s worth understanding.

If you’re anything like me, you are forever reading about new ways to promote your book. Since the explosion of interest in Indie authors, there’s been a parallel explosion of people/businesses/websites/blogs clamouring for your time, attention and sometimes your money. (Can you have a parallel explosion? Maybe not. My metaphors go to pot when I’m excited.) Continue reading “Yet Another Numbers Game”

Introducing the Seasonal Apostrophe

I mentioned my mad summer wasping job last month. I have no particular excuse for doing bonkers things for a living except that sometimes they provide good fodder for books, but I wasn’t expecting this one to introduce me to a whole new concept in punctuation. Maybe being an apostrophile means that you find such joys everywhere but I have to share this one. Here is the story of the seasonal apostrophe.

This is the third summer I have spent killing wasps for a living. And it’s the third year The Boss and I have debated the seasonal apostrophe, proudly invented by The Boss himself. It amuses us but it also creates an annual row about my van’s livery. Continue reading “Introducing the Seasonal Apostrophe”

Funny Ha Ha

‘You should write a post on being funny,’ fellow minion Yvonne suggested. She was trimming my hair for the wasping season, entirely as though a special haircut for killing wasps wasn’t a bizarre thing to ask for. But then Yvonne, hairdresser extraordinaire as well as much-loved local Indie, has got used to my oddities. I wanted something long enough to push through the back of a baseball cap (because otherwise the wasps get caught in it) but layered enough to poodle-up a bit for parties. Yes, ridiculous, so we giggled.

There is something very unfunny about analysing humour though, and something even less amusing about claiming the right to pontificate about it. However, the idea took hold and here we are looking at getting laughs. The topic fascinates and repels me because people who tell me they are funny are a pet hate. It’s not for them to decide! I may laugh, I may not, that’s up to me.

I’m therefore not going to dare to try and tell you what’s funny, I’m going to look at ways to use humour to corner your reader into the reaction you want for them at that moment in your writing. I hoped to have three points, the best gags work in threes, but actually I thought of four. So this article is officially not funny at all. Continue reading “Funny Ha Ha”

Favicon, Schmavicon

I damaged my little toe last week. Tiny and insignificant it may be but oh boy does it hurt. Small things are like that, you may not notice them when they’re working fine but when they’re not they can cause all manner of mayhem. Take favicons for example, short for Favourites Icon. You probably hardly notice the effect they have on your browsing behaviour but they’re powerful little chaps.

Take this for example…

or this…

…instant recognition?

You probably know that favicons are to be found in the tabs of your browsing windows. Lin Robinson introduced us to them here. Continue reading “Favicon, Schmavicon”