Author: Lynne Cantwell

Lynne Cantwell grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan. She worked as a broadcast journalist for many years; she has written for CNN, the late lamented Mutual/NBC Radio News, and a bunch of radio and TV news outlets you have probably never heard of, including a defunct wire service called Zapnews. But she began as a fantasy writer (in the second grade), and is back at it today. She currently lives near Washington, DC. Learn more about Lynne at her blog and at her Amazon author page.

Kindle Unlimited’s New Wrinkle: Pay by Pages Read

Kindle Unlimited BooksIndie-author-land has been agog this week over Amazon’s latest changes to its payment system for borrowed books. In case you’ve been living under a rock (or don’t have any books in KDP Select), here’s what’s going down.

In the past, Amazon has paid authors on books borrowed from either of its lending programs, Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, only when a reader reached a certain percentage of the book. The amount the author was paid varied from month to month, depending on the size of the global fund that Amazon designated for these payouts. In other words, you wouldn’t know what you were earning on your borrows in June until mid-July, when the Zon announced the per-book royalty it would pay authors for qualifying borrows. Continue reading “Kindle Unlimited’s New Wrinkle: Pay by Pages Read”

The Facebook Mentions App

Facebook pagesWhen I wrote about Facebook verification for your author page last week, I noted that one of the perks available to verified page owners is a special smartphone app. The app is called Facebook Mentions, and it’s aimed at busy celebrities (ahem…) who want an easy way to keep in touch with their fans while on the go. The app is only available to those of you who have a verified page. It’s a two-step process — Facebook sends you the link to the app once your page has been verified.

Once the app’s installed, its controls appear at the bottom of the screen. Continue reading “The Facebook Mentions App”

I’m somebody now: Facebook Verified Pages

facebook-verified checkmarkOne of my favorite misquotes is from Steve Martin’s movie The Jerk. The phone book delivery person stops by and hands Martin’s character a copy, and Martin goes off in raptures (here comes the misquote – ready?): “The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here! I’m somebody now!”

You too, dear author, can be an official somebody. All you have to do is set up a page for your author business on Facebook, and then fill out a form on this page to tell them that, yes, you are really you. But basically, all you have to do is make sure you’re logged into Facebook, go to that page, fill out their form, and hit submit. Once Facebook has verified that you are who you say you are, they will reward you with a blue check mark next to the name of your page. Continue reading “I’m somebody now: Facebook Verified Pages”

Five Flash Fiction Elements

flash fiction lightningAs I hope you all know, here at Indies Unlimited, we have a weekly flash fiction contest. The prompt goes up on Saturday, and the submission period closes on Tuesday. The word limit for our contest is 250 words. But there’s more to flash fiction than just our challenge.

As a general rule, flash fiction is considered to be less than 1,000 words long. And believe it or not, you can study how to write it. I did a web search for “how to write a flash fiction story” and got five million hits, including some for courses that would take way longer to complete than would simply writing a bunch of flash pieces until you get the hang of it.

Flash is a recognized format for fiction, with elements that each story ought to include. As usual with these sorts of things, the list of elements varies, depending on who’s writing it. I’ve seen lists of three, four, five, seven, or ten elements, or do’s and don’ts, or what-have-you. I like the number five, so for this article I’m going to stick with five things your flash fiction story should include. Continue reading “Five Flash Fiction Elements”