Recent weeks, months even, have brought much controversy and angst to the Indie writers’ world. It has brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘sturm und drang’. Conversations on posts, Facebook, Twitter and other social media abound with laments, anger, anxiety and cries of ‘foul’. Continue reading “When I Find Myself In Times of Trouble …”
Author: Yvonne Hertzberger
Yvonne Hertzberger is a native of the Netherlands who immigrated to Canada in 1950. She is an alumna of The University of Waterloo, with degrees in psychology and Sociology. Her Fantasy trilogy, ‘Earth’s Pendulum’ has been well received. Learn more about Yvonne at her blog and her Amazon author page.
Redux: No More Professional Writers?
[Contributing author Yvonne Hertzberger is away either modeling lingerie or making linguini—I’m a little unclear on the details, the phone connection is a little iffy up here in the mountain enclave. Anyway, enjoy this encore performance of an article that rings ominously as true today. – Hise]
On July 26 the Globe and Mail, Canada’s most respected newspaper, devoted two-thirds of the front page and half of the second page of their Globe Arts section to the article. ‘There will be no more professional writers in the future’ (their punctuation) Naturally, I was most interested. It came on the heels of a similar article in the Guardian. Other rags posted on the same topic. I got the impression they all timed their diatribes together for greatest impact. The purpose, as I see it – war on self-publishing and a (futile) reactionary attempt to save the old guard. Continue reading “Redux: No More Professional Writers?”
Who Ya Gonna Call?
When my son was little one of his favourite movies, which he watched over and over on VHS was “GhostBusters”. I thought it was pretty harmless. But when his little sister was only two, while her daddy was giving her a bath, piped up, all innocence and wide eyes, and declared, “I’ve seen s**t that would turn you white!” it gave me pause. Daddy didn’t react and she never said it again. We had a great laugh over it. Continue reading “Who Ya Gonna Call?”
Tuesday Tutorial: Bublish
All right everyone. I will take the plunge and try my hand at a tutorial. Let me tell you about Bublish and guide you through how to use it. Hey, if I can do this, anyone can. No, really, I mean it. Please do forgive the lack of artistry on the arrows. I am no artist.
Bublish has been around only since June of this year, so I had the good luck to be an early subscriber. Bublish is the brainchild of Kathy Meis and Charles Wyke-Smith. I have had extensive email contact with Kathy and she was kind enough to spend 40 minutes one-on-one with me when I hit a snag. (Thanks Kathy.) I have nothing but praise for the support I have received.
What makes Bublish unique is that it has the author take snippets of text from their book and asks them to write an insight about that snippet, then share it on Facebook and Twitter. Do this regularly and you will have tweets going out that are non-repetitive, interesting and – my favourite – not pushy buy my book spam messages. They are little hooks meant to entice a prospective reader to take a closer look at your work. Heck, they might even want to buy it. The links for buying are on the site, so that is just a click away. Continue reading “Tuesday Tutorial: Bublish”