Exercise your Vote on the Writing Exercise!

When I started this blogging thing I was told there would be no math. It turns out that the plug-in I have for conducting polls on the site is insufficient to meet our demand, so the crack engineering team at Indies Unlimited has come up with a workaround. We will use Facebook polling on the Indies Unlimited Facebook page to conduct the voting for best writing exercise entry. You may review the entries HERE.

To make it more interesting though, the crack engineering team at Facebook, showing their customary foresightedness restricted the FB polls to ten entries, and we have more than that. So you will see two polls over there. DO NOT PANIC.

Just go to https://www.facebook.com/IndiesUnlimited and vote for the entry you liked best. Then encourage your friends and fans to vote as well. Voting will close at 5 pm mountain time on Thursday January 5, 2012. The recipient with the most votes wins a feature post and publication at year end.

Meet the Author: Jacqueline Hopkins-Walton

Author Jacqueline Hopkins-Walton

Author Jacqueline Hopkins-Walton lives in Sitka, Alaska. She started writing when she got out of the US Navy in 1988. As is so very often the case, life got in the way for a while in the 1990’s and she shelved her writing  until she got involved in editing her niece’s novel.

Jac writes mainstream fiction, murder mystery and romance. She gets her inspiration from everyday life experiences, the places she’s been, the things she’s done and even things she sees on the news.  One of her books is a murder mystery set in Alaska. Her idea came from a report about some herring fishermen who  pulled up a skiff in the net instead of herring. She says, “Now I have all the pictures and videos of it so I can write about it and use it to my advantage in my murder mystery. I’m the type of person who has to get first hand experience in my research to make it real for the reader, even though what I write is fiction.” Continue reading “Meet the Author: Jacqueline Hopkins-Walton”

I am Sisyphus…

Question of the day: are you insane to think your writing means anything?  The question of whether you are a nut-job or not is rather easily answered.  It all depends on your expectations.  And your motivation.  And what ‘meaning’ means to you.  Do you write because you love to write or because you see it as your ticket to fame?  Do you publish because you are proud of your work and hope that maybe a handful of people will enjoy it or because you expect a royalty check that will buy you a Ferrari?  If you write because you love it, you’re all good.  If you publish because you want to share your work, great.  If you expect to be recognized for your efforts…or to profit from them…you are in for a rude awakening.

Continue reading “I am Sisyphus…”

The Power of Facebook for Writers – Part One – by Michael Allen

Author/Screenwriter Michael Allen
Author/Screenwriter Michael Allen

Facebook can be very powerful if you know how to use it. But, I’ve talked to plenty of indie authors who simply don’t see the effectiveness Facebook can have on an online marketing campaign. If they only knew a few things about what Facebook can do, they just might have a better time using this extremely powerful social media platform.

First of all, there is a personal profile and then there are pages that you can create. A personal profile can only have 5,000 friends. That’s why I suggest you make that into information about who you are as a person, not a book page. Provide information about your work and education. Highlight your interests. Add friends that you really know and even indicate who is in your family. In other words, be real. That is your real profile and it should be only about you.

Of course, you would mention that you are a writer and list all your books. That’s perfectly fine. So, then create a page for each book. Some writers find this a little too much. But remember, the Facebook experience is for you to define. So if you don’t want a page for each book, then simply create an author page where you can list all of your books. Continue reading “The Power of Facebook for Writers – Part One – by Michael Allen”