Wheatmark Team

5 November, 2013

Writing for the Christian fiction market

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:24:14-07:00November 5, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Writing for the Christian fiction market

How do Christian fiction books differ from your straight, run-of-the-mill fiction books?

Here are characteristics of most Christian fiction books:

1. An element of faith inspires the main character’s decisions throughout the story.

2. A sparing but appropriate use of Bible quotes — usually two or three that fit the story.

3. Evil exists in the story, but there are no graphic descriptions of sex, murder, and other deviant behaviors.

4. The ending leaves one feeling encouraged and trusting that life will work out for the better.

5. Language is clean with no swearing or violent words. For instance, a character might be described as “swearing a blue streak,” but the actual cursing words are left out.

Don’t be misled into thinking that because the book has a Christian or faith element you can get away with half-baked writing. Christian readers are as critical as other readers in wanting good plots, well-crafted story structure, and believable dialogue. […]

3 November, 2013

Grammar tips: Capitalization of nouns for authors

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:24:36-07:00November 3, 2013|Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Grammar tips: Capitalization of nouns for authors

Nouns are words that name a person, place, thing, or idea.

Person: If it’s a specific name, like Joe, Jane, or Sparky, the name is capitalized. However, if the noun is general such as a boy, girl, doctor or lawyer, then the nouns are not capitalized. It can become a bit complicated when referring to parents or close relatives. If you are talking about your mother, the name is not capitalized. But if you are talking “to” your mother or father, the name is capitalized. So in writing dialogue, your subject might say, “Hi, Mom. What’s for dinner?” But if your subject is talking to a friend about their mom, then the noun is not capitalized. “Yeah, my mom always insists on cooking spinach at least once a week. Yuck!”

The same thing is true of offices like senator, president, king, or pope. You may refer to “the pope” or “the president” […]

1 November, 2013

13 reasons you should add a guestbook page to your Author website

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:24:41-07:00November 1, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on 13 reasons you should add a guestbook page to your Author website

Are you looking for a fast and easy way to connect with your readers? Don’t have time or the desire to keep up a blog? Here is an easy fix: provide a guestbook.

A guestbook is basically a page on your website on which readers can leave comments. All comments are then found in one place on your site. This is great for first time visitors to get a feel of your writing, your following and, best of all, for them to find out that other people love your book(s).

While it’s great to blog regularly and get comments on your posts, sometimes getting those comments is difficult for new bloggers. A few comments spread out over 15 or 20 posts can seem pretty sparse, but if you put all those comments in one place, you have instant reader appeal.

Here are 13 reasons why a guestbook should be next on your “To […]

31 October, 2013

Find new readers for your book by offering an Author Phone Chat

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:24:48-07:00October 31, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Find new readers for your book by offering an Author Phone Chat

Want to meet your readers?

Offer an opportunity to have a phone chat.

Phone chats can be as simple as using a speaker phone within a group setting or creating a virtual phone chat by using a teleconference service like freeconference.com.

Both methods offer a way for readers and authors to get together.

Six simple steps to set up your first phone chat:

1. Decide what book or books you will discuss during the phone chat.

2. Select the length of time you will be available for the chat. 30 minutes seems to be a time that works for many authors and readers alike, but you can adapt to what suits you and your readers best.

3. Create a separate web page about the chat opportunity. You can let readers know what times and dates are available for you to participate, or you can simply include a form or other contact information for them to get […]

8 October, 2013

Word of mouth begins with a listening ear

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:25:16-07:00October 8, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Word of mouth begins with a listening ear

Looking for a better way to sell books?

Not comfortable with standing on a street corner and waving your latest edition in the air?

How about doing something that authors forget to do?

It works perfectly for the introverted author who’s more comfortable listening than speaking. In fact, that is what the way is. Listen your way to selling more books.

You see, most people would rather have someone listen to them than listen to someone else.

Wouldn’t you like someone to listen to you? Really and truly listen?

In this day of mass communication and social media overdose, many people are overwhelmed with tons of words being thrown at them from every direction. Everything is coming in mega doses. Email boxes overflow, Facebook contacts pop in from every corner of cyberspace, and Twitter, text and instant messages multiply faster than the national debt. Who’s listening?

If you give some quality listening time to your readers, you […]

4 October, 2013

Create an audio excerpt of your book for more book sales

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:25:31-07:00October 4, 2013|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Create an audio excerpt of your book for more book sales

Here’s a great way to get new visitors to your site to read your book: Let them hear an audio excerpt!

An audio excerpt from your book is simply another medium that your potential audience can consume. Why not let them have it?

Many bestselling authors offer at least one audio presentation of their books. While you may not want to create a complete audio version of your book, adding the first chapter or pages of your book in audio form is easy to do.

Here’s an audio excerpt from The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.

If you have a blog website, it can be as easy as creating a separate page and adding media to it in the form of an mp3 audio clip.

How do you get the audio clip?

The process is fairly simple. (Or at least it can be as simple or as complicated as you want […]

24 September, 2013

Paid book reviews by Publishers Weekly: A dangerous place for self-publishers?

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:26:39-07:00September 24, 2013|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Paid book reviews by Publishers Weekly: A dangerous place for self-publishers?

Getting book reviews for your book is one of the prime ways for authors, old and new, to sell more books. Unfortunately, the stigma of self-publishing, though rapidly disappearing, is still a factor to be dealt with in seeking the more established book review channels.

Publishers Weekly has a program called PW Select that is open to self-published books. It comes with a catch though. And, a price tag.

For $149, you can enter your self-published book and get a possible review. They state that approximately one out of every four books is reviewed in their magazine. Now for a regular, mainline, published book getting a book review by Publishers Weekly is usually a good thing. Even with a poor review a sentence, or even a part of a sentence, can be found redeeming and be put to good use.

The fact that Publishers Weekly has broad-mindedly opened their book reviewing doors to […]

19 September, 2013

Create an easy feedback form for your author website

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:26:50-07:00September 19, 2013|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Create an easy feedback form for your author website

One way to interact with your audience is to have a form to get feedback or receive input for special events. With a form, you can ask for book reviews, endorsements, or submissions for a book contest.

Putting up a form can be done in a myriad of different ways. One of the easiest is to use a simple, free online tool such as JotForm. With this tool, you can put up a form on your site in a few minutes. It’s a simple drop and drag tool that creates forms as simple or complicated as you like. You get 100 free submissions a month. In most cases this will be all you need unless your site is wildly popular.

The site has over 3,000 form templates. You can find one for almost anything that you can think of such as story submission forms, sharing feedback, or even ask […]

8 August, 2013

5 tips for password protection as you build your author platform

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:27:06-07:00August 8, 2013|Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on 5 tips for password protection as you build your author platform

Is your website safely protected for your quick rise to fame and fortune?

As an author, it may come faster than you think. One way to prepare for it now is to safely password-protect your website and other web properties.

Whether you are on Facebook, Twitter, or have your website and or blog, making sure that your content is kept as safe as possible is worth taking a few moments to do.

Creating tough passwords is your first wall of defense. Just as it is no longer safe to leave the keys in your car when you park on a busy street, it is no longer safe to assume that no one will steal your identity, information, or use your email for spamming purposes.

Often people will create a password that is easy to remember or has some relationship to what their site is about. While this certainly […]

8 August, 2013

16 Bookstore Review Sites

By Wheatmark Team|2023-06-09T11:27:14-07:00August 8, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Writing|Comments Off on 16 Bookstore Review Sites

Looking to get great book reviews for your book? Here’s an idea that may at first seem counterproductive but actually may jumpstart your own book review process.

What’s the idea?

It’s based on the age-old biblical maxim, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Which means while waiting for those five-tar book reviews to come in for your own books, start writing reviews for others.

Writing book reviews is a good way to stay connected with books in your genre, assess your competition,and even help you to craft writing ideas for composing your book releases and sharing information about your books on your blog.

As you write a book release, you will find yourself thinking critically about why you like one type of writing over another. What makes the book stand out? How can you creatively write selling copy for your own material?

Some authors used book reviews to link back to […]

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