Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Writing Process: Self-Publishing Success In 2020 Step By Step

Is your writing process working for you?

Authors tend to equate success with sales, but a lot goes into high book sales:

• Writing! Bestselling authors all have a writing process which enables them to be productive;
• Marketing. Although marketing today is easier than it’s ever been, marketing is still an enormous challenge for authors;
• Strategy.

In summary, you need a writing process, a marketing process and a good strategy.

By the way… This process is the same process I give my personal coaching students.

For the best results, set aside 30 minutes a day.

Let’s get started.

via www.angelabooth.com

Your Bullet Journal: 5 Tips For Self-Publishing Authors

That’s the big benefit of using a BuJo: you live your life, without feeling overwhelmed.

Let’s look at some tips for using a BuJo in your self-publishing business.

1. Sell more when you track your book sales in your bullet journal

Your bullet journal helps you to track:

• Book sales and book marketing activities;
• Your advertising budget and spend;
• Productivity: keep track of your word counts.

You can track anything you like; it’s up to you.

via peneloperedmont.com

Plot Your Novel In 60 Minutes Or Less

Do you hate plotting?

You're about to discover a plotting strategy that's fast and simple. You won't ever need to wait for inspiration again. You'll sit down to write — and you'll keep writing.

 

What if you could create a wonderful plot for your novel in just an hour?

Here's why building a great plot for your fiction is important:

* Page-turning plots sell: they win eager readers for your fiction and grow your fan base;

* A plot gives you a road map for your novel. A novel is easier to write when you have a plot to guide you. You're eager to write each day, because you're inspired;

* When you know your novel has a solid plot, your confidence increases. This makes marketing your novels much easier — and more fun.

via www.angelaswritingclasses.com

I've had lots of questions about plotting from authors doing NaNoWriMo; this program will turned you into a plotting pro.

Writing Serials: Win Readers And Sell More Books

A tip: finish your serial! (Readers like to binge)

When you start writing something, finish it. Here’s why: it’s a good habit to get into. A writer’s judgment about a work in progress is pretty much useless, anyway.

When it comes to writing serials, finishing your serial is vital — you don’t know how well a serial will do until you have lots of episodes for sale. I’ve seen this repeatedly with my students.

An author contacts me about a project. While we’re chatting he tells me that he’s ready to quit his serial; he’d rather start something new. I encourage him to finish, and he does — and suddenly, when he’s almost completed the series, it takes off and sells.

via www.angelabooth.com

How To Use Your Spare Minutes To Write

This inspired me because in 2019, writing has dropped off my radar. I don’t have hours to write. Although I’ve had spare minutes here and there, I haven’t used them for my writing.

That brought a realization: planning is essential to maximize your time.

Writing tools: plan first

If you want to use your spare minutes for writing, you need to plan for it. That was my downfall. I’d have ten minutes to half an hour of waiting time. I could have used those minutes to write, but write what?

via peneloperedmont.com

Curiosity Creates Bestsellers

2. Deliver the unexpected: shock and surprise readers

Have you seen the Bruce Willis movie, The Sixth Sense? Yes, that’s the “I see dead people” one. That movie is an amazing example of using surprise; as is the shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock version of the movie, Psycho.

You don’t need to kill people to provide a little shock and surprise for your readers. Keep surprise readers in mind while you’re writing, and you’ll find clever ways to do it.

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl inspired lots of “shock and surprise” novels, which develop a new twist on the genre of dark psychological thrillers.

via peneloperedmont.com

Writing Fiction: 4 Ways To Inspire Readers And Sell

1. Make character creation easy: use an emotional adjective plus a noun to create your characters

Your readers’ emotional connection to your characters starts with you. Create characters by choosing an emotional adjective, plus a noun.

Examples:

• A jealous fashion designer;
• A disgruntled detective;
• A secretive CEO.

Creating a “jealous” fashion designer gives you more options when you’re planning a new character. You’ve instantly got somewhere to go with the character.

You’re wondering:

• Jealous of what, or whom?
• Why?
• How does she reveal her jealousy — what does she think? Do?
• What goals does she have?

via www.angelabooth.com

Writing Fiction: 5 Ways To Add Drama

Families provide endless opportunities for drama. Family members are closest to you, so they know everything about you. They know how to hurt you.

Think about your own family. Do large family gatherings lead to arguments? Why?

Make things difficult for your main characters by giving them family ties which give opportunities for drama via jealousy, manipulation, competitiveness — even fear.

3. Horrible characters are drama gold

You’re writing a novel or short story, so you get to spend a lot of time with your characters. We all want to be around nice people. Why would you make some of your characters horrible?

via peneloperedmont.com

Good advice, if you're struggling with your fiction.

Build Your Blog: 6 Powerful Ways Grow A Successful Blog

Build your blog: use baby steps

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and a successful blog isn’t built in a day either. Your blog will grow over time. Create a list of three things you need to do to achieve your goals with the blog, then schedule your three things.

Why three? To avoid stress. There are always things you could do with a blog, but very few vital things you MUST do.

Let’s look at how to grow your blog.

1. Add Calls to Action (CTAs) to your blog and to individual posts

A Call to Action (CTA) is an encouragement to perform a specific act. Create a goal for each blog post, then add a CTA to the post to help you to achieve your goal.

Adding a CTA to your content is essential. Readers skim online, so you need to be clear about what you’d like them to do after reading your content.

via www.angelabooth.com

3 Reasons I am ULTRA Productive

I didn’t realize until recently how I do a to-do list and how an unproductive person does a to-do list. If you watched both of us doing our to-do lists, we would both look equally busy and look like we were getting the same amount done. But at the end of the day, my to-do list is done and you feel like you never got started on your to-do list.

Here’s the difference. I measure my success each day in finished products, not actionable work. Busyness gets me nowhere.

Productive people are not busy, they are producing. That is the big distinguisher. You have to stop some of your busyness in order to get an end result, which means you have to know where you’re going.

When you look at the whole day at the end of the day, what did you actually get finished? What did you get done? What have you produced?

Productive people are measuring what we are finishing and producing, not how we are spending our time.

via organize365.com

Great explanation of productivity.

Write A Novel: 4 Easy Ways To Start Your Next Book

3. Buy a cover — check out premade cover designs and get inspired

Images always spark creativity for me. The last time I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write, I bought the cover for Lady Saville’s Lover.

The cover struck me while I was browsing designs, and the title just came to mind. I had no idea what the novel would be about, or anything else… The cover spoke to me, and I just started writing.

Do a Google search for “premade book covers”. You’ll find lots of websites which offer covers, and you may be inspired.

via peneloperedmont.com

How an Award Winning Food Blogger Used Trello, Todoist and Zapier to Grow Traffic 10x

And as the blog evolved, so did the tools and processes I used to manage it. For the first few months, I made dinner and snapped a photo, then spent 10 minutes uploading it and publishing a post. Whenever I had an idea for a recipe, I would jot it down on a random Post-it note. When I found a recipe in a cookbook, I’d dog-ear the page. If I saw something in a magazine, I’d rip out the page and put it on my desk. And if I saw something online that piqued my interest, I’d email it to myself. Needless to say, ideas were scattered everywhere and managing them was overwhelming.

I needed a blogging workflow.

via zapier.com

How I Use Trello To Keep My 90-Day Plan In Action

For me I work best with a big overview and then details, I like seeing how it all fits together. For other people, it’s easier if things are compartmentalized because they are overwhelmed when it’s all in front of them. There is no right way.

While I call this my 90-Day Board, I do have cards for all quarters listed so that I can easily add notes or future to-do’s to those cards as I move through the quarter. The quarters are then broken down into months, and then weeks.

I chunk out my day, so I come to this board and see what I need to work on for any given day I have time outside of client work. I don’t keep a separate weekly board.

via bloomhustlegrow.com

Use Trello To Plan Content For Blogs

Create lists for each step in your blog post creation process

The next step is to set up some more lists; one for every step in your blog post creation process. The idea is that you will move your card from list to list as you work on it.

So for example, in my blog board, I have the following lists

• Post Ideas – as previously mentioned, this contains post ideas.
• In Progress – contains posts that I am in the process of writing.
• Draft – contains post that I have finished writing but that need to proofread, edited, etc.
• Scheduled – contains posts that are scheduled ready to be published.

via hollypryce.com

If you blog for clients, Trello helps you to manage your deadlines.

Blogging For Love And Money? Make It Easier

Blogging: the biggest challenge is…

Over the years I’ve coached many web writers, marketers and bloggers. Hands down, everyone’s biggest challenge is always to maintain a content creation schedule.

That’s not surprising, because it’s a challenge for veteran writers too. Not only does life get in the way, so that we end up scrambling to write, but it’s easy to lose your inspiration and get bored.

You can eliminate boredom by changing your content style with templates.

via www.angelabooth.com