Hello, SE’ers! It’s Jan again. In my last book marketing post, I promised to delve a little deeper into keywords and targeting in Amazon ads. After doing some extensive study and practicing, I feel like I understand a little more about how they work.

In my previous post, I talked about how Dave Chesson recommends using at least 300 or more keywords when setting up an Amazon ad. That seems a little daunting, but using KDP’s Publisher Rocket is much easier than searching Amazon and copying and pasting.

For example, I set up a new ad for my first book, Flowers and Stone. Then using some keywords from the book, such as true love story, Publisher Rocket brought up a list of 55 books and authors. I saved that list, then did a keyword search for bank robbery and got a list of 58. So you can see that they…

Ciao, SEers. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I intended to spend my time off entirely work-free, and while I didn’t open my laptop, I couldn’t turn off my mind. When I wasn’t soaking up every second I could with my daughter, I was thinking about my workload for 2022. I have stories in various stages, from conception to ready-to-publish. That got me thinking… maybe this year, I’d write a series of posts discussing important points from coming up with an idea through getting ready to publish.

Today is part one: idea generation. We’ve already discussed this topic (see earlier posts from me and Denise), but I’m going to approach this in a slightly different way. Instead of talking about where to find these ideas, I’m going to talk about how to find them and what to do with them once you have them.

We’ve all…

Photo by Sammy Williams on Unsplash

Hi, SEers John with you again. Here we are in Mid-December with only ten more days until Christmas. I don’t know about you, but I have not finished my shopping yet, so I better get cracking.

So, as you can see by the headline, I’m going to talk about one of the latest scams we all need to avoid.

It all started with an e-mail. It seemed to be an innocent inquiry regarding my interest in joining a team of folks who have a desire to make movies out of books. Before we start, I have to add that a club I belong to advised us that they had a conversation with an agent looking for books to make into a film. So, I had it in the back of my mind that this could be a result of that contact since I did…

Hello SE friends, Gwen with you today. When we last met, the topic was 1984, and we focused on writers who predicted the future. Several of the mentioned books were banned because the content was controversial. Of course, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley were two of those authors. SE writer John Howell had an excellent post on banned books earlier this year. If you’d like to check it out, you can find it here.

What was so threatening about these books that they were banned? Let’s answer this by looking at the present.

These days we hear a lot about folks being canceled. Basically, anyone who doesn’t accept the popular narrative is a potential target. That narrative covers topics such as sexual identity, COVID vaccines, demonstrations vs. riots, border walls, gun control, and the list goes on. The finger-pointing is everywhere present.  

For writers, this blame…

Hi SEers! Denise here, and I’m going to share some mistakes and things I missed from my work. Why? To show why a second pair of eyes or a critique group can be so important.

These are actual mistakes from my current work in progress and the comments from my amazing Critique Partners, Yvette M Calleiro and P.T. L. Perrin. I call these my Author Bloopers. A few, especially the last one, had me laughing out loud once I realized what I had said. The others had me cringing or nodding in agreement. I will follow up with the current corrected version which may change and improve with more edits.

1. “They will think I have too much time on my heads, but I’m okay with that…” (heads? How many do you have? I think you meant hands—PTL) Simple fix: “They will think I have too much time on my…

Hi SEers! Denise here to talk about where ideas for stories come from and how to find them. Here’s the definition of idea.

“noun

any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness, or activity.

a thought, conception, or notion: That is an excellent idea.

an impression: He gave me a general idea of how he plans to run the department.

an opinion, view, or belief: His ideas on raising children are certainly strange.

a plan of action; an intention: the idea of becoming an engineer.

a groundless supposition;fantasy.”—dictionary.com

Where do some well-known authors believe their “thought, conception, or notion” originates from to create a story?

I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of cases it’s seeing two things and having them…