Monthly Archives: July 2015

Authors, Writing

Writing Prompts for Writer’s Block

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Writer’s Block UUUhhhggggg!

Everyone has those moments when the ideas just aren’t flowing. Those moments can last for a few minutes or stretch on to a few years. Those times when creativity doesn’t seem to click in and focus seems impossible has been called writer’s block

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What to do about Writer’s Block

I find that there are a number of ways to fight writer’s block. My favorites include getting up and changing the scenery. Picking up something to read that catches my attention. Physical activity. Visiting Amazon and looking at book titles that I might want to read. I like to read biographies and inspirational quotes.

Writing

Sometimes writing that doesn’t involve what I am currently stuck on helps to oil the wheels and get the juices flowing.

I like to write in my journal, write a blog post, or write a letter that I have been putting off.

Writing Prompts

There is some controversy over using writing prompts. Some people see it as a waste of time, others praise them for the benefit. I am a middle-of-the-road kind of guy when it comes to writing prompts. I find them useful when the writing isn’t flowing, now days I tend to come up with my own prompts. I am usually working on a few books or works at a time. I try to imagine some off-the-wall scenarios that could relate to a back-story or situation that could occur in something else that I might be working on. I imagine dialogues from different points of view, or scenarios that could be possible if I changed a character’s roll or demeanor. I have often found that I like the new point of view, and found that the writing prompt helped me produce something that could be used later in another story.

That wasn’t always the case with me. Writing prompts were good exercises, and I used them often in my earlier writing. Here are some of my favorite resources for writing prompts:

http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/

http://awesomewritingprompts.tumblr.com/

http://www.pw.org/writing-prompts-exercises

Here a a couple of books about writing prompts:

http://www.amazon.com/1-000-Awesome-Writing-Prompts-ebook/dp/B00JOVSYC2

http://www.amazon.com/000-Creative-Writing-Prompts-Scripts-ebook/dp/B0044DEL7C

Find what works for you. Write down what you try and how you feel afterwords. Improve your writing by reading and writing every day.

May your writing shine and light the world,

Dean R. Giles, Author

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Book, Kindle eBook

Why is My Book Taking So Long?

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This Book is Taking Too Long to Write!

It has been said that there is a book (or many book) inside of everyone. That is a fact. Everyone has unique experiences, knowledge, skills, and interesting facts that they could enhance the lives of others by sharing. However, getting that into a book is often harder that it seems, and definitely harder than it should be:

 

 

writing-a-book

Among the hardest part of writing your book is understanding your target audience. What do your readers really need? What do they really want? Getting into their mind is an exercise worth doing.

There are great places one can look to discover what the problems or needs of any group of people is.  If you are thinking about writing a book, one of the best places to start is Amazon.

Discovering Needs on Amazon.com

How do you know if anyone wants a book on your topic? Simple, see if some are selling well on Amazon. The Amazon Best Seller Rank tells you where a book stands in relationship to the other 10 million or so books on Amazon.  An Amazon Best Seller Rank of 1 is the best. As it gets out to 800,000 or so, the book is only selling a few copies a year.

Using this graph from the Kindlepreneur (http://kindlepreneur.com/how-to-convert-kindle-sales-rank-into-sales-per-day/)

Convert-Kindle-Bestselling-rank-into-sales-per-day

The Best Seller Rank shows how popular a topic is by showing you roughly how many daily sales a book gets. So you want books on your topic to have a Best Seller Rank of 50,000 or less.

Getting Needs From Other Places

Other places to look are on blog and news sites. What seems to be mentioned often today? Why is it a problem? How long ago did you hear about these problems?

Use a Google search to find the questions that are being posted on popular blogs and news sites.

Use Forums to search for the questions that come up again and again.

Check tutorial sites to see what classes exist.

Know the Needs, Then Write The Book

Now that you know what people need, start organizing what you want to teach them. Research the answers, and be able to explain what the problems are, why they are a problem, and why your solution will solve the problem.

Give Them The Best Solution in The Best Way

Don’t just state a solution, present the solution. Break it down and present it in a way that anyone can implement the solution. Be direct. Tell them exactly what they need to do and what the results will be.

How many books have you read where the answers were ambiguous, and the solution impossible to implement. If you want to help a lot of people, then you need to present the solution in a step-by-step manner that anyone can follow.

When I have a book that uses a  step-by-step methodology, I usually keep the book around for a reference, to make sure that I haven’t missed anything. I can usually make a checklist to follow.

Step By Step

Make your books useful and impactful. The point of your book is the solution, it is how to solve the vexing problems of your readers. The best way to do this is in an easy to follow format.

Want to know how to make that exciting and educational at the same time? Want to know how to write it fast and to the point. I explain it step by step in the How to Write a Step by Step book.

step-by-step-book-4You will understand your readers better, learn how to answer their questions, and put that into a book faster and in a way that has more impact than anything you have written before.

Go ahead. Make your book writing easier and faster with Write a Step-by-Step Book.

Its all up to you. You can make writing faster, easier, and really more enjoyable.

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Kindle eBook

Here We Go Again, Amazon Change

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Kindle Unlimited Pages Read

Just about the time that you think that you have things figured out, they change right before your eyes. The month of July has seen a big change for authors of Kindle books. The Kindle Unlimited program is paying by the page read now. Here are the details of the program as Amazon reports it. (Taken from: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A156OS90J7RDN)

kindle-unlimited-pages-read

Kindle Unlimited Pages Read

Beginning July 1, 2015, we switched from paying Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) royalties based on qualified borrows, to paying based on the number of pages read. We made this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read. Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.Royalty payments under the new program

As with our current approach, we’ll continue to set a KDP Select Global Fund each month. Under the new payment method, the amount an author earns will be determined by their share of total pages read instead of their share of total qualified borrows.

Here are some examples of how it would work if the fund was $10M and 100,000,000 total pages were read in the month:

  • The author of a 100 page book that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).
  • The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $2,000 ($10 million multiplied by 20,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).
  • The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed 100 times but only read halfway through on average would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).

We will similarly change the way we pay KDP Select All-Star bonuses which will be awarded to authors and titles based on total KU and KOLL pages read.

You can enroll in KDP Select at any time by visiting your Bookshelf. If you no longer want your book(s) to be included in KDP Select you may unenroll from the program by contacting us with the ASIN of the book you would like to remove.

Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC v1.0)

To determine a book’s page count in a way that works across genres and devices, we’ve developed the Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC). We calculate KENPC based on standard settings (e.g. font, line height, line spacing, etc.), and we use KENPC to measure the number of pages customers read in your book, starting with the Start Reading Location (SRL) to the end of your book. Amazon typically sets SRL at chapter 1 so readers can start reading the core content of your book as soon as they open it.

This standardized approach allows us to identify pages in a way that works across genres and devices. Non-text elements within books including images, charts and graphs will count toward a book’s KENPC.

You can see your book’s KENPC listed on the “Promote and Advertise” page in your Bookshelf, and you can also see total pages read on your Sales Dashboard report. Because it’s based on default settings, KENPC may vary from page counts listed on your Amazon detail page, which are derived from other sources.

Reporting

You can view your Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) Pages Read in your Sales Dashboard report by marketplace and title.

We always support our authors’ efforts to promote their books all over the world, but at the same time we work to prevent any manipulation of the Kindle platform. Because we’re always looking to improve our authors’ experience, we’ll have systems in place to monitor for potential manipulation.

What I like about the changes
The changes reflect that users have to remain interested in the book and the topic long enough to finish. I have always felt that I deliver enough value that readers stay on to the end of the book. However, I have picked up books that have lost my interest within the first 20 pages. Those books get less of the divided up profits.
What I don’t like about the changes

The pages read are lumped together in one statistic. I can’t see which books are being borrowed the most, and which subjects I should write more about due to the lending.

What to do about it

I think the most important thing to do about the changes is to write more books that are more compelling. I think that the aim of the program is to reward authors that have more than just an attractive cover and good keywords in the title, they are rewarding authors that grab a readers attention and don’t let it go until they get to the end of the book.

What do you think about the changes? Please leave a comment and let us know.

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