Showing posts with label Derek Haines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Derek Haines. Show all posts

Friday, July 12, 2013

10 Ways to Improve Your Writing

Today's post is by Derek Haines:


As social networking is predominately text driven, it really is a good idea to make sure your writing is up to an acceptable and readable standard. There’s nothing worse than reading a tweet, Google+ or Facebook entry or blog post that is full of errors. It really gives an impression to the reader that you are a either careless, or worse, a bit of a dope. So to help you make a better impression on the few million people that may be reading you, (yes, daunting isn’t it?) here are a few tips you might want to consider.
1. Always check that your verb agree with the subject. I hates this mistake with a a passion.
2. Almost every comptupter has a speelchekker, so use it. Yoo could even use teh auto-tect correction for commun errors.
3. Typos involving small common words like that and than, it  and is and there and their are easy to make. Check before you hit the send button. Better to be safe that sorry.
4. One mistake that irks me is the incorrect use of capitalisation. I just cringe when i see this error.
4. When you use numbered bullets, make sure they are correctly sequential.
6. Check your formatting in blog posts as errors are not always obvious.
7. USE OF SHOUTING CAPITALS WILL OFFEND READERS, SO DON’T USE THEM. Except for unavoidable acronyms. LOL
8. There are some who think; oddly enough, that punctuation – commas, colons and em dashes, are a sign: or symbolic, of high intellect. In fact the opposite is true and you stand a good chance of looking like a real fool.
9. I dislike sentences that always start with I. I hate it in fact. I stop reading instantly. I would advise against it. I would.
10. Reading long passages of text on the Internet; whether it be on a computer, laptop or mobile phone is very tiring on a reader’s eyes so you should be careful not to ramble on with long sentences and un-paragraphed passages of text that are neither informative nor interesting as you will lose your reader very quickly as they will become bored and stop reading your diatribe quicker than you can say Jack Robinson, so don’t just keep typing ad infinitum about your pet subject in long and badly punctuated sentences that keep waffling on without ever coming to the point that was probably your intention to begin with but you forgot about once you got started and decided to add one extra point in your sentence that should have included a relative pronoun but you got lazy and just used a random comma and kept on typing. Phew!
11. Be sure that your title is relevant and an accurate summary of your article.
10 tips for better writing


Saturday, June 15, 2013

Guest Post: Self Publishing Authors Are ‘Suspect’ and ‘Cheats’

Please help me welcome today's guest blogger, indie novelist Derek Haines:
Book PromotionIs paying for advertising, promotion or even reviews cheating? I read this press release and wondered what point it was trying to make. Yes, it of course refers to John Locke buying reviews, which I must admit is becoming very old news now, but it goes on with carefully chosen vocabulary referring to self-published authors being labeled as unethical, suspect, spamming, inferior and cheats if they pay for promotion.
Then Sean Platt, the author of the press release, admits to having bought thousands of Twitter followers. Talk about hypocritical in the extreme.
So it’s OK to buy Twitter followers, but it’s not OK to buy promotion, advertising or book reviews?
But it did start me thinking about this whole issue of paid promotion, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is not a carefully managed attack on self publishing as a whole. It’s no secret that self-published titles are doing very well, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this success has ruffled a few ‘established ‘ feathers.
In my mind the whole issue is boiling down to one basic point. That is, that it’s OK to spend a bucket-load of money on book promotion if you are a major publisher to ‘buy’ an audience, but if you’re an ‘Indie’, you’re expected to do everything on the cheap and free and wait around for your family and friends to buy your book. Then if you admit to spending money on book promotion, you get labeled as a cheat.
What’s wrong with the idea that self publishing is a business like any other and as such there are marketing expenses and without this investment, books struggle to sell? I think it’s up to every individual self-published author to decide how they operate their business, and from my own particular viewpoint, no one is going to tell me how I should run my own business.
And if you’re wondering. No, I have never bought Twitter followers. Yes, I have paid for advertising. Yes, I have paid for book promotion. There are always expenses in any business. Even self publishing.
Derek Haines lives in Switzerland, and is the author of Eyes That Could Kill and several other books.