Monday Competition News

My copy of Writing Magazine arrived this morning and l suddenly realized l have never shared news of the website nor the many competitions open to writers.

This month's competition--and l'm ahead of the game here because it's in the August magazine-- is to write a love story in 1500-1700 words. The story winning first prize stands to win £200, will be published in the magazine and maybe also online at www.writers-online.co.uk 


Deadline for entries is September 14 so we slow writers have plenty of time to craft and polish.

The competition rules are clear. Entry fees are minimal and the three competitions with closing date mid-month are listed under Open Competitions here. There are opportunities for children's writers and poets are always well catered for  too with articles and competitions.The top menu bar also has a Win Prizes link, worth checking out regularly.


Great prizes too at the Valhalla Press Literary Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction contest. Access the contest from the second item down on the left hand side menu. (My server did not like the direct link.)


If you are looking for contests, grants, writing opportunities be sure to visit C. Hope Clark's marvellous Funds for Writers website and sign up for her  newsletters.

Writing for Children

In a guest post on Wednesday, Jo Linsdell is again visiting Slow and Steady Writers, this time as part of the book tour for her new children's picture book, Out and About at the Zoo.

 I'm very much looking forward to her interview after the visit she made earlier this year promoting Italian for Tourists.

 Out and About at the Zoo has  already collected loads of four and five star reviews on Amazon so many congratulations are in order.


This week l have been looking at Tiffany Dow's reviews of the Geoff Shaw course on Kindling and reconsidering my eBook plans.

Karen Cioffi's How to Write Books for Children appeals to me as a good place to start so l shall be studying that and seeing what ideas it brings to help me write a Kindle eBook.

Book Reviews

The  judges' score sheets for the Global eBook Awards are now lodged with the organisers and results will be announced hopefully by mid-month. l thoroughly enjoyed all the entries for the Suspense and Mystery categories and learned a lot from analysing the work of so many authors new to me.


My Kindle for PC is now also crammed with around sixty books needing reviews so l'll be posting short snippets here on Fridays re any books l have found particularly interesting and helpful...well, that's the plan...
 

Today's Question

How helpful are Twitter and Facebook when it comes to selling your books? Or do you find you spend too much time promoting books there for a minimal result?

Writing the e-Book--Week Three

My statement of intent written and posted, I planned and divided the proposed e-book into ten chapters and aimed for fifty pages. As always, the original idea lost its appeal and I had not the speck of an idea in mind to replace it. 

The relief was incredible. No need to stress out over one more impossible project.  And then came:

• emails from friends wondering how I was getting on
• the joyful discovery of how to make little flip books free
• the grand idea

 Grand ideas, as we all know, are always other people's. ( Our own come overnight and vanish on waking.) And my grand idea was certainly triggered by someone else's thoughts.

Motivation through Blogs
I doubt if much else is as motivating as reading random blogs. Cross fertilization of ideas, irritation at ill-conceived assumptions, the emotional tug of other writing all demand a response.

Before I knew it, a comment I had made on a writing blog suddenly filled my mind with possibilities for expansion and eureka, my book sprang into mind.

Motivated through blogging, the book will appear through blogging, a section or so per week, till all is done. Yay!

If you are a self-critical writer, never happy till you have achieved perfection, create for yourself a secret blog until you are ready to reveal your work to the world or simply to your friends. But regular blogging will force you into the habit of working regularly and keep the writing muscles exercised.

Motivation through Technology

I am still enchanted by the flip books and have been looking into several more providers including issuu.com

And if you're looking for further motivation, check out How to Get Your Manuscript Finished The author is Rowdy Rhodes of Freelance Writing Organization International

Note for gadget lovers:: Rowdy is offering the instant writing resources toolbar as a free download AND as an incentive writers can use for themselves as a free giveaway to their own blog subscribers.

The instant access help desk is a great idea too. 

Motivation through Accountability

Tell everyone you know--and everyone you don't know--that you're writing a book and then it has to happen.
It's Read an Ebook Week from March 4-10 (or all next month in Canada), Grab some of the lovely banners to promote it on your site, if you have one.
And make it a goal to have at least one ebook of your own ready for this event next year.

Ebook gift

Just in, in case you'd rather read than write : The Tulip Kiss by Elysabeth Eldering, free today and tomorrow at Amazon.
It's also on Amazon UK--don't know about the others.
Remember, by downloading and liking, you are helping ebook authors in the rankings. If you have time to write a good review, even better.