Whether submitting your book to an agent or directly to a publisher, here are a few tips to follow to be viewed as professional, avoid being blacklisted, and increase your chances for success: Following these six tips will increase your chances of having your book published. Of course, the most important tip is to write […]
Another blogging tip is to make one, and only one, point per post. Trying to cover two or more points is a distraction that will turn off readers, cause confusion, or risk them missing key communication. For some bloggers this is easy, while for others, sticking to one point is difficult; but remember, we respect […]
There are two main considerations for formatting your book submission: First, follow the basic criteria that almost all people agree on; failing to do this decreases your chances for success. Second, many publishers and agents post submission guidelines on their websites telling you what they expect. So, start with the basic requirements in all your […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD On Monday I called a vendor about my invoice. “I’m sorry,” the rep said, “but we’re doing an update, and I can’t access your records.” Given that they only operate sixty hours a week, doing an update in the middle of the day was strange timing. The evening would be […]
My eighth blogging tip is to include a picture. Really? Then where are they? I’ve never included artwork on my first blog, Musings. Four reasons why I didn’t include artwork in my posts: Four reasons why we should include artwork with our posts:
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Last month I took a trip to the ER – as a patient. It was one of the silly things; I guess that’s why they call them accidents. A series of small decisions throughout my day resulted in a final “oops” at the wrong time and…well, I’ll spare you the […]
Blog Comments Provide Quick Feedback and Encourage Interaction Another successful blogging tip is to engage readers. Interacting with our audience is the best and easiest way to connect with readers and build a following (that is, grow our platform). The best way to engage readers is by encouraging blog comments. Having comments can also increase […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I often share customer service stories in this column. While I prefer to pass on examples of excellence, they are harder to spot than service gone awry. Even so, I try not to let these tales become a rant but instead offer helpful information in an interesting way. As my […]
Here is the final installment in our series on using WordPress for blogging: a platform-building, book-selling tool. For the first six posts, we covered the technical aspects of setting up and using a WordPress blog. In this post, I’ll share implementation tips.
Another blogging tip is to optimize posts for search engines. As we already covered, the post should be at least 200 words long for search engines to have enough content to analyze. Also, making a post scannable helps, too, especially when we use bold or add a headline tag to subheadings (an easy step I […]