Infographic Thursday: A Blogging Strategy

Source: www.visual.ly

International Authors' Day Blog Hop

Thank you to Debdatta of  http://www.b00kr3vi3ws.in who is hosting this blog tour to celebrate International Authors' Day.

A short while ago I asked for articles about being a writer, but it seems that my fellow South African authors are very shy when it comes to sharing their stories.
From experience, and having some great friends outside my home country, I decided that we all could benefit from a compilation of our stories.

You may submit a maximum of 2 articles, between 1500 to 2000 words each, on YOUR experiences, or YOUR advice on writing or being a writer. This is not a project on general advice, it has to be from a personal perspective. First person POV is recommended. Only English language submissions will be considered.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:
1.    Time Management
2.   What made you decide to write/publish
3.   What to write - fiction or non-fiction
4.   Which genre is best
5.   Sex or no sex
6.   Collaboration projects - multi author and/or anthologies
7.   The positives/negatives of alpha and beta readers
8.   What you expect from a reviewer
9.   Book blog tours
10.  Choosing an editor
11.  Book cover design
12.  Author Branding
13.  Marketing
14.  Social media
15.  Ebook or print?
16.  Children’s books
17.  YA and NA books
etc.

Please submit your articles/stories to blog.tour.info@gmail.com as a .doc, .rtf or .txt file.

Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2014, 12pm, South African time (GMT+2)

We are looking for around 45-50 essays to publish in ebook format to distribute for free via Smashwords and Amazon. It will be uploaded to Goodreads, and you will be tagged, if you have a profile.

If your article(s) are selected, your author bio, book links, social media links, and blog / website details will be requested for inclusion in the publication.

Please ensure your work is edited before submission.

We reserve the right not to select every submission for publication.

The project is open to any and all published authors.

So here is your chance to share your story, and inspire many others to gather their courage to face their fears, and take that final step into the world of being a published writer.

Infographic Thursday: Hooow tooo beee Moore CREATIVE!

This is one long, long, long infographic :) Creativity is something that many people take for granted, simply because it is the way we are, but it does not have to be only that way.
Anyone can be creative, and it is not even that difficult.
Okay, shutting big mouth here, because the creative writing process is different for everyone. I am sure artists will agree that the argument holds true for them too.
I often get the weirdest ideas at the oddest moments, and 'what if' is the one phrase my brain seems to love above all others. Don't get me wrong, some of my brainwaves do not deserve to be mentioned, while others are explored in some or other story that I am concocting at the time.
Once in a while, the idea sticks and grows to become a short story or a novel.  Sometimes it even ends up worth reading.
May your creative endeavours give you hours of pleasure, and satisfy that deep dark need to ... write!


The infographic can be found on www.visual.ly

Invitation: Share your experiences and advice with others

The South African market is small and a challenge at the best of times. If you are a published author (indie or not) what advice, anecdotes and tales would you like to share with other writers? Drop us a line if you are interested - details in the graphic 

Help build your audience by taking part in this project, aptly named FEARLESS, because our journey may not easy, but neither could we give in to the fear that prevents us from fulfilling our dreams.

Come on, you have always wanted to!

Blog Tour: Bootie and the Beast by Falguni Kothari

 

Fairytales don't end with True Love's Kiss, they begin with one...

Diya Mathur (aka Beauty), celebrated supermodel and Party Princess of India, is adored by everyone. She works hard, plays hard, and has the biggest shoe fetish on the planet. But after she purchases one baby bootie, Diya's reputation is in ruins. There's only one place to escape the rumours - Texas, under the protection of her lifelong friend, and secret love, Krish Menon (aka the Beast).

Financial whizz-kid, CFO and entrepreneur, Krish is a brooding workaholic with a charisma that still brings Beauty Mathur to her knees. He has no idea, of course! They've shared a bond since childhood - a special friendship that thrives on sparring, teasing and goading - but with Diya back in his life and under his roof, Krish's latent desire for her explodes. And when he finally admits to the secret that has never allowed him to commit to any woman - especially Diya - everything changes. Krish might finally realise how much he wants his Beauty. But he won't get her until Diya has tamed her Beast.

Author Bio and Books Links

Falguni Kothari is a non-traditional homemaker who accidentally tripped on a misplaced soccer ball and fell down the writer’s rabbit hole. Having no more experience with the whole writing/publishing shebang than being a voracious reader and movie buff, it more than surprised her that she could, in fact, write a full-length novel.

Now, several manuscripts down, when she is not trying to find a way out of her many domestic duties or cajoling her Latin dance coach to compose a rumba on Bollywood music, she is found embroiled in some or other scandal—sorry, creating stories—on her ever-faithful laptop.

She’s authored Bootie and the Beast, It’s Your Move, Wordfreak! and Scrabbulous Impressions, a short story. She rumbas across a whole smorgasbord of Social Media daily and loves to connect with most living things.

Website: www.falgunikothari.com

Twitter: @F2tweet https://twitter.com/F2tweet

FB Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/falgunikothari.author

Blog: http://falgunikothari.blogspot.com

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/falgunikothari

Google+ : https://plus.google.com/+FalguniKothari

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/falgunikothari/

Book links for Bootie and the Beast:

Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bootie-Beast-Indian-Author-Collection-ebook/dp/B00KM0ZQ4S/ref=pd_rhf_eebr_p_t_1_RZEY

Amazon India:

http://www.amazon.in/Bootie-Beast-Falguni-Kothari/dp/9351065065/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398098298&sr=1-2

Mills and Boon:

http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/bootie-and-the-beast

Infographic Thursday: Oops, not again!

Infographic from www.visual.ly

I have recently read an article about famous writers, alive and dead, who chose to write their novels by hand. While I write my books on my computer, I still enjoy the weight of my heavy Waterman fountain pen when writing in my journal.
I claim no perfection in my writing, but I feel that I make fewer errors when writing by hand. Am I going to start writing my novels or short stories by hand? Hell, no! If I did I will never finish anything, simply because of the time it will take to do that, and then transcribing it to computer for it to be published.
I suppose like most people, non-writers included, I have come to rely on word processors to fix my mistakes even as I make them.
But computers don't know what we want to write, it uses an algorithm to correct words to be the closest match to the wrong word we typed. Or the rules of good grammar that is programmed into its code.
So it really is up to us to check what we are writing, and understand that the words we are using are the ones we intended to be there. Then again it helps if you know a good editor.
Do you still struggle with these annoying little mistakes as I sometimes do despite all the words I have written and published?

I couldn't resist sharing. . . :)

Normally I don't put any of my book links on my home page, unless there is a launch or some special going on, but this one I couldn't resist sharing. It just looks that good :)