35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 34: The Last Word - Back Matter

About the Author

This may be the last paragraph in your book, but do not disregard its importance. The About the Author paragraph (or two) provides your reader a personal view into the person whose book they have just finished reading.

What should this paragraph entail? It is entirely up to you, but here are a few pointers to help you decide how to word your Author Bio:

1. Don't lie about yourself. This does not mean that you have tell all, but don't say things that are not true to make yourself sound more important or more educated.
2. Don't brag. It is all good and well that you have a PhD, but you can word it in such a way that people won't feel inferior to you when they read it. You want to come across as someone that your readers can relate to, PhD notwithstanding.
3. Share something that you are interested in. A hobby or two, or something that you like to do with your family.
4. Keep the bedroom door closed. While the sex lives of celebrities might be fascinating to the tabloids, you do not want to air your bed sheets in public. It is bad enough that the perception exists that any and all sex scenes in books are based on the writer's own experiences. It is not true for the majority of writers, but even if it is the truth in your case, refrain from mentioning that.
5. Since you are a writer, don't forget to mention something about how you got started, or what made you write your first story.
6. Keep it short. This is not the time for colourful prose and literary thoughts. Keep it under 200 words as far as possible.
7. Social media contact details. Add you four (maximum) best social media profile links of which one should be your blog or website. 

For print books a photograph can be added, but check the ebook requirements as some platforms may not allow another graphic aside from the cover to be part of the published files.

Cover Reveal: SEEKING REDEMPTION by Madhu Vajpayee

Book Blurb:  Story of a girl Meera, who is unwittingly drawn into a conflict from where she finds it difficult to emerge unscathed. It's her journey from being a simple, medical graduate belonging to a middle class family to the uncharted territories of corruption and caste based politics. Her path is crossed by the two men, both compelling yet completely contrasting characters, who are forever going to change her life. If it is Aman who can challenge her ideals and defy her resolves, and makes her the person she finally becomes, it is Abhay's sublime love which enables her to go through the vicissitudes of life. It's also the story of her loss as well as triumph against her own demons to find her true self.

Pre-order from Amazon

About the Author:

Dr.Madhu Vajpayee- the writer was born somewhere in those hospital corridors where she has spent the last two decades of her life. Witnessing life at such close quarters pushed her to capture its enigma in her words and slowly it became her passion. After writing several scientific papers and chapters in books, this book is her first step in literary world.  

Having done her graduation, MBBS from King Georges Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow she went ahead to pursue her post-graduation, MD from AIIMS, New Delhi. She was a consultant at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi having been associated with management of patients living with HIV/AIDS. She is now settled in Melbourne, Australia with her family, where she is devoting most of her time to writing, the passion that she couldn’t pursue earlier because of the demands of medical profession and commitment it requires.

When not creating stories, Madhu enjoys reading and travelling.

Contact the Author:

Blog * Facebook Page * Twitter * Goodreads 

35 Day Blog Challenge – Day 33: Does the Front Matter?

Photograph by Linzé

The front matter in a book is everything listed before the book starts at Chapter 1, excluding the cover. We will look at print books and ebooks separately since the front matter of these are not exactly the same.

Let’s start with the ever popular ebook. The first virtual page after the cover deals with copyright, publication info and details about the book itself: the title and the name of the author.

There is usually also a space to mention other books or a link to other books by the same author. This link is useful for your reader to see that there are more books on offer if he or she likes your book. If you added a link, make sure it is working correctly and the link takes the reader directly to a place where the books are. People don’t have the time or patience to go around clicking to find something they thought would be there at the first click.

Then follows the Table of Contents (ToC) with links to each chapter and the all important About the Author details. Your reader can skip things like a Dedication page, or Note from the Author at the start, and click the link to get reading immediately.

Make sure the links are all there, in case your reader are interested and would like to read your dedications or notes too. If you are using these pages, make sure they are spell and grammar checked. Just because they are not part of the story, doesn’t mean that they are not also a showcase for your writing.

In a printed book, there is an extra page in the front that usually only contains the title, the author’s name and the publisher’s name at the bottom of the page. This is the page where you as the author will autograph the book for a reader.

Printed fiction books do not have a ToC for a single story. Multiple stories published in a single book could have a ToC, but that is not a rule with all publishers.

Of course, printed books cannot have active links to other books by the same author, but it could be listed if it is not too long. Usually, a printed list of other books by the same author is included as part of the front matter, for information.

Often this list is accompanied by short reviews of each book to inform the reader on what other people thought about the stories, and tickle their interest in purchasing those books as well.

You can do the same for an ebook, but add a link in the ToC to Reviews so that the reader has a choice to skip them.

Tomorrow we will have a look at the Back Matter.

35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 32: To Submit or Not to Try?

For some unknown reason, people are scared to enter writing competitions. I say why not? If you win you get all kinds of exposure, if not a publishing contract. And, it saves you the pain and sleepless nights of having to write a query letter, which seems to be worse than writing an actual novel. There is no pitching an agent or editor, or any of those worries about what they will think of you.

The competitions are judged anonymously, and you don't have to do anything except submit a story, long or short.

The downside is that most of the time they don't talk to you either, i.e. there is no feedback. Although there are competitions where feedback is provided, so even that one is no longer an excuse.

The only problem I have with submitting to writing competitions is timing. They always come at the worst times. Either because my next novel is not yet ready for a submission (not finished writing that is) or I don't have a short story on hand that fit the scope of the competition, or there isn't time to write a story, at least a decent one that is.

However, when the opportunity arises, there I go, boots and all! You never know what will happen. And if you don't submit, your chance of winning are zero. Yip, nothing. So grab that story, give it another edit, and submit it. You might be the next winner!

Pop around tomorrow for more mad mutterings on my Broomstick!

If you want to see what the other participants are blogging about, you can find their blogs here. Why not pop on over and leave a comment?

35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 31: Blogging a Book

In a chat group someone asked the other day how does one blog a book, or do you just write posts about the book for marketing purposes? Personally I think you can go either way, but as a writer, trying to establish yourself? Write a book.
It can be fiction or non-fiction, both can work wonderfully as a series of blog posts. Just one thing to remember: once posted it is considered published because it will be in the public domain. So no entering competitions where it explicitly states 'not published before'. Competitions can be funny that way, but the rules are the rules.
On the other hand, if people like your blog posts, ie your book very much, they will tell you. 

To give an example: Yip I have one of those on hand - my friend, Vanessa Wright, wrote a series of posts about her Muse. And they were not only very funny, people like them so much that they had been pestering her to publish them in a book.
And to keep things interesting, she added a few stories, not on her blog - now, that's the part that will sell the book. People have seen and loved her posts, and the book will give them more of that.
Well, the good news is she is busy with the final edits, the cover looks amazing, and hopefully soon I will be able to twist her arm to let me introduce her muse to you right here on the Broomstick.

My attempt to complete a non-fiction book has been done the same way. Using the 35 Day Author Blog Challenge I have written several posts to be included in the book. Some of the posts were edited before inclusion, simply because of the style, but others were used as is.
One or two posts were expanded because I don't like long-winded blog posts, but the topic required more detail before it would have worked for the book.

Whichever way you decide to use your blog to write a book, enjoy the process and may your readers enjoy the journey with you!

35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 30: Blogging to share

As I have taken part in this Author Blog Challenge, I have noticed that some of the blog sites cannot be shared. If I found a post interesting, I had to copy the link and then go to Google+ (where I prefer to share blog posts) to share the link there.

This posed two problems:

I had to this manually. I don't mind, but it could have saved time if I had the opportunity to just click, and the post would be shared automatically.

This brings me to the second problem: the blogger didn't know that I shared his or her post. Without the link on the blog, I would have to tag the blogger in the share to let them know what I did. Since some bloggers don't have their names visible on their blogs, or they don't have a profile on Google+, it was not possible for me to to that.

I have been fortunate that people shared my posts on social media sites, including Google+, but four days ago, a visitor made the comment that she couldn't reblog my post. This was a surprise, since I didn't know how to allow that by means of a app or widget to be clicked.

After a little research (and a very helpful blog) I learned that it was a little more complicated than activating an app to share my posts.

You have to understand that while I trained as an electronics engineer, programming and software code was never my strong point. So when the blog said, go HTML and edit that code, I went ice cold. Fiddling around with software code could create all kinds of havoc, which I simply do not have the patience or knowledge to fix.

But, I have to mention in my defence, I can read a mean instruction manual. Which I did. As holding my breath, thumbs, toes and a few unmentionables, I click save after adding the extra code.

There were no fireworks, or alarm bells screaming at me. Neither was there any smoke pouring out of the keyboard or flashing screens with all kinds of errors in my face.

So far so good. And then I tested it, again too anxious to rush into the process. Too weird! It worked!

It doesn't matter which platform your blog is hosted on, add those social media and reblog buttons, you never know who might want to share your words with the world.

This week is the last of days of the 35 Day Author Blog Challenge and I want to personally thank everyone taking part in the challenge for all the terrific posts you had written. I trust you will enjoy my last five posts too.

If you want to see what the other participants are blogging about, you can find their blogs here. Why not pop on over and leave a comment?

35 Day Blog Challenge - Day 29: Review Reality - do you dare to?

This is my third post on writing reviews, and this time we will have a look at reviewing non-fiction. Of all the genres, this has to be the most difficult simply because non-fiction is not the same as fiction. Non-fiction deals with real life, real situations and real problems. Before I start on the subject, let me clarify: for the sake of this post, academic and other educational books are excluded. The aim is to look as books available to the general public, you and me, via the normal book distribution channels.

To my mind there are three categories of non-fiction:

• Self-help books: yoga, weight-loss, books on religion and its topics, psychological issues, etc.
• Books to learn a skill: crafts, writing, art, cooking, meditation, etc.
• Books that inform or entertain you: wildlife, travel books, history books, biographies, etc.

There are probably more than what I can think of right now, and some of these books can be categorised in more than one way, depending on the contents and your intention of reading it. And that is the essence of reading non-fiction: do you intend to read it for information? Do you want to better yourself? Or are you a writer or subject guru who is doing research for your next book?

When writing a review about a non-fiction book, I am of the opinion that you should state the reason you read the book in the first place. It will explain to the reader of the review, be it the author or a potential buyer, where you are coming from.

If you are a subject expert, and you give the book a less than exalted review, but you didn't state your reason, people might get the wrong impression. If you are a novice, this book might just be the best thing that has happened to you.

The same applies to someone who is reading the book for information's sake. Was the topic covered sufficiently for you to get what you needed? Did you find it easy to read the text? If you used one of the references, was it useful in aiding your understanding of the subject?

While many people, writers included, use the Internet for research, I have found that some subjects should not be researched on our source-of-all-information. I am referring to sex. Before you block my blog and report me to the police, let me clarify.

I needed to understand more about tantra. I searched for books that explained the philosophy behind it, rather than the practical application which was not what I required for my book, We, the One. I needed something different, a new point of view if you like, to tackle this story where intimacy is the key problem between my main characters. Intimacy is more than physical, it has some emotional and spiritual connections too, and I wanted a fresh approach for my story, thus the research and the books.

I found three of them: the first was as dull as dishwater, the second was leaning more towards the physical, and the third explained the approach I was looking for.

Now all three books had merit, but not all of it was useful to me. The first would be a textbook for students of tantra, but it was way too philosophical and vague for what I needed. The second was too physical, as mentioned. The third had more of the information I was looking for, although I was not happy with some of the religious statements the author made in the text. So if I had to review any or all three of these books, I would need to tell you why I read them, otherwise you would have no idea why I would review them the way I did.

I am not going to review these three books, because it would serve no purpose to people who would buy these books. They are all being marketed as books to improve your sex life, and the characters in my book had a completely different need that I had to figure out.

So here is what I suggest for reviewing non-fiction books:

1. Tell your audience why your read the book - to improve yourself, learn something new or for information only.
2. If the first two of these reasons apply to you, then study the book, do the exercises and take the next step towards that which you want: to be a better person, or to learn how to crochet. Only then write the review so your audience can appreciate the reasons you gave it three stars, for example.
3. If you read the book for information only, then tell your audience if the information was useful and did the author fulfil your expectations for buying the book in the first place.

I bought my books online and had limited information available, therefor the two out of three booboo.

If you feel this post wasn't helpful, I won't blame you, since non-fiction reviews are not as easy and straight forward as reviews for fictional books. It is not just about liking or disliking the contents, it could be a life changing event to someone who reads your review.