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To Write Responsibly or Not at All. That is the Question.

2010-09-06T14:52:49Z

In the 1600’s, an innkeeper and stable owner kept a stable full of horses that he would rent out to people needing to go to the next town. In order to rest and rotate his horses, he always put a returning horse at the end of the line and rented out the first in the line from the stall nearest the door. Some of the renters were not pleased with their choice of horse and complained, demanding a better horse.

At that point, the inn keeper gave his renters a choice: either accept or refuse his offer of the first horse, or in other words, ‘take it or leave it’. The name of this innkeeper? Hobson. And from that innkeeper, we get the phrase, Hobson’s choice. In a Hobson’s choice it appears that we have a free choice to take what is offered, but since the only other choice is nothing, it is not really a choice at all but rather, ‘all or nothing’.

The Hobson's choice phrase is often misused by writers when they use it to mean a choice between two options that are less than optimal. This choice is actually a Morton's fork and usually presents someone with a dilemma of choosing between two equally unpleasant choices (‘between a rock and a hard place’).

Like Hobson’s choice, Morton’s fork evolved around the same time. John Morton was the chancellor for King Henry VII. His main task was to collect taxes for the king and collected them equally from the rich and the poor. He figured that the King’s subjects who appeared poor, obviously didn’t spend money, so they must have huge savings and could afford to pay high taxes. On the other hand, the King’s subjects who appeared wealthy, obviously had money to spend on themselves, so they could also afford high taxes. Both rich and poor were ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’!

Back then, forks had only two prongs, so Morton’s arguments were the two prongs of the fork. Whether you were rich or poor, it didn’t matter because it was a situation which involved a choice between two undesirable outcomes. Whether you were rich or poor, you didn’t have a positive choice and you ended up paying taxes. Two lines of reasoning, two equally bad options, but either way, both lead to an unpleasant conclusion. Another way of saying the King’s subjects were ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’.

As a writer, you have a responsibility to know and use words correctly. You also have a responsibility to your readers to know and use correct phrases. While knowing the background of a phrase is fun and great trivia for showing off at a dinner party, for good writing it is not really necessary to know the background as long as you understand the correct use of the phrase. Writers have an accountability to their readers, so use your phrases correctly or you may suffer a Hobson’s choice (or was that a Morton’s fork?).

10 signs You Are Ready to Publish a Book

2010-09-03T13:30:41Z

So you think you want to write a book. How do you know you are ready? I think everyone has a little book inside them but not everyone is ready to write it right now. How do you know? Well, last week we explored the 7 Reasons You Should Wait to Get Your Book Published. Here now are the top 10 ways you know you are ready to get started.

You have a great online presence. You have built a strong online presence. You have a regular following on your blog. Your current readers will either buy your book or they will be willing to promote it.

You have well defined goals. You know what goals you plan to achieve from your book. You have a timeline for completing your book and you know what professional goals you wish to achieve. If it is not a written goal, it will continue to be a wish.

You dream about holding your book at a press release. You can visualize how it will feel to be a published author. If you can visualize the feeling you will be more likely to find a way to do it.

You have the money to invest. You have determined that benefits to your business and professional status are greater than the cost of publishing. Most authors don’t a big profit on book sales. The money is made from the opportunities that result from being a published author.

Your desire to write your book has moved to the top 5 things you must accomplish in the next year. If you have a burning desire to write a book it will be easier to complete it. Your passion will be conveyed in your book. Your readers will feel your passion for the topic.

You have defined your niche market. There are new books added to the bookshelves everyday. Yours will need to stand out to get noticed. If your book sounds like 2000 others it will not make any difference how intriguing you think the book is it wont get noticed. You must first define your niche market before beginning your book.

You have a marketing plan. You have an idea of how you are going to market your book. You already have an online presence but you have ways to promote your book when it is published.

You want to be seen as an expert in your field. Published authors are seen as more credible than their unpublished peers.

You have made a daily practice of writing. Setting aside time to write daily will make the process easier.

You have a great head shot for the back of the book. If good hair days are infrequent, it could be a sign that you are almost ready.

Are you ready?

Can you think of other ways to know you are ready to write and publish a book?

How do You Develop a Daily Writing Habit? Try Journaling!

2010-09-02T09:00:01Z

Journaling is one of the best ways to develop a daily habit of writing. Journaling can have positive impact on your life now and for reflection in the future. It is a good way to look back at your life and see how you have grown emotionally. You can reflect on the blessings and challenges that life has thrown in your path.

I journal almost daily and it has had an amazing impact on my stress level. By writing my fears, hopes and gratitudes, I gain a better perspective on my life. Expressing my thoughts on paper, allows me to uncover my deepest feelings. When I begin writing I can feel myself relax and soon the challenges seem smaller. Sometimes I cry the entire time I write and other times I laugh. Whatever emotion journaling evokes, you will feel a sense of wellbeing when you are finished.

We recently had a comment from one of our readers that she never intended to write a book, but her daily habit of journaling evolved into a book. I have several little books that will result from my journal. They may ultimately not be for the public, but they will be in a book format.

If you have trouble thinking of topics to write in your journal you should check out The Reflective Writer. Judy Stone-Goldman always writes a reflective post and then gives a writing prompt. I often use her prompts to get me started.

What do you write in your journal?

What writing prompts do you use?

What tips would you have for someone that is just beginning to journal?

What benefits have you seen from journaling?

Newsworthy Links in Publishing

2010-09-01T09:43:41Z

Via Flickr Ayan Khasnabis

I decided to take a break from writing to share a few great articles that I read this past week related to the publishing field. If you are thinking of or are involved in publishing your own book, these are definitely worth a look.

8 Reasons Self Publishing is Entering The Golden Age, by Joel Friedlander, The Book Designer. Joel shares his perspective on the future of self publishing and for anyone thinking of self publishing, this is a great read.

If you want to layout your own book you will want to read a recent post by duolit, 7 Tips for Great Layout Design. In the post, she reviews 7 essential steps to creating a professional book design.

Ezra Barany of Barany Video Marketing, just recently posted a series of posts on book trailers. If you have a book or are working on a book, a book trailer is a must.

What Makes a Good Book Trailer Part 1

What Makes a Good Book Trailer Part 2

What makes a Good Book Trailer Part 3

Candace C Davenport of Our Little Books loves words. She is the creator of the Our Little Books Word of the Day. Check out her popular post, Words! What are They Good For?

Lizbeth Tanz dispels the misconception about the impact of duplicate content on search engines. The Myth of Duplicate Content discusses how you can have our content out there without being punished by the search engine gods.

Sit back and enjoy!

Can a Blog Challenge Help Drive Traffic to Your Site?

2010-08-31T09:00:48Z

Before learning about the Ultimate Blog Challenge, we had set Our Little Books goals for the month to increase traffic to the site by 25%, improve our Alexa ranking and get more comments on the posts. We had no specific idea at that time how we would achieve those specific goals, but sometimes you just plow ahead. I saw a tweet about The Ultimate Blog Challenge and it seemed like the perfect answer to make some headway on our goals. It involved posting a blog every day in August. Certainly a challenge (since we were blogging only three times a week), but not undoable. I decided to jump in.

Jumping in turned out to be the best decision to accomplish our goals. We are very excited with the results. So what benefits resulted from participating in the challenge? Could participating in a Blog Challenge help you and your business? We definitely think so.

Here are six actual results that helped me personally as a blogger and, as a result, also helped Our Little Books as a business:

Accountability - I seem to need the accountability. It was like having a goal buddy. I don’t really think anyone would have reprimanded me if I had missed one day, but I felt accountable to the group. Everyone in the group was taking the challenge so I didn’t want to let them down.

Established a habit - I usually write in my journal daily but I had not disciplined myself to write a post daily. It actually was easier to plan a post daily than it was to plan 2-3 a week. I didn’t write all of the posts myself. I asked for guest posts and I was more proactive about telling them when I need the post.

Lead by Example - We tell authors the benefits of blogging to develop their online platform. We can’t expect someone to do something we are not willing to do. How can I tell someone the benefits of blogging if I don’t take it seriously?

Relationships - I met some great people. I established relationships that will result in joint ventures in the future. We had an increase in requests for our Free e-book on the benefits of having a little book for you business and also in people wanting to learn more about Our Little Books from our newsletter. People read the posts and wanted to know more!

Alexa Ranking - In an Alexa ranking, your site is ranked against other sites in the world and in the US. On August 1^st, we ranked 957,489 in the world and today (31 days later) we rank 417,189 (the lower the number the better). On August 1^st, we ranked 133,000 in the US and today we rank 54,590. We more than surpassed the goal for the month!

Site Traffic Statistics - Do you know your site traffic numbers? The traffic statistics are something we should all be checking. In August, we almost doubled our numbers!

Unique Visitors: July 1901 August 3631
Number of Visits: July 4230 August 8008

We love numbers! The fact that all of the numbers increased significant really gets us excited. We know the numbers are not as good as the big bloggers, but they have been blogging daily much longer than we have. Can you imagine what our numbers will look like in 3 months, or 1 year? But, as exciting as the numbers look, I am most excited about the relationships I built and the habit I formed by participating.

I don’t want the momentum to slow down so I have already started another Blog Challenge. 31 Days of Blogging Challenge is more about building a better blog. You can still sign up. It started on August 23^rd and we don’t have assignments on the weekend. You would only have 7 days to make up.

If you have the opportunity to participate in a blog challenge you, and your business, will not regret it.

The Road Not Taken

2010-08-30T09:00:12Z

Today's post is to remind our readers that we are sponsoring the first ever, Our Little Books poetry contest. But please note, the August 31st deadline is quickly approaching. If you ever wanted to be a published poet, here is your chance! All winners will have their poems published in The Little Book of Inspirational Poetry. For more information see the Poetry Contest page.

We have received submissions from people who wrote their poems back in the '70s and '80s while in college. We have received poems from people who have never thought to share their poetry with anyone before. We have received poems from people who have dreamed of being a published poet. Whatever your reason, share your poems with the world. Who knows who you may inspire! Your poem may be the poem that changes someone's life. Now, how cool would that be?

Even if you don't have a poem, if you know anyone that loves to write poetry and would love to be published, please pass this information along. They will thank you profusely!

To get you in the mood I thought I would include my favorite inspirational poem.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

By

Robert Frost

This is one of my favorite poems of all times. It continues to inspire me today. It reminds me that we are free to choose our destiny. You can choose your path by living deliberately or you can live by default.

What does the poem say to you? Do you have a favorite poem?

Words! What Are They Good For?

2010-08-29T14:51:18Z

It is interesting to think about the ebb and flow of a language and how words come and go depending on the times. As you know, in order to support the writers of the little books we publish, our blog readers, and our followers, Our Little Books puts out a Word of the Day on our facebook business page. These daily words are sometimes unusual. They are sometimes educational. They can also be commonplace or just downright silly. We do the Word of the Day because we work with words as a business and words are what make up the beauty of any language. But they can also get you into trouble.

Take the word niggardly for example. It is an adjective meaning stingy or cheap and unfortunately, phonetically very close to the racial “N word” slur. Although both words are completely unrelated etymologically, still the use of niggardly has caused several controversies over the past few years.

In 1999, David Howard, a white aide to the black mayor of Washington DC, used the word niggardly when he referred to the budget. One of his black co-workers became insulted and filed a complaint leading to Mr. Howard’s resignation. The gay community became outraged (Mr. Howard was gay) which then resulted in Mr. Howard being re-instated to another job. Interestingly enough, although he had used the word correctly, Mr. Howard felt he had learned from the whole situation stating, “I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That’s naïve, especially for a white person, because a white person can't afford to be colorblind. They don't have to think about race every day. An African American does.”

This one word which led to this incident, then led to a huge national debate over the correctness of whether to shun a valid word over being politically correct on racial sensitivities. What was interesting was that the majority of people, including Julian Bond, the head of the NAACP, supported the use of the word. In fact, while pointing out where people were on issues of race, Mr. Bond said, “(s)eems to me the mayor has been niggardly in his judgment on this issue.” In this incident, the dictionary won out over racial sensitivities.

There have been several other incidents surrounding the word niggardly, mostly by teachers, where a student considered their teacher racist for using the word niggardly in the classroom. Although most of the complaints stemmed from people quick to take offense and ignorant of the word’s true meaning, in most of these incidents, the teachers were chastised for their lack of sensitivity.

Should you use such a word as niggardly if that word makes people uncomfortable? Should people just chill out when it comes to a correct word in the English language that has no etymological connection what so ever to a trigger word? Both good questions. But whether you believe that no one should be restrained from using any word correctly or that you should be more reserved and sensitive to sensibilities and therefore choose not to use such a word, the bottom line is that words are powerful no matter which way you believe. As can be seen here, just one simple word can have the ability to stir up an entire nation and create a national debate.

The English language is a magnificent vehicle. Words are beautiful and words are important. As a writer, how you choose to use a word can make all the difference. So when you are writing, do think about your words and the impact they have on your reader. In fact, I think there once was a song that said: “Words. What are they good for? Absolutely everything”. And that pretty much says it all.

James Patterson Has Book Trailers so What is Stopping You!

2010-08-28T11:23:06Z

We had the pleasure of having 2 guest posts from Eric Woolf, Video Marketing to Boost any Business and Video Marketing Techniques. Video marketing has become an important marketing tool for authors to promote their book. I have seen some amazing book trailers that look like a trailer to a movie rather than a book. You could learn to edit, add music and pictures, and produce a decent video yourself. Or you could purchase a flip camera and talk about your book or business. I know many people think if you are going to do video marketing it should be professional or you shouldn’t bother. The importance of video marketing is so your readers can build a relationship with you.

I came across this video by James Patterson on his book Cross. It is just him in front of a camera talking about his book. If James Patterson thinks he needs to do a YouTube video then everyone should be doing a video to promote their book and business. Patterson certainly has the money to hire someone to make a great video but he decided to let his readers get to know him. What is stopping you from video marketing?

Video Marketing Techniques

2010-08-27T09:00:44Z

Video marketing is an important marketing technique for any business. It has become increasingly popular in the publishing world. Authors are using video to introduce themselves to their readers and to market their books with book trailers. We are please to have another guest post from Eric Woolf. In his previous post, Video Marketing to Improve any Business, Eric discussed the importance of using online video to market your business.

In the previous post I discussed the importance of using online video to market your business which can help both online and offline industries

Now, I wanted to help those who upload videos to social video sites like YouTube get the most possible exposure and get it noticed by people in Youtube. To get the most out of your videos, you have to take more consideration than uploading it plain. Uploading it effectively involves fairly easy techniques which optimizes the video for searches.

The first advice that I suggest is to select keywords that people would use to search for your type of business which also relates to the video. Once you find a few keywords that you think people would search for, you have to optimize the video title, description, and include tags with the targeted keywords.

All too often, I see someone upload their video and the title says something like ck6.wmv which is the file name that they saved it on their computer as. This is an actual video that I found on Youtube by the way. It also had no description, no tags, and only about 35 views total after almost a year online when the average video on Youtube probably gets a few thousand views in the same amount of time.

The image below shows you a screenshot of where to include your keywords. Make sure you type in a descriptive title, description, and place multiple tags. As you can see, Youtube automatically includes the title as your videos filename. All you need to do is erase it and type in the title you want.

The second advice that I have is to place your website link into the description area within the first few words or else it will not be shown as easy. If you place it more than a few words away, the url may not be seen unless the person clicks the drop down button to get more information about the video. The easier the link is seen, the more likely people will click on it to go onto your site.

Another tip to go along with this is to make sure you type in http:// before the whole URL or else it will not be clickable. I see a lot of people make this mistake also. So if I were to type in “www.videoemailmarketingclub.com” the link will not show and just be the text. So make sure you type in the URL like this: “http://www.videoemailmarketingclub.com” with the http:// in front. I know its simple but a lot of people seriously don’t understand why some links are clickable and others aren’t.

This was a guest post provided by Eric Woolf explaining some of his introductory techniques to social video marketing based from his video marketing production and optimization services. If you have a question for him please leave a comment below or contact him at his video and email marketing website.

7 Reasons You Should Wait to Get Your Book Published

2010-08-26T09:00:44Z

Most people at one point in their life have thought about writing and publishing a book. A book is a great way to be seen as an expert and to gain credibility in your field. There are many book publishing options available to authors today which should make getting your first book published easier. But before you start, is it the right time for you to write and publish a book? Here are some reasons you may not be ready to write your book.

You are not ready to take the time. Writing a book can be a monumental task, particularly if you are not accustomed to writing. It takes time and dedication. If you do not have the time it takes and you still want to write a book read How Busy People Find Time to Write.

You may just not be ready to tackle such a large task. If you don’t want to work that hard you will not be successful. You should wait until you have a burning desire to write a book.

You don’t have a niche market. There are lots of books on the shelves. How will your book be different? Do you have a unique message? If you want to write a book on parenting tips for preschoolers you may not get noticed. But if you narrowed your topic to parenting a preschool child with autism you may have a niche market that would be of value.

You don’t know your topic well enough to write about it. If you are not well versed on a topic then you should wait until you do more research or gain more experience in your field.

You don’t have an audience. Many authors write and publish a book and then try to market the book. Although a book can improve your credibility, if you don’t already have a following you won’t have any interest in your book. It is important to have an online presence before you write your book. If your followers like your blog and think the information you provide is valuable then they are likely to be interested in your book. If you are already well known in your field and speak to a live audience then you have a market for your book. After you establish an audience then writing and publishing your book is the next step.

You don’t have a plan for your book. You must have well defined goals before you begin your book. If you have no plan to complete the book once you have started it, most likely it will remain an idea or at best, an outline on your computer.

You don’t have any money to write your book. It would be great if you had a big publisher pay you upfront royalties for your book. In reality, the book will cost you money upfront. You need to pay for book editing, copy design, book cover design, and printing. You will have to weigh the benefits of being a published author with the cost of publishing a book.

Many doors can be opened for a published author, but with anything you need to be ready before venturing into the project. It can be fun if you are prepared.

If you are not ready now, what do you need to do to get ready? What obstacles do you need to overcome?