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The best research sites for writers

The best research sites for writers

Research. I love it for the depth and flavor it adds to my work. I hate it for the time suck and endless re-searching it requires [See what I did there? RE-searching? Never mind.]

The folder in which I keep my research bookmarks shoots to the top of the Bookmarks drop-down window when I start a project. Then it ticks down to the bottom (below “Shopping”) as I get immersed in my concocted world.

Here’s a list of the best research sites for writers on the mondoweb, in my experience. I think one or two may come as a surprise.

CIA

What do you mean, “Which CIA?” That CIA. If you want to get spectacular data in an elegant package then give the snoops a chance. It’s not really a surprise that they have useful info, is it? Though it may be a surprise to some just how available that info is.

Best History Sites

There’s nothing like an historically accurate story. What’s better than reading a great yarn that feels real? Best History Sites (.net) is a useful resource on a number of levels if you’re researching a time period. As the name implies, they gather the best history sites together in an easy-to-read package. I just got off an hour of browsing their links while researching this research post. Sigh.

BBC

These guys are doing history right. They’ve spent years posting quality articles, slideshows and media around world history. If you check out their A-Z section you will be lost in fascinating information.

Quora

For questions about everything from the history of nail clippers to the top donors to Abraham Lincoln’s political career, turn to Quora. You need to sign up to fully participate. It can also take a lot of reading to find the value. But it’s worth your time to go there if you need a question answered.

WolframAlpha

The best resource for crunching numbers. But even more important? The best resource for excavating stories behind the numbers. Just type in your hometown’s name in the search field and you’ll see what I mean.

Blekko

Blekko is a search engine that presents its quality results in a logical way. If you search for “George Lucas” you’ll see the different kinds of results (social, shopping, bio, etc) displayed immediately. Sure, you could use Google. But Blekko’s robust presentation will probably appeal to many of us.

Reference.com

This was a tough one to recommend. It’s an ugly site with a lot of noise that has nothing to do with research, and a LOT to do with distracting you from your research. But if you can stay focused and follow the logic of their odd navigation, Research.com will give more than it takes.

Getty

Getty is great for art history and architecture from prehistory to today.

Refdesk

Refdesk calls itself the “Fact Checker of the Internet.” Used correctly, they’re probably right. The site is a treasure trove of info. You get everything from law dictionaries to gas price maps to contact info for local politicians. All on one page! Very Web1999, but I like it.

Library Spot

Like Refdesk, Library Spot is a hub for information. It attempts to provide you with easy access to the many online libraries and information resources. They do a pretty good job, considering the complexity of what they set out to do.

Google Scholar

Is it possible for me to get through a post without mentioning Google? No. Google Scholar has set out to give us a search engine for scholarly literature. You can find articles, books, court opinions, abstracts, and theses from a number of different sources. You can also arrange to check out books that contain the info you need, much like the resources listed below.

Online library resources are a fantastic place to research. But you need to know what you’re getting into.  Be sure to check out the FAQs or the “How to Use” areas of the sites. It’s easy to get lost and feel like you’re getting the run-around. Some areas require membership and even university VPN connections.

Library of Congress

The largest library in the world. It was established to “support the Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties and to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people.” 

UCLA

I’ve linked directly to the UCLA research guides, which is a sufficient overview of their scope. From this page you’ll find a number of free access sources, and some membership sites.

Oxford

Oxford combines over 100 libraries in one. Wow.

New York Public Library

I’m partial to the NYPL images gallery for my writing research. If you live in NYC you can do a combo of online and stack research.

So off we go into research land. Try to find something no one’s found. Try to riff off of life and give us some great stories. But don’t forget to stay focused! ;-)

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Prepare your book for its KDP Select free days

Prepare your book for its KDP Select free promotion days

Prepare your book for its KDP Select free promotion days

A step-by-step guide, with best practices!

Yup. Blog posts about Amazon KDP Select free promo days are as common as bad drivers on I84.

But I want to do something a little different here. I want to lay out steps and include details about why they are important. I’ll also give you a basic overview of boosting posts on Facebook. These days it’s best to spend five bucks to get the word out.

Once you sign up for KDP Select and figure out what you can do with your exclusive Amazon ebook, you may find a small bump in the road. Actually it may look more like a big, honking wall. The wall is spray painted with large words…

“Now what?”

Here’s what.

1) Decide why you’re doing the KDP Select free promotion days. Don’t just do it to see what happens. I can tell you what happens. Lots of people download your book and add it to their vast library. That plus $17 will buy you a coffee.

Here are some great reasons to do a free giveaway that will actually add some momentum to your efforts:

  • You want the reader to buy the next book in the series. Provide a sample of the next book in the back of the book you’ll be promoting. Provide a link to buy the next book too. If you haven’t done this already, it’s a good idea.
  • You want the reader to buy another book you wrote that is not in the series. Same as above.
  • You want newsletter sign-ups. Definitely recommended if you don’t have any other books available to buy, because this way you minimize the risk of losing them before your next book comes out. People forget things. Even authors they enjoy.
  • You want reviews. Make a level-headed case at the back of the book for writing a review. I lifted my copy from David Gaughran:
“Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on Amazon. Even if it’s just a sentence or two. It would make all the difference and would be very much appreciated: [link to book on Amazon]”

For your first promo I don’t believe you should shoot for more than one of the above goals. Why? It’s hard enough to track progress on one front, much less several. You can always adjust your tactics for the next free promo.

Once you’ve chosen your general goal, choose a specific one. Are you going for sales of the next book in the series? Great! How many do you want to sell? Just guess. Set a goal and be ready for failure or success. Both can be daunting, but it’s essential to measuring the success of your effort.

2) Decide how many days you want the free promo to run. I suggest a minimum of two. This way you can spot whether downloads are accelerating over a substantial period of time (implying a hunger for your book and/or wise choices on the marketing front) or not (implying you’ve missed the mark on marketing).

My opinion is that five days is too long. Especially if this is your only book. Why is that? Because free promo days are a great way to get people to give you a try. If you don’t have another book to sell them then you’ve lost them.

Also, five days is too long because you don’t want everyone who WOULD download your book to see it and download it. You want to leave some room for word of mouth to set in. The longer you keep the book free, the more likely you are to exhaust your potential audience in one go. Now, if you want to just get maximum exposure then five days is an option. Just don’t expect too many sales after the five days is over. You’ve gotten on their Kindle, and now you have to hope they convert to other books in the series or other titles you’ve written.

3) Buy one guaranteed spot. If you can avoid it, do not choose a date for the promo days first. Please. Choosing the date first means you’re setting something in stone before you know the availability of your marketing options (i.e. Bookbub, Bookgoodies, etc.)

So first, choose one of these sites to buy a guaranteed spot.

Bookbub
Booksends (formerly Bookblast)
Free Kindle Books and Tips
BookGoodies
AskDavid
Manybooks

These are the top-notch options for your free day advertising. Choose one, secure a date, and then choose more from this category if you can afford it, and if they can accommodate your dates. Bookbub is tough to get on. They may turn down your money. But one or two of these sites will be happy to take that heavy dough off your hands. I’ve had an especially impressive result from Manybooks. Shirley Link & The Safe Case hit the top 500 Free list on Amazon and it took four days to settle down. Highly recommended.

4) Make a list of friends you can count on to share and bug ’em. Prep an email to them. You’ll send it out a day or two before the promo.

Dear friends!

I apologize for the group email but I want to reach as many people as possible for this. I’ll be giving my ebook [book name] away for FREE on [date]! Why free? It’s a limited time deal on Amazon that will expand my readership and give me a chance to find some new fans.

I could use your help on the promo day. Please keep an eye on [Facebook, Twitter]. When you see my announcement, please Like and Share. The sharing part is important since it will help more people see the deal.

That’s it! I appreciate any help you can provide to get the word out. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Sincerely,

5) Tell the following sites about your KDP Select free promotion days. Be sure to track who you’ve told in your app of choice. I use my Google Docs marketing journal (which I’ll write about one day)

Best websites for marketing your Amazon KDP Select free days 

You can also use the Author Marketing Club tool to submit. The tool is a little wonky but it works.

6) Now head in and set your free days on Amazon’s KDP Select site.

7) Now go to your social networks of choice.

Twitter. If you have a Twitter Ads account then you can schedule tweets to go out whenever you want. If you don’t have a Twitter Ads account, it’s worth it. It’s free and gives you incredible stats and some useful features. Sign up for Twitter Ads here. (it’s a Twitter-owned service)  Some people use Hootsuite or Buffer to queue up their tweets for later. Both are excellent options. Set up seven tweets per day of your promo. Don’t make them all sales pitches. Make them intriguing.

  • Write a riddle.
  • Include an excerpt.
  • Ask a compelling question that your book answers (fiction or non-fiction).
  • Include pics (cover, interiors).
  • Include vids.
  • Include every media you have for your book!

I recommend you buy some ads on Twitter Ads to get the word out. But wait until the next promo. For your first promo, give Facebook some hard-earned cash. They’re getting good at delivering readers to me.

Facebook. Do two posts for each day of the promo. Again, set these posts up ahead of time. You should consider boosting your posts with a $5 spend. It increases awareness of your promo. Just make sure you target correctly and set the post date for the promo date. How do you do that? It’s easy.

Draft your post (please include an image of the book cover to make the post appear nice).

Then click on the Boost Post button at the bottom of the post window.

Facebook Boost post KDP Select

Notice the elegant layout. Amazing how Facebook can make great interfaces when money’s involved, huh?

NOTE: Facebook changes their design all the time. The boosting process will always be similar, though.

Just select “People you choose through targeting” to get the range of options you’ll need. Then fill out information that you think appeals to your target audience. The Interests window is especially important. Put words in there that relate to your genre and book. So if you wrote a book inspired by “It” you could enter “horror, stephen king, violent, scary clowns, it.” Yes, you can get as specific as you’d like. The more specific, the better. With these data in place a whole slew of people who are interested in King, It, and scary clowns will get your ad served to their page.

Some people don’t get great results with Boosts and prefer running Facebook ads. These show up as promoted posts in the feeds of people who you target. The process of setting up an ad is more complex, but you can get the lowdown on how to do it here. If you want to take a course in Facebook ads, sign up for this course.

Pinterest. Post your cover art, interior art and marketing images. The copy should tout the free promo days.

7.1) Add a keyword. Thanks to Julia Derek in the comments section, you get this excellent tip. A couple of days before the promo, head into KDP and add the term “free ebook” to the book’s keywords. It will take several hours to a couple of days to go live. This should help people find you if they’re looking for free ebooks. Don’t forget to remove the keyword term after the promo is over, though.

8) On the first morning of your KDP Select free promotion days, monitor! Go to your marketing journal and see which sites you informed of the free days. Did they post the promo? Not all of them will. Be aware that some sites will post at the end of your day (it’s a big world!) Take note of which ones posted. You’ll want to have that list handy for the next promo.

Go to the site(s) where you paid for promotion and make sure you got what you paid for.

Post the deal to these promotional sites. They only accept additions on the day of the promo.

Addicted to eBooks

Snicks List

Send out an email to your friends, reminding them and offering some new details/news that will make the email worth a read.

Hi all!

As I mentioned, my ebook is free for today on Amazon! Please share the post on your timeline. If you don’t see it, here’s the url.

[insert url for shared post, tweet, etc.]

Thanks so much! I checked my dashboard and have [number] downloads so far. So excited.

Sincerely,

If you’re happy with the results you can post about your success on social networks. It might be nice to send a final email with the good news if you feel like that’s a good idea.

And, of course, head to Amazon KDP to check on the progress. Watch the downloads roll in! It’s fun. Don’t forget to eat.

9) If downloads accelerate on day two, consider adding another day to your promo. Increased interest in your book over a 48 hour period may be a sign that you’ve broken through to a larger audience than your genre warrants. In other words you may have broken into Amazon’s “mainstream” a little bit. If this happens then adding a day will allow for you to capture a much wider audience. Ideally, you’ll go back to charging for the book right when the interest peaks. This way you’ll pick up sales from people who were interested enough to pay for your book.

10) Was it a success? You should keep promoting for a few days after the promo is over. Tout your rise in the rankings, new reviews or whatever stands out as a positive result. But also evaluate the performance of your campaign. Remember how you set a specific goal for your promo? Did you meet it? Exceed it? Give the readers a couple of weeks to show their intent. It takes a while to read a book for some of us!

Take a realistic look at your results. Gauge what went right and wrong with the promo (you will see what worked and what failed). Write these down. Don’t assume you’ll remember because you might not, which means you learned nothing. With all this data, draft a plan for the next promo. And congratulations! You’re on the road to getting much better and being more comfy with marketing! No small task, friends.

Let me know how your promo goes.

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by Ben Zackheim

Lessons learned from serialization

Lessons learned from serialization

Ever thought about serializing your novel, or writing a serial from scratch? Yeah, me too. I’d like to welcome AJ Sikes to the blog with his post on serialization.

Enjoy, and please let us know your take on serialized stories.

Here’s Mr. Sikes!


 

Hello Everyone!

AJ Sikes, author of Gods of Chicago

Many thanks, first of all, to Ben for offering a guest spot on his blog. This marks the second post of my tour promoting Gods of Chicago, a noir urban fantasy that was released in serial format and will soon be available in omnibus and POD editions (release date Feb. 14th!) My first post on this tour was at Zoë Markham’s blog where I talked about the decision to go serial.

Getting down to brass tacks, Ben thought my experience in writing and publishing a serial would be of interest and help to his readers, hence the title of this post. A bit of what I’ll say here is an echo of comments I made on his blog last Monday. But I also share some thoughts on how the serial process can help newer writers test the waters, and especially as regards independent publishing (self and small press).

Lesson One: Write the whole story first.

1. You can put just the first episode out or launch episode 1 and 2 simultaneously, which is what I did. This lets readers get a taste of your writing on the cheap (each episode is just $0.99), and without too much investment of time (each episode comes in at around 15K-20K words, a good read-before-the-lights-go-off chunk of story). Isn’t the point of a serial that it be written in segments? Well, yes. Back when Dickens was doing it, that is how it worked. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ experience with serialization is closer to what I did with Gods of Chicago. Having a full novel ready to go before launching a serial provides a two-fold benefit.

⁃ Based on feedback from your early readers, you may find you need to put the episodes out more quickly than you’d planned.

⁃ Also, serial stories aren’t all the rage these days (though they’re gaining popularity). Readers seem more comfortable getting a story all in one go. For my future efforts, I’ll be doing the full season release, which is what other serial authors seem to be doing now.

2. With the full novel in hand, you lighten the workload when publishing. You’ll tackle all the formatting at once, if you’re doing it yourself. If you’re using a professional formatting service (highly recommended!), they’ll appreciate getting the entire project in one delivery.

⁃ Come publication time, you’ll appreciate having all your ducks in a row.

I had the benefit of working with a publisher who handled cover design, formatting, and uploading of each episode. If you can secure such an arrangement, you should. Unless you’re the kind of person who has access to and can use all the software necessary.

One caveat here: Be wary of sites offering “assisted self-publishing” as these may, in fact, be vanity presses in sheep’s clothing. If you’re paying a publisher for a service, and that publisher is also asking for rights and a share of the royalties, you may want to reconsider signing the contract. Writer Beware is a great resource for new writers looking to avoid pitfalls in publishing. The site is maintained and geared toward the genre fiction community, but writers of any stripe can benefit from a quick read through the archives.

AJ Sikes, author of Gods of Chicago

Lesson Two: Invent a time machine so you can read Ben’s blog on KDP Select before you publish

Seriously. ICYMI, Ben did a fantastic two-part blog on the benefits to be had by signing up with Amazon’s KDPS program. Part 2 is here.

I’m a big fan of the transparency among members in the independent author community. Hugh Howey and Joe Konrath in particular have been incredible about sharing the behind-the-scenes details that most authors could only hope to guess at. Even as recently as two years ago. So, I’m happy to share what I’ve learned through my sales, meager though they are.

Kindle users account for the majority of my sales. Month of January sales total 18, split evenly between Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, with only episodes 1-3 purchased. Month of February sales total 6 so far, solely from the UK site, with one sale of each episode 1-5.

I’ve sold a total of 3 copies through Kobo. Zilch on B&N and iTunes.

Now, a lot (all) of these abysmally low figures are due to my lack of a significant marketing push, which was, to some extent, intentional. I made announcements in the forums and Goodreads groups I frequent. I talked to potential readers, and I made some noise on Twitter (and thanked every last person who helped boost my signal). But I didn’t advertise or try to flood the airwaves with news about my book.

The goal with the serial was to attract a few early readers and begin building another piece on the platform around my book. I’ve been active online and within the writing community for about two years. I’ve got a personal website for my editing services, which includes a page devoted to my writing. So my efforts at building an author’s platform weren’t restricted to the serial release, and that’s an important point for new authors to consider. It’s what we hear so often…the real work begins after the book is published.

Contrasted with the serial release, for the omnibus/POD release I’m tracking down advertising channels, doing a blog tour (Thanks again, Ben and Zoë!), and plan to use Amazon’s machine to do a lot of the marketing for me through KDPS. I also expect to have monthly deals to plan for, and special promotions to run.

That’s a wrap here. I’m lining up stops on the tour through the month. If any writer- readers would like to host me, I’ll happily provide an edit of your first chapter (up to 5K words) in exchange. The only date I have set is February 24th, where I’ll talk about self-editing tips over at mystery writer Elizabeth Spann Craig’s blog.

If any readers have experience with serial publishing, what did you learn?

BIO:

Aaron Sikes (writing as AJ Sikes) is a writer of weird noir fiction and a freelance editor serving the community of independent authors. His stories have been published by Xchyler Publishing, KnightWatch Press, and Fox Spirit Books. Follow him @SikesAaron and sign up for the Gods of Chicago newsletter to get the latest updates on Mitchell Brand’s adventures and story world extras. If you need editing assistance with your manuscript, please stop by his website.

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WordPress for writers: Build an author website with WordPress (Part Two)

WordPress for writers: Build an author website with WordPress (Part Two)

 

To read about how WordPress can help writers,  see Part One!

In my experience, authors are hesitant to sell. That’s okay, as long as they do it anyway. (Tweet this instantly!)

I’m not going to tell anyone what their site should be. Only you know what you want to get out of it. You may just want to tell stories. Blog. Podcast. Post pics of cats. But if you want to use your site to highlight you and your books then I have some pretty strong, and well-tested, opinions. After years at Viacom, Sony, ESPN and AOL, building games and game sites, I can tell you that selling something requires focus.

With focus in mind, here’s what every fiction author website must do:

Highlight the books

Have one or two strong calls to action (sign-up for newsletter, buy, download)

Include blogging, video, illustrations, SOMETHING to keep folks coming back twice a month.

 

What does an author website need to have? BaB!

I call these fundamentals, BaB, which stands for Books/action/Blog.

Why BaB? Because it wraps up what your book site is all about. Selling yourself and your books.

Think about it for a moment. If you stumble on a site that’s selling something, you’ll visually scan it and, whether you know it or not, you’re making a lot of judgments in a split second.

  1. Is it pretty? Assuming you don’t go with a puke pink palette, Wordpress will help make that first impression go well. That’s one of WordPress’ biggest advantages. You need to work hard to make it look bad.
  2. What is being sold and does it look good? Get the best book cover you can afford and highlight it with a WordPress product page. I’ll cover the top themes with product pages in a later post.
  3. What else is here for me? News? Advice? Videos? Contests? Podcasts? Ways to share? Which social network is important to this writer? Is the site worthy of bookmarking?

By executing on the above three points, your site will do the most important thing it can do for you …

…show the reader what your priorities are…

You know how biz folks are always talking about how smart people remove all obstacles to buying a product? The same holds true of site design. Don’t make me think! Do not assume that I found your site because I wanted to see your book, or you. Odds are I did a search and stumbled on you. Now it’s up to you to convert me. Yeah, it’s like sprinting from a standstill. It’s hard, but you have to try.

Want to see what I mean? Okay, go to Jay Asher’s author page.

I’m not nuts about the overall design, but all the elements of BaB are there, and they’re in the right place. Notice the big honkin’ Buy Button in the upper left, which is where most eyes land when they first look at a page. I’m asked to buy before I even know what the product is! But that’s okay because, lo and behold, there’s the pic of the book. Now I know I’m on an author’s site. Jay gives more prominence to News than to Reader Reviews, which is odd, but they’re both really obvious from the get-go.

In the top menu I see there are a whole bunch of reasons for me to come back to the site if I like the book. There are links to his blog and to videos that tie in with his books. The site is bookmarkable. I would also follow the site, which I’ll explain in a later post.

So, yes, Jay Asher’s site has BaB! The books and buy action are tied at the hip on the top of the page, which is how it should be. And there’s content to keep the reader coming back to see what he and his characters are up to next.

Maggie Stiefvater‘s site tackles things in a different way. But let’s check out what she does and (maybe) why. Does Maggie have BaB?

It’s a design-heavy site, with a long load time, but when it does load it intrigues (just like her writing). She knows her audience (young adults) and her pub has made a judgment that the design of the site must capture her audience’s eye and let them know they are definitely in the right place. Since Maggie is busy building a very potent brand, where she is the product, she’s very prominent. Still, notice the biggest words on the page? “Welcome Reader”. She knows that she needs to let folks who don’t know her well that they’re on a writer’s site. Books are here. If you navigate to the books, you’ll find a very succinct and pretty presentation. You can also get fresh content if you come back to the site for her blog.

But this is where things fall apart. Where can I buy her books? Nowhere. I need to either search for the books manually on my site of preference, or go to one of the books’ official sites. From there I can find a Where to Buy section waaaay down on the page. Maybe the publishers figure she has a big enough name so they don’t need to worry about losing sales. But even the slightest bump in the road to purchase is lost money.

I’ve noticed this weakness in a lot of big publishers’ author pages. Maybe they know something I don’t know, but I’d say a design that hides the buy button isn’t doing anyone any favors. Including the readers.

So enough with the studies. How can you take this simple concept of BaB and apply it to your site with WordPress? We’ll explore the answer in the next post.

 

See what a good landing page needs to have to get the job done. And read part three of my series on WordPress for authors and writers.

 

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WordPress for writers: Build an author website with WordPress (Part One)

WordPress for writers: Build an author website with WordPress (Part One)

This is Part One of an ongoing series that will look into WordPress tools that do specific things we fiction writers must do.

With as little effort as possible, of course. We have writing to do!

One of the toughest, and most satisfying, tasks that I’ve had to tackle as a writer of fiction is my website. When I decided to follow my dream of yarning-it-up for a living, I knew that a site would be one of those dreaded (scary cello music) THINGS YOU MUST DO!

After all, how can anyone get by without their digital stamp on our collective Web brain? Sure, it’s possible, even likely, that no one will show up, but, hey, what if they do?

I was slow to get mine up and running. Writing, after all, is my focus. Who has time to go beyond securing the domain before the other guy with your name snags it?

With my background in corporate America, I tried very hard to make my site’s creation as difficult as possible. Surely there was no such thing as a one-size-fits-all platform for me to leverage. Surely, it would be tougher than simply finding one web service. Nonono, I’d have to find one service to enable sharing, another service to pretty the site up, another to build the foundation, another to place ads, blahblahblah.

Oh, and I’d have to pay for all of it. One way or another.

Then I followed the advice of a friend, and tried WordPress.

1. WordPress is mind-blowingly stupendous for writers.

(yes, i’m a fan)

For newbies out there, WordPress lets you create a site that can do absolutely anything. Blog thoughts, sell books, run ads, launch contests, evaluate traffic, quantify your hard work against a million criteria.

In a word, WordPress is the single best web product and service ever built. Yes, that’s hard to quantify, but damned if I’m even going to try. WordPress speaks for itself.

It is the one-stop shop I never thought could be built. It has everything I need. Awesome designs (called themes), social network sharing tools, SEO plug-ins, ad widgets, html boxes, A/B testing, cheap gasoline. All drag-and-drop-easy. And most are as free as air currently is.

2. WordPress is gut-wrenchingly distracting to writers.

My favorite built-in feature is the theme switching. I can download a new theme, preview it, and even push it into the world without losing any aspect of the hard work I’ve done on my real site. In all, I’ve only switched designs permanently once (it took about 15 minutes to make it work like I wanted). But I’ve tested a couple of hundred themes, which is great fun.

And a huge distraction.

With all of the themes available, I found it tough to settle on one for a couple of reasons:

  • There were too many options.
  • My needs are, shall we say, “fluid”.

Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so. I’ve spoken to dozens of writers who tell me they suffered through their own lack of focus when building their corner of the WWW. Some got caught up in the cool plug-ins. Some were wandering the massive catacombs of drag-n-drop widgets. Most were in my boat, ogling themes until the morning coffee brewed.

After months of grappling with the immense toolset like a supervillain with all the power in the world, I realized something that I hope will save you tons of time, and free you up to write a novel that sells better than mine.

What is that thing?

Focus.

In the next post, I’ll give my opinion of what makes a good WordPress writer site. It starts with a focused author, who doesn’t mind getting into the weeds just a little. Read part two now.

by Ben Zackheim