But if you're ready to take the plunge with your own domain name (before someone else grabs it!) and you prefer simplicity, then you might really like Weebly's package deal that includes their great website design program, Domain Registration and Hosting. The 2-year package deal for everything is only $3.54 per month! You can get it for even less per month with the 5 or 10 year plan. Most hosting companies charge more than that just for hosting! Here's a screen shot of the registration process and price breakdown:
Do you need website to showcase your writing or one for your business? Then have a look at this all-in-one website solution from Weebly. I manage about 15 websites for myself and other clients and every one of them is built using Weebly. There's no program to download, no steep learning curve, a blog platform built right in, and you can even get started absolutely free by using a subdomain of Weebly that would look like: www.YourWebsiteName.weebly.com. But if you're ready to take the plunge with your own domain name (before someone else grabs it!) and you prefer simplicity, then you might really like Weebly's package deal that includes their great website design program, Domain Registration and Hosting. The 2-year package deal for everything is only $3.54 per month! You can get it for even less per month with the 5 or 10 year plan. Most hosting companies charge more than that just for hosting! Here's a screen shot of the registration process and price breakdown: Give the gift of a Weebly website this year to a friend, family member or yourself! You can even start for free to get the hang of the program and see it live on the internet before you purchase your own .com, .org, or .net name. Watch the video below to see how easy it is to create a website: If you plan on having multiple websites, then I'd suggest going with Weebly to create your websites, and Bluehost for hosting. Why? Because with Bluehost, you have one account for about $6 per month or less, and can have unlimited add-on domains (domain registration is about $12 per year for each domain). So even if you have 10 websites, your only paying for hosting on 1 website. Run the numbers on that and see how much you can save!
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Do you have awesome software like PhotoShop or After Effects, but aren't using them because they're very difficult to learn and the training manuals put you to sleep? That was my story! I spent hundred$ on neato-frito programs, but they just sat there collecting cyber-dust because I avoided the manuals. I'm not a learn by reading person. I do much better if someone shows me how to do it. Sound familiar? Then you might really like Lynda.com. Lynda.com is online learning with videos. I took advantage of a Free 7-day trial of an After Effects course and really liked it. The instructor was excited about the program and went over things section by section. Each section was usually only a few minutes long and easy to digest. And if I needed to see it again, the "play again" button was right there. Now here's what really makes Lynda.com so great: Members have access to hundreds of different courses, not just one. Since I do video and create websites, I checked to see if Lynda.com had a course on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They did! So, I took a short course on how to make my websites show up higher on the search engines. I highly suggest everyone go through that online course if you're marketing yourself as an author! How much does it cost? After I did the Free 7-day trial, I opted for the $25 per month plan, with 24/7 access to online video tutorials. I can stop whenever and restart whenever. Click on the banner to look things over for yourself! I noticed that the stories didn't come in as quickly with this latest video prompt. It was different for sure, but hopefully, you won't be discouraged with a "curve ball" now and then. Rather, take it on like a challenge! I'm saying this to myself as well!
If you're a romance writer and you get a prompt that doesn't instantly inspire you, why not try your hand at a comedy or a thriller? If the prompt seems too dark for you, think out of the box and make it light! Make it what you want! If it's too whimsical and frilly, give it an edge or a ominous tone. Is there another way to interpret a word other than it's obvious sense? "String" can be what attaches a yo-yo to a finger, but our nemesis can "string" a person along until they're done with them, right? We all know these things, but I thought I'd toss out some encouragement for those times when a writing prompt may be more challenging than others. Thanks again for all your participation! Happy Writing! Patrick Sipperly CleverFiction.com I was asked recently if I knew any good book marketers. Great question! A big part of what I do for a living is marketing. But that's not the real question, is it? This person, like most of us, wants to know THE sure fire way to SELL books. We want to sell a ton of books and make a decent wage for our writing without having to give it all away to marketing, right? Here's my take on marketing from my 10 years as a professional audio/video producer making TV commercials, theater ads, radio spots, and web videos: There is NO silver bullet to selling anything. There are way too many factors that go in to making a sale to conclude that success is achieved because of a single ad or marketing campaign.
If you're like me, a no-name author, how can we get people to warm up to our writing? What *CHEAP* thing can we do to get our name out there that won't require a lot of time or money? Write short stories! Don't take my word for it, have a look at this article, Why You Should Be Writing Short Stories, and its subsequent links to other articles. It might broaden our perspective on the value of giving away free samples of our work. After all, who doesn't like FREE? I wasn't sold on the idea of writing shorts for marketing until this blog post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch on Promotion. In short, most people buy because of author name recognition or the recommendation of a friend. How can we get in on that? Give away small pieces of our work. Write short stories! It just might be the best, most effective way to build an audience and our name recognition at the same time. It's a big part of why I created CleverFiction.com. As it grows (40 writers and counting!), so will each individual writer's popularity. Here's some more interesting thoughts on The New Book Buying Realities. Hopefully, you found this interesting and will leave your own two cent$ below! -- Patrick Sipperly Happy November Clever Fiction Writers! First, let us say thank you for participating in these writing challenges. Hopefully you're having fun while making time to write, and enjoying the writings of others. Secondly, the stats for the number of views each story gets resets at the beginning of every month. So everyone is zeroed out. Those who share and promote their stories will get more views. Again, it's a chance to share samples of your talent and if people like what you can do with 250-1000 words, they might want to see what you've done with more... Now a question: How did you like the video announcing the writing prompt? Would you like to see more like that or does it matter to you? Yes! or No Biggie either way? Please leave a comment to let us know. Help us get noticed! Google search "Clever Fiction" then click on the Plus 1 icon next to the first Clever Fiction result you see. Feel free to invite your other writing friends to participate! Finally, remember this: If you run in front of a car you get tired. If you run in back of a car, you get exhausted. Okay, I think we made a successful website host transfer and all appears to be working well. Yay! I changed the hosting service for Clever Fiction to BlueHost.com primarily to keep costs down. I shopped around and found BlueHost.com through a friend who does a lot of blogging and high end website design. If you're looking for a web host or plan to have multiple websites, you might want to have a look at BlueHost. Here's a short list of why I went with them:
A quick note to everyone: There is a high probability Clever Fiction will be offline while we change our hosting service. How long is anyone's guess, but hopefully only a few hours. The new writing prompt is up so you won't have to wait to see that!
Thank you everyone for your time, talents and heartwarming support of Clever Fiction. I hope you're beginning to see an increase in your own personal website traffic as a result of your contributions here. I'm still stunned at the level of talent I see in these stories. All of you rock! Please keep sharing, writing and commenting. If there aren't enough hours in the week and you can't seem to squeeze a story out, then just stop by and read a few and leave a comment. If you really like a story, "Like" it and share it with your Facebook family. If you thought the story was worth a read, they might too. Every time we share Clever Fiction, we raise it's overall popularity on the web. And that helps everyone. October / Bad Luck / Compass...oh the things we'll do with these... I got an email recently from a writer who was curious about who won a particular challenge. I replied that at the moment, Clever Fiction isn't set up like a contest, but that whoever met the challenge requirements and submitted a story won that challenge. I hope to have a system in place to offer winners by category, etc., but that will be down the road. Well, they let me know in no uncertain terms they were quite displeased with my answer, wouldn't be participating any further, planned on giving an earful to anyone who asked them about Clever Fiction, and that I shouldn't bother emailing back because I've been blocked.
Yeah, I think that about covers it. So, I went back over previous Clever Fiction blog posts and pages looking for any misleading information about contests and winners. I haven't found any yet, but I could be wrong. Feel free to correct me. I think the Home page sums up what Clever Fiction is all about, but please allow me to sum it up here too in case there is anyone else out there waiting to hear if they've won something: Clever Fiction is about writing short stories based on a weekly challenge of mystery ingredients. Writers can take on the challenges for fun while giving and receiving feedback, or can use Clever Fiction as a promotional tool to expand their current marketing efforts. As of now, Clever Fiction doesn't have contests with 1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners. This is one of many additions we're looking in to, but isn't in place as of yet. Writers do get a FREE blog dedicated to their writings, additional FREE links to their stories on Facebook, FREE feedback from other writers, FREE links back to their other websites and blogs, and FREE email notification when someone leaves a comment on their story all without commitment or even registering. So, I apologize if anyone is under the impression that these challenges were contests where you might win something more tangible than the satisfaction of taking it on, drawing from the creative depths of your soul, beating your muse and laptop into submission, deciding if your hero is worth saving while changing diapers, pleading with your spouse for just 15 more minutes to proofread your story so you can submit it before going to bed, and driving a stake into the heart of another inconvenient, yet freaking addicting, Short Story Challenge! Clever Fiction is what it is: a community of writers who like a challenge and a place for authors to show off their talents. If anyone else is really dissatisfied, I'll give you your money back. Thanks. ....Patrick Sipperly Quick Update: The first Weekly Challenge stories (A Key / Noon / Falling Leaves) have been moved to each writer's blog as the most recent post. If you check your blog, you'll that story at the top.
This was done to streamline the updating process behind the scenes, and hopefully won't inconvenience any of you. Now there were a few writers who haven't posted a second story yet, and thier story hasn't moved. Once we get another short story, they'll get their own blog and that story will move to it! Invite your friends to read your first challenge story on your blog! A new month and a new domain! Since Clever Fiction started off so well, I decided to get a .com domain rather than remaining a sub-domain of Weebly. Note to those considering Weebly: If you start with a free .weebly.com domain, and then purchase your own domain later, all of your links will automatically redirect to your new domain when you make the easy transfer! Totally Neato-Frito! Next, I hope you're not only enjoying this creative writing outlet, but also remembering that this is part of YOUR marketing toolbox. What do I mean by that:
1. Free Samples: Readers get a free sample of your writing. 2. Links To Your Websites & Blogs: Each Clever Fiction contributor gets their own short story blog featuring their stories, with links back to their personal websites, blogs, etc., And the more popular Clever Fiction gets, the more important the links to your own sites and blogs will be. It's a win-win! Promoting Clever Fiction promotes you! Also, don't forget that every time you comment on a story you've read, you have another chance to link back to your website. 3. Book Promotions: Let me know what book you want to promote, and I'll feature it on your writing blog. That's called Free Advertising! Coming Soon: Author Services Page! Do you offer services other writers are interested in? Soon, you'll be able to list your author services here. How cool is that? Stay tuned... Keep up the excellent work you clever fiction writers! Read, Write, & Share your heart out! Patrick Sipperly CleverFiction.com |
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