NEOLEAF PRESS
  • Home
    • About
    • News
    • Blog
  • Publishing
    • Submissions
  • Self Publishing
  • Recommended Reads
  • Editorial Book Reviews
  • Book Store
  • Cover Store
  • Events
  • Our Authors
    • Stephen Brayton
    • Larry Brown
    • Cassandra Denhartog
    • Dennis Maulsby
  • Author Interviews
  • Contests
  • Charity
    • Missy Mouse Fund
    • Stories For Moms
  • Games
  • Contact
  • Home
    • About
    • News
    • Blog
  • Publishing
    • Submissions
  • Self Publishing
  • Recommended Reads
  • Editorial Book Reviews
  • Book Store
  • Cover Store
  • Events
  • Our Authors
    • Stephen Brayton
    • Larry Brown
    • Cassandra Denhartog
    • Dennis Maulsby
  • Author Interviews
  • Contests
  • Charity
    • Missy Mouse Fund
    • Stories For Moms
  • Games
  • Contact

Get Published...
How to..
And More.

Adding Word Spice

7/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

Have you ever written the greatest novel of your life only to start editing and find you used the word Nice 402 times in your novel? Sometimes even five times or more on a page. We all fall into this. They said. He was nice. Nice day. They roll off our tongue so much in everyday conversation that they haunt the pages of your novel. Well no more. Here are over 150+ alternative words to use in your novel.
 

 

Instead of NICE try…
enjoyable - pleasurable – thoughtful - courteous - lovely - likable - pleasing - gracious - congenial – cordial – admirable - considerate
 
Instead of GOOD try…
excellent - amazing - wonderful - pleasant - marvelous - exceptional - fantastic - super – outstanding – terrific - splendid - stupendous
 
Instead of BAD try…
 
awful - rotten - naughty - mean - dreadful - nasty - wicked – lousy- terrible - unpleasant - disagreeable -  wretched
 
Instead of HURT try…
pained – ached – stabbed – stung – throbbed – burned – bit – pounded – tingled – cramped – agonized -  smarted
 
Instead of SAD try…
depressed - gloomy - miserable - cheerless - unhappy - forlorn – sorrowful - upset - downcast - tearful - somber
 

Instead of HAPPY try…
cheerful - delighted - pleased - glad - joyful - ecstatic - content - jovial - amused - merry - thrilled - elated
 
Instead of LAUGHED try…
 
giggled - chuckled - roared - howled - whooped - snickered - guffawed - shrieked -  grinned - cackled - bellowed -  chortled
 
Instead of LIKE try…
admire - approve - adore -  treasure - fancy -  marvel - appreciate – respect - cherish - favor - desire - enjoy
 
 
Instead of SAID try…
 
commented - replied - remarked -  declared - stated - exclaimed - shouted - whispered - announced - responded - boasted - explained
 
Instead of BIG try…
huge - giant - gigantic - enormous -  large - massive - colossal - immense - bulky - hefty -  tremendous - jumbo
 
Instead of LITTLE try…
small – tiny – petite – miniature – tiny – itsy – bitsy – minuscule – mini – minuet - microscopic – skimpy – wee
 
Instead of RAN try…
bolted – sped – hurried – sprinted – jogged – rushed – galloped – hustle – skipped – raced – dashed - fled
 
Instead of WALKED try…
strolled – sauntered – tiptoed – trotted – marched – glided – strutted – shuffled – correct – trudged – hiked - paraded
 
Instead of PRETTY try…
beautiful - gorgeous - appealing - cute - lovely - exquisite - attractive – elegant – handsome – stunning – fair - dazzling.
 
Instead of LOOKED try…
gazed – examined - glanced – viewed – observed – peeked – studied – noticed
 
Instead of SCARED try…
afraid - frightened - spooked - horrified - startled - fearful - petrified - anxious - aghast - alarmed - terrified - shaken

0 Comments

10 Rules When Making A Website

7/8/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
  1. Make it professional. It’s been a long myth that you can get just as good of a website for free as you can for paid. Well, in reality, the first step in making it professional is investing is your own website domain. This makes it professional and yours, and not look like something a high school kid created. This also makes it easier to find. Compare www.(first name)(last name).com opposed to (first name)(last name).(weebly pr words press).com. The first is much shorter and easier to find and will also come up on top of search results. The other is harder to remember, longer, and often will not show up within the first 10 pages of search results. Your website means nothing if your audience can’t find you. 
  2. Keep it simple. Don’t load your landing page with every detail of your life and pages upon pages of information. Make it clean and easy to navigate. Utilize images in some places to help catch attention and direct your audience. If you have long articles or reviews put a quick tease on your landing page, but direct them to another page to read the whole thing to keep from cluttering up the landing page. 
  3. Make contacting you easy. You don’t need all your personal information and phone number on there, but a simple contact form can go a long way. Make it clean and simple such as subject, name, and comments on it. Also, test it first to make sure it works correctly before putting it up on your website and just assuming you’ll get the messages. 
  4. Navigation bar. Creating a navigation bar can really assist in making smooth transitions for your website visitors. Remember, they are like tourists entering your town for the first time and can get lost easily. Make sure there are plenty of ways they can find where they are going. 
  5. Simple colors and fonts. Keep things simple and consistent. Choose no more than three fonts and don’t mix them. Typically you’ll have a heading font, sub-heading font, and main text font. With colors choose a scheme of 2-3 to match your font. Make them easy to see and read. A page of all neon text of bright, hard on the eyes, and often overwhelming. 
  6. Golden 250. Each page of your website should contain at least 250 characters to ensure good descriptions and examples. To little text with a lot of images can be confusing for your visitors and to much text, unless it’s specifically a blog, can be overwhelming. 
  7. Marketing. Make sure you have a good marketing plan weather it is paid such as Google AdWords or organic growth from social media connections. Plan your growth and set targets. If you’re not hitting them, then refresh your plan. 
  8. Mobile friendly. In this day and age most people do things over their mobile device or tablet. This makes it extra important that our websites are mobile friendly. When setting up a website check reviews or similar sites to see if this site will be compatible. If you’re using a place that helps you create your own webpage, remember that not all of them are mobile friendly. 
  9. Social Media Links. Link it. All of it. This is the age everyone is connected so letting people add you and follow you easily on social media will make networking and growing your following easier. 
  10. Reviews. People listen more to reviews than anything else when trying to make a decision. Put your business reviews on your website. Don’t let them either. People will figure this out and it will reflect poorly on you.  
 
1 Comment

Guide To Hormonal Body Language

7/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Ouch, you didn’t think anyone would write this did you? Well we are. While most women know what it’s like to be hormonal we decided to hit on a few tricks to put this into writing.
 
Out Of Habits
When a woman is hormonal the body wants or craves different things. While your character may have a bowel of cereal every morning like clockwork, during this dreaded time of the month she may run out and get all you can eat pancakes. You can use these things to subtly hint at the natural workings of a woman without outright writing ‘She’s on her period.”
 
Emotional Outbursts
Yes, it’s true. Hormones make for a roller coaster of emotions. It is totally possible to have a woman happy and on top of the world one moment and the next a screaming yelling demon. Something like this can really help move along a story and add in some action during slow times. Just remember you can only use this technique once a month.
 
Sex
Hormones changes the sex drive so most often a woman will have either a higher or lower sex drive during this time of the month. They also usually never want to take advantage of this, causing mixed emotions. The woman can very easily act on her desires then back out feeling to embarrassed to go any further.
 
Lady Purse
Not necessarily part of hormonal body language, but something to remember. A woman has to have access to her products during that time of the month. This many mean she will carry a purse if she doesn’t normally or maybe a larger purse.
 
Cramps
Hormones cause pain. Sometimes just mild aches and bloating to buckled over stabbed in the abdomen pain. This can be a crippling blow to a character if something like this would happen in an intense situation. Remember you can use this to add drama, conflicts, and bring your reader closer to your character. 
0 Comments

Don't Be The Bad Apple

7/8/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture

     At our latest event we experienced a first. The worst first that has spawned things like stricter review policies on Amazon. A bad apple. This one almost ruined an event that hosts 20-50 indie authors every year. The IABE (Indie Author Book Expo) hosts a yearly event where they put authors in front of various crowds. Lately they have been pairing with a Des Moines Mall to allow people to naturally and casually discover authors. This year they expanded into doing live readings on stage to bring in a bigger draw. As with any event some authors sold out and others did not sell at all. Overall, it’s a friendly event with a host that bends over backwards to try and please her authors. To be honest, she’s too nice as we saw many people constantly demanding new spots, different tables, and leaving before tear down time. Each time she accommodated them. These weren’t even the bad apples.
     The first step into the bad fruit barrel came from a report from the mall that authors were rude to staff and security. IABE was already on shaky footing because is this continued this event would have to find a new location. Then, the topper on the rotten cake.
After the event was over the mall made it know there was a thief amongst the authors. They had caught, on camera, an author stealing a money bag from one of the mall kiosks. This footage was handed over to police for the thief to be found. Even worse, the thief reached out on social media trying to say he ‘found’ the bag. A believable statement if they were not caught on camera. Ohh, yes before the footage came out there were suspects. Like a mystery detective, each author was analyzed. The reality was the thief was the least expected person.
     A children’s author, outwardly nice, who donated several books to the raffle, was the culprit. It was a heart-breaking situation as the mall decided the IABE could no longer be there. After some pleading, it was allowed back under much stricter rules. Just like there became stricter rules on book reviews on Amazon after a bad apple, there is now more rules placed on this Midwest event.
What’s worse? IABE is a nonprofit that helps bring classes to children around the Midwest and is currently working towards investing in a printer to provide small indie authors cheaper printing. One bad apple risked it all for every author.
     So, what’s the point of this articles. To raise awareness. People, even authors, are not always as they seem. It’s these bad apples that ruin the writing world for other authors. Don’t let this happen to you, and don’t be that bad apple.

 
 
 

1 Comment

Marketing On Twitter

7/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

 
     You only have one tweet in a whole flock to catch someones attention. In comparison this is like on bird in a whole flock calling for his mate. It’s hard, but it cane be done.
So how do you get heard? Well, first of all it’s not by posting links to your book over and over. This will get you unfollowed, in twitter jail, or just ignored. What you need to do, and this is the same for all social networking, is give people what they want.
     Twitter over the last several years has become a large information network, more and more be dominated by trends and news. This means, research should be done on trends and trending hashtags. You can look at trending hashtags on Twitter each day for a good idea, but this obligates you to get on every day and come up with appropriate content.
     So, what do you do? Well, if you have a lot of time on your hands you can log in everyday, look at trending hashtags and articles, write a relative blog post, and then blow your twitter feed up with content relating to the most popular hashtags. Another approach is building your following via interaction. Since twitter is like riding the rapids do it quick, preferable within an hour of the post going live and never later than 24 hours after the post went out. Share posts that you like. Comment and share opinions on others. Twitter works the best when using it to connect to people.
     Keep it short. Even though Twitter has a 140 character limit, leave a little room. Anywhere from 15-25 characters less. This leaves room for others who want to retweet your post or add a comment. Retweet and tag others by using their @usernames. People appreciate positive sharing and are more likely to follow you back.
Set up a content plan and plan out specials that air on certain days to gain consistency. Monday could also have a joke of the week while Friday might be the cocktail of the week. Also you could feature other authors on Wednesday, tagging them and singing their praises to help build good faith.
     Want to know another trick. Interacting with people with the largest influence will help your page more. This is simple math as they usually have more active followers than anyone else allowing you to get your message or even yourself out in front of a larger crowd. Some sites such as Klout, Twellow, and Commun.it allow you to see who among your followers has the greatest degree of authority.
     Focus on helping others solve their problems. Offer quality advice. Share big media articles and use trending hashtags to drive up your relativity. People will like a post about current events, but they’re seldom going to like a post about your book which they have never heard of.
0 Comments

    About Our Blog

    We strive to not only publish and promote, but to help authors grow and become better. 

    Topics

    All
    Blog
    Charity
    Marketing
    MCWW
    Writer's Health
    Writing

    Past Blogs

    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
    • About
    • News
    • Blog
  • Publishing
    • Submissions
  • Self Publishing
  • Recommended Reads
  • Editorial Book Reviews
  • Book Store
  • Cover Store
  • Events
  • Our Authors
    • Stephen Brayton
    • Larry Brown
    • Cassandra Denhartog
    • Dennis Maulsby
  • Author Interviews
  • Contests
  • Charity
    • Missy Mouse Fund
    • Stories For Moms
  • Games
  • Contact