I was re-reading reviews of Shizzle, Inc (Isa Maxwell escapades Book 1) the other day. I do that quite often, actually – nothing like reading a good review of your book to get you out of the bed and to the keyboard. One of the reviewers mentioned that my book was somewhat similar in style to Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, No 1). I personally think that it’s more like The Devil Wears Prada: A Novel or maybe Bridget Jones’s Diary. In any case, it was great to see my book compared to a bestseller.

You know what else is great? How easily I was able to sneak affiliate links into the paragraph above! Each one of these links is attributed to my affiliate account and could make me 4-6% on each sale. I was so excited about it, that I went back to my interview with Matthew FitzSimmons and…

Your humble host.

Recently we talked about mailing lists, and one method of using a mailing list is for a newsletter. To see that post, click HERE.

We shoot pretty straight here.

We rolled out the newsletter after “teasing” it to you for a few days.

In the example we showed in an earlier guest post, it took about two months for that author’s newsletter to get 50 subscribers.

Ours did it in about 48 hours.

Wednesday morning we had over 60 subscribers in our “soft” rollout and we’ll be at 100 soon. Early subscribers will benefit from better gifts, too. If you haven’t signed up yet, it’s a chance to get insights I can’t share here on the blog, among other things. (Click HERE to subscribe now.) If you subscribed, thank you! Please refer some friends.

Meanwhile, the author of the guest post? After about six months he had…

Me too!

Thanks to J.A. Stinger for sending me to a new blogger, at least new to me, for another light bulb moment.

I’ve been a member of Amazon Associates for years. I’ve never understood how to use it. Now don’t y’all get all uppity on me, I’m sure there are a few things that has confounded you over the years. Well, back to my issue with Amazon Associates. Since I couldn’t figure out how to link anything to my blog with the Associates link, I just forgot about it. Until today when I read J.A.’s blog and followed her link to AnaSpoke.com for the rest of the story.

Folks, this is why reblogging is so important.

As I read and then reread Ana’s post a second time the pieces clicked into place and I finally got it. 

When I’d finished, I went a bit further and discovered a couple of tricks of…

UPDATE:click here for new images/examples

One of my favorite writing resources right now is The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes. It’s been very helpful in editing my latest novel, and if you can find a copy (use one from the library, since it’s out of print), I highly recommend his resource.

The ideas in this book are based on Jung’s theory of collective unconscious. He identified major archetypes that arise from memories of shared human experience and serve as models for personalities.

From the back of the book:

At the very core of a character, every hero can be traced back to one of eight major archetypes, as can every heroine. The core archetype tells the writer the most basic instincts of heroes or heroines — how they think and feel, what drives them and how they reach their goals.

Edit: here are…

Straight from LAST DAY – RaffleCopter Giveaway from Author Jason Zandri, here are the prizes and the winners:

GRAND PRIZE – FIVE DAY / FOUR NIGHT stay over Valentine’s Day weekend – Tamie Dearen

ALL 6 KINDLE EDITIONS OF MY BOOKS (winner gets all six) – Sherri Maughan 

KINDLE VERSION OF Before Another Sunset – Second Edition – Beth Minton

KINDLE VERSION OF Another Sunset – Cynthia Dawson

KINDLE VERSION OF I, Hero: The Beginning – Alan Saxon

KINDLE VERSION OF I, Hero: Nathan Returns – Anita Duvall

KINDLE VERSION OF As Life Goes: Elementary – Faye Gates

KINDLE VERSION OF As Life Goes: The End of the Innocence – Melynda Bailey

Congratulations to all the winners! I will be emailing you individually to let you know you have won with the email addresses that I have from your contest entries.

I will also send out an update via my mailing…