Competing for Cash

Writer's Digest magazine is running several genre-specific contests in which the winners get $1,000 in cold, hard cash. Sound interesting? Better get that manuscript dusted off and sent in; the deadlines are all coming up in October!

Contests in the Young Adult, Sci-Fi and Thriller genres have an October 1 deadline. Romance is October 15. Crime is October 22, and Horror is October 31. (Yeah, Halloween. Clever, huh?)

For all genres, manuscripts need to be 4,000 words or less, which is short-story length. Each costs $20 to enter. No time for professional editing at this point, but if you want to have manuscripts ready for future contests, there's no time like the present for getting them ready. Visit TW&E's Editing page for information on submitting a sample for editing.

Best of luck in the competition(s) of your choice!

A Wonderful Story, With a Lesson

Congratulations are in order for editing client Jacob Singer, who has just released the e-book version of his new book, The Vase with the Many Coloured Marbles!

With a title that's a metaphor for the country of South Africa, the book is actually two books in one. Book 1 is about Emma, a young woman from Cape Town, South Africa during the rise of the government's apartheid laws. It's a fascinating look at how those laws affected real people, something you won't read in the history books. But Emma wants to escape from the social norms of her class that are every bit as restrictive as the official race laws. The two are so intertwined that she must leave her home and forge a new life for herself to escape them. Emma's views on South Africa's leadership and social makeup are extremely poignant, and as relevant in today's world as they were in hers.

In Book 2 the story continues, centered around Emma's daughter, Marla. The characters are based on the author and people he knew while growing up in Potchefstroom, South Africa. Will Marla ever find out her mother's secret? Will Josh ever love anyone but her? Will she follow Emma's example and get involved in changing her country, or merely observe from the sidelines? And what will become of Emma? All are answered by the end of Book 2: Marla.

The questions this book will raise for you, however, are many. What do you really know about apartheid? For most Americans, the answer is probably little more than the name of Nelson Mandela (with only a vague idea of his role), or a foggy view of really ugly racist attitudes. But it went much further than that, dictating where people could live, the types of employment they could seek, where they could travel, and the type of education they could get. Entire cities were structured around the country's racial profiling. People arrested for violating the apartheid laws spent real time in prison, just for trying to live their lives in freedom and seek a better life for themselves and their families. Those who worked to overturn the laws were often the targets of terrorist tactics, as you'll see in the book. It was a fearful, brutal time, yet also one when a good person's true character could soar to greatness. The racism that existed in America during the Jim Crow era was mild in comparison to South Africa under apartheid.

So if you want a good story that will open your eyes to life at another time in another part of the world, download a copy of The Vase with the Many Coloured Marbles for your Kindle, iPad, or computer. And watch for the printed version of the book, soon to come. I certainly enjoyed editing it, and you'll enjoy the read. (You've gotta love that British spelling in the title, too!)

Panda Changes Everything!

Those of you who remember Cyndi Lauper's song from the '80s about money changing everything probably have that tune running through your head after reading that headline. (Well, okay, I have it running through mine.) But if you have a website and you want to get traffic to it, Panda is most definitely something you need to learn more about.

Do you write your own website copy? If so, and if you've been to any SEO seminars in the past few years (that's "search engine optimization" for the uninitiated), you've probably been given the advice to cram as many keywords as you could into your website copy. It didn't have to be particularly interesting or well-written, just as long as it contained bunches of the keywords people would search on to find whatever you were selling. You didn't even need to write any text yourself, or pay anybody to do it for you; you could just get it all from article banks where professional writers posted content you could pick up for free! How easy was that?

Well, all of that changed when Google rolled out its Panda update. While Google's always tweaking its algorithms that determine which sites get to the top in search results, Panda was a major change. Companies who had learned how to play the SEO game well enough to consistently rank at the top have been reeling from the penalties Google imposed on them and trying to figure out the new system ever since. You probably heard about the penalties imposed on J.C. Penney's site for using what Google deemed "black hat" techniques to game their search algorithms.

One of the big changes with Panda was that sites started getting penalized for using copy picked up from "content farms". This is great for good copywriters like me, because it means that now your site needs to have unique, fresh content. You can't just use the same article that countless other sites may have also picked up from the same article bank. And it can't just be a bunch of mediocre copy with keywords stuffed into it, either. The content needs to be interesting, relevant to your site's purpose, and "shareable". If it's something people would post a link to in their Facebook or Twitter update, you're golden (in Google's eyes, at least).

Sites that were making a lot of money from advertising, but had minimal original content, were penalized, too. An entire industry seemed to have sprung up in recent years of sites with not much to offer but a bunch of advertisements. Those sites aren't getting to the top of the search engines any more. Got to have that good content to get SEO mojo these days.

Also considered a black-hat technique was what some companies were selling as link-building services. They'd add links to your site from all sorts of unrelated sites, just to boost the number of other sites linking to your site and raise your profile in search results. Now, if you have a lot of inbound links from sites that aren't related to what your site's about, it subtracts from your Google ranking.

Next, Google rolled out its "+1" button. This is similar to the "Like" button on Facebook, but for search results. It enables people to have input into the search results they see. And, Google hopes, it will increase the popularity of "good" sites. But if people were gaming the system before, surely some will do the same with this. Companies will start selling the service of having a bunch of people hit the +1 button for your site (if they haven't already). So I'm not sure of the impact this will eventually have on search rankings.

The latest enhancement to search results is that now you see several sub-pages of the main domain ranking first in search results. If your site has up to 12 relevant pages other than your home page that are often visited by people, they'll show up in a two-column list underneath your main URL link when someone searches on a keyword where you rank #1-10. So it behooves you to create quality content that will draw traffic to several of your site's subpages, not just lump it all on your home page, so you'll have something to display in those "12-packs".

Panda includes many more changes than these, and since Google is pretty secretive about their algorithms, not all of the new factors are well known. But the game has definitely changed. Bottom line: you need new website copy. And it had better be well-written, interesting and relevant to your site's purpose. So, anybody need a good copywriter? ;-)

Tips for Online Writing

In searching for products to feature on OldMaidCatLady.com, I'm always poking around online. Various trails lead me to relevant posts in blogs all over the world. Those can be fodder for more than just my retail site!

A good example is one that popped up this week. Although the blogger was said to live in California, he did not appear to be a native English speaker. And his post made me think of several things to keep in mind when writing for the web, be it blog posts, website copy or articles:

• Have a point. Yes, we all get random thoughts, but don't just use stream of consciousness writing online. What you put online is not only going to be out there forever, it's going to reflect on you and your brand. Make sure it says something good.
• Stay focused. Try to write about one main point, and make that point small enough that you can hold your readers' interest throughout. People don't spend a lot of time reading long articles online. You only have a couple of minutes of their time. If you have a lot to say about a subject, make it into a series of articles or blog posts.
  
• Know your audience. If you're writing a blog, you probably have followers. If you're writing an article, it'll likely be read by people who have something in common. Those are the people you're talking to. Keep them in mind as you're writing. Don't use jargon they wouldn't understand or assume they have knowledge they don't.
  
• Break up the text into bite-sized pieces. Have you ever taken too big of a bite of food and wondered how you were going to chew it all? Readers feel the same way when they see a huge block of text. Use short paragraphs and bullet points to break up your article into smaller pieces, each centered around one thought.
• Be logical. If you studied logic in school, you know that a valid argument has a logical flow. It presents evidence, then draws a conclusion based on that evidence. Make sure your writing follows a similar pattern.
• Use proper grammar and spelling. That should be obvious, right? Not from some of the stuff I've read online! While you can use an informal, conversational voice that doesn't always include complete sentences in the classic sense, you should still pay attention to sentence structure and make sure you've spelled all your words correctly.

Writing for the web is different than writing for print or broadcast. If you're a writer, you should already know that. While there are many additional components of good online writing, if you follow these basics, you'll be on the road to a successful job.

The Best-Selling Author You've Never Heard Of

He was reportedly the first American author to sell a million copies of a novel. Also the first to make $1 million from fiction writing. During his prime, he outsold every other American author. Six of his books were among Publisher's Weekly's top 10 best sellers of their time. At least 21 movies were made from his stories, some featuring major Hollywood stars. One of his books has been credited with beginning the tourism boom that shaped Branson, Missouri into what it is today. In addition to his 19 novels, he wrote stage plays and numerous magazine articles.

So why have you never heard of Harold Bell Wright? By pretty much all measurements, he was successful. Some of his books are still for sale on Amazon.com. Ronald Reagan cited Wright's influence on his own life. He even has a website, 67 years after his death, and his work is still popular among many Christian readers. There's even a Harold Bell Wright Society that was created to publicize the author's work.

One of the reasons for Wright's commercial success during his lifetime was marketing. His publisher recognized the value of mass distribution on readership, and made his books available through "new" channels like the Sears & Roebuck catalog. The company also targeted small-town bookstores to get his books in front of people who rarely read the classics. This was an audience to which his messages appealed.

Another reason for Wright's success was the meticulous research that went into each of his novels. He went so far as to actually spend time living in his locations before writing about them. Wright's background as a preacher also made him a good storyteller who could describe his locations and situations in ways that made them relevant to his readers. His books usually had a moral foundation that taught readers lessons about what really matters and valued the simple, country or frontier life over more complex city living.

So why aren't Wright's books still popular today, and why isn't his name mentioned with other great writers of the early 20th Century? Some say it's because his characters are too simplistic. That makes the plots easier to figure out ahead of time, with few surprises for readers. Literary critics of his time looked down upon Wright's work as shallow, mass-market fiction. There is a tendency among literary scholars to downplay the value of very popular writers who affirm traditional, conservative values. The quality of Wright's work is viewed as inconsistent, as well.

What lessons does this hold for today's writers? There are a few:

• Know why you're writing. Do you seek commercial success? Literary acclaim? To transform lives, or merely to entertain your readers? What themes do you want to leave them with? Understanding this should be one of the first things you do when you're planning to write a book. It can change the way you write it. It may not have bothered Wright that literary critics dismissed his importance, if his purpose in writing his books was to reach as many people as possible with his message. Perhaps timelessness was not a part of his vision for his work.
  
• Invest time in good research. Yes, your creative genius and the story you have to tell are important, but make sure the details of your book ring true. If it takes traveling to a place mentioned in your book to make sure you can write about it realistically, do it. If it means hours in the library and online tracking down historical details to ensure accuracy, do it. Wright's investments here helped his readers identify with his stories and created loyal fans who bought everything he wrote.
  
• Pay attention to marketing. No publisher these days provides much marketing support to authors. It's going to be up to you to make sure your book sells. Write a marketing plan for it, even before you've written the book. Identify your primary target audience. Get to know it thoroughly, and identify your secondary audiences. Scout your competition, and figure out how you're going to differentiate your book from them for each of those audiences. Determine the formats in which you'll offer your book (hardcover, paperback, e-book, audio, etc.) and where it will be sold. These details will become crucial in your book's success. Yesterday's Sears & Roebuck catalog, used so successfully by Wright's publisher to market his books, is today's Amazon.com...what will it be tomorrow?
  

Writing a book is not simple, even though it seems like everybody these days is doing it. Make sure your investment in time and resources pays off by learning from authors of the past like Harold Bell Wright.

Harold Bell Wright was born on this day in 1872. His most famous novels are The Winning of Barbara Worth (made into a film starring Gary Cooper in 1926), The Shepherd of the Hills (made into a 1941 John Wayne film), The Calling of Dan Matthews, and The Eyes of the World. If you've written a Great American Novel and need someone to edit it, visit the Thompson Writing & Editing site for information on our editing services.

The Latest Scam: Caveat Emptor

Entrepreneurs, and especially we solopreneurs, have a lot to do. In addition to the work itself, we have to market our businesses, manage them financially, and handle all the other legal and administrative work that has to be done to keep them running. The last thing we need is more of that on our plate.

So imagine my dismay when I received an e-mail this past week from some company called "Newname Net Service Company", informing me that some company named "Bangni Distributors" wanted to buy the URLs of thompsonwriting with several extensions that would be specific to Asia. They warned me that if I didn't buy them all, this other company was going to buy them.

Hmm. Well, in the first place, "Bangni Distributors" doesn't sound like a company that would offer writing and editing services, does it? I'm thinking they probably do more import-export work. So what would they want with a bunch of URLs identical to mine except for the extension? I've spent a lot of years building up my good reputation as a solid ghostwriter and editor. Will this other company be trying to trade on my good reputation and present themselves as me in Asia? I'm thinking not. What could they possibly have to gain from it?

So that leads me to the next conclusion, which is that this "Newname" company is trying to bully me into buying all these URLs from them, just to keep this other company from buying them. They were persistent; every time I told them I wasn't taking the bait, they'd come back with something about how it was perfectly legal and I'd better buy them to keep Bangni from doing it. Sure, it may be legal, I told them, but it's hardly ethical. Suppose I were to try and buy a URL of bangnidistributors.us. Why, other than squatting on that domain name and hoping to sell it to them for big bucks later on, would I possibly want to do that? I just don't think that way, because I do business ethically.

Since I'm not seeking to do a lot of business in Asia, I called Newname's bluff and told them to go ahead and sell those URLs to Bangni. After all, I've had customers in Sweden and Canada find me through my existing website with the .com extension on it. I've had no need to buy extensions for every country in the world in order to do business internationally. And if I find them showing up in my Google Alerts on my company name with sites claiming to be me, I'll cross that legal bridge when I get to it. Yes, Newname, I do monitor those things.

So there's one more administrative headache off my plate. If you see any Asian firms masquerading as Thompson Writing & Editing, using anything other than a .com URL, be aware that they're not me. And if you've got your own business URL, be aware that these snakes are out there, looking to scare you into buying a bunch of URLs you don't need. Don't cave in to their threatening tactics!

Defining Charlie Sheen

I suppose it was inevitable that someone would come out with a glossary of Charlie Sheen's egotistical, outrageous quotes. So now not one, but two, major newspapers have done so. And that's not even counting the hilarious New Yorker cartoons done on Buzzfeed. Their lists were similar, but different, so I've compiled, alphabetized, and amplified them here for you into one Big List o' Craziness. To read the original articles, go here and here. To read the original quotes from the Sheenster himself, well, just read any newspaper or news website that covers Hollywood celebrities. Daily.

Hey, the crazy act has done wonders for Gary Busey's career, right? Keep the little jewels a-comin', Charlie! But it's a fine line to walk. Just be careful not to cross over into the Mel Gibson area, or risk being shunned by the media. Here, then, are the terms popularized in Sheenville over the past few weeks:

Adonis DNA
noun
A mysterious substance that allows one to forgo treatment by Alcoholic Anonymous: "AA was written for normal people. People that don't have tiger blood and Adonis DNA."

Alcoholics Anonymous
noun
Insidious group, also known as AA, whose influence is to be avoided at all costs by warlocks: "AA was written for normal people. People that don't have tiger blood and Adonis DNA."

Apocalypse Me
title
1. According to the Sheenster himself, "Warlock Latin for WINNING."
2. The title of Charlie Sheen's new book, delivered to him through "vast and extensive Lunar channels."

Bang
exclamation
A synonym for "voila": "I can say, 'Hey, kids, your dad's a rock star. Look at his experiences. Look what he survived.' Bang. There are some of your lessons."

Bi-winning
adjective
1. A play on the term for a mental illness meaning triumphing in two places: "I'm bi-winning. I win here, I win there. Now what? If I'm bipolar, aren't there moments when a guy like crashes?"
2. Successfully convincing two "blonde" porn actresses to make out with each other.

Boom
exclamation
Term used to punctuate the end of a gnarly, mind-blowing statement: "you have the right to kill me, but you do not have the right to judge me. Boom." "She shows up looking the way she does...Wow! Everybody's winning. Boom!" "White gold? Boom!"

Buh-bye
exclamation
Dismissive term used to denote the end of a contest, which is always signified by the victory of the warlock: [when explaining his relationship with two blondes on a morning talk show]: "That's how I roll. And if it's too gnarly for people, then buh-bye." "Oh, wait, can't process it. Losers. Winning. Buh-bye."

Chaim Levine
proper noun
Disparaging and vaguely anti-Semitic reference to Chuck Lorre, creator of Two and a Half Men. Synonymous with clown, bozo, charlatan, stupid little man, pussy punk, and piece of shit.

Charlie Sheen
proper noun
1. Erratic and self-proclaimed superhuman star of films and the sitcom Two and a Half Men, AKA "C. Irwin Estevez".
2. A "drug" the actor claims to use recreationally that would cause normal people's faces to melt off, their bodies to explode, and their children to weep: "I'm on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available. If you try it once, you will die."
See also: F-18, Warlock, Wedge

Cosmic fastball
noun
Proclamations and statements of wisdom imparted by warlocks via Twitter and other media outlets: "this just in.... another cosmic fastball from theMind of your fav Warlock;"

Dying
noun
A process that can be avoided through wisdom and professionalism: "Dying's for fools, dying's for amateurs."

Earn Yourself
proclamation
Typical "cosmic fastball" from the Sheenster, also used as a hashtag on Twitter, and manifested in other subsequent sayings: "You already own you. Now go... Earn the power. Earn the Truth. Earn the most important component in this entire dimension..."

Epic
adjective
Major, monumental, as in the Sheenster's drug stories and other feats accomplished by warlocks, or titles bestowed by them: "she is most noble and worthy of this EPIC title."

F-18
noun
Powerful jet packing a punch comparable to the star of Two and a Half Men: "Most of the time -- and this includes naps -- I'm an F-18, bro."

Geek Squad
proper noun
Disparaging name for The Big Bang Theory, created by Chuck Lorre (see Chaim Levine): "Mike and Molly and Geek Squad are gonna explode like they were hit by a Japanese torpedo."

Gnarles Gnarlington
noun
Super-cool one who claims to have special powers; see "Warlock". Persona of the Sheenster: "like my dear friend Gnarls Gnarlington says, #WINNING!"

Go
noun
The only speed on which the Sheenster operates: "I was banging seven-gram rocks and finishing them because that's how I roll, because I have one speed, one gear: go."

Goddess
noun, often used in plural
1. A woman, usually a blonde-with-dark-roots, who positions herself near a flamboyant actor for the cameras and makes herself available for sexual favors and ego boosting. In the Sheenster's case, synonymous with porn stars, former nannies/models, and wayward graphic designers: "You've read about the goddeesses, come on. They're an international sensation."
2. The sort of woman who needs step-by-step instructions when asked to make instant coffee during an interview on TMZ Live: "It's the premade. The instant. Mix the water with the powder. Don't confuse her." (See previous note on ego boosting.)

Golden sombrero
noun
Headgear that must be worn by one who has been divorced four times: "I tried marriage. I'm 0 for 3 with the marriage thing. So, being a ballplayer, I believe in numbers. I'm not going 0 for 4. I'm not wearing a golden sombrero."

Lunar channels
plural noun
The means by which great information is delivered to the Sheenster, for dispensation to us mortals: "the title of my book has finally been delivered thru vast and extensive Lunar channels."

Mercury surfboard
noun
Triumphant vehicle for a warlock using the media to his own advantage: "It's been a tsunami of media and I've been riding it on a mercury surfboard."

Octagon, the
noun
1. An imaginary location where a show-runner and a sitcom star can wage battle for dominance.
2. An area of unclear demarcation into which a porn star may accidentally wander into at her own peril when a sitcom star is raging over losing his wallet.

Organic union of the hearts
phrase
Description of the relationship between an erratic sitcom star and two goddesses: Maybe the three of us will get married. I don't know. I'm gonna say this. It's a polygamy story. All my guy friends are gonna like throw tomatoes at me. It's like an organic union of the hearts."

Out partying
adjective
Star's explanation for how all his crazy escapades begin. Often results in nudity, trashing of hotel rooms, terrified escorts hiding in closets, police visits, and wacky statements to the media.

Plan better
advice
The alternative to excuses, as explained by the Sheenster himself: "Ready for my next fastball, world? PLAN BETTER Applies to everything where an excuse now sits. Try it. U won't be wrong. Ever."

Porn family
noun
Replacements for one's actual family which has fled the coop, constituted of a fetish-appealing porn actress and a former-nanny-and-model graphic artist housed in an empty house in escrow located down the street from the former home of said actual family.

Radical success
noun
Results achieved by superhuman warlocks going through rehab at the Sober Valley Lodge: "Its primary client achieve radical success."

Rock star
noun
See Warlock. A term often preceded by "totally bitchin'" and followed by "from Mars".

Scoreboard
noun
Ultimate judge of who's winning, a reference to Sheen's roles in baseball movies, "where the home team's tally is always a lit-up infinity symbol, while the visitors must make do with an LED of Charlie Sheen giving the thumbs-down sign (with a smaller caption that reads, 'Sorry, bro')": "The scoreboard doesn't lie."

Sheen
verb
1. To behave like Charlie Sheen; e.g., when Trey Parker and Matt Stone told David Letterman that they were "Sheening pretty hard" when they cross-dressed for the Oscars.

Sober Valley Lodge
noun
Nickname for the Sheenster's Mulholland Drive mansion, a home rehabilitation facility populated by goddesses, warlocks, and past visits by said warlock's children...but perhaps not so many future ones. Free from the controlling influence of Alcoholics Anonymous, its inhabitants complete their miraculous healing by proclaiming, "Cured. Winning.": "We couldn't really call it rehab because we didn't have a license to operate one, so it was a crisis management center that we labeled the Sober Valley Lodge. Its primary client achieved radical success."

Stoopid jew pig
noun
Title bestowed on the Sheenster's manager, Mark Berg, who promptly took offense at the term and resigned. As did his publicist, Dan Rosenstein.

Tiger blood
noun
Fluid that allows one to survive drug addiction when flowing through one's veins. Purportedly composed of human blood, prescription painkillers, copious amounts of cocaine, and male performance-enhancing drugs: "AA was written for normal people. People that don't have tiger blood and Adonis DNA." [And in response to a question about why he survived drug addiction]: "Because I'm me. I'm different. I have a different constitution, I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man."

Twitter
noun
The latest platform on which the Sheenster (@charliesheen) can dish out his pearls of wisdom for the masses, and on which he got over 1 million followers in his first 24 hours there. Typical tweet: "Just got invited to do the Nancy Grace show...I'd rather go on a long road trip with Chuck Lorre in a '75 Pacer...."

Warlock
noun
A man who holds special powers (shooting magic and poetry from the fingertips, converting tin cans into gold), endowed with three-part heart, tiger blood, and Adonis DNA. His brain "fires in a way that is -- I don't know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm."

Wedge
noun
Term for the trio of a warlock positioned between two godesses: "It's a wedge. Boom. You form a wedge to make room for the guy carrying the ball."

Winning
noun, participle
1. Triumphing by getting more media coverage than studio executives, famous fathers, and show-runners who then must, "lay down with their ugly wives and their ugly children and just look at their loser lives." Often used in all-caps as a hashtag on Twitter (#WINNING).
2. Self-amplifying exclamation used to punch the end of a sentence: "Sorry, you thought you were just messing with one dude. Winning."
Examples: "The only thing I'm addicted to right now is winning." "Just winning every second." "Winning, anyone?" "Duh, winning!" "It rhymes with winning." "Face it, folks, you just feel better when you say it. #WINNING"

If nothing else, Charlie's at least taken our minds off the dismal U.S. debt load, the meltdown in the Middle East, and the political bickering in Washington. And you gotta love him for that.