by Lisa Norman

Statistics are interesting. Statistics can provide us with valuable information. Like, right now, there are over 8 billion people on the planet and over 1 billion websites (most of which are inactive). One of my favorite teachers said that it only takes 5000 true fans to be famous, although I can’t find any proof for that statement. Thinking of the various authors I’ve worked with, I will say that once your fan base gets up in those numbers, you’re generally happy with the income level.

Build it and they will come.

Aside from being a misquote, that sentiment is particularly misleading when related to author websites. No, there isn’t any guarantee that anyone will find your website or your book. Even if you have the most beautiful website or the most amazing book, there’s no guarantee that anyone will ever find it.

“Wow, Lisa. That sounds really negative. Isn’t this a big part of what you do?”

Yep. Every day. And I’ve seen sites grow from nothing to amazing. Google sends you a special email when you get 1 million visits in a month. I’ve seen websites outgrow their hosting, email lists that explode in popularity, and sites that provide their owners with a very comfortable living.

But I’ve also seen some websites that just sit there. Alone. Abandoned. 82% of websites are abandoned. If you’ve paid for hosting, you know that is a lot of money to spend doing… nothing.

I’ve studied statistics from many author websites: new authors, established authors, NYT bestsellers. I’ve watched how their websites grow over time. It is a lot of fun to go back over the history of a long blog, watching how the author experimented, played, and learned how to turn their digital space into something amazing.

Content is king.

When we talk about physical real estate, we say, “Location, location, location…” because location makes a huge difference in the value of a property.

With digital real estate, content is everything. Okay, so I’ve seen some people arguing this point, so let me say it this way: giving something of value is the key to success. Yep, it’s the same as we say about everything. Site visitors want to know “What’s in it for me?”

If there isn’t anything there for them, they don’t care.

“So, great! All I need to do is put stuff on my blog and it’ll work!”

No. Sorry. It is more complicated than that. Because it isn’t just content. It is useful content that people want.

This principle is so important that Google even has an algorithm named after it.

If your content is useful, you get rewarded by search engines and content aggregators*. Not useful? You get buried.

*Content aggregators, news aggregators, or news readers are apps that collect and display articles, blogs, podcasts, and other information. Content aggregators are a great way for entertainers to be discovered. Examples: Google News, Flipboard, Apple News, Smart News, and Feedly. Using tools like these is a great way to build a curated information source that will create a custom set of articles for you to read each day.

Entertainment has value.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it is important to remember: we’re in the entertainment industry. So “useful” for us means entertaining.

Write fantastic entertaining content on your website, and people will flock to it. Right? Maybe. I’ve seen some amazing growth with this method, but I’ve seen many people post once or twice and then stop. Why?

“It didn’t work for me.”

That’s usually the point at which I start screaming silently. (Because screaming loudly at clients is considered rude.)

Here’s the truth: one or two posts won’t do it.

In my years of teaching and coaching writers, I’ve only seen one person who went nearly viral with their first post. Their second post was fairly normal, and they didn’t post again. (Imagine me crying at the lost opportunity for that incredibly talented writer!)

That’s not how the internet works.

Why? Because it takes a while to really start connecting with your true fans. Most people don’t even know who their true fans ARE when they start their website. (What? You thought you were the only one who felt that way?)

I love looking at website statistics, because I can see when people start connecting and when things start getting shared around. Authors without stats often miss the early signs of growth entirely. My favorite moments are when authors tell me they want to stop, and then I show them the graph of people looking at their content.

Most authors start out with a long flat graph. They post and test content like it was pasta they are throwing at people’s social media walls. Sometimes something sticks. Most often, that sticky thing isn’t new, because it took a bit of time for people to find it. From my experience, I’d say most of the successful posts I’ve seen tend to be several months old. One of my most successful posts was years old before it was discovered.

Once an author realizes what their fans want, they start writing more of that, and you can watch the graph grow.

Some authors catch on really fast. Most take months or years.

Here are the hard numbers.

Neil Patel (a search engine optimization guru) compiled the analytics data of more than 1 million websites across different industries. (Entertainment is one of those industries, and the one we fit into.)

Of websites whose authors were writing consistent content each month:

• Traffic increased 11.4% within the first 6 months
• Another 9.58% traffic bump in months 6-12
• The second year saw a 49.4% boost over Year 1
• Year 3 was up 30.7% over Year 2
• Year 4 grew another 13.5%

The takeaway here is that growth isn’t immediate. If you post once, decide nothing happened, and stop blogging, then there’s no point in having a blog. Create a business card website and go on with your life knowing that you have a site, you appear professional, and you can check that box off on your to-do list.

But if you want your website to find fans and bring them to you, plan on it taking years to bring results.

Do these numbers surprise you? Know someone who has stopped blogging after only a couple of months? Do you look at your statistics? What are your expectations and experiences with website growth?

About Lisa

Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that her first novel was written on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, she can be found wandering the local beaches.

Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of Deleyna's Dynamic Designs, a web development company focused on helping writers, and Heart Ally Books, LLC, an indie publishing firm.

Interested in learning more from Lisa? Sign up for her newsletter or check out her classroom where she teaches social media, organization, technical skills, and marketing for authors!

Top image from Depositphotos.

by Ellen Buikema

Working with young children provided me with a different way of viewing and understanding the world. Life lessons from children can serve as invaluable resources for writing and life.

1. Have Patience

When dictating stories for me to transcribe, children either spoke at lightning speed or slowly with great deliberation. The fast talkers needed to be patient with me. And they were. Each and every one of them. Patient to a fault.

Children at the writing table

A pair of fraternal twins, sister and brother, were prolific, creative storytellers. Both spoke at breakneck pace. Sometimes the duo’s words spilled forth with such speed that they tripped over syllables, making them difficult to understand. After hearing me ask several times, “Can you please say that again?” they chose a different method to get their stories across—one word at a time with a few “one Mississippi, two Mississippi” beats between words. I found this maddening, but eventually we developed a flow that worked for all of us. Plus, mutual respect allowed for greater student-teacher patience.

Rushing your book out to the public is tempting but unwise. Have patience. Art cannot be rushed.

Writing and “building a book” requires a lot of patience.

When composing, whether you are a plotter, pantser, or plantser, lack of patience leads to frustration that can hurl you smack into writer’s block. Having patience with oneself is not easy. Remember that a plethora of great writers took many drafts to get their stories just right. After all, first drafts are awful by definition.

2. Be Disciplined

Someone once told me that working with young students was like herding cats. I totally agree!

The attention span of a four-year-old is very short. We’re talking eight to twelve minutes on average if they’re interested in the project being presented. Unless you’re well organized with backup plans in case of emergencies, you are toast—burned extra crispy.

It takes discipline to have all the pieces-parts prepared for the day—as well as a bag of tricks.

Circle Time Disaster

I’d planned a fantastic lesson. It flopped big time. I could tell by observing the wiggling bodies sitting on the floor with me. Time to punt. Beside me, sat a bag containing several items of different shapes and sizes. I decide to call it The Mystery Bag. This went over very well. All forty eyes focused on the teacher holding a large, bumpy brown paper bag on her lap.

I asked the wiggliest student to come over and, without peeking, reach into the bag. “Describe the item for us, just from touching it,” I said. The student holding the hidden item chose each of her classmates in turn, following the customs of our classroom (preventative discipline). The students guessed what they thought the mystery item might be. After every classmate participated, the student pulled the item from the bag. The Mystery Bag activity continued until Circle Time ended.

What preparations do you make to be sure you're organized for your writing day? Some writers have specific goals, like word count or chapters to write per week. Others keep items in their writing area to use to trigger ideas. Maybe a Mystery Bag would help. Pulling items one-by-one to use as part of a suspense story. As for me, I like to start with coffee and quiet time to think about what happens next. Just like I'd ask the kids while dictating their stories, to move the plot forward.

Self-discipline or lack thereof, can make you or break you. It can:

• Help form positive habits. Successful writers discipline themselves to write, making it habitual.
• Assist you to be productive. Commit to a timeline for your writing projects. Be an achiever.
• Help with focus. Focusing on the writing will get your work completed.
• Increase your self-esteem. Achieving your writing goals boosts confidence.

3. Notice the Little Stuff

Children notice everything. When sitting on your lap to listen to a story, they may look up your nose and comment upon what they see. There is no such thing as a filter with young children. The social filter doesn’t start until around age seven, thanks to children’s increased capacity for empathy.

Everything a child sees and hears eventually makes its way to school, either with friends or trusted adults. Students write in pictorial form or dictate stories about things they’ve seen or heard that evoke emotion—both the good and the bad.

Observation is key to great scenes.

My favorite grade schoolteacher gave us a simple assignment, never graded nor asked about. Find one item on your walk home from school and really look at it in detail. Take time to observe the little things. I have never forgotten this assignment and have often used it over the years. There is beauty everywhere. Sometimes you need to look a bit closer.

Observation is much more than seeing. When writing scenes, the more senses used, the easier it is for your reader to become part of the story.

• Choose what you want to observe.
• Record your observations.

Use a cellphone camera, still or video camera, make a note on paper or an App like ColorNote, or audio recording App like Voice Recorder for future reference. Sensory memories are strong, but life is busy and it’s easy to forget.

4. Use Forgiveness

It’s okay to be angry. It’s not okay to hurt other people or yourself.

When my students hurt each other’s feelings in the classroom or playground, they were responsible to find a way to make the hurt person feel better. It’s easy to say, “I’m sorry.” Finding a way to make it better takes thought. Forgiveness was implicit in accepting that gift, whatever it may have been. This didn’t happen overnight, but over time made a huge difference in the way students treated each other.

No one has the same writing path.

Mentors can steer you toward new possibilities, challenge you, and expand your imagination, but no one can tell you exactly what your writing process should be. Forgive those that suggest the “right” way. You will develop a system that may borrow from many but become your own.

There will be fantastic days when your writing flows like a bubbly brook. Others are drought days with a blank screen or page. If you lose patience, forgive yourself.

5. Laugh Often

Once our school nurse fell ill and needed to spend time in the hospital. The students made a book for Nurse Rita to help her feel better. Each child received one page to draw a picture, write their names to the best of their ability, and dictate a sentence or two to cheer her.

Rita smiled throughout the book until she found the last page. Then she laughed hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. On the last page was a drawing of an Angry Bird with the caption, Angry Birds will make Nurse Rita feel better.

Laughter is good medicine. Nurse Rita agrees.

There is a healing quality to humor. Laughter releases feel-good hormones, and a jolly belly laugh is a good workout.

Find more tidbits about humor in writing on the blog. Writing Humor to Heal Mind and Body

And remember that a day without laughter is wasted.

Happy writing!

What life lessons have you incorporated into your writing? Do you have a favorite recording device?

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About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents, and The Adventures of Charlie Chameleon chapter book series with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works in Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and The Crystal Key, MG Magical Realism/ Sci-Fi, a glaze of time travel.

Find her at https://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Top Image by Михаил Мингазов from Pixabay

by Eldred “Bob” Bird

I’ve always been fascinated by character names. I often wonder why the author chose a specific name for that individual. Is it a family name, or a reflection of their culture? Does it carry some deeper meaning, or was it just the first thing to pop into their head? Maybe it started as a placeholder and over time the name just stuck.

There are countless ways you can name your characters. Some authors keep a baby name book handy, or comb through old phone books (yeah, I’m that old). Here are a few ways I like to approach naming my characters.

Three Ways to get Started

I generally derive my character names in one of three ways:

1. Build the character first and name them based on their backstory, family history, or something specific about their personality.
2. Choose a name and build the character around it.
3. Slap whatever name pops into my head on the character and worry about it later.

Let’s take a deeper look at each of these and see what influences them.

Building the Character First

When I create a character, I want the name to tell you something about the individual. I usually build the character first before putting on a label. I often say that by the time I fully develop a character they’ve told me what their name is, but it’s not quite that simple.

Creating my main characters is something I put a lot of thought into. I know if the character doesn’t hold my interest, it’s not going to grab the reader either. They need to feel real to me before I can write their story. How do I get to know them? Backstory…

The first thing I do is open a new document and start dumping everything I think I want this character to be. I dig into their past and their dreams for the future. I explore their successes and expose their deepest fears. By the time I’ve free written a page or two, I start to see the character take shape in front of me.

This is when the character’s name starts to take shape. Geography can influence name choices. Different countries, states, and regions (like cities or rural areas) influence naming conventions. There are also things like ethnicity and religion that play a part. If you’re writing historical fiction, time period needs to be taken into account.

For more details on how to get to know your characters, checkout my posts on Digging Up Bones and 10 Questions to ask Your Characters.

Building a Character Around a Name

On occasion, a name will catch my attention and set my brain into motion. The sound and rhythm of it might paint a picture in my mind. When that happens, I feel inspired to create a character around the image. A perfect example is from my pulp inspired short story The Smell of Fear.

I was playing around with names one day and ended up with one inspired by my father. He was a junior and went by Jack all his life. When I put that in front of his middle name, I ended up with Jack Holloway. To me, the name had the ring of an old pulp detective. It didn’t take long for the character of Sgt. Jack Holloway to come to life.

When you hear an interesting name or one that brings a picture into your mind, make a note somewhere. You never know when it might come in handy. It may not fit into your current story but could inspire a memorable character (or even a whole story) in the future.

Placeholder Names

Let’s face it, there are times when we’re just not inspired to put a lot of effort into some of the secondary characters. We just want to get into the story and worry about those details later. We stuff any old name in and then move on. There’s no shame in doing this. It’s totally normal.

Placeholder names are a useful tool. They help us keep track of the players. Sometimes the name ends up sticking, sometimes not. The problem comes when we finally settle on a name and go back to change all instances of the placeholder. It’s very easy to miss a few. There’s an easy fix for this.

When you pick a placeholder name, don’t use common names. Pick something unique that you know will never be used anywhere else in the manuscript. That way you can simply use the search and replace tool to make your changes. This also helps if you get halfway through your book and decide to change a character’s name as they develop.

Final Thoughts

A lot of different factors go into naming your character and we’ve only scratched the surface here. If you’re writing fantasy or science fiction it can get even more complicated. Coming up with a consistent naming convention for these genres is a key part of world building.

The character’s name should say something about who they are, or who they want to be. In the end, the goal is to build a memorable character that your readers will relate to. The right name will go a long way toward reaching that goal.

What are some of your favorite ways to generate character names? Let us know in the comments!

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About Bob

Eldred Bird writes contemporary fiction, short stories, and personal essays. He has spent a great deal of time exploring the deserts, forests, and deep canyons inside his home state of Arizona. His James McCarthy adventures, Killing Karma, Catching Karma, and Cold Karma, reflect this love of the Grand Canyon State even as his character solves mysteries amidst danger. Eldred explores the boundaries of short fiction in his stories, The Waking Room, Treble in Paradise: A Tale of Sax and Violins, and The Smell of Fear.

When he’s not writing, Eldred spends time cycling, hiking, and juggling (yes, juggling…bowling balls and 21-inch knives).

His passion for photography allows him to record his travels. He can be found on Twitter or Facebook, or at his website.

Bob Juggling Knives

Top Image by Ryan McGuire via Pixabay