Search girls and guns online and you’ll find plenty of sites--most of them depicting the two as favorite objects of men. But what about guns for girls? And for women too. That’s a tougher search. Even when you find sites catering to women, they often mimic the rough jargon and male bravado of other gun sites. As if that was the only way to teach and talk about firearms.
Welcome to your reader's brain. If you're going to make some sort of impression there, you'll want to know what you're up against. At first glance, you may think you've stumbled into an overloaded antique store. Every shelf is already crammed with stuff, some of it useful, some questionable, some so utterly irrelevant you wonder who would ever buy such a thing.
Tough times require extra inspiration. Check out this issue of Phoenix Magazine to read my profile of Morris Callaman. This is what writing is all about. Morris was homeless as a teen ager, simply because it was his best option. Google him today and you'll find out he made it in style. Goes to show obstacles can be overcome, whatever you are facing, there is a way forward. If you don't get Phoenix Magazine, you can read the profile here in it's unedited purity, such as it is . . . http://rrwriting.com/project/2009/06/a-life-redeemed.
For everyone who’s been following the progress of my novel, Romance of the Long Shot, at www.romancelongshot.com, here’s an interesting development—some Israeli media coverage. (the novel is set in Tel Aviv, Israel, during the Gulf War).
You can test your Hebrew out at http://www.mako.co.il/entertainment-culture/lit/Article-83c6878b902e0210...
The picture at least verifies the article is about me . . .
It’s a cliché in client conversations in our industry that when times are tough, businesses need to at least maintain their current level of marketing activity, if not increase it. Easy for us to say, that means more work for us. But how convincing is this to the client hearing it? That is, how much truth is there behind the cliché?
Fun with Fiction
by Joe Bardin, posted April 10, 2009
There are many good reasons to write a book--business strategy, career calling card, personal pleasure. But the business of books can be a tough one. Put quite simply, the demand for books is far exceeded by the supply. So the process of writing the book is really only half the story. The other half is distribution, that is connecting with your readers.
Recent conversations with clients and colleagues have revealed a troubling downturn in people’s perceived value of themselves. I understand what has happened to the real estate values in Arizona—they were never really there. Unregulated mortgage insurance instruments allowed lenders to give mortgages to many borrowers without concern if they could actually pay them. Then boom, the bottom fell out. But what has happened to the human value?
Being a resident of Arizona, I am naturally an expert on Mexican food. I know this because clients from Ohio, which shares no border with Mexico, tell me so. They come a calling from their cooler, Mid-western clime and ask for an “authentic” Mexican food experience. I recognize this as code for the desire to be taken to a dumpy, hole-in-the-wall joint that, never the less, won’t get them food poisoned. I know just such a place. The clients leave happy, if slightly bloated, and the bill is much lower than it might have been had we eaten somewhere nicer. I mean, less authentic.
SEO? What about SOR?
SEO, or search engine optimization, can help draw people to your site. You load up your content with key words by which people search for what you offer, and voila, your hits increase.
But what happens once they get to your site? Does your marketing writing create a connection? Have you clearly communicated what you offer? And have you achieved this before your visitor has clicked on to the next site his search turned up?
There is only one legal way to gain custody of a Desert Tortoise in Arizona and that is through adoption. One does not simply walk in and walk out. One must first display one’s fitness for assuming such responsibility. But rather than my own personal makeup, what the Phoenix Herpetological Society seemed most concerned with was my yard. Did it have shade? Was it fenced in? Did it have room to roam? I had to take photos to prove it.
