The Fortune Seekers – Dan and Charlotte,  

by Australian/New Zealand Author – Glennis Browne

Synopsis 

Author Glennis Browne’s riveting plot and well-drawn characters, delves into issues facing the population of Great Britain in the mid 1800’s.

Browne asks: 

Is it true we cannot avoid suffering, but we can choose how to cope with it? 

Will finding meaning in suffering, move us forward with renewed purpose? 

Does love bring peace?  

Does understanding forgiveness renew faith in God?  

These huge questions are explored in the context of two families Browne introduces to explore real incidents of grief and poverty. Situations affecting thousands of immigrants moving to Australia during the Australian gold-rush years.

 Meet Dan – a deep thinker, who challenges Welsh Calvinist beliefs which gained converts throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Branded a rebellious non-conformist, he is desperate to escape confusing doctrines to discover his identity. 

Charlotte – predicts shame and disgrace as her destiny; after indulging in a relationship fraught with complicated challenges. 

Separately they join the thousands of emigrants who became the early pioneers in Australia.  

‘The Fortune Seekers – Dan and Charlotte’ is a book portraying crisis, hope, adventure, and love. Repercussions from sexual experimentation, marital infidelity, religious bigotry and family estrangement are explored in this compelling tale of 18th century life. 

Browne explores in story form, whether life is about spiritual survival, by considering the theories of psychiatrist, Victor Frankl. 

Frankl argued:- our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we find personally meaningful.

What are the meaningful lives Dan and Charlotte are seeking? And is such a destiny achievable? Author, Glennis Browne, through her protagonists lives, examines possibilities in her debut novel, ‘The Fortune Seekers – Dan and Charlotte’. 

 The 21st century reader will discover their own ancestors’ experiences; perhaps providing answers as Browne chronicles possibilities.

First published by Xlibris Australia in September 2016.

 The revised edition will be published mid 2017

This book is the first of a series. 

Book Two of the series will be published by Xlibris in 2018

In book two of ‘The Fortune Seekers’, you will meet Dan and Charlotte again, along with other pioneer families making life changing decisions for different reasons. 

If you enjoyed The Fortune Seekers, please write a review at the website you purchased the book from. Readers depend on reviews when choosing a novel. Authors depend on reviews for promotion.

 Go to –

http://www.Xlibris.com,au  

http://www.Amazon.com/GlennisBrowne 

http://www.Barnes and Noble.com/GlennisBrowne 

If you would like to receive information about when the second release is released, please go to my blog at – 

https://www.glennisbrowne.wordpress.com

Book Two of the series will be published by Xlibris in 2018

 

Hi writer friends. Maybe I am a slow learner, as I didn’t understand about this until I read the blog from Kindle. Buy publishing the blog, I hope it helps others as well. Thanks for this blog, go to Kindle for posting this on Facebook. 

Glennis

Find Amazon kindle keywords for free

Selecting the best Amazon Kindle keywords is vital in selling your ebooks.

There are so many ebooks, software programs and outright scams, which all promise miraculous ebook sales through the use of Kindle keywords, one would think that there was some kind of magical secret that every self published author should pay for to get ebook sales. No, wrong. You don’t need to pay a cent. There is no mystery or magic.

The truth is that Kindle (KDP) keywords are very easy to find, use and implement for your own ebook. There is no magical secret formula, as KDP give very clear instructions about how to get your book into additional categories. In addition, Amazon have an in-built keyword search or long-tail keyword phrase finder in their search field.
There are so many ebooks, software programs and outright scams, which all promise miraculous ebook sales through the use of Kindle keywords, one would think that there was some kind of magical secret that every self published author should pay for to get ebook sales. No, wrong. You don’t need to pay a cent. There is no mystery or magic.

As you all will know, when you list your ebook on Kindle, you get to choose only two categories. So how can you get more? By using keywords. So let’s start with adding your ebook to more categories. All you need to do is follow the clear instructions given by KDP in their help page: Selecting Browse Categories.

Scroll down the page and select your genre. If I select Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense, I get the following list of keywords.

kindle keywords by genre for free

Example:

Now, although I have my ebook in the Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense category, I can have it appear in a number of sub-categories by using the nominated keywords. For example, I could add murder or police, and have my book appear in extra sub-categories, and therefore be seen by more people and compete against fewer other titles in these sub-categories.

Until next time, happy writing.

 Hi writer friends,

More on promotion. My head is balancing editing, rewriting, and promotion at the moment. In preparation for republishing ‘The Fortune Seekers’. I hope this blog by Kathleen Gage is of interest to you, as it was to me. 

Glennis

Today we will go further to look at repurposing and gaining visibility for your content.

Evergreen

One of the first rules of thumb for repurposing content is to make it as evergreen as possible. What this simply means is that the content will be as timely today as a year from now.

Infographic

Take a portion of the content and add it to a graphic to create an engaging infographic. Lead people bac to your blog with the URL in the graphic.

Reformat

Reformatting your content for different mediums means appealing to more audiences and extending your reach such as recording the content, shooting a short video, or moving information around with a new intro paragraph and closing paragraph.

Granted, in some case, you won’t be able to repurpose without doing a major rewrite, while in other cases, the changes will be minimal.

Promotions

Something else that will get your more mileage for your efforts is to promote the blog post.

The more visibility the post receives obviously the more opportunity to sell your books.

Here are 11 ways to promote your book with a blog post:

Promote your posts

Post the permalink on social media. It’s likely you have several social media accounts. These are ideal places for you to position your blog posts.

Take short snippets from your blog post and turn into tweets. Within minutes you can likely get dozens of tweets from one blog post. Add in the permalink to drive traffic back to your blog post.

Use hashtags to gain more traction. For example, if you have a book on dog training, you could use #dog #dogtraining #dogs as some of the hashtags.

Post the full article on 3 – 6 top article directories. In the resource box, direct readers back to your blog with something like, “For more articles by _____________ go to _____________.”

Add your post to blog communities. There are plenty of locations that allow you to promote your blog post. There are often 30-day blog challenges for getting lots of traction for your efforts.

Stay on top of comments posted about the post and respond in a timely manner. The more interaction you have with your readers, the better.

Keyword optimize your post and headline. This is essential for getting the most out of your efforts.

Ask readers to take some type of action at the end of the post. This could be to leave a comment, opt in for something, buy your book or simply hit one of the social media share buttons. The more you can get readers to take an action, the better.

Provide various ways for visitors to get on your subscriber list. Offering something that solves a specific problem will generate more opt ins than something that is too generic.

Put portions of your blog post in an autoresponder (AR) sequence leading back to the original post by way of the permalink at the end of the AR message.

With high-trending topics, make the media aware of your post. You never know what can happen as a result.

Bottom line is this: your job is to do all you can to get the word out about your book. Using blog posts to do so can result in lots of traction.

Keep this in mind: if you don’t do all you can to get your message out, you are doing those who would benefit from your information a huge disservice. Unless they know about who you are, what you do and how you can help them, you cannot impact them in the least.

The more visibility your content receives, the more you, as an author, can reach potential readers. One reason you want to gain the visibility is for readers to become fans. One of the first places fans go to in order to check out the works of an author is Amazon.

If they like want they see, there’s a great chance they will buy your book(s) directly from Amazon. When they buy your books, your rankings go up. So much in fact, you could even hit #1 on Amazon.

Want to find out how to increase your chances of hitting #1? Check out my FREE webinar – Insider Secrets to Hit #1. 

Hi author friends,

Regarding descriptive writing,

Am I still popping in adverbs when stronger, clearer descriptive methods describe better? Enough of lazy writing! This reminder from NowNovel hits the mark. I hope it does for you as well.

By the way, chapter Thirty-Seven of my novel re-write has  challenged me. Spent a full day on it yesterday. Today I’ll have it Sussed! And work on the final chapter. 

 Hopefully the editor will have the full manuscript  back in her hands in the coming weeks.  Will keep you posted. Glennis

Choosing description words: 10 questions to ask

There are endless ways to describe someone, from physical description to verbal tics, personal views and more. Here are 10 questions to ask about your description words to help you make your writing vivid:

1: What are the most precise, descriptive nouns?

Often when we think of description words, we think mainly of adjectives (words that describe the appearance, sound or smell of a noun) or adverbs (words that describe the way a noun does something).

Nouns themselves have degrees of descriptiveness. Compare, for example, the words ‘child’ and ‘brat’. A narrator who constantly refers to his next-door neighbours’ child as ‘the brat’ will come across a particular way. Their persona will seem very different to one who simply refers to ‘the child’. The former may seem angry or crotchety, a person who doesn’t enjoy the company of children. This could also tell us about the child’s behaviour (perhaps they continuously play cruel pranks). The more descriptive noun could thus describe both the neighbour’s attitude regarding the child and the child’s behaviour.

When you read over the nouns you’ve used in a scene, ask yourself:

Is this the most precise noun? E.g. ‘hat’ vs ‘fedora’; a stranger’s ‘stare’ vs ‘leer’
Is there a similar word that could be more revealing of my narrator’s personality? (For example, an eccentric violinist who hates the sound of the piano might call it the ‘boring rattle-box’)

2: Have I chosen the most descriptive adjectives?

The definition of an adjective is ‘a word naming an attribute of a noun, such as sweet, red, or technical.’ (OED). There are many synonyms for adjectives. Take the three examples the Oxford Dictionary uses, to illustrate:

Instead of ‘sweet’ you could write ‘saccharine’ (meaning ‘excessively sweet or sentimental’). Rather than ‘red’, you could write ‘crimson’ (a ‘rich deep red colour inclining to purple’). Instead of ‘technical’ you could write ‘specialized’.

Sometimes a different adjective is useful because it shades your description with extra intensity. When we read ‘The king ascended to the dais slowly, his red robes scarcely stirring,’ we see the overall motion. Yet replace ‘red’ with ‘crimson’ and we see a more specific shade.

Specific and precise adjectives add variety. The important thing is not to go overboard. You don’t have to describe every shade of red known to man to make a coronation colourful, for example. But a little variety and specificity will add panache to your descriptions.

Infographic – description words for characters and meanings

3: Are my description words building cohesive tone and mood?

When you choose describing words, decide what mood you want to create. An excellent author to read for descriptive mood and tone is J.R.R. Tolkien. The contrasts between the peaceful Shire, the land of the hobbits, and the Elves’ forest homeland, Lothlórien, makes both places distinct.

For example, the elf Legolas describes Lothlórien thus:

‘There are no trees like the trees of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold. Not till the spring and the new green opens do they fall, and then the boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is smooth and grey.’

There is a consistent tone of wonder and calm in Legolas’ description, from the ‘golden’ qualities of the forest to words that suggest strength (‘pillars’), abundance (‘laden’) and order (‘smooth’).

4: Is there extra meaning in your describing words’ etymologies?

Etymology (the origins of words) is worth dipping into when writing description. Sometimes a word in English has distant Latin, Greek or Germanic roots that add an extra subtle shadow of meaning.
Compare, for example, the etymologies of the words ‘steal’ and ‘swipe’. The former comes from Proto-Germanic languages, meaning ‘to commit a theft, to take and carry off clandestinely and without right or leave.’

The word ‘swipe’, on the other hand, means ‘to strike with a sweeping motion’. It became a synonym for stealing supposedly around 1885, as prison jargon. ‘Swipe’ contains connotations of sudden movement from the word’s original meaning. Thus there is more of a sense of opportunistic, sudden, illicit seizure, rather than stealth.

When you want a synonym for a word in your description you feel is bland, explore origins via an online etymology dictionary. See if there are lucky secondary meanings that fit your scene and make your description even stronger.

5: Have I balanced description with action, dialogue and narration?

One thing to avoid is description that reads as a laundry list of items. For example:

‘She had blue eyes, shoulder length wavy hair, several freckles and a weak chin.’

Although this isn’t the worst description ever, describing characters’ features in context draws attention to the author’s steering presence less. Doing so allows your reader to immerse themselves in your world more.

So how do you balance your description words with action and narration?

Tie description to actions. For example: ‘When she finally took off her sunglasses I saw her eyes were a striking blue’

Mention physical description where relevant or necessary to the story. For example a friend of the above character might be considering cosmetic surgery. The character says, ‘I’ve always thought my chin’s too weak.’ This is stronger than simply narrating the character’s appearance because we see the character through her own eyes. She has interiority and vulnerability

Sign up to Now Novel and improve your descriptions

6: Are my descriptions clichéd?

Because clichés are overused, we notice them more because they are unimaginative than because of the detail they attempt to show.

Take, for example, a romantic hero described as ‘dark and brooding’. We can substitute him for a Heathcliff or a Mr Darcy without really seeing what makes this character unique. Think of other ways to show these attributes:

The initially dark and brooding Mr Darcy, for example, lingers on the outskirts of the dance at a ball in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The author consistenly creates a portrait of an aloof, serious person

Similarly, Heathcliff’s callous and gruff behaviour toward’s the co-inhabitants of his cottage on the moor in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights reveals his dark and forceful nature through action rather than by saying ‘he was dark and forceful’

7: Can I condense my description and achieve equal effect?

Truly effective descriptions are often powerful because of how concise they are. They say a lot with little means. The more abstract words you use (e.g. ‘He was strong and courageous’), the less precise our image of a character becomes.

Consider this example by Barbara Kingsolver from The Poisonwood Bible, where the character Orleanna Price describes a forest in the Congo:

‘Every space is filled with life: delicate, poisonous frogs war-painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation, secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves.’

Kingsolver starts with the general, describing the abundance of wildlife in simple terms. From here she moves to particulars, focusing on just one creature: the frog. Her simile is exact: ‘war-painted like skeletons’. The exoticism of this description conveys the character’s psychology at this point. It contains elements of both wonder and fear (in the comparisons to symbols of conflict and death). This specificity reads as apt for a US missionary’s wife who is newly transplanted to Central Africa. As a whole, the description is compact, showing both general and particular details about the local forest.

8: Would it make sense to involve more of the senses?

When describing, we often focus on the visual because we are building a world with visual referents. Yet the other senses (touch, taste, smell, hearing) are useful too.

When you’ve described a scene, go back and ask if any of the senses are lacking. What is a bakery, for example, without its smell? What smells might a character notice first there? A character who loves food might describe the aromas of this setting with detail and relish. A character who is mostly pragmatic about food, by contrast, might describe the shop owners’ or other patrons’ appearances rather. Think about not only how you can involve the senses, but who is using their senses and which of their senses are most dominant or relevant.

9: Could I avoid adverbs using more descriptive verbs?

Adverbs (words that ‘give information about a verb, adjective, or other adverb’) can be useful. Some authors see them as lazy and hallmarks of poor style. It’s true that instead of writing ‘she ran very fast’, ‘she sprinted [or bolted/tore/sped]’ is stronger. Strong verbs are simply more descriptive than a bland verb such as ‘to run’ plus an adverb of degree.

Besides finding strong verbs, you can show a character’s inner state and external expression of this state with movement and gesture. Perhaps a cross character points her finger or strikes her thigh in impatience with a clenched fist. Details such as these are often stronger than adverbs. Perhaps the clenched fist character struggles to contain anger appropriately so she directs it inward (hence striking herself in a moment of fury).

List descriptive verbs when you’re writing a scene requiring stronger action. Try different options to see which will be most compelling.

10: What description words have successful authors used to describe similar characters or scenes?

Descriptions by accomplished authors are useful reading when you want to create a specific tone or mood.

For example, if you want to create an eerie or supernatural atmosphere, an author like Edgar Allan Poe or Stephen King will inspire. As you read, whenever you find a description vivid and believable, jot it down in a writing journal. Categorise descriptions (e.g. have sections for ‘character’, ‘setting’, or more specific details such as ‘eyes’ and ‘houses’). This way, when you’re next describing character or settings, you can dip into your description example handbook for inspiration.

Want to improve your character and place descriptions?

 Sign up for Now Novel for tools and guides that will help you make the world of your story vivid and intriguing.

Hi writer friend,

I don’t know how you feel about your writing. Mine, I have judged harshly. Deciding to re work the complete novel. For six months I have been editing, rewriting, correcting, deleting ; chapter by chapter.  Now, almost completed, and evaluated on the AutoCrit programme. Believe me, it reads cleaner. I’ve learnt such a lot. Today the blog examines writers. I hope it is helpful to you. Glennis

The Difference Between Good Writers & Bad Writers

by Jeff Goins 
The difference between good writers and bad writers has little to do with skill. It has to do with perseverance. Bad writers quit. Good writers keep going. That’s all there is to it.
Good writers keep going

What good writers do

Good writers practice. They take time to write, crafting and editing a piece until it’s just right. They spend hours and days, just revising.
Good writers take criticism on the chin and say “thank you” to helpful feedback; they listen to both the external and internal voices that drive them. And they use it all to make their work better.
They’re resigned to the fact that first drafts suck and that the true mark of a champion is a commitment to the craft. It’s not about writing in spurts of inspiration. It’s about doing the work, day-in and day-out.
Good writers can do this, because they believe in what they’re doing. They understand this is more than a profession or hobby. It’s a calling, a vocation.
Good writers aren’t perfectionists, but they’ve learned the discipline of shipping, of putting their work out there for the world to see.

What bad writers don’t do
Bad writers don’t understand this, which is precisely what makes them bad writers. They presume their writing has achieved a certain level of excellence, so they are often closed off to editing or rewriting. They can seem haughty, prideful, and arrogant.
But really, it’s laziness and fear (mostly fear).
Why don’t they edit? Why don’t they write ahead? Why do they give into the myth of the overnight genius? Because they’re afraid of putting the work in and failing. As a result, their work is scattered and disconnected, not nearly as good as they think.

How to be different

A lot of decent writers think they’re great. I used to be one of those people. Stubborn and pig-headed, I didn’t want to change. I didn’t want to grow. But I wasn’t that good.
When I ask people to rewrite a guest post or make suggestions on how to improve their writing, they get defensive. Or more often the case, I never hear from them again. It is a rare occasion to hear from a writer who asks for feedback and means it.
Many want to get together for coffee; few want to write.
A good writer is humble. Regardless of skill, she is committed to seeing the writing process through to completion. No matter how grueling or hard, she will write. And she will get better.
So what can you, the aspiring writer with something to say, do?

Make a choice

Choose to be different. Keep going when others do not. Go the extra mile that most will not take. Be amazing by persevering.
Take the crap job that pays nothing. Offer to be someone’s understudy or apprentice. Put the hours in, pay your dues. It will pay off. But you will have to work.
Don’t coast on talent alone. Let it remind you of the responsibility you have to honor your gift. And if you’re not that good, well here’s the good news: you can get better.

You can outlast those who are lucky and out-work those who are lazy.

This all begins with humility. Which really means a willingness to listen and change. To do the work and become a professional.
If you do this, if you take the time to make your work great by never settling for good enough, it will make all the difference. So start persevering today.

Happy writing. See you next blog.