Welcome to another Writerly Round-Up Post. The following items fluttered into my email or social media during the week. The link to read the full article or post is in the Header Text. I have set these Writerly Round-Up posts as a Category aptly entitled Writerly Round-Up. This should make it easy to see all of these Round-Up posts at a glance.
Writerly Round-Up (28 April – 4 May)
How to Use Different Points of View in Your Story
Mary Carroll Moore
How many points of view (narrators) can you have in one book without confusing the reader?
Can I use both first person and third person in one book?
Can I switch narrators in the middle of a scene?
__
How Does Age Affect Reading?
Andrew Rhomberg
Do books have age-specific audiences?
We will not look at the age of book buyers, but rather at how reading a book, and specifically the completion rate (the percentage of readers who finish reading a book), correlates with age. Completion rates are an interesting proxy for understanding how strongly a book engages a specific reader and whether a book appeals to a certain audience segment more than to a different group of readers.
In short, the answer is that the completion rate for books is often quite age-dependent. This is very much unlike the case of gender. So let’s have a closer look.
__
Writerly Round-Up (28 April – 4 May)
How to Make Reading Relevant to Today’s Consumer
Eric Shoup
In a world where users can access entertainment from their mobile devices anytime and anyplace, all forms of media are competing against each other for a resource that is quickly becoming scarce: user attention.
The study shows that users spend 19 minutes of the day reading, but more than 1 ½ hours on social networks and more than five hours watching video. Of course, these sessions aren’t all in one sitting and probably not even of the same content. In a recent user research project we conducted at Scribd, we found more than one participant reading five or more books at the same time—through small portions of each intermittently as time permitted and the interest struck them.
Reading is facing an uphill battle against other forms of media in the fight for attention.
__
If I Should Die is Free Today Only at Amazon
If all goes well, my book is free today at Amazon. This is my first try at a Free Day.
The theory according to the book Short Promo Success by Dan Defigio, a Free Day drives Amazon Rankings up and the higher the ranking the more exposure your title gets. The more exposure the more sales.
So go on over and buy my book!
__
Writerly Round-Up (28 April – 4 May)
The Saturday Writing Quote – Conroy on reading
Leslie Budewitz
“From the beginning I’ve searched out those writers unafraid to stir up the emotions, who entrust me with their darkest passions, their most indestructible yearnings, and their most soul-killing doubts. I trust the great novelists to teach me how to live, how to feel, how to love and hate. I trust them to show me the dangers I will encounter on the road as I stagger on my own troubled passage through a complicated life of books that try to teach me how to die.”
– Pat Conroy, in My Reading Life (2010)
Ms Budewitz is scheduled to be a guest at The Writer’s Chatroom.
__
365 Daily Book Marketing Tip
Sandra Beckwith
Build Book Buzz
Write and giveaway a short e-book that lets readers sample your writing.
__
Why you need both CreateSpace and IngramSpark
Amy Collins
Build Book Buzz
I have been asked one question more than any other: “Do I need IngramSpark if I have CreateSpace?”
I know it’s tempting to avoid the extra expense and hassle of taking on a second print on demand (POD) provider, but I want to take a moment and share some of the experiences we’ve had at New Shelves Books with our POD work. I hope these statements help you determine if you need one or both.
So . . . do you need both?
__
We have arrived at the end of this week’s writerly-round-up. I hope you are enjoying these posts.
Till Next Week – Don’t Touch Anything Sharp!