Take a Writing Course!

There are tens of dozens of school and associations, both in America and around the world, that offer writing classes. Many are in-person and but a signficant number of classes are offered online today, which means you could attend a class hundreds or thousands of miles away from your home office. 

Or, picture this: It's post-COVID and you're working remotely full-time. Why not move, even temporarily for, say, a six-week course in a beautiful oceanside town or somewhere near a ski resort? Your tether to your geographic area has been cut by today's circumstances and your options are unlimited. 

Here's one idea:

Stanford University, which is southwest of Palo Alto and on the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay, has recently announced its Spring Creative Writing session. Classes cover writing adult and children's fiction, poetry and memoirs and there are several on campus, as well as online and flex, which I believe is a hybrid of both. 

You could take a class online, or you could relocate to California for a few months! Why not?

But let this just be a jumping off point. Let your imagination explore all the places you've got on your bucket list. A little Internet searching might uncover a class or a writing conference a thousand miles a way that interests you, or one right in your own back yard. 

Always write! Always learn!

If you like a good murder mystery or love story, check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon. 

 

Announcing...The Under Covers...A New Website for Indie Books

 I am so excited to be included in this new venture! My book, In Fashion's Web, is currently appearing in their online bookstore, and will soon be appearing in their brick and mortar store in England when it is completed. 

And here I am!

If you like a good murder mystery or love story, check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon. 

I Can't Think of a Better Excuse to Go to Martha's Vineyard!

 What a creative place to get creative. And even though it's virtual, you can at least feel like you're on the beach! Click on the image to go directly to the Institute's website. 

How to Write for a "Digital First" Strategy and Why You Should

What does it mean to be digital first? It means publishing your articles on the Internet before you publish them in any print products you have.

In the typical print-based strategy that manifested from the 1960s all the way to the early 2000s, companies would write articles and publish them in print materials such as magazines, newspapers and newsletters. 

Enter the World Wide Web
The World Wide Web came along in 1995, and by 2000, most publishing companies had websites, although they were afterthoughts. On these websites, they would take articles that ran in their print publications and repost them online. This is a print-first, digital-second strategy. 

But since 2000, and due more to the growth of cell phone usage than computers but both taking some credit, online media has become pervasive, while print is shrinking. 

Today's digital-first strategy
In today's media world, the most progressive companies are reversing that business model—they're publishing online first, and then pulling from online content to build print products. This is a digital-first strategy. 

But simply publishing online first is not the crux of the strategy. A digital first strategy depends on data gleaned from Google Analytics. 

What Google Analytics does
Google Analytics collects viewership data on everything you post. It will rank number of views of all your articles for the life of the site, for a year, for a month, or just for a particular article. 

But here's the holy grail: It also gives you the most searched keyword terms on your site. Perhaps you run a health site. You can look at these keyword terms and know that people are very interested in nutrition but not in breast cancer, or very interested in osteoporosis treatments but not so much in macular degeneration. 

Why is this important? Because if you write about what people are looking for, they will find your content and read it, and you will get more views. If you simply write what you like to write or what you think people want to read, you may be surprised to find that you're not get the page views you desire. 

If your site is advertising supported, then managing your content according to keyword strength is critical. The more you are able to provide the content that people are looking for, the more page views you will get, and the more ad sales you will generate. 

See my previous article, How to Let Google Analytics Drive Your Digital Content. 

And stay tuned for my next article, how to write for search engine optimization (i.e., Google). 

If you like a good murder mystery or love story, check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon. 

Let Google Analytics Drive Your Online Content

When you write for a website, you generally write what you want, or what someone else asks you to write. One thing most people don't do is write what visitors want to read. 

How do you know what visitors want to read? Google Analytics (GA) will tell you. 

If you have a website, it probably already has Google Analytics built in. If it doesn't, you can download it. 

What does Google Analytics do?
Google Analytics records data about how visitors interact with your content. It will give you page views by article name; by time frame (i.e., the month of January) and by keywords. 

This last one is the most important. Google Analytics will rank for you the most searched keyword terms on yourwebsite. For example, if you maintain a site about nutrition, people might search for terms such as recipes, eating for type 2 diabetes, low-salt meal ideas, sugar-free, quick dishes, microwavable meals, etc. 

When you request a keyword report, you specify a time frame, so you might put in the first and last date of the previous month, for example, and then GA will rank them from "most searched" to "least searched". So your list might look like this:

recipes, 10,432
eating for type 2 diabetes, 9,807
low-salt meal ideas, 6,324
sugar-free, 3,965
quick dishes, 2,148
microwavable meals, 1,725

How to use this information
Once you have your keyword ranking in hand, you then can craft articles around those keyword topics. For more information on how to write articles around keyword themes, see my next article, "How to Write for a Digital First Strategy and Why You Should."

If you like a good murder mystery or love story, check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon.

Today's Technology Is Greating Improving My Article Interviews

 When I first started my writing career back in the mid-1990s, technology involved in the process was pretty simple:

>>I either called or emailed someone to request and schedule an interview. 

>>Interviews were done by phone while typing furiously to capture everything the person said. Thank God that I used to type 100 words a minute back then! Even so, I still missed a few comments and and got one or two things wrong. 

Today, the process is completely different and much easier:

>>Email a request for an interview.

>>Set up a Zoom call. 

>>Record the Zoom call. 

>>Receive the transcript of the meeting in 5 minutes. Upload the transcript to an automated voice recognition transcription service. Get a link to the transcripted file in 5 minutes. 

>>Download the transcript in a Word file and craft the transcript (or several transcripts from several interviews) into an article. 

The benefits of today's modern technology are:

>>Less work (all that typing at 100 words a minute no longer exists!) and

>>Better accuracy of information (any confusion can be clarified by checking the audio or video file)

But for me, the real benefit of Zoom and transcript services is the ability to have a one-on-one conversation and focus all your attention on the interviewee. In the old days, all my attention was focused on typing. Often, I would have to say, could you repeat that last comment? because I didn't get it all. It's such a joy that those days are gone. 

I'm excited to see how artifical intelligence like ChatGPT will help with future article writing, but I'm also cautious. Anything that you request from ChatGPT must be fully vetted and verified. Never assume it's accurate. 

If you're currently using ChatGPT or another type of AI to help with writing and/or journalism, I would love to hear about your experiences. Leave comments below!

If you like a good murder mystery or love story, check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon.

Enter the Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards

I have picked up all of this copy from the Writer's Digest website. 

Note!: The deadline is May 1, 2023

You can find a link to the contest rules/deadlines etc. here.

ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER WILL RECEIVE: 

• NEW !$10,000 in cash
• An interview with them in Writer’s Digest (March/April 2024 issue) and on WritersDigest.com
• A paid trip to the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference, including a trophy presentation at the keynote
• A coveted Pitch Slam slot at the Writer's Digest Conference where the winner will receive one on one attention from editors or agents 
• Publication of an excerpt from their winning book on WritersDigest.com 

One First Prize winner in each category will receive: 

• $1,000 in cash 
• Their name and the winning book's title published in Writer’s Digest (March/April 2024 issue) and on WritersDigest.com 

All Grand Prize and First Prize winners will receive: 

• A one-year subscription (new or renewal) to Writer’s Digestmagazine 
• A one-year subscription to Writer’s Digest Tutorials 
• 20% discount off of purchases made at Writer’s Digest University 
• A special graphic recognizing their winning status 

Honorable Mention recipients will receive promotion on www.writersdigest.com and a special graphic for use in promoting your selection. All entrants will receive a brief commentary from one of the judges.

Enter or learn more about the competition here. 

If you like a good murder mystery or love story, check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon.