A very interesting article on the optical illusions that type designers must take into account when designing a new typeface. Written by Jonathan Hoefler, type designer extraordinaire, designer of superstar typefaces such as Gotham, Archer and Sentinel.
Hemingway Award for Kathryn Gauci
Kathryn Gauci writes gripping historical novels set in Europe, with a particular focus on Greece, France and Turkey. She researches her work in great detail, often travelling to the regions in question, and picks up many online awards. She posts regularly on Facebook and Instagram, and has racked up thousands of reviews and ratings on Goodreads. She is an excellent example of the value of persistence, networking, participation in the online communities relating to her genre and cross marketing of her books.
Tips for Building an Effective Website (guest post)
Unveiling the Blueprint: Crucial Tips for Building a Stellar Website
In the dynamic landscape of online presence, building a website that captivates users and performs exceptionally well on search engines is a multifaceted task. The journey from conception to a fully functional website involves strategic planning, technical finesse, and a deep understanding of user behavior. In this comprehensive guide, we'll uncover pivotal tips that will serve as the backbone for constructing a website that not only stands out but also thrives in the digital realm.
1. Strategic Planning: Define Your Purpose and Audience
Before diving into the intricacies of web development, embark on a strategic planning phase. Clearly define the purpose of your website and identify your target audience. This foundational understanding will shape every subsequent decision, from content creation to design aesthetics. Knowing your audience ensures that your website resonates with the right people, leading to enhanced engagement and conversions.
2. Thorough Keyword Research: Fueling SEO Success
Keywords are the building blocks of SEO, and their strategic integration is paramount. Conduct exhaustive keyword research to identify terms and phrases relevant to your niche. Utilize tools such as Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush to uncover search volumes and competition levels. Infuse these keywords organically into your content, meta tags, and headers, providing search engines with valuable context and enhancing your website's discoverability.
3. User-Centric Design: Navigating the Digital Landscape with Ease
User experience (UX) is a critical aspect often underestimated in website development. Craft an intuitive and user-friendly design that facilitates seamless navigation. Prioritize responsive design to ensure a consistent and enjoyable experience across devices. Incorporate clear calls-to-action (CTAs) and minimize clutter, guiding users effortlessly through your digital space.
4. Effective Content Strategy: Quality Over Quantity
Content is the heartbeat of your website, and a strategic content plan is key. Prioritize quality over quantity, delivering information that is valuable, relevant, and engaging. Regularly update your content to reflect industry trends and user needs. Consider incorporating various content formats, including text, images, videos, and infographics, to cater to diverse audience preferences.
5. Optimized Page Speed: Swift Loading for Enhanced User Experience
Page speed is not just a user preference; it's a critical SEO factor. Compress images, leverage browser caching, and minimize code to optimize your website's loading times. Users and search engines alike favor websites that load swiftly, contributing to a positive user experience and improved search rankings.
6. Mobile Responsiveness: Adapting to the Mobile-First Era
In an era dominated by mobile devices, ensuring your website is mobile-responsive is non-negotiable. Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in its rankings, making this aspect crucial for SEO success. Choose a responsive design that seamlessly adapts to various screen sizes, providing a consistent and enjoyable experience for users on smartphones and tablets.
7. Technical SEO Best Practices: Lay a Solid Foundation
Mastering the technical aspects of SEO is akin to building a robust foundation for your website's success. Create and submit an XML sitemap to guide search engine crawlers efficiently. Optimize meta titles, descriptions, and headers with relevant keywords. Implement clean and semantic HTML, and ensure your website adheres to best practices for canonicalization to prevent duplicate content issues.
8. Secure Hosting and SSL Certification: Safeguarding Your Digital Presence
Choose a reliable hosting provider to ensure your website remains accessible and performs optimally. Additionally, prioritize security by obtaining an SSL certificate. Secure websites not only instill trust in users but are also favored by search engines, positively impacting your rankings.
9. Regular Monitoring and Maintenance: Keep Your Website in Prime Condition
Building a website is not a one-time task; it requires ongoing monitoring and maintenance. Regularly check for broken links, update content, and ensure that all features are functioning as intended. Conduct periodic SEO audits to identify and address any issues that may arise, ensuring your website stays in peak condition and continues to attract and retain visitors.
Embarking on the journey to build a website is an exciting venture laden with opportunities. By following these crucial tips, you'll be equipped to navigate the complexities of web development with confidence. Remember, a successful website is a dynamic entity that evolves with user needs and industry trends. Stay committed to delivering exceptional user experiences, staying on top of SEO best practices, and consistently refining your digital space. With these tips as your guide, you're well on your way to crafting a website that not only meets but exceeds the expectations of your audience.
You can learn more here.
Recent Cover Designs from the House of WorkingType
Using Fiverr to Promote Your Book on Amazon
If learning and managing all the intricacies of Amazon’s advertising engine in order to promote your book/s seems just too hard, perhaps you might consider hiring a consultant through the outsourcing websites Fiverr and Upwork. You can check reviews of each consultant’s work in order to see if any of them might be a good fit. Packages start at quite low rates, so you could experiment without committing huge amounts of money.
Bush Tragedies
Author Bill Poulos has been getting plenty of press for his excellent new book Bush Tragedies. Bill has been using Facebook and Instagram to good effect and tapping into his community connections.
https://arr.news/2023/09/01/new-release-bush-tragedies/
https://www.nswcountryandpicnicracing.com.au/former-racing-writer-launches-new-book/
https://www.netimes.com.au/2023/08/20/new-crime-book-from-moree-author-accidental/
The Science of Filenames....
Sent to me by a client…
My own experience is that adding “final” to a filename is an invitation to create at least twenty more versions….
Frank Burkett, The O'Connor Protocol and author websites
Author Frank Burkett has set up a simple, effective long-scrolling author wordpress website. The site includes a blurb, book thumbnail, author bio, an order form and some local context, and a comments capability. A navigation bar to go to different sections of the page abd back to the top would have been helpful, but perhaps was not an option for this build of WordPress.
Frank’s biography reads as follows:
Frank Burkett lives in tropical Queensland, which is the setting of his second novel, The O’Connor Protocol. His previous novel, View from the Clock Tower, was shortlisted in 2006 for the British Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger award. Although raised in Queensland, Frank has travelled extensively, including three years in the United Kingdom where he studied at the University of London for a Diploma in Dramatic Art. He spent three years in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he worked in the field of land conservation. In 1980, back home, he completed a journalism major at the University of Queensland. Following a successful career in news media, he wrote and published The Tropical Son, a biography of country music singer Graeme Connors. Frank is now retired and working on his third book in which, once again, sugar cane, rainforests and coral reefs provide an exotic setting.
Available here and direct from the author. Published by Sid Harta Publishers.
AIs Move into Audiobooks...
A well voiced audiobook is a thing of beauty indeed — an exciting, immersive experience. And a very human one. But narrators are about to feel the cold digital breath of AIs trained to narrate with naturalistic, believable voices.
Risks abound:
“But despite the positive impact AI voice generation can make, the technology is associated with numerous risks as well. Some of them include misuse, fraud, impersonation, and even voice theft, which especially affects professional voice actors.”
No doubt the initial results for multi-narrator audiobooks will be fairly primitive, but they will improve, and probably with startling speed. AI music is already flooding the streaming world, and real-life musicians aren’t getting much income out of that. Hollywood actors won some restrictions on the use of AI in their industry, but voice actors may not have quite as much clout.
Reedsy has a cheery article on optimal ways to use AI narrators. According to the writer:
“Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that the listener will get used to an AI voice after a few minutes and start accepting it as a real voice.”
Choosing Amazon Book Categories
Uploading your book to Kindle Direct Publishing / Amazon is the beginning of a process rather than the end. The next task is to optimise your metadata for visibility / search. Reedsy is offering a free course on the basics of Amazon advertising.
“In this article, we’ll reveal the importance of choosing the right categories and provide you some practical steps to perfectly place your book on Amazon’s bulging shelves. ”
K-Lytics
If you are serious about optimising your online presence as an author, K-Lytics is worth checking out. Their site asks the following rhetorical question:
“Do you want to sell more books, face less competition, and achieve a higher return on your publishing investments?”
Their paid market reports burrow into the details of hundreds of genres and micro-genres. Seeing the maths underneath the book markets is a bit disconcerting, but in a world governed by algorithms and visibility, these insights are essential. The specificity of some of the genres and sub-genres is almost comic: Scottish Romance (what about Scottish Time Travelling Romance?); Cosy Mystery; Urban Fantasy, etc.
“You do not have to be afraid of numbers. We will help you to understand and use them to your advantage.”
Learn about Amazon Algorithms for Free
“Amazon is more than just a retailer: it is a search engine as well as a book discoverability website. In fact, it’s the world’s leading search engine for books, where the majority of buyers go to find their next read.”
Reedsy is offering a short, free introductory course for those interested in using Amazon advertising for their books. The course covers the following topics:
The fundamentals of how the algorithms work
How to optimize your product page for the algorithm
How to pick the right categories and keywords
How to ascend the various lists on the Kindle store
The right way to launch your book
DragGAN Drops
Another ‘AI is functionally equivalent to magic’ post. DragGAN is an experimental AI App that allows for extensive intuitive photo editing on the fly, including changing perspective, facial features, hair colour and length.
“the results are mesmeric. DragGAN is an interactive way of editing photos or works of art by tagging points on an image and just… dragging. The AI does all the hard work.”
Manuscript to Market: the life cycle of getting your book into print
by Susan Pierotti, writer, editor and proofreader.
Does a burning desire to write a book light a fire in your belly? Have you already begun to write but self-doubts have conquered your self-confidence? Do you have all the material ready to write but don’t know how to assemble it together?
I wrote Manuscript to Market to answer these very questions and more. I’m an editor who polished others’ books for publication. I never in a million years thought that I would write a book, yet I’ve now published four. I know what it feels like to write and then hand over my hours of inspiration (and perspiration) to someone else to get feedback from. Will they like it? Will they loathe it?
I wrote Manuscript to Market in response to a number of prompts.
The first came from a business colleague. He said if I was going into business as a book editor, I’d better write a book to show I knew what I was talking about. So, for all you businesspeople out there, let me tell you – writing a book is a business card on steroids! I have sold so many of my books to prospective authors and they now think I’m an expert.
Am I the only book editor around, or even the best? No, but I’m the only one they have met who can tell them what they need to know. This adds to my credibility and their reassurance. So, if you’re in business and want a product that does the marketing work for you, write a book. (How do you do that? Read mine!)
The second prompt came from my first-time author clients. They had great stories, engaging characters and dramatic plotlines, but few knew how to construct a good story arc with an appropriate pace, many didn’t know who they were writing for, and marketing ... well, isn’t that what the publisher does? Knowing how little some of these authors know about the book publishing world about understanding how they feel about their work motivated me to help them.
Every author I have worked with regards their book (rightly) as if it were their baby – precious, delicate, valuable. This gave me the structure for my book. From the birth of your baby (where the idea is in the head) to going to school (finding your editor) to dressing up (cover design, layout) and graduating (publishing), Manuscript to Market is a step-by-step guide to getting the idea in your head to a book in the hand.
Available at Susan’s website.
Australian Society of Authors Guide to the Australian Book Industry
The Australian Society of Authors (ASP) has just released their 2023-24 Guide to the Australian Book Industry. The book contains the following elements:
Industry organisations
Industry newsletters
Literary magazines and journals
Literary podcasts
Reading communities
Sensitivity readers
Literary agents
Trade publishers
International book fairs
Literary festivals
Funding your work
Grants
Residencies and fellowships
Competitions
Literary Prizes
Publicising your work
Book publicists
Book review services
Bookshops for events
Speaker agencies
Understanding self-publishing
Self-publishing service providers
Custom publishers
Print book distributors
Printers
The book is free with an ASA membership, which is not cheap, but certainly worth considering if you are serious about your writing life. Another ASA title available in Kindle format is the Guide to Getting Published: Understanding and navigating Australia's book industry, available from Amazon.
Manuscript Assessment Agency
If you have completed a first draft of your manuscript, but are unsure of the next step and need experienced guidance, the services of the Manuscript Appraisal Agency are worth considering. Their menu consists of the following:
In the highly competitive world of publishing, getting your manuscript read, assessed and/or edited can be the first step to finding success. The Manuscript Appraisal Agency can help you take those first publishing steps, getting your manuscript ready for agents, traditional publishers, and self-publishing.
We offer:
Manuscript Appraisals (assessments)
Editing (structural editing, copy editing and proof reading)
The MAA is an ethical service, not an entry point to a vanity press.
Book cover designs and drafts April 2023
Australian Newsletter for Independent Authors
Thorpe-Bowker publishes an interesting newsletter on the independent publishing scene. Free subscription link here.
Introducing Euan Mitchell, Editor...
We highly recommend the experienced services of Euan Mitchell, an editor with a wealth of experience in large publishing houses and with independent authors. In the words of one of his author clients:
““Working with Dr Euan Mitchell was a wonderful experience. His knowledge and excellent advice have guided me to where I am now, with a growing number of readers. Some of the most positive feedback has been how well-edited, flawless and easy-to-read my novel is. This helped my readers to focus on enjoying the story and, for that, I cannot thank Euan enough. If you want someone to bring the best out of your work at a reasonable price, I highly recommend Dr Mitchell.””
It's a Material World
Material Design 3 is the sophisticated underlying design scheme / language / science that underlies Google’s massive presence on the web. It deals with typefaces, colour schemes, icons, accessibility, navigation and more, and has a very large number of moving parts, including an interesting new colour model.
“Material is an adaptable system of guidelines, components, and tools that support the best practices of user interface design. Backed by open-source code, Material streamlines collaboration between designers and developers, and helps teams quickly build beautiful products.”