Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Intellectual Property: Willing Your Writing Estate


Who gets your intellectual property -- books, manuscripts, copyrights, etc., when you die?

Read Angela Hoys' enlightening article, and follow her links to more information that should prompt you to take action now, before it's too late. Read, "Who Gets Your Book(s) When You Die? - Yet Another Case of Heirs Fighting Over an Author's Copyrights," at Writer's Weekly  

Find Law provides more information, and free legal forms.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Vagabonds: Anthology of the Mad Ones Submissions Due by August 16, 2013

 
VAGABONDS: Anthology of the Mad Ones is calling for submissions , due by August 16, 2013 for their September 26t, 2013 anthology.

Vagabonds publishes Poetry, Photography, Playwrights and Film Scripts, Short Stories, Excerpts from Travel Diaries, Digital Artwork.

 

Thursday, July 18, 2013

WEB HOSTS and DOMAIN HOSTS


For a simple, very inexpensive web presence both Google Blogger (
http://tinyurl.com/2wlwv3) and WordPress will purchase a domain for you, and host the site and allow you to use the blogging tools to maintain the site.

Create your Google Blog and then domain hosting costs $10 per year, using GoDaddy.com. Your URL drops "blog." ie:
www.montanascribbler.blog became www.montanascribbler.com.

WordPress.org has a similar deal. Create your website with WordPress, and then have it hosted with a company like Bluehost.com.

 For hosting your website, Domain.com is a bit more  expensive, like, say, $15 bucks compared to $10.

WordPress software is far more sophisticated than Google, with uncountable widgets that allow a person to tailor the site.

BetterWebSpace (
https://www.betterwebspace.com) is a UK company, but they have servers both in the UK and US. They are inexpensive - hosting on US servers costs about $23 a year. The only extra they charge for is backups and their support is superb.

Weebly.com (
www.weebly.com) is a completely free option, where you can point your domain to it. Thehe design is done by a GUI that's easy to use. It's possible to setup an entire site in about half an hour, no cost, using your own graphics and one of their built in themes. Really, really good for a light-weight web presence.

If you want a fully functional group interaction kind of thing, try out Groupspaces.com (
www.groupspaces.com.) Not quite as pretty and customizable as weebly, but very, very functional. Mailing list, forum, news feed, event RSVP, file vault, photo album, and a 'website' front where you can put up a description and allow people to join.

Both are free, and great for getting on your feet as either an independent web presence or an entire group.

Other sites like Pinterest.com (
www.pinterest.com) can also act as a sort of billboard website, and Deviantart.com (www.deviantart.com) and Hitrecord.com (www.hitrecord.com) that allow you to show off individual works.

What About Those Domains That Host Your Material on the Internet? (Originally published June 20, 2013 in The North Palouse Washington e-Newscast. )

Jenn Allen, whose passion is writing but now works in healthcare IT, shares what she learned from more than a decade in the IT industry.
Jenn wrote, "IT puts food on the table. My education was from Internet Service Providers (ISP) big and small. I worked for several ISPs during my career and have worked on DNS and website implementation for many customers (as well as my own). Domain Name System is the Internet system used to translate names into IP addresses.

"I've watched the DNS sub-industry transform from a monopoly held by Network Solutions. In those early days, it was closer to $100 than $10 to register a domain and there were few extra hoops to the diverse jungle of registrars and super-cheap registration service bundles it is today.

"The biggest thing to watch out for, if I had to summarize it, would be that cheapness never comes cheap, Registrars offering insanely low deals most likely cut corners on domain services and ease of use after you get the domain, or they have so many customers that you're unlikely to get an audience should anything actually go wrong.

"I used a particular DNS company (name withheld) for their balance between cheap and featured, until I heard of some of its business practices ~~ difficulty transferring domains, holding domains 'for ransom' after they expired - it costs more to get a domain re-registered if you let it lapse, or did when I looked into it. Then I switched to Domain.com, and completely love it.

"It is a tiny bit more expensive (closer to $20 than $10), but I get all the features, less obnoxious ads, and I can also now point [my domain.com], instead of just [www.mydomain.com], which is a subtle, but important difference for someone who doesn't host a full web server in some colocation facility with static IPs.
"Ask these four questions of a DNS registrar to determine the real value:
  • What process/fees are required hoops to transfer your domain to a different registrar?
  • Do they provide free DNS? If so, do they point to the domain name, eg. register.com, or will they only point hostnames, eg. Register.com, www.register.com, to a third-party server?
  • What do they do if you miss your expiration date? Do they hold your domain hostage for 6 months, and then sell it to a third party reseller, knowing it's wanted?
  • What are the renewal fees? Any hidden fees for contact info updates, DNS updates, etc.?
END

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Self-Edit Yourself to Publishing Success


 "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers", by Brown and King,
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

Remove *Fiction* from the title, because it can turn away those who are more interested in writing nonfiction. Published writers tell me it is the very best book for a writer, fiction or nonfiction, of any caliber or degree of experience/inexperience to IMPROVE their writing. It doesn't teach writing. It teaches editing.




Sunday, July 7, 2013

Co-authors Edith Parzefall and Francene Stanley Racking up Successes


Update on successes of co-authoring, Perks and Pitfalls of Writing With a Co-Author, the previous guest blog by Edith Parzefall   ~~ Long Doom Calling, the fourth book in the Higher Ground series, which Edith co-wrote with Francene Stanley is published and the ebook is available from amazon stores and should soon appear for Nook, Kobo, etc. The paperback edition will take a little longer.

Their second book in the Higher Ground Series, Knights in Dark Leather, was released in October 2012, and Golden Submarine, the third book, released later. Edith co-wrote the series with Francene Stanley. Read excerpts at
Double Dragon Publishing.

Francene Stanley's paranormal romance,
Still Rock Water
was published in November last year by Solstice Publishing. This is the first book in her Moonstone series. Solstice Publishing just released Stanley's novel, Tidal Surge, the second in the Moonstone Series.

Their books are available at Amazon.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Use MS Word Track Changes to Avoid Writing Mistakes, by Mel Duvall


Nel Duvall ~~ aka Mel Duvall  ~~ guest post at Terry's Place points to a mistake many writers make: Not learning, or using, available tools, and she adds, "WORD has a great tool for editing in Track Changes.

Check out the tutorial, http://continuinged.uml.edu/online/tutorial/word_trackingxp/.