May28

Guest Post: 5 Real-Life Elements that will Make your Author Website Appeal to Real-Life Readers, by Web Design Relief

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Andrea R Huelsenbeck

This article has been reprinted with the permission of Web Design Relief. Whether you’re just starting out or a best-selling author, Web Design Relief will improve your existing website or build you an affordable, custom author website to support your author platform, boost your online presence, and act as a hub for your social media outreach. Web Design Relief is a division of Writer’s Relief, a highly recommended author’s submission service. Sign up for their free e-publication for writers, Submit Write Now! Visit the site today to learn more.

Rather than relying on overused marketing concepts, your author website should be designed with one goal in mind: to connect with the right audience for your work. At Web Design Relief, we know that once you’ve determined who your real-life readers are, you can then offer better, more targeted content. Don’t be afraid to share your personality with website visitors—they want to know more about the real-life YOU! (Discover your web personality here.) Sharing some personal details can help readers form a bond with you and keep them coming back for the long term.

How Featuring The Real-Life You Helps Your Author Website Appeal To Readers

Tell Your Story

Your author website is the best place to showcase your books, poetry, and short stories. But don’t stop there! When you also share personal moments, thoughts, and inspiration on your website (and your blog), visitors will see you more as an actual living, breathing person and less as an anonymous face on a book cover. Sharing personal anecdotes is one of the best ways to build your personal brand, create a following, and increase book sales!

Update Your Headshot

Standard headshots are often…well, standard! There is nothing wrong with a headshot that shows you in business casual wear in front of a plain background. But this is your author website, not your LinkedIn profile shot. Post a fun headshot, or even a series of photos that captures your personality. Website visitors will want to see your playful side, not just the let’s-get-down-to-business side. Help your audience connect with you on a personal level. If you write horror stories or serious nonfiction, you might want to choose a headshot that reflects your genre. But you can still crack a smile in another photo to show the person behind the pen (or behind the vampire fangs, if that’s the case).

Uncomfortable in front of the camera? Well, say cheese, because we’ve got you covered with Headshot 101.

Integrate Social Media

Do you often find yourself tweeting, scrolling through Facebook, or uploading your new selfie or food photo on Instagram? Odds are, your followers do this too! Integrate your social media into your author website through widgets and live feeds so that visitors can learn more about the real you and share your posts—helping to expand your reach with more opportunities to market your writing.

Share A Video

Clearly, your author website visitors love to read. But if you have a video camera, a GoPro, or a smartphone, you can also share a video on your website. This can be a vlog or welcome video, a guide to your writing process, a tour of your writing space, a reading of your favorite passage, and more. Your audience will feel more allied with you if they have a face and a voice to put with your words!

Write A Dear Reader Letter

If your website comes across as too generic or just the opposite, too over-marketed, maybe a Dear Reader letter is just what you need. This welcome letter can be the place to share insight into your writing process and/or what’s going on in your life in a personal, relatable way. For more tips on writing a letter that stands out, check out the anatomy of the Dear Reader Letter.

Don’t Overdo It

While sharing personal stories and information can be a great way to connect with your audience, don’t put every aspect of your life on display. It’s always best to keep your website tasteful and secure, and your identity safe. Here’s how to steer clear of getting too personal:

Don’t share anything you wouldn’t tell a stranger.
Don’t post photos while you’re on vacation, letting people know your house is empty.
Avoid the gross and grand aspects of your life (no pics of your recent appendectomy).
Details matter, but skip the second-by-second updates of your life (nobody needs to know that you are eating toast).
Never, EVER share your personal address or phone number, or email address (use a contact form instead).
This goes double for your social security and credit card numbers: Do NOT give them out.

Final Thoughts On Appealing To Your Audience With Real-Life Elements

Sharing some parts of your life with your audience is great! It shows that you are willing to connect with them as real-life people, not just as unknown readers or potential sales. Author website visitors prefer author websites that aren’t heavy-handed with marketing buttons and purchase links. Be smart about what you share with your visitors—but don’t be afraid to have a little fun either!

Question: Which personal aspect of your favorite author’s website do you most like?

May28

Video of the Week #255: The Taj Mahal

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Andrea R Huelsenbeck

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May27

Wordless Wednesday/ Flower of the Day: Flowering Cactus

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Andrea R Huelsenbeck

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More Flower of the Day.

May26

Flower of the Day: Golden Mimosa Tree

Posted on May 26, 2020 by Andrea R Huelsenbeck

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More Flowers of the Day.

May26

Using Rhetorical Devices

Posted on May 26, 2020 by Andrea R Huelsenbeck

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Whether you write fiction, non-fiction, or poetry, rhetorical devices are among your most useful tools. Use them, and your writing will have specificity, emotional impact, color, and memorability.

The term rhetorical device is hard to define. Vocabulary.com says it’s “a use of language that creates a literary effect.” Huh? What does that even mean?

Let’s look at some devices (they’re also called poetic devices) and some examples.

Simile is a figure of speech making a comparison, saying something is similar to something else, usually including the word like or as.

A pretty girl is like a melody.

Metaphor is a figure of speech making a comparison, saying something is something else.

A pretty girl is a melody.

Antithesis is the contrasting of two opposing ideas, often set up in parallel structure.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1 HCSB).

A character can also be an antithesis, such as a vegetarian who raises beef cattle.

Alliteration is the use in close proximity of words starting with the same sound.

The slender snake slithered in the sand.

Assonance is the repetition of same or similar vowel sounds within phrases or sentences.

He spent his summer mornings roaming and roving over the hills.

Oxymoron is the juxtaposition of two conflicting images.

Observing the cheerful chaos, he quietly shouted for it to stop.

Personification is the ascribing of human characteristics or behavior to something non-human.

The avalanche raced down the mountain.

Backloading is putting the most important word of a sentence at the end.

Jason’s dad exploded when he saw the damage to his car.

When Jason’s dad saw the damage to his car, he exploded.

Which of the two sentences above has more impact? The one ending in exploded. That’s a powerful word. It leads the reader on to the next sentence.

Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of three or four successive phrases, clauses, or sentences.

Jill was tired of the shutdown, tired of wearing a mask, tired of staying six feet away from everyone, tired of not being able to go to a bar.

Epistrophe is related to anaphora; it’s the repeating of a word or phrase at the end of three or four consecutive phrases.

Sandra fed the dog, walked the dog, bathed the dog, and picked up after the dog.

Anadiplosis also involves repetition: it’s repeating the last word of a sentence at the beginning of the next sentence.

She was beautiful and smart. Smart enough to save the company from disaster.

Asyndeton is the omission of conjunctions in a series.

I came. I saw. I conquered.

Polysyndeton is the opposite of asyndeton in that it’s the use of multiple conjunctions in a series.

She came home from the festival with tacky souvenirs and leftover popcorn and cotton candy and a pounding headache.

Epizeuxis is repetition for emphasis.

Writing is hard, hard, hard.

Zeugma is the utilization of two different meanings of a word in the same sentence, often creating wry humor.

While waiting for his dad to come home, he killed time and his mother.

Rhetorical questions are questions which are not necessarily to be answered, but to make a point. They can sometimes be used as an end-of-chapter hook.

But isn’t that what every author does?

This list of poetic devices is by no means exhaustive. These are just my favorites. You are probably using many of them unconsciously (or purposely) in your own writing. If not, you can make your writing more musical and expressive by including some. Pick a few to utilize to take your writing to the next level.