Tag: how to

for the Creatives

The Qapital app may have helped save $725

Amy L Sauder

Did Qapital help me save more?

Sooo if you recall, for the new year I began this experiment to see if Qapital helps me save more money than I already do. I’m happy to announce that in the past few months I’ve saved $725 more than my average savings before. I excluded my tax return from this savings amount, because I’m not sure that counts in the span of a three-month average 🙂 Life circumstances change of course, so I can’t say for sure, but there’s a fair chance that Qapital helped with some of that.

(Interested? Sign up using my referral link and Qapital app will give us both $5.)

How will I change my usage of the Qapital app?

Problem: On the downside, most of that savings was to my “general savings” not my “book launch savings”,  because the only savings rules I gave for book launch were related to spending at Starbucks or Walmart – two places I try not to go to often.

Solution: I will likely be moving one rule from “general savings” to “book launch savings” to make a little more money there. I’m thinking the 1% of income rule. Tbd.

A warning for the go-getters:

Be forewarned! Qapital can only save as much as you actually have to save, except it doesn’t know that of course. My friend talks about her negative experience on her blogpost. Qapital can only help as far as you actually have money to save. So if you have a tight budget, it’s possible this app wouldn’t be the best tool for you. And if you’re a super competitive nature, don’t get too crazy with the rules on this app 🙂 Find balance.

This experiment is in flux:

I won’t be able to completely accurately continue this experiment because I’m about to buy a new car engine which will take a bunch of savings. Soooo that’ll screw up the average a lot. But I’ll keep ya updated 🙂

Have you used Qapital app? Tell me your experience. Has it helped you save? What rules do you find most useful?

Interested in trying it out? Sign up using my referral link and Qapital app will give us both $5. An easy way for you to contribute to your savings goals and my book launch at the same time 😉

Musings of a Creative

Still learning to juggle a platform

Amy L Sauder

 

If there’s two types of people in the world:

  • Minimalist: Keeps as little as possible
  • Hoarder: Gets rid of as little as possible

then I am absolutely neither of them.

But of course that’s a very sparse definition of minimalists and hoarders. I could go the other way:

If there’s two types of people in the world:

  • Minimalist: gets rid of stuff
  • Hoarder: gets more stuff

then I am absolutely both of them.

I love finding new favorite things as much as I love clearing out my house of all the excess. Just shop my closet to find that out.

And in the world of building a brand and platform, there a plenty of new favorite things to discover I’m supposed to do. I have a whole pile of things on the backlog of possibilities.

But a brand and platform of an artist can’t be everywhere. I can’t hoard all the things for that. I have to be selective. We have to be selective. A combination of where our audience is and where our joy lies.

I probably have a good chunk of a potential audience on Instagram, but making pretty visuals is overwhelming to me. So I stick with Facebook – a safe bet – and Twitter, which I just love being on regardless of my reach. And here, WordPress, my blogging community, always my little homebase.

Do you ever feel stretched too thin? Like a ghost shadow of yourself covering the town because there’s too many places to be at once. Well for me, it’s come time to publish my book, which means my to-do list got way bigger and it’s about time I have a monthly email update to my biggest supporters (hey, if that’s you, go sign up!) to peek behind the scenes of my publishing journey.

As if that’s not enough, I’m providing writing classes. (If you’re in Central IL, check it out.) I know, what was I thinking!? I recommend adding only one new thing at a time, and I definitely threw caution to the wind here.

That’s a lot of places to be. Something’s gotta give and there’s not really many things to come off the plate anymore.

So instead of weekly blogposts, I am adjusting that to once or twice monthly. I’ve been told readers won’t notice, but of course I kinda hope you do 🙂 When you miss me, sign up for my email newsletter or get in touch and ask me how my writing is going and if the (fictional) murder gives enough goosebumps yet. Or ask to beta read my murderous draft because this is your last chance, I have a few slots left before I’m to booklaunch.

Oh, and you can also contact me to pitch a guest blogpost that matches my general topics and brand. You have lots of options!

  • Mermaids
  • Pirates
  • Book art
  • Dabbling in art you have no business dabbling in (my failed attempts at painting for instance)
  • Mental health
  • Chai lattes
  • Adventuring
  • Creative arts in the church
  • Artistic fashion
  • Bookish or literary discussions
  • About writing in a very practical sense or in a very entertaining sense
  • Inspiration, motivation, or instruction for creatives in general

If I have a niche, it’s not a very nichey niche 😉 So tell me what you want to guest post. And I’ll be back here in a few weeks with a riveting post about our favorite inspiration: Lady Gaga 🙂

 

 

for the Creatives

When to hire a ghostwriter

Amy L Sauder

In my class Do You Have a Book in You? I don’t coddle. Just because you’re taking the class doesn’t mean you automatically get the “YES, you should write a book!” answer.

Some people have a story but not a book. They don’t have a passion for the writing; they have a passion for the message, the story.

If you fall into that boat – the “have passion for a story, but not passion for writing” boat – then ask yourself these questions:

  • If writing isn’t your dream, are you willing to devote time and energy to writing a book instead of devoting that time and energy to your actual dream?
  • Since you likely aren’t trained in writing since it’s not your passion, are you willing to sacrifice quality in getting your book out there – sacrificing the number of readers and the impact of the message?
  • Alternatively, can you devote the adequate time, effort, and income to receive the training necessary to clearly communicate the story you want to tell with the quality it deserves?
  • If you do choose to devote time, energy, and income towards receiving training on writing, are you willing to chance diluting the passion of the message with the obligatory monotony of a medium you aren’t passionate about working in?

If you answered “No” to these questions, take a moment to consider hiring a ghostwriter. There are options other than hiring a ghostwriter of course: Telling your message in a medium you *are* passionate about, but that’s a whole ‘nother blogpost – or actually, it’s a 30-minute online course of mine that you can take for free 😉

If you decide, “Yes, I must have a book out there, but no, I can’t write it,” then don’t devote time and energy to writing; instead devote some finances to hiring a ghostwriter. In a couple weeks, I’ll talk about the awesomeness that is the supernatural ghostwriterly world. Keep an eye out for it 🙂

Fashion

To break a mermaid curse

Amy L Sauder

You may recall for Halloween I shared definitive proof that I am cursed by mermaids.

I had a great discussion about breaking the curse with Beware of the Reader <– which can we all agree that is the best bookblog name ever?

The curse all started when I didn’t show up to a magical disappearing lake at midnight. So presumably I could break the curse if I could just wake up at midnight to get there! Alas, I love sleep more than I did as a child – we all do, right? – so I have not remained conscious through that time. If I were Cinderella, I would have made it home long before the spell is broken, but alas, I’m the opposite of Cinderella where the spell is only broken if I can stay up ’til midnight.

However, in the weeks following the reveal of my mermaid curse to the world, I received a number of mermaid items:

A mermaid blanket,
to be a land-dwelling mermaid from the comfort of home:

mermaid

Mermaid socks,
to be a mobile land-dwelling mermaid:

mermaid1

A mermaid necklace,
to carry the magic of mermaids close to my heart:

mermaid3

I guess you could say something fantastical is happening, something mermaid-related. Here’s some possibilities:

Option 1: The curse is broken. This could have occurred from my vocalizing the curse, realizing and acknowledging it existed in the first place. I did not wake up at midnight and go to the lake, but I did inexplicably wake up at 5:45 the morning I received the first mermaid gift, and isn’t that basicly equal to midnight?

Option 2: The mermaids are placating me. Mermaids are almost sirens, and sirens have a way of luring humans to their death. When I acknowledged the curse and the way to break it, maybe the mermaids sent gifts to lull me into a false sense of security, so I wouldn’t try to break the curse, to keep me forever in their grasp. Mer-things bribery, if you will. Aghhh clever mermaids you!

Option 3: I have been dubbed mermaid ambassador. My affinity for mermaids has made me an ally, speaking on their behalf to the human world. I never became a mermaid, but I now have an understanding with them. And I am surrounded by amazing non-merfolk that give me merfolk gifts, so I certainly can’t leave to live with merfolk. I like it here with you all too much. So maybe the mermaids have given me their blessing and the humans have embraced my mermaid obsession.

My parents got me the blanket and socks since, as they said, I’m “obsessed with mermaids.” But they should know by now that I’m just obsessed. I’ll flit (like a faerie!) from one fancy to another, whether that be circus or mermaid or unicorn or magicians or – who knows what’s next. But now as a potential mermaid ambassador, I’ll have at least one more mermaid story to share as a Christmas present for you all. Just you wait 😉

for the Writers

How I made my book look like a book

Amy L Sauder

In a timeline of things to be done in the journey of self-publishing, on one end is the writing and editing. And on the other end is the selling and marketing.

But there’s a whole lot of in between that doesn’t really get talked about.

If you type a jumble of words into a Word document, that doesn’t look like a book. And so once I finished my 6 steps of editing, I moved on to researching how to make my book look like a book.

You can of course hire a book designer. And you probably should. But I wanted it to look book-ish for my beta readers, and I wasn’t about to pay for that. Plus I thought it’d be fun to figure out what all goes into it.

Disclaimer: I probably don’t have it all right, and I certainly don’t have it all here. This is just the steps I took after alot of research but without knowing everything professionally. Heck, I could even be completely wrong on something. This is more to give you an idea of what goes into it, what to think about, and what to research. This is certainly not a complete how-to.

 

Turning a manuscript into something that looks more book-ish

1) Fonts

There’s only certain fonts that work for books. Visually pleasing and easy for long reads. Plus you have to make sure the fonts you choose actually work well together, not just alone.

Serif is recommended for body text, and sans serif is recommended for other content. Also, Times New Roman is bad! Baaaad! Like it’s designed for newspapers to squish words together to fit on the page and it’s not great for long reads. That’s the main points I got out of my research.

Beyond that, you need to actually research which fonts play well on a page together. It’s kind of a toss-up if you’re not a graphic designer or at least more experienced with typography.

After some research, I chose to go with Corbel for the chapter titles, Palatino Linotype for the non-story content (page numbers, table of contents, etc.), and I went with Bookman Old Style for the story.

2) Spacing and Indents

I went with font 11pt with a 15 pt spacing. I indented at 12 pt.

From what I found, fonts are usually 11 or 12pt. Spacing is debated; some recommend single, and some slightly more than single. Indenting should be less than the amount of spacing.

Also, with Bookman Old Style I found the spacing between letters to be a tad close. I adjusted the font spacing to .5″.

3) Justify the text

Once you do this, you got to watch out for weird formatting. A huge space in a certain line. You may need to adjust spacing, indents, or minor edits to make that work well. The font spacing also helped with this.

4) Make mirror margins

Each page of a book has a side that goes into the center of the book where its bound, and a side that is on the edge. The bound side needs more space, but which side (left or right) that’s on depends on what page number you’re on (odd or even.) So you have to go into settings and select “Mirror Margins” for it to know you’re switching sides for each page number.

I found it was recommended to do .5″ outer margin with .8″ inner margin, and the top and bottom are 1″.

5) Page and section breaks

I inserted a page break before each chapter. Then I entered a section break (odd page).

The “odd page” option means that the next chapter always starts on the right side page, not a left side page. So there’s a blank page if needed there. Some books do that, some don’t, and I couldn’t find a particular reason of one over the other, so I just chose what I liked best for this book.

Psst! The section break helps with page numbering. Don’t skip that part. 

6) Header & Footer content

Here was the tricky part. I actually had to do this 3 times to figure out, because you have to watch the “Link to Previous” button. You don’t want it linked to previous for the stuff before the story or the stuff after the story, because you usually don’t put page numbers there.

Next you make sure you have “Different first page” and “Different odd & even pages” checked also.

You can of course copy whatever book you like with what you want style-wise.

For the first page, I put just the page number in the center of the footer. No header, which detracts from the Chapter title.

Then for the other pages, I had no footer, only the header. Odd pages had the page number and my name on the right side (the edge of the book), and even pages had the page number and the book title on the left side (the other edge of the book).

7) Make chapter names style the Header style

Those Style options in Word aren’t just handy dandy ideas for you to use. You can actually change them to be whatever style you want. So change the Header style to be whatever your Chapter titles formatting will be. Then make all your chapters that Header style. That will allow for the chapter titles to automatically be pulled into the Table of Contents page.

8) Make proper spacing between chapter title and story content

It’s not like the chapter title is actually at the tippy-top of the page and the story content right underneath. There’s a whole chunk of space to make the title stand out and give the reader some breathing room. Once again, look at some books and see what seems right to you. I just played around with it until it looked right.

Psst! This is another item you can play around with to get rid of lonesome words or lines on the last page of a chapter.

9) Insert Table of Contents

This should be more or less as simple as choosing Insert Table of Contents and deciding what that formatting will be. The chapters should automatically drop in from the above steps. And then make sure you choose the option to update page numbers if you make any changes to the document after inserting the Table of Contents, because it won’t automatically update. It won’t do anything until you click the button for it to update.

 

I think that covers all or at least most of how I designed the book.

  • Anything I missed or did wrong?
  • Anything you’re doing differently?
  • What are you currently researching for your book design?

Let me know in the comments below.

for the Writers

My 6 step process to editing a book

Amy L Sauder

 

I passed the writing phase for “I Know You Like a Murder” and was on to the editing phase. When asking writers further along in the writing journey, I found that most don’t have a step-by-step system for their editing, they just read through and edit whatever they see needs fixed.

I collected a list of editing resources for everyone who might need it, and then I set out on figuring out my editing system. This isn’t necessarily the best system and it’s not necessarily the one that will work for you, but this is a first step for me – and maybe for you – to finding the system that works for us as individuals.

Note: The items I link to in this post are free online resources. Though some have paid options, I used the free version and it was very helpful. 

1) Edit what I already know needs fixing

When we’re writing, we’re supposed to just keep writing. Not stop and edit as we go. And inevitably as I go I realize there’s something that doesn’t work for the story that I need to change a couple chapters back or whatever. So while I write, I make note of it on my Trello board (a great free task manager system, check it out). So my first step in the editing process is going to that Trello board and seeing what needs done, then doing it. Easy peasy.

2) Edit what’s boring

It’s more than just what’s boring, but that’s what I’ve found is easiest to track what I’m wanting to change. I read through the story and think – where am I bored? Where does the plot fall flat, or the characters get annoying, or the wording just not interest me? Those parts I change, or even remove. Then I re-read through the story again with this new draft and ask again – where am I bored?

3) Get rid of blehh words

Then I look at my list of most frequently used words. I do this right in my Scrivener software (this costs money, but you can do this step for free with this online text analyzer).

You’ll see “the” “and” and “a” used alot of course. But look for other boring words, words that suggest lazy writing. For me, “was”, “get”, and “here”, were much overused and I found myself changing those sentences alot. But I spent an entire day going through the list of boring words to see which ones were actually problematic. Besides that, look for words you overuse that maybe you don’t want to – maybe you describe everything as “glorious” and you should switch it up to “magnificent” or “stunning.” Or maybe you just need to find some way to show it’s glorious without telling the reader 😉

Another thing to look for is something your narrator or protagonist wouldn’t use personality-wise. For instance, my narrator used “maybe” alot in her sentences. Only, that’s not the narrator’s character at all. My narrator is actually very forceful, hyperbole, over-the-top, absolute. Not wishy-washy “maybe”ing around the statements. So I took out alot of “maybe” too.

4) Hemingway Editor time

This may have been my favorite tool I found. I check the readability grade isn’t ridiculously high for some obscure word. And I see all these potential sentence-level problems color-coded that I can look through and change as needed.

5) Use that program spell-checker

Hey, I might miss something. In fact, I say “alot” alot instead of “a lot.” You probably noticed 😉 That’s where Scrivener or Microsoft Word’s spell-checker comes in handy. I quickly run through it and make sure I didn’t miss anything grammar or spelling related.

6) Hear someone else read it

Maybe you don’t have a person to read it, and that’s fine, because you can have a robot read it. It’s like Siri but for your book 🙂 Maybe this step should have come earlier, but I wanted to save this as my final fail-safe type step. I think it’s perfect, now let’s see if it is. Let’s hear someone else read it. Let’s see where it sounds awkward or jumbled, and let’s see what I wouldn’t want to hear someone else reading. Then of course I changed whatever felt weird there.

 

And that’s it. After that, I got ready to send the book to beta readers. I’ll do a post about that “got ready” part, because that wasn’t particularly simple.

What’s your steps for editing or resources you use? Would love to hear in the comments below.

for the Creatives

The super simple way to build your creative community

Amy L Sauder

Sure, some of it is luck and location, but most of it is YOU.

There are creatives out there, I guarantee it. They just need someone to call them out and make it happen. That someone can be you.

That someone has been me. Unintentionally, I just kind of stumbled upon it.

This is simple, but it is not instantaneous. Each step is important, and it’s kind of a snowball effect.

The more you do this, the more it grows until you have your avalanche of an arts community.

But it’s so simple,  you can get started today, I promise.

(I’ll be taking this from the angle of writing, since that’s my experience, but this applies to any type of creativity.)

  1. Talk about your creating ALOT.
  2. But not like spammy, sales-pitchy, or over-excessive. It’s not all about you.
  3. Examples:
    • “How are you?” “Great, I had a breakthrough in my writing last night and am excited for my story!”
    • “Sorry, I can’t make it that day. That’s my writing day. Can we do Thursday?”
    • “What ya got going on this weekend?” “Trying to figure out the next part of my story… Here’s where I’m stuck. Any ideas?”
    • “Nice to meet you! What do you do in your free time?” “I enjoy writing. I blog and I’m working on a novel I hope to one day publish.”
  4. See, non-spammy, normal conversation. Don’t get too chatty about it unless they keep prodding.
  5. (Psst! You can do this in person or on social media.)

Your results from this will vary, but here’s a few responses you’ll encounter:

  • The more you do this, the more you’ll find people who say: “How cool, I like to write, I just never have the time” – or insert some other excuse…. Not quite your writing community you’re looking for, I know.
  • Occasionally you may get lucky and find a committed writer too.
  • You’ll also stumble upon people who bring up their non-writing creative pursuits. More creative community, woohoo!
  • And you’ll also stumble upon people who say, “Oh cool, I know my sister/son/friend/acquaintance writes too.” Let them know they’ll have to introduce you sometime so you can chat writing with each other.

So the next step for all of these responses you get:

  1. Talk about THEIR creative pursuits. 
  2. (Psst! This can also be in person or on social media.)
  3. You just got them to open up about their creativity, whether it’s consistent or not.
  4. Ask what they’re working on.
  5. Ask how it’s going.
  6. If they “don’t have time”, ask how they can make time.
  7. Ask them what their goal is for this week – can they write for 15 minutes tonight? Tomorrow? this weekend?
  8. Come up with a joint goal – “Tell you what – I’ll write 15 minutes tonight and you write 15 minutes tonight; then tomorrow we have to tell each other how it went.” Or “Tell you what, let’s both write a short story this month and share it with each other next time we get coffee.”
  9. Hold them to their goals. Encourage them. Keep them going.
  10. Be fascinated about their project and their success.
  11. Listen. Most of this is listen.
  12. When relevant, bring up your work, but that’s not the point. Their work is the point. Keep them going.

And the final step. How does this help you? You’re looking for people to hold you accountable to your goals, not vise versa. You don’t need more slackers to deal with you may say.

But here’s the secrets. You know all the above stuff. It’s super simple. But the most important part is here,  your mindset.

You see, you can’t do the above stuff well without writing yourself. Here’s why:

  1. You can’t talk about writing all the time if you’re not writing to begin with.
  2. The more you talk about writing, the more people know you’re a writer and expect you to be writing. Even non-creatives may latch onto your story and want updates.
  3. The more people ask about your writing, the more accountable you are to having to write consistently.
  4. As you start encouraging and motivating other creatives to keep writing, you’ll realize you can’t tell them they should be writing this week if you’re not writing this week too.
  5. #Protip: the more you have joint goals – sharing a story in a month or writing for 15 minutes together – the more you benefit from this.
  6. If you slack off, they’ll realize they can slack off, and your encouragement and motivation will be diluted. “Oh you didn’t write this week? Me either, that’s okay, we’ll hit it next time…” Only you don’t hit it next time, because you know you’ll both slack off every so often – which turns into semi-regularly – which turns into regularly until you just stop writing all together. Stop that cycle right now! Be consistent so your motivation to others has potency.

Some of those people you’re encouraging will seep through. They’ll keep going because you’re inspiring them. And they’ll care about you. Because you know stuff and you do stuff, and you think they’re worth the time (because – reminder – THEY ARE!)

And voila – you’ve built a community of creatives that keep you going and that you keep them going. It’s a beautiful thing.

Art is happening. And now you’re a part of that.