Wheatmark Team

28 February, 2014

Adding personal style to dialogue

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:21:20-07:00February 28, 2014|Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Adding personal style to dialogue

When it comes to dialogue and writing in your character’s voice, how do you add your own twist? How can you add your personality to the material without forcing the dialogue into an unnatural progression? How can you add style, interest, and your own pizazz to someone else’s words? Writing dialogue can be tricky, especially if you’re writing in an unfamiliar accent. Proofreading your work can help identify sneaky accent errors and help you add your own style back into the dialogue. There are several easy ways to place your touch to each accent, character, or place that you write about.

1. Imagine yourself as the character: If you sit down to write a scene between two characters, imagine what you would be thinking, feeling, talking about if you were them. Everyone thinks about scenarios differently and this process could be crucial in you letting your own ideas and voice shine. […]

21 February, 2014

Do authors need RebelMouse?

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:21:35-07:00February 21, 2014|Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Do authors need RebelMouse?

Rebel Mouse is a social media tool that pulls in your social media from many networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Tumblr, blogs and even your email, into your own personal RebelMouse page that can be embedded on any domain. Authors can use it to collect, connect and distribute information for research, writing and sharing.

Margaret Looney in her post The Year’s Best Social Media Tools for Journalists cited that IJNet (International Journalists Network) named RebelMouse as the number one tool of the year.

The idea behind RebelMouse is that it becomes your social front page. Everything you do across multiple platforms such as your blog, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. automatically gets updated on your page. Instead of repeating your content in a spin that is frowned upon you can add something new on each platform and share it all in one place.

Once […]

17 February, 2014

Why you should use your real photo in creating Social Media profiles

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:21:43-07:00February 17, 2014|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Why you should use your real photo in creating Social Media profiles

An important part of building brand awareness is image awareness. Like the golden arches of McDonald’s you want your face to be recognized as an expert. When people see your face, you want them to instantly say, “Yes! I know that person.”

Recognition builds association, which builds greater credibility.

The more your target audience sees you in different places and doing different things, the greater the image of “Oh my, that person is everywhere. They must be much more important than I realized!”

A photo tip is to use a unique personal image for different social applications. This way when your name is searched on Google, the page of images for your name will have more instances of “you” than images of other people with the same name.

When getting professional images taken, come prepared with different outfits and ask the photographer to use different background images. This way you get more mileage out […]

14 January, 2014

Personal profile picture sizes for major social media sites

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:22:07-07:00January 14, 2014|Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Personal profile picture sizes for major social media sites

While you can’t be everywhere and do everything, you can put your picture almost everywhere. Every social media site has its own perfect sizing for optimum display. Here are six of the major social media sites and the picture size your photo should be for the best display.

Facebook: The final picture that will be displayed is 160 x 160 pixels, but the picture you upload must be 180 x 180 pixels. If you want the most control over how your picture will look, then size it to exactly 180 x 180 before you upload it. Yes, you can upload a rectangular image and crop and resize it within Facebook, but it will not look as sharp as a perfect square picture. Check out this info page on Facebook for perfect dimension tips. Finally, when your image shows up on an update, within a comment or on someone […]

23 December, 2013

10 image providers that can be used for LinkedIn

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:22:12-07:00December 23, 2013|Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on 10 image providers that can be used for LinkedIn

If you are an avid LinkedIn user there may be times when you want to post or upgrade while on the go. Here are ten sites that LinkedIn accepts for bringing in tweets, photos and videos.

1. 23hq – Free to add 30 photos a month. $25.00 a year for unlimited. You can send photos to friends by email, post on LinkedIn and other media outlets. Photos can be private or public as you choose.

2. Mead – a photo site in Spanish.

3. Mobypicture – “Directly share your photos, videos and audio with your friends on your favorite social sites: facebook, twitter, flickr, youtube, and more!” This is out of the Netherlands. The terms of agreement allow them to use collected information to market to you.

4. ow.ly – http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url – a part of HootSuite

5. HootSuite – […]

18 December, 2013

3 free press release sites

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:22:57-07:00December 18, 2013|Marketing, News, Resources|Comments Off on 3 free press release sites

While you will have greater results if you send a targeted news release to a specific journalist, there are times when sending press releases out to the masses is not a bad idea. The chances of getting results are much slimmer, but if your release is timely and powerful, it might get picked up by media that you would never have contacted.

In many instances, it might be smart to do both types of news releases. Make sure that each release is different enough in content and focus so that your ideal targeted journalist will not feel like they are getting a mass letter. After all, if you go to the trouble of finding a journalist, connecting with them and writing the release to fit their coverage, then you want to build an ongoing relationship.

If you are ready to send your release out to the public, here are free press release […]

16 November, 2013

Use this free Google tool to improve your website loading time

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:23:44-07:00November 16, 2013|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Use this free Google tool to improve your website loading time

Amazon did some tests a while back and found that removing seconds from the load time of a web page resulted in more sales.

If your site is slow to load, a lot of visitors simply will not bother to wait. That means all your efforts of writing great blog posts, offering a free download and showcasing everything you have to offer are wasted.

You may not notice how slow your website loads because your computer caches images from previous visits, but a first time visitor will have to wait the full loading time.

Check out your website speed with a free tool from Google. PageSpeed Insights.

Start by checking your home page and other landing pages on your website.

Images take up the most bandwidth on your site but are the easiest to fix in increasing your site’s load time. Are you guilty of any of these three problems?

1. Too many images per […]

5 November, 2013

Writing for the Christian fiction market

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:24:14-07:00November 5, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Writing for the Christian fiction market

How do Christian fiction books differ from your straight, run-of-the-mill fiction books?

Here are characteristics of most Christian fiction books:

1. An element of faith inspires the main character’s decisions throughout the story.

2. A sparing but appropriate use of Bible quotes — usually two or three that fit the story.

3. Evil exists in the story, but there are no graphic descriptions of sex, murder, and other deviant behaviors.

4. The ending leaves one feeling encouraged and trusting that life will work out for the better.

5. Language is clean with no swearing or violent words. For instance, a character might be described as “swearing a blue streak,” but the actual cursing words are left out.

Don’t be misled into thinking that because the book has a Christian or faith element you can get away with half-baked writing. Christian readers are as critical as other readers in wanting good plots, well-crafted story structure, and believable dialogue. […]

3 November, 2013

Grammar tips: Capitalization of nouns for authors

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:24:36-07:00November 3, 2013|Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Grammar tips: Capitalization of nouns for authors

Nouns are words that name a person, place, thing, or idea.

Person: If it’s a specific name, like Joe, Jane, or Sparky, the name is capitalized. However, if the noun is general such as a boy, girl, doctor or lawyer, then the nouns are not capitalized. It can become a bit complicated when referring to parents or close relatives. If you are talking about your mother, the name is not capitalized. But if you are talking “to” your mother or father, the name is capitalized. So in writing dialogue, your subject might say, “Hi, Mom. What’s for dinner?” But if your subject is talking to a friend about their mom, then the noun is not capitalized. “Yeah, my mom always insists on cooking spinach at least once a week. Yuck!”

The same thing is true of offices like senator, president, king, or pope. You may refer to “the pope” or “the president” […]

1 November, 2013

13 reasons you should add a guestbook page to your Author website

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:24:41-07:00November 1, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on 13 reasons you should add a guestbook page to your Author website

Are you looking for a fast and easy way to connect with your readers? Don’t have time or the desire to keep up a blog? Here is an easy fix: provide a guestbook.

A guestbook is basically a page on your website on which readers can leave comments. All comments are then found in one place on your site. This is great for first time visitors to get a feel of your writing, your following and, best of all, for them to find out that other people love your book(s).

While it’s great to blog regularly and get comments on your posts, sometimes getting those comments is difficult for new bloggers. A few comments spread out over 15 or 20 posts can seem pretty sparse, but if you put all those comments in one place, you have instant reader appeal.

Here are 13 reasons why a guestbook should be next on your “To […]

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