New Release: Fear Begets Murder

Apr 13, 2021 | Random Musings

Remember how I mentioned I’d been ghostwriting a book a while ago? Well, the book has been published and is now available on Amazon. Fear Begets Murder: A Conspiracy Tale was written with my childhood friend, Sam, who had the original idea and steered the...

New Release: Hell’s Mall

Apr 11, 2021 | My Publications

My short story “Would you like flies with that?” was published as part of the collection Hell’s Mall: Sinister Shops, Cursed Objects, and Maddening Crowds.  Hell’s Mall is the seventh book of April Grey’s Hell’s Anthology series. I...

New Release: Copywriting with Rayne Hall

Apr 9, 2021 | My Publications

You may recall my mentioning early this year a new release by Rayne Hall and yours truly titled Copywriting: Get Paid to Write Promotional Texts. This is Rayne’s Writer’s Craft Book number 34 (!) and, obviously, one of her best 😉 Seriously, though, working...

Audio Marketing: From Radio to Clubhouse

Apr 7, 2021 | Maps and Infographics, Marketing

With audiobooks gaining in popularity, it makes sense that audio marketing is seeing a surprising resurgence as a means of promoting one’s books. This is a general trend, as Transcription Outsourcing reports. In its article, they explain that audio still has the...

10 Proven and Effective Ways to Overcome Writer’s Block

Apr 3, 2021 | Writing

This is a guest post by Jayce, the managing director of Seller Interactive, an Amazon marketing agency that offers Amazon SEO services to brands built on Amazon. With content marketing skills that have taken him to top brands such as GoDaddy and Toyota, he has...

Can AI Content Generation Replace Human Writing?

Mar 31, 2021 | Writing

Back in 2015, I wrote a hilarious post about artificially created romance novels, whence the gem below. So, how are things 6 years on? Artificial intelligence (AI) has made automation the norm in more fields than ever. In marketing, AI has transformed the way we...

Risk-Taking in the Face of Uncertainty

Mar 29, 2021 | Writing

Many of us write stories with protagonists who start out as timid persons, only to realize their potential by the of the book. When charting the hero’s journey, we have to describe how they learn to take risks. Given that there’s nothing more intimidating than...

Smart-Home Technology Trends

Mar 27, 2021 | Maps and Infographics

When I was writing A Heaven for Toasters, my near-future sci-fi romance, I was trying to imagine what life will be like in a hundred years. For my research, I studied current trends in smart homes and was amazed to realize that the future is already here. What smart...

Which Writing Style Should You Choose in 2021?

Mar 25, 2021 | Writing

I recently discussed the Oxford comma and Singular they. Both these are typical examples of style in writing. That is, there is no right or wrong answer concerning their use; it all depends on personal preference. So does the question of the writing style you choose:...

3 Tips To Be More Productive After Work

Mar 23, 2021 | Writing

Between the restless 5-year-old and my SEO copywriting, I haven’t done much fiction writing in ages. That’s why this guest post by Tracie Johnson appealed to me. Tracie is a New Jersey native and an alum of Penn State University. She is passionate about writing,...

The Dancing Plague of 1518

Mar 21, 2021 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora

Vitmor Gomes recently shared on Quora one of the most fascinating Medieval stories I’ve heard: the dancing plague of 1518. In July 1518, in the town of Strasbourg, Alsace (now France), something unexpected happened. A housewife, called Frau Troffea, came out of...

The Oxford Comma

Mar 19, 2021 | Entertainment, Writing

I mentioned the Oxford comma recently in a conversation with Stefan. In case you haven’t heard of it, here is the definition, courtesy of Grammarly: The Oxford (or serial) comma is the final comma in a list of things. For example: Please bring me a pencil,...

The Epicene Pronoun and Singular They

Mar 17, 2021 | Quora, Writing

Back in 2016, I had written about the appeal and long history of singular they. I recently found myself referring to this old post on Quora, during an argument with someone who claimed its use was a mistake. “Singular they” is a so-called epicene pronoun:...

The “Lunar Ark” Project

Mar 15, 2021 | Fun Historical Facts

Tibi Puiu of ZME Science recently presented a backup plan in case we screw up this planet for good: a “Lunar ark” that would store DNA from millions of species in Moon’s lava tubes. The project, first described in a paper presented by researchers at the...

Kids and Poetry

Mar 12, 2021 | Entertainment, Writing

I was reading an interesting post on the Washington Post on why kids need poetry in their lives, and how to spark their interest in it. The author, Jason Basa Nemec, was explaining how he was reading Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb” to his...

Unsung Heroines: Susie King Taylor

Mar 9, 2021 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora

In honor of Women’s Day, I thought I’d share with you the story of Susie King Taylor as told on Quora by Karin Muller. Susie King Taylor Every day at 9 am, Susie King Taylor and her brother would walk the half a mile to the small schoolhouse, their books...

Viking Ulfberht Swords

Mar 7, 2021 | Fun Historical Facts

When we think of Vikings, our minds don’t normally conjure a picture of a miner. So where did the Vikings (and others) get the iron ore to forge their tools and weapons? As Mats Andersson says on Quora, they literally fished it out of bogs. Bog Iron As Wikipedia...

Surprisingly Progressive Pirates

Mar 5, 2021 | Fun Historical Facts

As a kid, when I thought of pirates I dreamed of absolute freedom with plenty of swashbuckling. When I grew up, I realized that pirates were bloodthirsty savages who deserved to be strung for their unforgivable crimes against countless civilians. So terrible was their...