#yes i already know how to drive yes i read the wikihow ‘how to drive’ article anyway just to make sure i didn’t forget. we exist

[gobbluthbutagirl]

wikihow is asking me to pay to find out if driving a car is scary

#yes i already know how to drive yes i read the wikihow ‘how to drive’ article anyway just to make sure i didn’t forget. we exist

[sojo-gatoru]

50 Questions You’ve Never Been Asked

hello tumblr I’m still alive but I forget that you exists sometimes but thanks for art and memes lmao                                               

Tagged by @taehdenveri lol thanks pal!! ~

1. What is the color of your hairbrush? A silvery black? idk

2. Name a food you never eat. Mushroom of any kind bc they want to murder me in my sleep

3. Are you typically too cold or too warm? Too cold...always...I’m freezing rn

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Having an online lecture about microeconomics....

5. What is your favorite candy bar? oof that’s tricky... do Maltesers count as candy bar? bc them!

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports event? I used to live right next to the football stadium in my hometown, does that count? (and maybe the “final dance” at my dance school, which was official and stuff)

7. What is the last thing you said out loud? “I got an email today, your package arrives tomorrow bruv”

8. What is your favorite ice cream? any lemon flavour, yoghurt, sour stuff in general

9. What was the last thing you had to drink? c o f f e e

10. Do you like your wallet? Nah...it’s rather boring and already falls apart (I really want one with an ouji board design tho :eyesemoji:

11. What was the last thing you ate? Cereal probably I don’t remember

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? for my sister yes, but not for me :<

13. The last sporting event you watched? Some Lindy Hop festival competition

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn? SALTED POPCORN BAYBEEEY!!

15. Who is the last person you sent a text message to? It was the very sweet @taehdenveri yeehaw

16. Ever go camping? Nope, I wish tho

17. Do you take vitamins? Yep, my body demands the vitamins

18. Do you go to church every Sunday? no I’m raging on a sunday (kudos to anyone who gets that reference lmao)

19. Do you have a tan? nope, I’m sun-allergic lol

20. Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? Both. Both is good. But usually pizza since it’s cheaper haha

21. Do you drink soda with a straw? nah

22. What color of socks do you usually wear? usually dark ones, but I mostly wear them mismatched anyway haha

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit? listen.....L I S T E N....sometimes, it happens to all of us okay

24. What terrifies you? Spiders........spiders....the deep sea, deep space, losing people that are close to me....spiders.

25. Look to your left, what do you see? My notes from my online lecture and my half empty cup of coffee

26. What chore do you hate? there’s not much I don’t like, maybe cleaning the bathroom when I’m not in the mood?

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? Ross O’Donovan, OI LADS WHAT A GUUD DAY FOR A SWIM INNIT

28. What’s your favorite soda? hard to say hmmm, maybe a good, cold, Spezi?

29. Do you go into a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? Drive Thru, always have fun experiences with that lol

30. Who’s the last person you talked to? IRL, my sister, on the line @taehdenveri

31. Favorite cut of beef? I am veggie to the tarian bruv

32. Last song you listened to? The Song with Five Names a.k.a. Soapbox Tao a.k.a. Checkmate Atheists! a.k.a. Neospace Government (A.K.A. You Can Never Know) by Will Wood and The Tapeworms

33. Last book you read? Probably some lame economics book I had to read for uni ugh

34. Favorite day of the week? Friday

35. Can you say the alphabet backwards? I can’t even spell alphabet without thinking about it wtf

36. How do you like your coffee? black :)

37. Favorite pair of shoes? my worn out black Nikes ayy

38. The time you normally go to sleep? Around 12pm usually, plus minus depends on how exhausted I am

39. The time you normally get up? around 7 - 8 am

40. What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? Sunsets...how romantic

41. How many blankets on your bed? 2

42. Describe your kitchen plates. bordeux red

43. Do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage? I’m not too big on alcohol, but if I’d have to choose red wine. Yep that’s basically the only thing I can drink

44. Do you play cards? Hell yah

45. What color is your car? Don’t have a car on my own, but my parents’ car is silver, so I guess silver

46. Can you change a tire? Not really? With a tutorial and WikiHow article, still doubtful

47. Your favorite province? Province? pff Guyenne and Gascony in France maybe? Probably because I want to go there reeeeeeally badly

48. Favorite job you’ve ever had? I didn’t like any job I had so far...but the one at the hospital was alright compared to other stuff

49. How did you get your biggest scar? a botched surgery :)

50. What did you do today that made someone else happy? Ordered a Nintendo Switch for my sister’s birthday heh she seemed happy about it

#about me #taggy game #not tagging anyone bc I wouldn't even know WHOMSTVE #but if anyone wanna do this plz feel free to!

[shakespeareslegacy-blog]

Willing to Pay

If you like my originals and are intereste in my fanfiction, go to my ao3. If you want me to write either original or fanfiction for you, you can commission me here.

“You know, maybe I should’ve thought more about the consequences of selling my soul. It’s just so… boring”, Oliver said before sighing deeply and leaning back against the back of his couch. It was a nice couch, white leather, sadly made out of real leather but somehow he couldn’t buy a fake leather one without breaking out into hives.  “You wanted money and fame, so I gave it to you. You said you were willing to pay any price”, a deep hushed voice whispered into his ear. “I should’ve read the fineprint…” 

 It had been a year since Oliver Barrow had sold his soul. Fame and money was what he wanted, yes, but maybe he should have worded it more precisely. He had just wanted his career as a YouTuber to take off! And now… he didn’t even know what he was. A influencer? Streamer? Weird guy on the internet, people loved for no reason at all? He kind of was all of it. At first he had done some Let’s Plays but had been ignored mostly for his lack of gaming skills. It wasn’t funny to watch a guy fail the first quest of a game. A least not for ten times. So he had given up on that and instead tried to do song covers. Being in the middle of puberty hadn’t helped much with that, since his voice was kind or breaking on every third note. His next try had been dance covers which had been mildly successful since he had streamed his last training session before filming his first dance cover and managed to break his leg while trying to do a pirouette. After that he had had enough and decided to try a more… drastic approach. 

Stealing the goat had been kind of exciting, if he was being completely honest. Killing it? Less so. Oliver had never liked the sight of blood and promptly threw up when he managed to eat and artery and blood literally squirted into his face. “Oh, well”, he had thought back then. “This should be a good enough equivalent as a bodily fluid. Stomach acids counted, right?” After that the ritual went pretty smoothly. Or well, at least everything happened like it had been written on that weird wikihow rip-off. When he stepped into the circle, careful not to step on the goat’s corpse but sadly not evading the blood and vomit, the birds stopped singing. Then as he started reciting the summoning spell, the wind picked up and ruined his carefully gelled hair. He started to get a bad feeling about this when the hail and thunder started but now it was too late to stop. The voice spoke up, demanding to know what he desired. Oliver hadn’t really thought that wording would be this important, so he had only blurted out his most basic desires. Money and fame. After stating that with a shaky voice and a feeling like he was about to pee his pants, the voice had questioned if he was willing to pay any price for that. At that point Oliver’s voice had been a bit more steady which made his “I am willing” sound more believable than it was. Then everything became hazy… He remembered falling to his knees, next to the still bleeding goat corpse and seeing a white hand in front of him, handing him a feather quill. “I… don’t have any ink”, Oliver had said in confusion. This had prompted another hand to appear, grabbing his right wrist and turning it over while the other moved his left with the quill against the skin. “There is your ink. And here is your contract”, the now hushed voice whispered. Somehow it had sounded tantalizing, making Oliver eager to press the quill down into his skin to draw blood to use as ink. On the ground in front of him a dirty old pergament started to practically grow out of the earth. Or more out of the disgusting mix of blood and vomit. Maybe it should have surprised him that it appeared to be a neatly typed up contract with conditions and everything on such an old and rotten looking paper, but something inside of him told him it wasn’t important. Just like reading through it wasn’t. So he had pressed down the quill and once the tip was covered in red he signed the contract at the bottom. Then he got drowsy and felt his eyelids getting heavy. While Oliver felt sleep rushing over him, he heard a deep chuckle. 

According to rules of physics and everything logical, he should have awoken next to a drained goat covered in dirt, vomit and blood. Instead he woke up in his bed. Oliver had been confused at first but then simply decided that he must have had one fucked up dream and started to go about his day. Which naturally started with him checking his social media feeds. Seeing that he had gained thousands of followers overnight, made him doubt if he had truly woken up or was still dreaming. But soon enough it had turned out to be real when the hushed voice from the day before started whispering to him and congratulated him on a successful contract. “While your ritual had been a four out of ten at most, HQ deemed your soul pure enough to accept it anyway. After all you did show potential for corruption. I mean, damn, you killed a goat. Some burned herbs would have been enough.”

“Why didn’t you explain any of the details before you made me sign that contract?”, Oliver asked while starting up his Laptop ready to start another stream of him talking about stupid shit while playing one of the few games he didn’t suck at. “Your free will made you sign it, not me”, the voice answered, almost sounding indignant. “And if you had truly cared about the consequences, you would have asked.” “I was fourteen!”, Oliver tried to argue but knew that the voice was right. Back then he wouldn’t have cared, arguing that such things wouldn’t happen to him, being to smart or some other bullshit to fall for a demon’s trap. But that’s the thing. It had never been a trap. It had been a clean and honest deal that he had asked for and accepted. And now he had to live with the consequences. Which included not being able to buy anything made by honest people. Donating was also impossible unless it went to someone without morals. Lying only worked if he tried to manipulate other people. If he tried to cheer someone up, he suddenly became brutally honest. 

“Is there any way to get out of this contract?” “You really didn’t read anything, right? Haven’t had such a dumb one in a few decades.” Oliver swallowed down his sarcastic remark. After all the voice hadn’t denied the possibility. “So there is. Come on, tell me”, he demanded. It hadn’t taken him long to learn that the voice didn’t answer requests. It only did what he demanded. “Get a new one”, was the almost amused answer, which send a cold shiver down his spine as he opened the streaming site. “A new what?”, he asked cautiously. “A new soul, moron.” Hearing that made him chuckle, sounding more hysterical than truly disbelieving. “Yeah sure, I just go and buy a new one! I mean, how the fuck do you even get a soul?” “Oh, there are a few ways. Being born for example but you already used that one. You also immediately get a new one if you sacrifice yours for a loved one”, the voice whispered and sounded taunting. After all it only gave him options that weren’t available for him. “Sure, only tell me those that I can’t do. Bitch”, Oliver mumbled and fumbled with his headset to check the settings. “...or make a contract”, the voice whispered, quieter than ever before. He perked up at that staring wide eyed at nothing particular. “A contract? With whom? What kind of contract? What is the cost?” This time the voice didn’t answer. “Hey! Tell me! What contract?! With whom?!” Oliver whipped around, even though he knew that he never saw who the voice belonged to.  “Tell me! Come on, asshole, tell me!” Every time he demanded an answer, the anger grew inside of him as did his despair. A horrible feeling creeped up on him, a absolutely devastating fear. “TELL ME! PLEASE!” Oliver knew that pleading had never worked and never would. But demanding wouldn’t either. Not anymore. After all, hours later, he had to face the fact that the voice wasn’t talking anymore. He didn’t know if it left him and was now taunting him with silence, trying to drive him made or promise to never try to get out of the contract or if it was gone for good. Something told him it was the latter. 

#dark comedy #demon #original story #original writing #commission #demon summoning #fantasy #urban fantasy

[kkmm31]

Affiliate Marketing Secrets, Strategies, and More!

Step-by-step Guide of Affiliate Marketing Strategy

Making money from affiliate marketing is an art. Only writing a great product review or promoting a great product will not work to make any sales from your affiliate links. But you have to do many other things to make money from your affiliate links.

Most of the Blog and website owners think that writing a great product review will work. But this is not enough. You need a perfect Affiliate Marketing Strategy and MUST work on it to generate sales from your links.

Here is a Affiliate Marketing Strategy Model. You can simply print out this page or save it on your desktop.

Step 1: Take Time (10-20 hours or even more) to chose a product to promote and write down a great, unique, and informative product review. This is very important.

Step 2: Become an Affiliate of ClickBank, Amazon, or Commission Junction and generate an affiliate link for your product and put it on your review page and publish it on your website or a blog. Now, suppose if you are not the owner of any website or a blog then it's also perfectly alright. You can post your review on Squidoo, HubPages, WetPaints, and other sites of that nature.

Remember, all we need to do is publish your web page containing your affiliate link anywhere on the web and divert the web traffic towards it.

Step 3: Link Building: This is very important. Your Affiliate link is live now. The only thing you have to do is drive web traffic towards it (the more the better). For this, you have to create and publish the content on other popular websites on the Internet and then put a link of your affiliate page.

Examples are EzineArticles, Squidoo, HubPages, WetPaint, YouTube, Xomba, eHow, WikiHow, Triond, Associated Content, Knol... etc...

Post content having your affiliate link page link on each of the above websites.

Step 4: Social Media: Try Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon & Reditt to divert more web traffic towards your affiliate links.

Step 5: Now sit back and wait for the web traffic to accelerate. This will probably take 1 week to 15 days to drive web traffic towards your affiliate page. Once the web traffic comes toward your page, you will definitely make money.

This is the Model of Affiliate Marketing Strategy. Nobody will teach you this.

Affiliate Marketing Secrets

Secrets of Successful & Profitable Affiliate Marketing

In fact, after reading this article, you will understand that there is no secret at all. But everything about affiliate marketing revolves around the one basic principle and that is:

"To make money from affiliate marketing, you have to drive more web traffic towards your affiliate links."

The more web traffic you divert towards your affiliate links, the more sales it will generate and the more money you will make. It is this simple. And I believe you should not spend money on those products which claim that they are offering you some kind of secret.

Once you generate an affiliate link on your website or a blog, all you have to do is divert more and more web traffic towards those affiliate links by Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Articles Directories, SEO and many other things.

The more web traffic that you divert towards your affiliate links, the more sales it will generate. There is nothing secret about it. Even a School going Kid can do this to make 6 figure Income every year by following this basic principle.

What is important, is the proper mindset. You have to understand the principle and develop a mind frame and stick to it and prevent this mind frame by eroding from your emotions. That's it. This is all you have to do to make money from affiliate marketing.

You don't have to be a popular product review writer for this. Nor do you need to be the owner of an Authority Blog or a Website. Of course, if you are an owner of a successful blog or a website, it will be easy for you to make money from affiliate marketing because you can leverage your existing reader/customer base.

Thus, these are the secrets of successful affiliate marketing.

Now, Take Action and start making money.

Affiliate Marketing eBooks

Should I Buy Affiliate Marketing eBooks?

You are here on this page probably because you have searched in Google for "Affiliate Marketing eBooks". I am sure that you have already gone through several websites and reviewed lots of books on affiliate marketing. But after watching literally hundreds of dollars of prices of those eBooks, you probably landed on this page.

Don't Worry... After reading this Article, You won't need to buy any Affiliate Marketing eBooks from the Internet. And Yes, I am giving this Information to you for FREE!

Let me tell you that all of those eBooks are revolving around the one basic core principle. And this Principle of making money from Affiliate marketing will never even change in the near future. And that Principle is:

"The Key of Successful Affiliate Marketing is Web traffic. The more web traffic you divert towards your Affiliate Links from all around the web, Naturally more Sales it will generate and the more money you will make."

Everything about Affiliate marketing ultimately revolves around this simple but very basic principle. You will find literally millions of eBooks on this topic. All of those eBooks are written around this basic principle. So if you understand this basic principle, there is No Need to buy any eBooks.

I have given you the principle of profitable aff. marketing right? So Now, you have to use your mind and figure out "How to Divert more web traffic towards your Affiliate Links?" Lets discuss the example provided below:

Suppose I want to make money from Affiliate marketing so What Will I Do? Well, First of all I go to ClickBank.com and chose a product to sell. Well, I advise you to start from Digital Downloadable products first, this is because they are easy to deliver and the commission per sale is very high (20-75%) in these products.

OK so now I have chosen the product. So the next step is to create an Affiliate Link. So What will I do? Well, I will write a keyword rich Product review having affiliate link and post it on my blog or a website. Or any other social network that we have discussed earlier.

After that process, the affiliate link is on the web. It's live now. So your 50% of the job is complete. The rest of the 50% is to divert the web traffic towards your blog/social network/website page on which you have put the affiliate link.

You can do this several ways.

One is Link Building. There are 2 advantages of link building. One is that they will divert more traffic towards your web page as well as it will increase the search engine rankings of your web page so drive organic (Search engine) traffic.

For this you have to write down and post articles on various 5,6, & 7 Page rank articles directories such as:

- EzineArticles - Squidoo - HubPages - WetPaint - YouTube - Xomba - Triond - Knol - eHow

You post articles on the above web directories. This is because Google simply loves and trusts these websites. So if each of these websites direct towards your web page having affiliate links, it will shoot up the page rank and thus more web traffic.

Now, the second way to drive more traffic towards your websites is Social Networking & the third way is Social Media. Here are the examples:

- Facebook - Orkut - MySpace - Digg - Delicious - Stumbleupon - Reddit

In short, you have to use your mind to find out more and more possible ways to divert the web traffic towards your affiliate links. Once you do all of this hard work. Just sit back and enjoy the steady passive income coming into your bank accounts.

Facebook Affiliate Marketing

How to Make Passive Income from Facebook Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing means selling other people's products from your web properties (Blogs & Websites) and getting commission for each sale you make. Many people have asked me: "How they can make money from Facebook Affiliate Marketing?"

Well, As far as I know, there is not any direct method of doing affiliate marketing on Facebook. But let's go to the basics and find out how we use Facebook to do affiliate marketing?

What is the Basic Principle behind Successful Affiliate Marketing?

Well, the basic principle of profitable affiliate marketing is - "The more web traffic you divert towards your Affiliate Links (Web pages having your affiliate links), the more Sales your affiliate links will generate."

This is the basic principle of Affiliate marketing and every theory and techniques of profitable affiliate marketing revolves around this simple basic principle.

Now, here we want to make money from Facebook affiliate marketing. So obviously, we need to find out the ways to divert traffic from Facebook to our affiliate links. Is this Possible? Well, Yes. There are several ways by which you can divert the web traffic on Facebook to your affiliate links.

Say for Example, Fan pages, Comments, News Feeds, Facebook applications, Direct Advertising on Facebook... etc...

By these methods, you can easily divert web traffic from Facebook to your own web property having affiliate links. The more web traffic that you divert to your affiliate links, the more sales it will generate and thus the more money you will make.

However, There is only one problem with Social Networking sites traffic and that is the traffic of social networking sites is not a buyer's traffic. They are there on the Social Network for being Social. So making money from Social Network traffic is really a difficult task.

And for Affiliate Links to work, you need the Buyer's Traffic.

For More Information Click Here

#affiliatelink #affiliate offers #affiliateproducts #affiliate-marketing-jobs #affiliate-marketing-programs #affiliate program #affiliate #affiliatejunction #affiliate-marketing-sites #affiliate-marketing-companies #affiliatenetwork #affiliatemarketing #affiliatemoney

[rayalez]

How to Write a Book?

Now that’s a brilliant question to ask; and for a moment, I would mock the innocence with which people ask this question. They think wikihow can help them. Or maybe another video tutorial. Or a well prepared module on coursera or some other learning website?

And if I had to be honest, I would say that no one in the world can tell you how to write a book.

When I say a book, I mean the book, which is in your head and which you mean to write. In my experience as an author, consultant and ghostwriter — I have met a myriad of people with diverse objectives of writing a book. They have their own personal, professional or commercial goals which they fulfil with the help of getting the tag of an author. When I got this tag, back when I was 19, I didn’t even know it’s weight and significance. A lot of people ask me why are you just ghost writing or consulting now? Why don’t you write any more? Sadly, I don’t have a ground breaking idea which I would want myself to dedicate to. Not yet at least. And hence, while I am not writing for my own self, it will be good to help others or write for others; there is always something to learn in the end and do better.

Now, coming back to the question of ‘How to write a book’ and my blunt answer about no one can tell you to how to do it — let me explain.

There is no fixed method to write a book. There is no formula or LHS = RHS, which will miraculously yield a book. Every author has his or her own approach.

There are some accidental authors who just start writing randomly and become famous. Also, there are authors who believe in technique, strategy and every step they take is a meaning. None of the two is wrong. In fact, there is no wrong or right. You can pour in your heart or you can try to understand your reader and play with the minds. So before we go on to know how to write a book, let us understand, why it is understand to know how to write a book. Why can’t we just go with the flow and do it?

Why do you need a strategy to write a book?

Because it’s a road full of terrors. It’s a never ending maze which you can never escape and if you are one of those ambitious types, it will drive you more crazy.

Book Writing demands discipline and more. Getting on this journey means to summon the ghost of chaos to haunt you forever, and if you don’t have a plan or you don’t know how you are going to do it, it won’t just take undetermined amount of time, but will also drain you emotionally and intellectually.

So, I am going to share my own approach. Has kept this a secret for long but I think it is time that I should share it. I divide this entire process of book writing in 7 stages. Yes, 7. I like the number 7. Simple.

I. Idea stage

This is the first stage of book writing. Whenever there is a new project or a new client, this is my first question

Explain your book in one single sentence.

Or

Tell me your plot in not more than 2 lines.

If they can answer this with confidence, they know what they want. Same is for you. If you can answer this, you know what your heart wants. If you are not sure, think more before you take a step ahead. Find more clarity on what you want it to be. The idea is the soul of what you are going to be create. A sense of this soul should be reflected in whatever you do next. It’s where you started and you should always try to be reach back to it because this is the basic reason you started this whole journey at first place.

For example, when I wrote my third book Nazaqat, the idea was:

A girl who chooses prostitution on her own will, retires to become an entrepreneur and fights to legalize prostitution completely in India.

The same idea, is also the pitch which you will give it to the publishers eventually. It has to be powerful, unique and promising. However, there are exceptions. At times, despite having a very mediocre idea, people do wonders with the writing style and the art of storytelling, captivating you while you are off-guard. I always give the idea of ‘God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy. If you analyze the plot, it is not really something unique and at times, I find it absurd. At times you feel that she doesn’t even care about it. But that book is a heart-stealer. It’s a poem disguised in prose to pleasure you like you have never imagined.

So even if you feel that your idea is not something Nolan would want to buy, don’t worry. Have confidence in your charm of storytelling. You can still steal their hearts away.

II. Research Stage

Now while you are sure about the whole idea that was in your head and you have sorted it out for your own good, the real work now begins. Don’t get scared with the word ‘Research’. I don’t mean anything scientific here (Except that you have some elements of science in your book). Research means to gather knowledge and facts around the idea. Reading more and more about it and making notes which will be later referred to. For example, if you plan to set your story in the southern part of the country, you must know the landscape, the terrain, the traditions, culture, everyday stories and so much more. You have to be one with the place and feel it to translate it into words later.

At times, I prefer to research side by side while planning (which is the third stage). In some cases, I even do it after the planning stage. But it all depends on the project. By default, try to do research, if not detailed than basic, before you proceed.

In case it is more like a biography and you think no research is required, you can’t be more wrong. You still need to recall the experiences, the people, the reactions and have random scribbling sessions.

How to research?

Read books, magazines, newspapers.

Watch documentaries and movies on the subject

Visit places

Meet and talk to people who can provide insights

Be shameless and take your time. It can take from a month to a year to research. Depends on how intense you wanna go. For my third book, I took 8 months and did stuff shameful enough that I don’t even want to admit to get information.

Note: While you research, you are bound to go through the work already done on the subject or idea. This helps you realize how your idea has to be different. Or if you are doing something which has already been done. Research helps you make sure that your work is unique.

In short, brace yourself in a way that you don’t have to go back to find a piece of information that you need.

III. Planning Stage

This is one of the most crucial stage as you are going to make a blueprint for the building you want to erect. This is going to be your holy text that you must follow till the end. A solid plan will give you direction and keep you hooked to your project. This will always tell what to do next.

Heard of Writer’s Block? I think it’s just an excuse. People have it because they never planned properly and now they are panicking as they are lost. It is more like cooking a new recipe. It is important to know if you have all the ingridients before you start cooking and you know how to cook. If you don’t have any of two, you of course can’t cook it and will have to abandon it in between. And if you think you will refer to internet or go to the market to buy the ingredients, you know you have spoiled it already.

Book writing needs both passion and motivation along with dedication.

What are the elements of planning?

While planning you should try to answer the following questions:

What is the expected word count of the book?

How many chapters will be there?

What is the word-count of each chapter?

How many prime characters are there?

How many side characters are there?

Now this is all basic information. While you have decided how many chapters and their average word-count, you have created moulds. It’s time to fill in these moulds with information now. This information is retrieved from research you did before.

Moreover, you decide the sequence in which all this information has to be conveyed to the reader and you make bullet points or small paragraphs about it which will act as your clue in the next stage.

Character Sketches:

Another crucial part of planning is the character sketch.

Your characters must become your best friends and you have to live and breath with them and know them like real people. Knowing each and every detail about them will help you be more fluid with writing. All the characteristics, habits and traits of your characters must resonate in your mind.

To do that, you can start putting your characters in a situation and think how will he or she respond and act. While you continue practicing it, you will start learning and exploring more and more about them. At a point of time, you can answer questions about your characters with lightening speed. It will start coming naturally to you.

Apart from this, also work on the physical appearances, backstories and their likings and dislikings. I usually give a huge list of questions to answer about the characters. While they answer the question, they develop the characters.

Another critical point which a lot of novices miss — they make characters black and white. They are either evil or good. Sadly, it is not true in real life and this drifts the entire concept away from reality.

You have to think about the negative habits too. Everyone has inner demons and so does your characters. Even if it is a hero, he has a dark side which you should know. Even if you are not telling the reader about many of the answers that you just explored, it is important for you to know them.

So, while you have your characters ready, your blueprint for chapters ready and you know exactly what you want to write and how you want to write and have the necessary ingredients which are sufficient to fill the moulds — you can hop on to the next stage.

IV. Writing Stage

Welcome to the fourth stage. You have already spent months working on the project but haven’t written anything. I know you are hating me for this. But well, you will thank me later. Now just before you are going to write, here are few more things you need to decide:

Is it a first person narrative or third person narrative?

If it’s first person, which character is going to narrate? Or there are multiple characters narrating it?

Which tense are you narrating it in?

Another aspect that you have to be sure about — that is your voice. Now this whole concept of voice is very vague and mysterious. It took me years myself to figure out what we mean when we say voice of a writer. To be put in simple terms, it is more like the way you narrate things. Is it lucid and fluid? Or is it blunt and sharp? Is it sarcastic? Or is it poetic? Do you write short sentences or it’s the long sentences which is your forte? You like to describe everything in detail or you leave stuff for reader to imagine?

It is highly critical to find your voice before you start writing. If you are not sure about your voice yet, start writing more apart from this book writing project. Write blogs, diary entries, articles and analyze your own self more and more. Eventually, you will find it.

So if you have your voice, nothing can stop you from writing a book in record time. Asking about my voice? Well, after working on such a wide range of projects, I have been very versatile with it. I absorb the voices of people I am working with and then replicate them.

Note: Write your first draft like a marathon. There is no stopping or looking back even if you are making a mistake. Just remember one thing — don’t stop writing!

V. Editing Stage

Congratulations. You have completed the first draft. Now the intensity of editing is decided by how much you are satisfied and confident with what you have done. Always hire an external editor because you can’t see or judge your own mistakes. An editor can play the following roles:

Comment on the plot and characters

Comment where to improve or do it own his/her own

Proofread for grammar

Motivate and criticize

Who can be your editor? Someone who has read a lot. I don’t believe that a writer can be an editor. I stopped editing for the same reason because I felt I was not able to do justice with it.

Also, you can have your beta readers who can provide casual feedback. However, don’t have too many beta readers or editors. In the end, do what you feel is right. It’s your hard work and it’s your dream.

VI. Publishing Stage

So if you thought that getting a manuscript ready was the worst you could go through, I have an unfortunate news. The horror has just begin.

Publishing a book is harder than writing it; ask anyone! To publish a book, you should make a proposal which you will be sending to editors of various publishing houses. This proposal should contain:

A detailed Synopsis

A blurb

Three sample chapters

Author Bio

It will take another long post on How to publish, which I might write in future. Also note one thing, do talk about marketing and slyly convey that you will market it good. Publishing is a business in the end. You see your book as a piece of art, but they see it like just another product that they must sell to make money. Clear?

Now there are two ways with which you can publish:

Traditional Publishing

Takes a lot of time (maybe years)

You don’t have to pay

High Royalty percentage

Good Brand Value

Better distribution in offline stores

Number of rejections will make you suicidal

Self Publishing

Quick and less frustrating

You have to pay

Lower royalty percentage

No Brand value

Distribution is subjective to the money you are spending

You will survive with no rejection at all

There are many more differences and again, I must write another post on this to explain it in detail. Let’s see if that happens.

How to approach publisher?

If you are new to the industry, I will tell you a secret trick. Go to a big bookstore, find the books which are on similar genre of your own book. Check which publishers are doing such books. Make a list. Come back home, google them. Their websites will have the publishing guidelines that you must follow religiously to get their attention. Pleasing them can be harder than pleasing gods at times. Be ready.

VII. Marketing Stage

If you survived all this and think this is the end, I have more unfortunate news. Hate me as much as you want. Remember I told how publishing is harder than writing. Now, marketing is even harder than that.

Book is a complicated product and most of the time, I have seen it defying all kind of marketing mantras. What can work for someone might not work for others. Also, the ROI on the marketing budgets that you will put will frustrate you to death. A book is a slow product and yield results very slowly. Be very patient with this.

You must make an active marketing strategy and promote it on various platforms at the same time so that each platform can compliment each other. These are the four primary things you can do:

Digital marketing

Have a website and start writing blogs. Have a solid social media strategy to reach out to potential readers.

PR

Get coverages and reviews in newspapers for better presence. Give bytes to the stories that are being done and are relevant to your subject.

Events

Do book launches, reading sessions and creative writing workshops.

Reviews at blogs

Send it to reviewers who have good following and request them to write one for you.

There is so much more that can be done depending on what kind of book it is. Also make sure that while you are marketing, the book is available online and offline otherwise everything is in vain. If you create a demand and there is no supply, you know you are wasting your money (Except that you are someone like Rowling whose book could be sold in black if there is not enough supply).

Have a year long marketing strategy and don’t fret over results. They will take time.

Conclusion:

If you have survived reading this post and you are still determined to do it, you can write a book. I hope the question of How to write a book has been answered by me. I will pick up subtopics from this and write those in more detail.

Want me to help?

I would love to if I like the idea! Let’s talk!

How to Write a Book? was originally published in Fiction Hub on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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