iUniverse How To: The Mechanics of Poetry – Part I

If you want to write poetry, you should familiarize yourself with some of the literary devices that poets use. In this article, iUniverse presents some of the literary terms used, their definitions and examples.

alliteration – the repetition of a consonant sound, usually at the beginning of two or more words in a line of verse:

“He clasps the crag with crooked hands” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

apostrophe – a figure of speech in which words are addressed to a person, thing or personified idea, such as death, truth or nature:

Click here to read the full article

Read More

iUniverse: How To Correctly Use Ellipses and Exclamation Points

Being a reader as well as an author you may have noticed the excessive use of ellipses and exclamation points. In this article, iUniverse Publishing presents several ideas on how to avoid overusing these punctuation marks.

Ellipses:

The ellipsis is used to show readers that you have omitted words from a sentence or that you have omitted sentences from a quoted paragraph. When you have an ellipsis in the middle of a sentence, it is called a medial ellipsis. Authors also use ellipses to indicate that the person speaking has trailed off and left a sentence or a thought unfinished

Click here to read the full article 

Read More

iUniverse Explains How to Use a Contest to Gain Exposure

iUniverse Writer’s Tips gives you a delightful approach to getting fans worked up about your book.

When trying to get you book out there and noticed, all of a sudden it seems like everyone else has published too. So how can you get their attention focused on yours?

As an incentive to read your book consider a contest. Offer readers a chance to win a prize for their interest in it after reading. In exchange you are only asking that they leave a review, and a “Like” in your book’s Facebook page.

Click here to read the full article

Read More

How To Have Reviewers Begging to Blog Your Book

iUniverse Writer’s Tips offers you this step-by-step guide to approaching book bloggers for reviews.

Getting your book reviewed is a good way to gain exposure for your work. This article focuses on how to successfully solicit book reviews from bloggers. There are many popular and influential blogs which review independent authors, and are always excited to find and introduce a fresh new literary talent to their audience.

The first thing is to find blogs which review books. A valuable resource for this process is Futurebook’s extensive book blogger listing. Another strategy is look for recently released traditionally published books similar to yours. Then using your favorite search engine find reviews plus book names. Create a spreadsheet to keep track of useful blog sites and avoid sending the request twice.

Click here to read the full article

Read More

10 iUniverse Tips on How to Spread the Word about Your Book

So, you’ve written your book and had it published. What should you do next? iUniverse Self-publishing offers 10 ideas to help you market and sell your book.

Tip #1 – Create your own website and open social media accounts to promote your book. Link these accounts to each other and to other websites, blogs and social media sites concerned with reading or writing.

Tip #2 – Contact your local bookstores and suggest they offer discounts on self-published books. Take your book and offer it to them at a discount. You can also sell your book on online bookstores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Tip #3 - Create a 60-second book video trailer and post it on video-sharing and social media sites like YouTube and Facebook.

Tip #4 - Send a press release about your self-published book and any upcoming events such as book signings, interviews, etc. you have planned to local newspaper, radio and television news outlets.

Tip #5 – Contact your local libraries and suggest that they offer self-published titles, including yours. Leave a free copy with them if they are agreeable to this.

Click here to read the full article 

Read More