Busy week, so all my recommendations are connected to writing this week.

Writing and marketing.

Let’s say you publish books at more than one venue — Amazon AND Smashwords AND iBooks AND Barnes & Noble. If so, then, if you want to suggest people buy, you either choose one or drop a clutter. Books2Read gives you a third option: set up a page with them (free — my favorite price point). Then you need one link. The page offers your selection of sales venues. Yes, it forces the reader into an extra step, but I think the benefit would outweigh the cost. Any reader who would be discouraged by an extra click isn’t one of my readers, anyway.

The next link I actually use for Per Bastet Publications, when I calculate our authors’ international royalties. Still, it could be useful in writing, depending on the story. I don’t usually send people to Yahoo!, but Currency Converter, part of Yahoo! Finance, allows you to convert from this to that, and to choose the date of conversion. So, if your character travels on September 10, 1897, to pick a date out of the air, you can see what his money would buy where.

I’m part of an active critique group but, if you live somewhere devoid of such help, or if you’re shy or antisocial or socially anxious, you might want to enter the Virtual Writers’ World. It’s a snazzy, jazzy virtual place to interact with other writers through social media, Second Life, and other digital and virtual world platforms. Coolio!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Send a character to 1897.

MA