J.V. Hilliard's Blog: The Realm

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a mouthful of a term which boils down to a method for attracting the right audience to your content. Today, we’ll be talking about how to grow your blog’s popularity. You want to not only increase visibility, but also your credibility as a content creator. When you need to make an online purchase, you look at the reviews on the product, right? The more positive reviews and views, the likelier you are to “buy into” what the seller is peddling. The same is true with social media influencers and their view count. The more activity on their page, the more “in the know” they seem. But how do you garner those views and that credibility? With a vast sea of other content, it’s easy to feel like you’re screaming into the void. So how do you go about getting noticed?

Know Your Demographic
The key to a great SEO is to know your audience. Narrow your demographic to certain
individuals. This may include their likes, dislikes, age, gender, job, etc. For the purposes of this article, let’s say your ideal target audience is readers with limited time to read, thus they have an interest in using audiobooks. This is a far more specific demographic than simply people that read your genre.

Keywords are your Friend
Once you identify the people you want your content to reach, run a search for terms that reflect that audience. Some terms will shock you, which is why research is important. Utilize every search engine including Amazon and social media. These keywords are not just the genre titles of your works, but also semi-related terms that can lead traffic back to your blogs. Use word clouds—a visual cluster of related words— to make connections you’d never consider otherwise. You can even look at hashtags from other social media accounts to identify these keywords.

Google Analytics
If you have a well-trafficked website already, use your own Google Analytics from that website to your advantage. What do people that visit your site spend the most time and money on? Who are they? Are you reaching a demographic you hadn’t anticipated? Are your audio book listeners selling to college students as well as parents?

Stick to Relevant Topics
Make sure your blog stays the course and doesn’t veer off the path. If your blog is dedicated to helping readers find alternative ways to read, such as bite-sized serials, audio books or e-books, you don’t want to start talking about which new horror movie impressed you this year. Stay on topic, and your audience will stay engaged.

Title your blogs to attract an audience.
“Tips for Alternative Ways to Read” is a blah title and does nothing to find your target audience. Instead, try “10 Tips for ID’ing Alternative Ways to Read for the Mom Juggling a Toddler and a Full-Time Job.” This harkens back to using keywords to their full extent. You want a title that pops and doesn’t blend into all the other content flooding the internet.

Short, but Sweet
Humans have short attention spans these days. We scroll through TikTok because each of the videos are short, but entertaining or informative. Keep your blogs digestible like nuggets of wisdom that can be consumed in an Uber ride or on their lunch break. Get to the point and “jump to the recipe” instead of reminiscing about your day.

Finding Your “Brand”
Through it all, be unique and let your personality shine. Research what others are reading and either respond to it or write about it. It’s important not to plagiarize others ideas, however. There is only one you, and this is your “brand” in a way. Frame your blogs in your own words and no one else’s. The authenticity and sincerity in your content will be something your target audience responds to and thanks you for.

Wrapping it Up
Remember that Search Engine Optimization doesn’t take effect overnight. To borrow a football idiom from Ohio State coach, Woody Hayes, your approach should be the “three yards and a cloud of dust” strategy. In other words, don’t worry about making an enormous impact right out of the gate. Commit yourself to the grueling grind until your days and weeks and months of work finally snowball and you find yourself with a sizeable audience. It may be slow going, but if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing the right way.

The first page of your novel should be an indicator of what’s to come—a taste of the wine before you order the bottle. The first page is what a lot of readers who browse their local bookstores glance at before deciding whether or not to purchase your book. So how do you make sure your book passes that bookstore test? There are a few ways to do this:

First, and perhaps the most obvious—Write a winning first sentence!

Punch the reader in the face with that first sentence. It’s your first chance to really wow them and immerse them in your world, almost daring them to read on. The opening line is the “hook” that spurs the curiosity in your readers to find out what happens to the protagonist next.
Suzanne Collins’s behemoth of a series, The Hunger Games, starts with, “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.” From this one sentence, the reader is wondering, “Why is this character reaching out to feel this coldness? Who is usually in this bed with this character? What happened to the person who usually sleeps there?” An effective first sentence encourages the reader to ask questions and will compel that reader to continue with the story in order to answer these questions.

In Medias Res

The Latin phrase meaning “in the middle of things,” in medias res storytelling is when an author starts their story in the midst of the plot. This is an historical technique that draws the reader in by skipping over exposition and jumping into the story at a pivotal or emotional scene. A great example of an in medias res storytelling is the first page of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight: “I'd never given much thought to how I would die—though I'd had reason enough in the last few months—but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.”

Here, Meyer took a sample of Twilight’s climax and placed it at the beginning of her novel as a sort of teaser for the audience.

Likewise, in medias res is utilized in successful Indie author Allison Ivy’s The Dragon and the Double-Edged Sword. In it, the main character, Lysandra, is fighting for her life against a mythical creature. In both novels, the reader doesn’t have any backstory starting out. They are thrown into the story events and whisked away on the character’s journey right from the start of the book (but the middle of the protagonist’s story).

The “Implicit Promise”

The “implicit promise” is a technique mentioned by popular science fiction writer, Nancy Kress, in her 2011 book Beginnings, Middles, and Ends (Elements of Fiction Writing). Kress writes of two kinds of promises—“emotional” and “intellectual.” Essentially (and I’m heavily paraphrasing here), you want to “promise” the reader that your story will grab them emotionally while also unveiling something about the world to them. It must be noted that you should always deliver on these promises through the rest of your book’s pages. Don’t leave the reader feeling cheated.

Show. Don’t Tell.

This is an age-old virtue. Make sure that winning first sentence puts the reader right in the way of your punchy first sentence. A quick check to see if you’re telling, rather than showing, is anytime you say a character “felt” something—with few exceptions. For example, did your main character feel fear or did their heart pound so hard against their ribcage, they thought it would jump out of their chest?

Build Empathy

Having a connection to the characters makes all the difference in a reading experience. You want them to empathize with a character’s failure or to cheer them on with every goal they meet. If a character doesn’t garner that empathy, it will be very easy for the reader to put the book down and find someone they do care about.

Don’t Be “Wordy"

Use one (but no more than two) adjectives. It’s important to paint the rich world you’ve created, but don’t go overboard. If you do, it may drag the story down. You want your prose to flow and keep the reader’s attention.

This is also true if you use too many adverbs. Stephen King said in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one in your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you’ll find five the next day… fifty the day after that… and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.”

Flashbacks

Avoid flashbacks right off the bat – what does the reader have to “flash back” to if they’ve just started your story? You need to make these characters connect with the reader with who they are now before their past even matters to your audience. The reader needs “footing” in your world before even contemplating what that world used to be.

Wrapping it Up

It’s very easy to overthink a first page but following these guidelines should be a great start to fleshing out your best “bookstore test.” Just don’t start with the old cliché, “It was a dark and stormy night,” and you’ll be fine!

Mentioned in this post:
Beginnings, Middles, and Ends (Elements of Fiction Writing) by Nancy Kress (2011)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (2000)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)
The Dragon and the Double-Edged Sword by Allison Ivy (2017)
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (2005)

In order to be an effective beta reader for your friends or clients, there are certain aspects of “the job” that you will need to accept. In this post, we’ll cover the good, the bad, and the ugly.
As an author that is seeking help with their WIP, the greatest priority for a beta reader is HONESTY. Look, you don’t have to be Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsay in your delivery, but your authors need you to be honest—constructively—so they may become better writers and consequently, tell better stories. A common technique between beta readers is the “sandwich method,” in which a reader will sandwich the criticism between two compliments. This way, the author doesn’t feel too disheartened, and the reader can convey their thoughts honestly and kindly.
Make sure to point out plot flaws, and offer solutions or ideas. Prepare the author for the questions you want to answer for them - good, bad and ugly.

The Good
* Remember to tell the author at which point(s) you found yourself immersed in their read? And if you don’t know, it’s the, “I have to find out what happens next” points in the book or the “I can’t put this book down” points. TELL THEM these first and foremost.
* Secondly, always explain to the author which character(s) were your favorite AND why. It’s all well and good to say you loved the characters, but authors like specifics when it comes to feedback. What did you like about them? Why would you go to battle to keep all of their scenes in the final manuscript?
* In that same vein, do you think some characters have earned more “play” in the books as readers will like them? Report and recommend this, as authors sometimes are too close to recognize this in their own work. Oftentimes, readers will connect with a certain character the author had just thrown in at the last second.
* Make sure to tell them what the most memorable thing was about the book. Which scene? Some scenes stick with you or hit you hard emotionally. Point them out.
* Ok, here’s the fun one… what did I use your crystal ball on—and it came true!? Is the writer too predictable or are you too good at guessing climaxes? It’s an important distinction, and one that could make or break the manuscript.
The Bad
* Just as important as what you like the most, is this—where were you confused? And be specific. Remember, you want to help the author improve their writing. Did a character come out of nowhere? Does a fact listed in the manuscript actually not make sense? Is there a scene that doesn’t fit in the flow of the story?
* What about the author’s writing was difficult to read? Sometimes, the author’s writing style doesn’t appeal to you, but was there something “jarring” about their wording? Could something be phrased differently? Does their paragraphing live up to par? Do you feel like you have to go back and re-read at points?
* So here’s a fun one—which character needs more fleshing out or backstory? Does Jeremiah Pennyworth have nothing going for him except a name? Mention this to the author. Or which characters seem flat or two dimensional.
* And finally, what about the book was problematic? Were there plot holes or missed opportunities?

The Ugly
* So here’s one for the “sandwich” method—what parts did you start to “skim” through or jump ahead? Was it because you didn’t like the story? Character? Make sure you include a “why” the author lost you.
* What about the book annoyed you as a reader? Not the plot, but was there anything that made it “hard to read”?
* Was the book problematic in a different way? You know the one. An insensitive author has trundled into a societal “no-no” and needs to be corrected before the manuscript is published. The last thing a reader needs is to be offended when they only expected to be entertained. Beta reading can save a reader and author from facing these problems.
* Did you ever put down the book because you didn’t like something? This could be very helpful to an author.

The Fun (Ok, I cheated and added a section. Sue me, Clint Eastwood…)
* What emotions did the book bring out in you as a reader and explain them and where they were.
* What scenes were your favorite because of the emotion?
* What other books did this book remind you of? Listing a book as a combination of two bestsellers is a powerful marketing tactic. For example, Caraval by Stephanie Garber was marketed as a blend of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
* Did any parts of the book remind you of your life or someone close to you, making it relatable? Sometimes, your favorite book will be the one you relate to the most.
* If you had to remove a character, who would it be and why? Is there an unnecessary character? A character you love to hate or hate to love? Killing our darlings is often the worst thing for an author, so any help a beta reader can lend in this task is always appreciated.
* What was the best scene? Favorite scene?
* What made you as a reader keep reading and or finish?

Final Thoughts
Beta reading is a fun and, at times, challenging task. Above all, it’s important to be honest with the author. Try not to be condescending in your criticism, but more constructive. The author will thank you for your kindness and professionalism. Now, go forth, brave beta. You are now armed with reviewing knowledge!