7 Ways to Grow Your Blog

Most of us have recovered from the frantic, sometimes exhausting, challenge of the A to Z Blog hop. Hopefully during that time some new readers found your blog and you found a number of interesting sites to follow. But perhaps the numbers on your blog have stagnated. Are you picking up new followers on a regular basis? If not, what are some ways you can do that?

1. Bring readers to you. Announce your post on Twitter, Facebook and on Google+. Remember to use an attention-grabbing title on your post. (Use those numbers.) And add a short description to your link so readers want to check it out.

2. Another way to bring readers to you is to join in smaller blog hops that are a one and done or a monthly or weekly happening. (Like IWSG!) Recently I joined in The Then and Now Movie blog hop. Not a huge group and easy to visit everyone during a really interesting hop.

3. There are other ways to go out and find some great blogs. Most of them will follow you back. Check out the sidebar of your favorite blogs. Chances are they will have a list of their favorite blogs there. Click on them and you'll find some blogs you might want to follow. You can meet some nice people from my sidebar on Susan Says.

4. Many times when you're reading your favorite blogs, the poster will also be guesting on another site. Follow those guest post links to find other interesting blogs.

5. And when you're posting your announcements on Facebook and Twitter, don't forget to click on the links other bloggers are sharing in those same venues. They're searching for soul mate bloggers too.

6. Read the comments when you're commenting on someone's post. If you see a comment that is insightful, supportive or perhaps just entertaining, find that blog. You might meet someone interesting.

7. And remember all the rules of blog etiquette. Return comments, post regularly, make your content interesting and relevant to your blog theme.

Don't forget, Wednesday is the monthly posting for IWSG. A great time to grow your blog audience. What suggestions could you add to the above list? Have you found interesting blogs through Facebook or Twitter? Do you have an interesting blog hop that isn't the massive event of A to Z that works well in introducing you to new bloggers?

Don't forget IWSG Wednesday!

Susan Gourley writes epic fantasy and romance as Susan Kelley. Find her blog at Susan Says.

Where to Find Royalty Free Music

One of the essentials for a good book trailer is the music. It sets the mood and tone of the story. Really effective music can elevate an otherwise average trailer to something compelling and powerful.

However, you can’t use just any music. You can’t select the latest pop hit without acquiring the right to use it. Since your trailer will be viewed over and over, you’ll need royalty free music.

What is royalty free? According to Wikipedia:

"Royalty-free, or RF, refers to the right to use copyrighted material or intellectual property without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use or per volume sold, or some time period of use or sales."

Online, there are many places to find royalty free music, both free and for a fee. When selecting your music, be sure to check the following:

The license agreement
Cost of music
Cost to access music site
Length of music

Here is a list of sites that offer music for commercial use either for free or for a fee:

Audionautix
Free Music Archive
Free Stock Music
Dig CCMixer
Sound Cloud
Vimeo Music Store
Incompetech
Music Bakery
Jamendo
Stock Music Site
Pixel Prospector - lists a variety of other music sites

Have you created a book trailer? What other royalty free music sites have you discovered?

The Art of Writing for Games - Serving the Masters

By Timothy Brannan

It is my pleasure to speak (write?) here for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. I have seen links for this this groups on dozens if not hundreds of blogs. I just never felt I was a good fit for the group to be honest because the type of writing I do is kind of different. Sure I still deal with characters and worlds and situations of a purely fictional, if not fantastic, nature. But the characters are out of my control and the world is only good for me in that it allows others to play in it.

What's this mean?

I am a game writer. I write books for Role-Playing Games. The most famous of which is Dungeons & Dragons, but there are hundreds and hundreds of these games out there. I tend to write books that allow people to play in games that are very, very close to D&D but not exactly it. I do this via a license known as the Open Gaming License. It is a bit like Creative Commons, but more restrictive. Why would I opt for something more restrictive? Well it also gives me some tools that are great to use and the ability to use other works that help make my own work smoother. The OGL (and it's "Oh Gee El" never "oogle") is the first of many masters I have to serve when working on a game book. These Masters are the topic of today's post.

Serving Two or More Masters
There is an old saying that a person can't serve two masters. In game writing, two masters might the least amount I serve! Who are my masters and why must I serve them? Well some, like the OGL, tell what I can and cannot publish. I can never say "Compatible with the Basic Dungeons & Dragons game" but I can say, and have said, "compatible with the Basic Era of the worlds first Fantasy Role-Playing Game". Others are Masters I put on myself. I will detail them a bit below and talk about how it has affected and shaped my writing.

First Master: Is it a Good Game?
There are lots of great ideas out there. Lots of great stories. But not all of those stories make for a good game. Don Quixote is a great story. Macbeth is a great story. Neither would make for a good game book. To write a good game book I have to constantly ask myself what would the characters do with this. In Don Quixote or Macbeth those answer flow easier since the author is in charge of the characters. I am not in charge of the characters. I only provide the windmills. Indeed, windmills may be a bad idea. Let's compare this to Star Wars. I build a universe and a huge Galactic War with an evil Empire. What good is that is Luke says "nah...I'll stay on the farm." I have to think about what the characters could do and provide the means for them to be heroic. So Luke's Aunt and Uncle are killed, Ben convinces him, Stormtroopers shoot at them in Mos Eisley Spaceport.

Second Master: Does it Follow the Rules?

Don Quixote isn't going to pull out a rocket launcher to attack the windmills. Lady Macbeth isn't going to use a gun and if Luke escapes Tatooine I better know for sure if the ship he is in is capable of Hyperspace. This is the same as any other writer. We all do world building, sometimes that world building was done by someone else. In my case the rules are not abstract, they are codified in another book and I can't break those rules. Sure I can add to them, even bend them here and there, but never break. This is also where the OGL helps me out. If I say a spell "Dazes" a victim I don't need to spell out what happens, the rules in the books already do. If I say it "Frazzles" someone well then I better define that since that is not in the rules. Even then I have to follow the same format the "Dazes" or "Stunned" uses.

The road I have to navigate is getting narrower! What else?

Third Master: Historical Accuracy...sorta
I not only write fantasy games, but horror games too. One of my pride and joys is "Ghosts of Albion" a Victorian horror game. So ghosts, vampires, werewolves are all fine, but getting a date wrong? Out of the question! Yes I know that having creatures like this would change history, but I like to pretend their impact is minimal since they are trying to stay hidden. I would at least like it if someone opened one of my books and learned something useful. Maybe it is the former teacher in me. For other books, like The Witch, there is less historical accuracy to worry about. But I still want to stay as close to history as possible. So the "historical" witch form myth, fairy tale and folklore needs to be adequately represented in my books. At least to level I think is best.

Finally, The Fourth Master: What Works Best for Me?
I have to make sure the worlds I create work in terms of internal consistency and rules, I have make sure that it stands up to some external validity (history, myth, folklore, whatever is needed) but I also have to make sure that it works for me. I have to be behind it and it has to interest me. I have written a lot of game books for hire. I am fortunate in the fact that I can pick and choose my gigs. I usually find things that work for me or have people seek me out to write things in my area. But every so often I get a gig and the material is not a good fit. In any case I have be interested in the material, I have to be vested in it.

So who are your Masters? Do you know them or acknowledge them? What affects your writing the most?