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Swim With Whales

Do you swim with whales? When we want big clients and big opportunities, we get in the water with them!…

2 weeks ago

Speakipedia Podcast #26: David Murray

Transcript Dave Bricker  (00:05) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia…

4 weeks ago

Speakipedia Podcast #23: Mitch Mitchem

Transcript  Dave Bricker (00:00) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia…

2 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #22: Paula Rizzo

Transcript Dave Bricker (00:07) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia…

2 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #19: Humphrey Bower

Dave Bricker (00:00) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media…

3 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #18: Pauline Butcher Bird

Dave Bricker: Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media brought…

3 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast # 15:<br>Simone Vincenzi

  Transcript Dave Bricker: Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia…

4 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #14:<br>Andrea Gold

Transcript:  Dave Bricker (00:07) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business?  This is Speakipedia…

4 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast # 13:<br>Rick Lozano

Transcription Dave Bricker (00:07) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speekipedia…

4 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast # 11:<br>Will Bowen

Transcription Dave Bricker (00:06) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media,…

5 months ago

Storytelling Wizard (Demo)

by Dave BrickerLoad a demo and view the AI-generated results. Intro Setup Protagonist Transformation Conflict Steps Characters The Story Introduction…

5 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #10:<br> Johann Callaghan

Dave Bricker (00:01) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media…

5 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast # 9:<br>David H. Lawrence the XVII

Transcript Dave Bricker (00:01) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakypedia…

5 months ago

Writing is Design: Avoid Writing Clichés for Better Prose

Since time immemorial, clichés have sneaked in the door when we least expect them to. They're low-hanging fruit for writers…

5 months ago

Nonfiction Writing and the One-sided Sales Conversation

Business, technology, and how-to books can be viewed as one-sided sales conversations. Though the author may hope to sell products…

5 months ago

Verbs: Spice Up Your Writing with Verbs that Rock

Verbs are the engines that move your writing and your readers, but many authors don’t spend enough time choosing the…

5 months ago

Book Design Basics: Choosing a Book Font

Selecting a book font seems simple enough, but important subtleties and fine points of typography are not obvious to the…

5 months ago

Rethinking Book Cover Design

Book cover design tells the story of the story. It must convey the spirit and intentions of the author authentically,…

5 months ago

Publishing Advice – Practices & Principles

The following publishing advice is based on my own experiences and those of my clients. I hope you find it…

5 months ago

Want a Traditional Publishing Contract? Do Your Homework

This article discusses the pros and cons of traditional publishing. Abandon your biases, study the business of publishing, and choose…

5 months ago

Writing is Design: Two-Word Writing Clichés

Two-word clichés are perhaps the least obvious kind. Unless we’re vigilant, they sneak into our prose, steal color, mask our…

5 months ago

Book Design Basics: Quotation Marks and Primes

Writers often ask about the difference between "straight" or "dumb" quotation marks and traditional printers' quotes, commonly referred to as…

5 months ago

Track Changes – The Essential Tool for Writers and Editors

If you’re not using your Word Processor’s Track Changes function, you’re missing out on one of the best writing tools…

5 months ago

The Perfect Book Sales Page

Tom Morkes published The Perfect Book sales Page on his blog. I'm usually the first person to reject formulaic approaches…

5 months ago

Publishing Scams and How they Work

Many self-publishers start their book projects with unrealistic expectations and misunderstandings about how publishing works. A huge industry has arisen…

5 months ago

How to Produce Audiobooks with Amazon ACX

This article explains how to produce and market a professional quality audiobook using Amazon ACX. Through ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange),…

5 months ago

Self-Publishing Scams: Keep the “Self” in Self-Publishing

Here's an addendum to Publishing Scams and How they Work. I wonder why so many authors, after spending thousands of…

5 months ago

Tabs, Indents, and Margins: How to use the Tab Ruler

This article explains the tab ruler found on every word processor and typesetting application. Understanding the simple and elegant split…

5 months ago

A Manuscript is Not a Book: Ten Tips for Manuscript Preparation

In my work with writers, I come across many common technical problems with manuscripts. These usually spring from the best…

5 months ago

Not Selling Books? Did you do the Math?

You threw a grand party but nobody came. Your novel is so good but you're not selling books. What happened?…

5 months ago

Writing is Design: Shy Away from Timid and Passive Writing

"Passive writing" refers to a specific set of grammatical circumstances where emphasis switches from subject to object. The money was…

5 months ago

Book Cover Design: Judging a Book by its Cover – Part 3

This third installment of Judging a Book by its Cover looks at great book cover designs that won the 2012…

5 months ago

Blogging to Build a Speaker or Author Platform

How can speakers, indie writers, and self-publishers use a blog to build a platform? This article explains how to publish…

5 months ago

Book Cover Design: Judging a Book by its Cover – Part 2

Part 1 of Book Cover Design: Judging a Book by its Cover critiqued "professional" covers taken from Amazon's Editor's choice…

5 months ago

Book Cover Typefaces and Cover Design Horror Stories

I recently responded to a question in a writers’ forum from an author who was in the process of designing…

5 months ago

What’s a Professional Editor Worth?

What do you think a professional editor's pay scale should be? Assume that a proofreader would be at the bottom…

5 months ago

Co-Publishing – Alternative Path or Another Trap for Writers?

I recently published a post about the difference between vanity publishing and true self-publishing. Fundamentally, the article defines a publisher…

5 months ago

Book Cover Design: Judging a Book by Its Cover – Part 1

Nothing screams “amateur” like a poorly crafted book cover. The standards for book design aspired to by trade publishers are…

5 months ago

Self-Publishing & Vanity Publishing: Confuse Them and Pay the Price

What is true self-publishing? What is the difference between self-publishing and “vanity publishing” or “subsidy publishing?” How do these differ…

5 months ago

Proposed Standards for Book Typography

The word processor has placed new burdens on writers to understand how to use italics, big and small capitals, dashes,…

5 months ago

Straight Talk About Book Reviews

Book  reviews are critically important. Have you ever read a book hoping it would get better, only to find that…

5 months ago

Book Design Basics – Drop Caps and Initial Impressions

NITIAL CAPITALS have historical roots in the early days of book design; their use predates the printing press and the…

5 months ago

Book Design Basics: Small Capitals – Avoiding Capital Offenses

Use of Small Capitals—uppercase characters designed at lowercase scale—is one aspect of writing and book design that isn’t taught in…

5 months ago

Book Design Basics Part 1: Margins and Leading

Book design is a lost art. Though book design discussions usually focus on covers, consider how much more time a…

5 months ago

Book Distributors: What’s in it for Publishers?

There is a direct relationship between the number of sales you can expect from a book distributor and the value-added…

5 months ago

Tone

Tone in writing and speaking refers to the attitude or approach that the author or speaker takes toward the subject…

5 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #3: <br>Scott Lesnick

 Transcript Dave Bricker (00:06) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia…

6 months ago

Using Other People’s Content: Fair Use

When can you use someone else’s intellectual property? With the property-holder’s permission, you can do what you want. That’s the…

9 months ago

AI Storytelling Wizard

by Dave Bricker Intro Setup Protagonist Transformation Conflict Steps Characters The Story Introduction If you have zero carpentry skills and…

10 months ago

Free E-Books by Dave Bricker

Effective speakers wrap their messages in stories—but few understand what stories are and how they work. This brief guide explores…

10 months ago

William Lyon Phelps: A Borrowed Book

(419 words) William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943) was an American educator, literary critic and author. On April 6, 1933, in response…

10 months ago

Blog is Short for Backlog

One of my colleagues has written a blog post every week for the past 17 years. If you’re that disciplined…

10 months ago

Publish a Book as a Business Card

I’ve written and published 14 books… And as far as book sales go, that’s made me tens of dollars. Two…

10 months ago

How to Negotiate with a Speaker?

How do you negotiate with a speaker? What if you find just the right speaker for your conference and then…

10 months ago

Stories to Never Tell: The Starfish Story

Like the Chauffeur story, here’s a tale that thousands of speakers love to tell but shouldn’t: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=speaker+telling+the+starfish+story A man walking…

10 months ago

Intromatic (Demo)

Load a demo and view the AI-generated results. Speaker Introduction Wizard by Dave Bricker A strong, interesting, and concise introduction…

11 months ago

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