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Get Prompted in 2012!

January 23rd, 2012 by Shannon

So far it’s been an extra special month of big announcements and new features to make Duolit even more awesome in 2012 (I know, we didn’t think it was possible either!). We’ve got our first Reader Mailbag in the works (be sure to send in your questions!), a guest post contest (friendly reminder: the deadline to submit your post is this Friday, Jan. 27th!), plus a new thrice-weekly posting schedule, monthly giveaways for our awesome Indie Ninjas, and link-up posts for you to share your thoughts with other Duolit readers.

Well, prepare yourself, because as if all those things weren’t awesome enough, we’ve got one more new feature to announce this month…

photo by x1brett

Introducing: Duolit Indie Inspirations

Do you sometimes struggle to come up with topics for your blog? We know the feeling. You want to make weekly updates to your blog, but you can’t think of the perfect topic to write about. There are a few services out there that provide prompts, but we’ve decided it’s time to put together some Duolit inspirations to help all of us fill our blogs with quality content, insightful thoughts and helpful information.

We’ve got three steps to make this a reality.

Step One: Brainstorming

If we all put our heads together and throw out a few of our favorite blog topics in the comments of this post. We welcome ideas in all categories from silly things (what’s your favorite kind of sandwich?) to author-related things (what made you decide to become a writer?) to creative short story prompts (“she set the glass of lemonade on the table and made an announcement…”). Whatever you can conjure up, we want to hear it!

Step Two: Make a list

This Friday (January 27th) we will announce the four prompts we’ve selected for the month of February. If your prompt isn’t selected, no worries, we’re going to keep a collection of everyone’s suggestions. So if yours isn’t on this month’s list, it might be used next month! We will keep taking new prompt suggestions in a once-monthly blog and might even throw in a few of our own.

Step Three: Get to writing!

Throughout the month of February we hope you guys will use our prompts to write your own blogs. You can tackle all four prompts, or just choose one or two that appeal to you. Either way, we’ll have a link-up post for each topic so you guys can share your blogs. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Coming up next: 5 Easy Steps to Setting your Writing Goals

Join us back on the blog Wednesday for our monthly writing post outlining five easy steps to setting your 2012 writing goals (if you haven’t already!).

Later days,

- Shannon

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Help Your Fellow Indie Authors & Win an Amazon.com Gift Card!

January 11th, 2012 by Toni

In Monday’s jam-packed announcement post, we announced an exciting opportunity for all of our amazingly talented indie author friends: a Self-Publishing Writing Contest!

What is the Self-Publishing Writing Contest?

One of the great things about the self-publishing and indie author community as a whole is the range of backgrounds and experiences of the authors who make it up. The self-publishing writing contest is your chance to showcase your knowledge, experience or perspective on any topic of interest to indie authors — and win some cool prizes at the same time.

How does it work?

  1. Submit an original (written by you), unpublished (not previously published) 500-1000 word post on ANY self-publishing-related topic. This includes, but is not by any means limited to: writing, motivation, design, branding, publishing, marketing, promotion, social media, and personal stories/advice.
  2. Send us your post any time on or before January 27th. This is the drop-dead, cut-off date!
  3. We will choose at LEAST the four best posts (or, all that we receive up to that point) to run during the first two weeks of February. You’ll get full credit as well as promotion of your post through Twitter and Facebook.
  4. Voting will open the 3rd Monday of the month and remain open through the end of the month. Votes are limited to one vote per IP, so be sure to spread the word! (more…)
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Send in Your Self-Publishing Questions & What’s New in 2012

January 9th, 2012 by Toni

It’s a new year, and it’s the perfect time to jump start your writing career! What are you going to do this year to reach your publishing goals?

No matter where you are in the publishing process or what those goals are, we’ll be here to help you every step of the way.

I feel like the first post of the year has to be something special — so how about we unveil some of the new features, tools and resources planned this year?

The Reader Mailbag

At some point in the publishing process, we find ourselves stuck — it’s inevitable. Have a question in your head about writing, editing, design, publishing, marketing or any other indie author-y topic? We can guarantee you that, at some point, another author has had exactly the same question.

To help everyone out, we’re debuting a monthly feature called the Reader Mailbag. It’s simple: send in your self-publishing question and we’ll answer it on the blog on the first Monday of every month.

If you want us to use your name and link to your website, we certainly will, or if you’d rather remain anonymous we can accommodate that as well.

What are you waiting for? It only takes 30 seconds — send in your question now!

The Self-Publishing Writing Contest

You read that right: a contest! That means prizes galore, and we couldn’t be more excited. (more…)

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Live a little, write a lot: get your NaNoWriMo swag!

October 31st, 2011 by Toni

First off, congratulations to “Live a little, write a lot,” the winner of last week’s poll and Duolit’s Offical 2011 NaNoWriMo slogan! Thanks to Sadey for creating this slogan for us. For her contribution, Sadey has also become an honorary yearly Indie Ninja (we’ll give you a shout about that soon, Sadey)!

Today, on NaNoWriMo Eve, we’d like to show you some swag we’ve created to keep you inspired all month long, all featuring this year’s slogan. Check out our new CafePress store for shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, journals and more! We created four unique designs from which to choose:


[Link to NaNoWriMo Coffee Stain products]


[Link to NaNoWriMo Blue Swoosh products]


[Link to NaNoWriMo Red Pen products]


[Link to NaNoWriMo Speech Bubble products]

We’re so proud to unveil these products to you guys, and we hope they offer a bit of NaNoWriMo inspiration. Be sure to get lots of sleep tonight (after the candy high wears off), because tomorrow is the big day. We can’t wait to check out your NaNoWriMo projects!

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Choose Our NaNoWriMo Slogan! [Poll]

October 20th, 2011 by Toni

Update: The poll is now closed. Congratulations to “Live a little, write a lot,” the winner and Duolit’s 2011 NaNoWriMo slogan! Thanks to Sadey for creating this slogan for us — she’s also become an honorary yearly Indie Ninja!

Back at the beginning of the month, we asked our awesome readers to come up with a creative slogan to be Duolit’s theme for this year’s NaNoWriMo. Boy, did you guys come through! We got a bunch of amazing entries and want to extend a sincere “thank you” to everyone who submitted a slogan.

Alas, however, there can only be one winner. After intense deliberations over s’mores at our meeting last night, Shannon and I chose three slogans to be in contention for the big prize. Your options:

 

Voting will remain open until 6pm ET on October 28th. We’ll announce the winner (as well as introduce some cool NaNoWriMo swag featuring the winning slogan) on Halloween, October 31st!

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