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palmett-hoes · 4 years ago

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this was originally meant to be a response/follow-up to @i-did 's post about race in the aftg fandom (that you should read). i ran it by him first and asked permission to add, but then we decided it was too long so i should make it its own post

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i want to talk about fandom's take on the twins' race because it's rather glaring in the fandom that andrew (and then aaron by necessity) are often portrayed as the only white characters on the team and i have to question why?

there's nothing in the backstories that would mean writing them as POC would fling them headlong into offensive stereotypes that the fandom hasn't bypassed over to make another fox a POC.

they have a history of addiction? but it's okay for matt and seth to be addicts and be brown.

they're violent? but it's okay for renee to be non-white and a former gang member.

they're blond and 'pale'¹? but allison can be a WOC and bleach her hair without saying it explicitly? renee can have white rainbow hair no matter the AU? neil can be a blue-eyed redhead and still be drawn darker skinned half the time?

'pale' in and of itself is a very vague word that's only brought up in the context of comparison to notably dark skinned nicky. it's completely relative, and multi-racial families where people look wildly different from each other exist (pretty commonly). or if you're prescriptivist how about the multiple ways a POC can still be a natural blond including but not limited to pigmentation conditions or being mixed race? similarly, i think less than a quarter of the FCs i've seen for andrew over the years have been natural blonds themselves.

so if our holdups aren't about racial stereotyping and they aren't about the incredibly vague character descriptions, then why are the twins always white when it's approached as a good thing that no one else is? when i've seen multiple different posts lauding the fandom for adding diversity where nora didn't write it, except for here?

to be completely, bluntly honest, it's because we as a majority-white fandom are uncomfortable when we are not the central characters. or maybe we are uncomfortable when people of color ARE the central characters. i don't think there's much of a difference.

we are comfortable writing and drawing nicky, the upperclassmen, then kevin (in that order) as poc because, simply, we use them as background characters. they are rarely the main characters of fics, or have their own storylines in them; it all revolves around andreil.

additionally, while i've used neil up to now as an example of the fandom being OKAY with writing POC, let's also admit that it's an,, imperfect representation, as he will often be racially ambiguous with no explicit ethnicity, he will be the lightest skinned of the foxes of color, and he will still have eurocentric features. also it's genuinely a toss up as to whether he's drawn brown or not, there are still plenty of white neils, much more than there are white dans and matts and renees (not an attack on anyone who draws white neils, simply a statement) and FCs and edits of him still tend to be white people.

he's a bit of a schrödinger's person of color, not really any one thing or another, very few people being willing to take a hard stance on him and do the work of taking that decision under consideration when writing and drawing him.

(quick shout-out here to @hi-raethia for making content about an explicitly chinese interpretation of neil).

(additionally, to be as clear about my intended message as possible, this isn't a statement on the politics of passing or undermining the ethnicities of lightskinned poc, this is about a lack of detail being put into making a character a character of color in any thoughtful, meaningful, or significant way)

so when i talk about the centralization of white people in fandom, neil gets to be included, perhaps with a footnote indicating that this is somewhat of a more complicated statement than it is with lily-white andrew minyard.

nevertheless, i feel comfortable saying that 75% of fandom content revolves around andrew and neil, major exceptions only being jerejean which are often stand-alone from the foxes, and the rising branch of kevaaron shippers. however both of those ships are actually subject to this exact same criticism, as ships between a a flat-out white character and a dubiously "non-white" character who can also be white sometimes. it varies.

conspicuously, content about the UPPERCLASSMEN tends to revolve around andrew and neil.

fics where the upperclassmen are the pov character are often outside-perspective fics on andreil.

HC posts about the upperclassmen, especially matt, will devote major portions to his time spent helping, hanging with, and thinking about andrew and/or neil.

secondary ships like danmatt or renison tend to be just that, secondary ships moving in the background of andreil-focused works. they get more of a,,, scenic shout-out than a storyline

it is only comfortable for us to write these characters as characters of color if they revolve entirely around white characters

so after all that? what should we do, as a white-majority fandom? what should YOU, specifically, as a white person, do?

i hate to talk about a problem without also talking about solutions, and i try not to carp on something i don't want to be an active part of fixing. public criticism without an action plan only leads to hurt feelings and guilt, and that's never my intention when bringing this up. my goal is to address a general problem, not anyone specific's personal failings.

in all honesty leaning completely into all of the foxes being people of color, though i think neat and i certainly support, is not the best solution, and would be more of a hollow action than anything else without addressing the underlying problems that lead to the development of this dynamic.

i think the best thing to do would be to 1. do some research on writing poc, usually by following some writing-specific blogs like @writingwithcolor or @pocinmymedia . look up the 'black best friend' trope and really spend some time tjinking about it. spend an hour seeking out a random assortment of blogs that interest you that are also run by people of color. checking through tags like drawingwhileblack or blacktober may be good kickoff points.

tumblr is great because with an hour of active work to find these blogs, you can then go months passively seeing content from them. try not to interact, actually, simply watch and listen and become familiar with general trends and concerns in different communities. remember that every blog is run by an individual person, not an elected representative of their race, and always keep this in mind.

you are teaching YOURSELF that people of color are individuals, they have interests and inner lives that don't revolve around whiteness, that don't revolve around YOU

at the same time, 2. challenge yourself as a creator to make more content about the upperclassmen, specifically. make art about them doing stuff as a group separate from neil and andrew's group. find a compilation of 'draw the squad' memes and draw/tag the upperclassmen only. make jokes where they talk to each other. write some meta about their character motivations. write a fic where andreil isn't even mentioned, it can be super short, you can even use a prompt generator.

as a reader, reread their backstories in the extra content. reread son nefes. use ao3's filtering system to read some fics about JUST the upperclassmen, few and far apart though they may be.

if we've decided that the upperclassmen are people of color then lean into that, and learn to CARE about them on their own merit, because they are the most underutilized characters in the fandom. we need to make content centralized around them to combat the fact that fandom centralizes whiteness

#txt #fandom #the foxes #dan wilds #matt boyd #renee walker #seth gordon #allison reynolds #my posts

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strangehunger · 5 years ago

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hi! from the stuff you have on your blog we seem to have a similar taste in media, so i wondered do you have any recommendations for quality enemies to lovers content? whether that be a book, film, fanfic, whatever! thank you, and hope you have a lovely day

Ooh, I love this question! I really like the enemies to lovers trope but I'm picky about it, so the list of things I'd genuinely reccommend is a little small 😅 most of it is also gay.

Keep in mind some of these are first in a series or have ambiguous endings or are still in progress in some way, so some of this is going to be lovers to something incredibly intimate and on the cusp of lovers.

Books:

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Yeah. You knew this was coming. Billed as lesbian necromancers in space. A necromancer and a swordswoman who happen to be childhood enemies are forced to team up and undergo a series of trials to ascend to a godlike position at the side of The Emperor. In space. With a big cast of fun characters. I think the sequel will have more layers of enemies to lovers too. You like enemies? You like learning to trust your enemy? You like fealty? Here you go.

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. This one has been making the rounds lately. Epistolary novel told as letters between two time traveling agents in an "edit war" who fall in love. f/f. Pretty unambiguous ending.

THIS IS HOW YOU SURVIVE THE COHABITATIONAL BLISS THAT FOLLOWS AFTER YOU WIN/LOSE THE TIME WAR by Scott Lynch. Yes. Scott Lynch. This is a fanfic for the aforementioned Time War he wrote as a gift to the authors and blessed the rest of us by posting it to ao3.

The Amberlough Dossier by Lara Elena Donelly. It's hard to say if this one is actual enemies to lovers. It's a non magic fantasy set in a country on the verge of a civil war that mirrors Weimar Germany but, like, glitzy as hell. The two main characters are in a relationship from the start of the book, but it stars two incredibly snarky assholes, one of whom is an intelligent agent for the government and the other of which is a drug smuggling kingpin and also a drag queen. They SHOULD be enemies but are at a relationship at the beginning by the first book, though they definitely are constantly keeping things from each other and still working for their own sides. Heavy on politics but gorgeous writing. Everyone's the asshole here. m/m.

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. Okay this one isn't REALLY enemies to lovers, more like childhood friends to adult friends whose relationship ends up fractured by being on different sides once they are already lovers, but it's cool! Set in a near future on the verge of collapse, the two characters are like the prodigies of a tech company and a magic coven that are kinda fighting for control to restore balance on earth. This is actually m/f, for once.

The Binding by Bridget Collins. A little slow to start, this one is a historical fantasy in which certain people have the ability to "bind" the memories of others into books. I don't want to say much more bc it might give a way some of the twists. m/m. TW for explicit mentions (though not descriptions, if I recall accurately) of sexual assault, though not involving either of the MCs.

For tv and film, I really don't watch a lot of either 😅 so I just have the one

Killing Eve. If you haven't watched it, you really should. A British intelligence agent and a Russian assassin play a game of cat and mouse across Europe.

Things I haven't read or watched/read or watched but disliked/am on the fence about but YMMV:

Criers War by Nina Varela. This one is fantasy with steampunk elements with a romance between an automaton princess and a human servant who is secretly part of a human rebellion. This one is very much loved but I wasn't into it, it was a bit YA for my taste and also just... I didn't love the characters. It's pretty popular though.

The 100 had this with Lexa and Clarke but honestly save yourself the rage and just watch a supercut; the rest is not worth it.

Compass Rose by Anna Burke is on my list and I THINK it's enemies to lovers? It's supposed to be f/f and space pirate-y.

Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear is also on my list. It's sci-fi and I think it has like, enemies to idiots who make bad decisions and make out but I am pretty sure it doesn't have a full on romance? apparently it's hella queer

I'm sorry, the odds you have read/seen a handful of these already is probably fairly high 😭 especially because that trope is Having A Moment. Fanfic is hard to rec without knowing what you're interested in. I'm mostly reading Gideon the Ninth fanfic right now and almost all of it is, in some way, enemies to lovers. Good Omens has a lot of incredibly petty and funny or like serious and emotional enemies to lovers fanfic too.

#Rhiannon replies

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thelastgherkin · 5 years ago

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All toys released as part of War for Cybertron: Siege feature an individualised military insignia, denoting each character’s position in their respective army’s command structure. The three part insignia, delineated by Hasbro here, reveals the character’s Division (Land, Air, Sea, Space), Unit (Infantry, Intelligence, Medic, Engineering, Special Ops, Artillery, Transport), and Rank (General, Major, Captain, Sergeant, Private). Above is a diagram listing the command structure of all Siege toys, constructed from original research and using my own photos where possible.

EDIT 22/6/2020: This chart has been updated to use all my own photography, no longer relying on Hasbro stock photography! It has also been updated to include Takara’s Nemesis Prime (see below).

Larger versions of these charts are available here.

Some things to note:

The aforementioned Hasbro page lists an insignia for the Sea Division, which has not yet appeared on any toy packaging owing to a lack of seafaring characters. The Recon Unit listed on the same page also appears to be unused: the above Autobot characters listed in the Intelligence Unit are only there due to supposition, and could just as easily fit in the Recon Unit; no Decepticon characters are known to be in the Recon Unit.

The Hasbro page also notes that the Decepticons give their Units more sinister names than the Autobots. The following Units are directly corresponding pairs: Intelligence and Espionage, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Special Ops and Black Ops, and Artillery and Air Force Weapons.

In general, toys released under the Generations Selects banner did not receive insignias of their own. The two exceptions to this are Combat Megatron and Galactic Man Shockwave, both of which share their insignia with their Siege mainline counterparts.

The further exception to this rule is Generations Selects Smokescreen, who did not receive a rank on his packaging or instructions, but DID receive a rank in the related card game.

The card game seems to list all Decepticon Privates as having the rank of “Raider” instead.

The Autobot Micromaster Countdown did not receive an individual rank of his own, so he is listed here alongside his larger partner, Omega Supreme.

Jetfire, a toy with a faction-swapping play gimmick, only received an insignia for the Autobot command structure.

Character variants usually occupy the same Unit and Rank (e.g. Optimus Prime, Mirage and Holo Mirage), or at the very least just the Rank (e.g. Sideswipe and Covert Clone Sideswipe), but Soundblaster’s deviation in both Unit and Rank from Soundwave implies a divergence between the two Decepticons.

Impactor, in swapping his faction from the Decepticons to the Autobots, appears to have found his true calling, going higher up the chain of command and leading a more specialised Unit.

As of 22/6/2020, this chart now includes Takara’s Voyager Nemesis Prime. This release reuses almost all of Voyager Optimus Prime’s graphic design, including his insignia and box art. As a result, despite the figure’s Decepticon faction, Nemesis Prime has been placed in the Autobot command structure. I wouldn’t read anything into this other than a lazy graphic designer.

As of 30/1/2021, this chart has been updated to reflect additional information discovered on instructions sheets. Bluestreak is now added as an Infantry Major, the same rank as Prowl, probably owing to a copy/paste error. Nightflight and Slyhopper’s ranks have been discovered to be swapped on the instruction sheet. In all three cases, the box should take precedent, owing to a similar error on War for Cybertron Trilogy Voyager Hotlink’s sheet. But that is a story for another time. EDIT: characters with misprinted or incorrect ranks have been altered in opacity so as to remove ambiguity.

UPDATE 15/8/2021: While doing research for a TFwiki article, I stumbled into a rabbit hole with Ratchet right at its centre. Having bought Ratchet loose, I only had the instructions and photos of the box to go by when placing him as a Ground Engineering Private. From the page on War for Cybertron insignias, I learned that Ratchet actually received a different symbol: the inner card of his packaging actually gives him a unique rank, that the Siege tie-in website calls “Ground Engineering Specialist”. Ratchet is literally the only “Specialist” in all of War for Cybertron, so I’ve placed him just outside of the heirarchy, keeping him as a Private as an alternative rank that fits into the established structure. In the real life US Army, Specialist is a rank that exists above Private and below Sergeant.

...However, the text on the website that describes Ratchet as a Ground Engineering Specialist is erroneously paired with the insignia of the previous character in sequence – Mirage – alleging that Ratchet is a Ground Special Ops Sergeant. This has a knock-on effect, as the next character in sequence, Omega Supreme, receives Ratchet’s Ground Engineering Specialist insignia, even though his text description reinforces that he should be a Space Transport Captain! While scrutinising the website, I also found that Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime is paired with a symbol meaning Space Special Ops General – contradicting the text description that calls him a Space Infantry General.

These insignias continue to be used in further War for Cybertron toylines, and I intend to keep you updated as time goes on. On my blog, charts like this will be tagged with #WFC rank project.

#Transformers #Siege #Optimus Prime #Megatron #Ultra Magnus #Prowl #Starscream #Soundwave #Shockwave #WFC rank project

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chacusha · 6 years ago

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FFVI live-blogging (1/?)

While I wait for all my game consoles and my PC to make their way here, I decided I would replay Final Fantasy VI on an emulator. In particular, I’m trying out the GBA edition for the very first time. Exciting!

Little known fact: I have never finished FFVI despite it being one of my favorite games. I have probably started a new game and played through a significant portion of the story about five or six times (the farthest I got was the World of Ruin after having re-collected most of party again i.e. able to fight Kefka at any point but still dicking around with sidequests).

Followup fact: This is because there are some aspects of this game that I struggle with because I’m really obsessive about how I play games. In particular, the magicite/Esper system is really hard for me to deal with, because I obsessively try to make sure every person in my party builds up a fairly complete repertoire of magic, which takes an insane amount of grinding. (And then I don’t really use magic other than healing spells, so uh... I don’t know why I do that.) The second thing is Gau’s Rage skills. I also get really obsessive about building up a fairly complete collection, which usually involves HOURS of grinding on the Veldt (an activity that doesn’t even give EXP, apparently? somehow I never realized that...).

So anyway, I’m now at the point where Terra rejoins your party after turning into her esper form (and Celes is back in the empire). In other words, I am now at the point where I have a new flood of magicite and the Veldt is newly accessible again and uh... it might be a while before I move on. 😅

Anyway some thoughts:

One thing I like about the early Final Fantasy games is how obviously inspired they are by Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, and I think FFVI is the game that makes that inspiration most clear. The story framing of a small group of people (each of them a distinguished person in their own right -- a king, a general, the strongest knight of a kingdom, a gambling airship pilot, etc. etc.) band together to take down an expansionist empire against all odds, even if that means sneaking behind enemy lines to carry out a dangerous mission. (I forever love Biggs and Wedge, and the “Aren’t you a little short to be an Imperial trooper?” line.)

I love the maximally steampunk aesthetic of Figaro Castle going into submerging mode.

Edgar is a very similar character to Ringabel -- charming and flirts with every woman in a kind of gallant way. Despite how that kind of behavior would be irritating in real life (and occasionally crosses into sketchy territory, like when flirting with children), they are both perennially popular characters among women. I find that fascinating. Like, I also know I’d find that behavior annoying if I encountered it in real life, but I also really enjoy both of these characters??

The reveal of Locke’s literal dead girlfriend in a basement will never not be amazingly hilarious, creepy, and very sad all at the same time.

Guy in Jidoor: “After they threw out all the poor people in town...” Me: After they did what now? (Not sure how I feel about the class politics of “all the poor people are pathological liars” that is Zozo. Then again, they also had a “rich dude betrayed everyone in South Figaro to fascists the empire for money” so maybe that makes up for it.)

The opera scene is still A+++. Like, one of the things that make it so great is that the sets (like the balcony that Celes is on) would be crazy amazing if they actually existed in real life. Like, imagine going to the opera, and they have this amazing multi-level tower, complete with a balcony, pillars, and a beautiful night sky backdrop. You’d be like, holy shit, they didn’t hold back!!

Having played FFIX, I now can see how much of FFVI is in that game. The theatre troupe, the auction house, the lady-protecting thief, etc. are all very familiar.

The scene with Celes and Locke in the Magitek Factory (where Kefka claims that Celes was on the Empire’s side the entire time) reads differently to me than it did in the SNES version for some reason. I always thought that Celes was obviously what she appeared to be (a deserting general) and that Locke’s “omg is it true, Celes?? 😧” reaction was just him being dumb/gullible. But during this playthrough, this scene makes it seem like Celes actually WAS meant to infiltrate the Returners and she had a change of heart halfway through. I think the reasons it reads differently are (1) that there isn’t as much flavor text that indicates Celes’s character or personality (the SNES description of Celes having “a spirit as pure as snow” makes it sound like she deserted the Empire because she could no longer stand its crimes, but the more accurate GBA description that people have never seen the woman that lies underneath the general simply suggests that she is hard to read AKA a good spy), and (2) Kefka’s more detailed claim that Celes “deserted” and was “rescued” in order to infiltrate the Returners seems too specific for him to be making that up on the fly. I wonder if that was the writers’ intention, though... Okay, wow, looking up information on the FF Wikia and comparing game scripts, and I think spy!Celes is canon: “Celes was originally meant to be a ‘conflicted spy’ archetype—a spy working for the antagonists, but swayed by the benevolence of the people she was supposed to be spying on and how nice Locke was to her.” Woolsey translation: Cid: Can it be true that you came here as a spy, seeking to cause an uprising!? Locke: !? Celes...? Kefka: So that's it! Magicite... Cid, you miserable blockhead! Now... General Celes!! The game's over. Bring me those Magicite shards! Locke: Celes! You... decieved me!? Celes: Of course not! Have a little faith! Kefka: G'hee, hee, hee! She has tricked you all! Celes, that's so... YOU! Celes: Locke... Please believe me... GBA translation: Cid: Is it true you worked your way in amongst the rebels as a spy? Locke: ...!? Celes...? Kefka: Oh, I see! Magicite...! Excellent work, Cid! General Celes! We needn't keep up the charade any longer. Bring me those magicite crystals! Locke: Celes! You...tricked us!? Celes: Of course not! Please, trust me! Kefka: Hee-hee-hee! The sweet taste of betrayal! Oh, Celes! That's so...you! Celes: Locke... Believe me... (Cid’s line is no longer ambiguous which side Celes is spying for. Coming from Cid (a more reliable character than Kefka), the story that Celes is a spy is not so easily dismissed. Kefka is also so unruffled at encountering Celes in a secure empire facility that it just doesn’t seem like he’s improvising either...)

I love the Maduin flashback. I don’t know if it’s significantly different/pared down in the English SNES version or what, but those scenes never really stuck with me before... But seeing them this playthrough? OMG the feels. First, the ominous esper music playing throughout is so Atmospheric and Foreboding. You really get the feeling that the events depicted changed the fate of the world. (Also, it reminds me of this track from the Sailor Moon RPG, which is also a great track.) Second, Madeline is such a clear and striking character given how little screentime she has. The one trait she most clearly has is, like, a misanthropic hatred of humanity. And throughout her scenes, you get this really strong impression that she’s really fierce, bitter, and almost... thorny? Like really hard to get close to -- a determined loner. Third, the Maduin/Madeline relationship -- first off, I appreciate the metaphorical sex scene where they dance/fly around a cave together and drop two sparkles that combine to form a baby. Second, that last scene where Madeline kind of foolishly runs off and Maduin chases after her and they have this “you’re being a dummy” “I know” “let’s go home” kind of tender moment before EVERYTHING GOES WRONG. Ouch my heart.

Also, it strikes me that Terra and Aerith are very parallel characters -- half-human, half-supernatural race, captured and experimented on as a baby, mom dies trying to save her, etc.

Also, I find Gestahl a very unsettling character. I feel like Kefka is the Voldemort or Bellatrix of Final Fantasy VI -- unstable, weird, very over-the-top, god complex villain who screams “eeeeevil” with his design -- while Gestahl is the Umbridge of Final Fantasy VI -- civil, polite, reasonable, functional, and yet utterly uncaring and dismissive of other people’s concerns. Whereas with the Kefka type, you’re like, “who would follow this person?” and don’t feel threatened, Gestahl is not only a person people would follow; he’s a person many people already ARE. That’s scary to me.

#final fantasy vi #video game liveblogging #ffvi liveblogging

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fictionfromafar · 4 years ago

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The Measure of Time by Gianrico Carofiglio

Translated by Howard Curtis

Bitter Lemon Press

#RandomTTours #BookTour

The Guido Guerrieri Series #6

Having explored a wide range of Bitter Lemon’s translated crime fiction novels and also developed a taste for Italian novels, I was keen to delve into the works of Gianrico Carofiglio. His newest title “The Measure Of Time” was released on 18 March and is the sixth in the Guido Guerrieri series, eighth in total for the London based publisher. Guerrieri is a defence barrister in his early fifties based in Bari.

I must admit I did pick up this book with a slight trepidation wondering how well I would follow a novel that focuses on the Italian legal system. Gianrico Carofiglio was an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Southern Italy who has since turned to writing. He has sold over six million copies of his books worldwide. While I have read some John Grisham in the past and found myself a little perplexed, my concerns over “The Measure Of Time” were thankfully unfounded. Not only is Guido Guerrieri an intriguing and likeable character, but his legal functions were explained in a very clear and absorbing manner. Also no backstory was required and I enjoyed this as a standalone novel – although I will definitely be looking at his back catalogue when time allows.

When advised by his legal secretary Pasquale that he has had a request for an appointment by a lady named Delle Foglie, Guerrieri is prompted to think back to the period before he was a fully practicing lawyer when he dated a girl of the same name. While he convinces himself this cannot be the same person. This and a chance meeting with a younger lawyer who had recently lost his mother to a slow and painful death lead him to stop his work and ponder the passage of time.

“I’d often thought that thanks to what I had earned in my profession, of which I had spent a very small part, I could quit, sell the practice and devote myself to something else… Anything just to escape the grip of time. Time that keeps passing, never changing. Near motionless in its daily repletion but fading fast”.

Melancholy perhaps, but something many of us can relate to. Likewise, there is a thought provoking reflection on how it is extremely hard I it is to imagine a world after our own death. While this might seem like a mournful way to commence the first ten pages of a novel, it really sets the tone for a reflective and considered individual.

Having gained our empathy, we obtain his interest when Lorenza Delle Foglie walks into his office. It is revealed that she is the lady he knew years before. We begin to learn the relevance of the preceeding passages as the years have not been kind to her. Having vanished from his life 27 years earlier she has now come to him in need of his help as her son is in prison for murder. With his appeal due she requires a defense lawyer. When he hears her story, Guerrieri is far from convinced about the innocence of Delle Foglie’s son yet agrees to take on the case. His initial queries do not present him with any optimism that he can overturn his sentence but he does find a few aspects of the defence that were not correctly portrayed at the original trial.

We return through Guerrieri’s thoughts to the times he spent with Delle Foglie, how they met and how she inspired him. Several years older than him and persuing a bohemian lifestyle, she encouraged the studious trainee lawyer to take an interest in literature, films and culture thus enrichening his life. While their short liaison was locked firmly in his memory without common friends to recall it, he does appreciate that she had been a mentor to him. It is this realisation rather than any lingering flame which encourages him to pursue some leads provided by her son.

There are some interesting characteristics to Guerrieri. He has continued to surround himself with strong minded females, in both his personal and professional life. Despite being settled with a partner, he is quite a solitary individual. He also finds time to confess his guilt to the faded punch bag which he no longer uses.

The final third of the novel is largely focused on the appeal trial. This is where Carofiglio’s legal background provided us with realistic insights into the barrister's methodology. The author cleverly explains the thought processes through the statements and question that Guerrieri makes. Some are intended for the benefit of the accused, some designed to plant doubt in witnesses, to raise ambiguities with the judge and jury; and to press the relentless prosecution lawyer into avenues that discredit their own case. Through Howard Curtis’ interpretation of Carofiglio’s prose, I truly felt I could visibly see the characters, hear their testimonies and visualize their expressions within the court room just as well as I could through any televised drama.

There is so much I enjoyed about this novel. I recognised the theme of the novel’s title, that time can pass us by quickly. I was drawn to Guerrieri as a character and loved the setting of Bari. On sleepless nights he visits an all-night bookshop in the centre of Bari where he discusses Aristotle with fellow unsettled souls. The entrapped holiday maker within me would also love to take the two-hour boat trip to the Greek island of Othonoi referred to. One aspect that I particularly liked about this book is that it reinforced my beliefs that some people may not remain in our lives for a long time, yet their influence can have a profound lasting effect. This is an exceptionally crafted legal fiction which captivates the reader with processes explained in full clarity while contemplating subjects that are rarely considered. In short, it’s a real gem of a book.

Thanks to Alex Hippisley-Cox for the review copy, and to Anne Cater for the blog tour invitation.

Bonus review

This is not the first book I had read translated by Howard Curtis. Read on for a short bonus review that I wrote before I started blogging:

A Florentine Death

By Michele Giuttari

Translated by Howard Curtis

Abacus

Recently I enjoyed this book by Michele Giuttari. The author is former head of the Florence Police Force (1995-2003), where he was responsible for re-opening the Monster of Florence case and jailing several key Mafia figures.

A Florentine Death features Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara (who does the role that Giuttari had). Don't assume lots of technical police details as other than conflicts with the prosecutor, there is nothing overly procedural about Ferrara.

There are a series of random murders which originally appear to be unrelated until Ferrara gets some mystery messages. The book features the city of Florence. I really liked some of the descriptions in it, such as when Ferrara visits a prisoner and also the climax in a remote and snow covered setting. There are another 6 or 7 books in the series and I will return to them sometime. It is quite a straight forward read and is translated well by Howard Curtis.

Slightly dated now, the Italian edition dates back from 2004 - does the suspect have a mobile phone someone asks, but overall it holds up well.

#crime fiction #crimeintranslation #european literature #Italian legal drama

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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“Women Make Film” marathon reviews (2/?)

Sleepwalking Land (2007, Mozambique)

From 1977 to 1992, Mozambique was in a state of civil war. Mozambique, situated in Africa’s southeast corner above South Africa and separated by a channel from Madagascar, still reckons with the human, political, and social legacies of that conflict. Exacerbated by the Soviet Union and the anti-communist Apartheid South Africa (both meddling for influence in Mozambican affairs), the war quickly reached a conclusion as those foreign regimes disintegrated. In the final year of the Mozambican Civil War, author Mia Couto published an acclaimed magical realism novel, Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land), that takes place with the war as a backdrop. Couto’s book inspired a film adaptation by Teresa Prata – Portuguese-born, Mozambican-raised, and now living in Germany.

Sleepwalking Land is Prata’s first feature film as a director. She was mesmerized by Couto’s book, saying that memories of the war rushed through her head while reading. Believing the text to be deeply cinematic, she spent seven years to complete this adaptation of Sleepwalking Land. The final print is a film difficult to categorize. Comprised of two parallel narratives, Prata has the narratives blend into the other as the film progresses. Its magical realism elements only appear in the final half-hour of the film. One scene in particular will most likely shock, if not offend, Western viewers. But the actions in that scene are considered a traditional behavior in Mozambique (something that I shall explain later in this write-up). Central to Sleepwalking Land is the idea that storytelling is integral to survival – especially as the innocent trod through their war-torn homeland.

In the Mozambican countryside, we encounter eleven-year-old Muidinga (Nick Lauro Teresa) and a much older man named Tuahir (Aladino Jasse). Their relationship is unclear, but Muidinga refers to Tuahir as “Uncle” (if the film’s dialogue is to be believed, they are probably not related). Muidinga wishes to find his mother, but the search has been fruitless. The young refugee also appears not to remember much about his life before his journeys with Tuahir; he cannot even recall how he and Tuahir met. The elderly Tuahir is a storyteller who makes clear his desire to leave the past behind – the audience learns almost nothing about that past by film’s end. This duo has been wandering the countryside, but one day stumble upon the wreckage of a torched bus. They bury the charred bodies of those who died in their seats, salvage a diary from one of the victims, and take shelter in the bus (“What is already burnt cannot burn again.”) Muidinga reads from the diary (Tuahir is illiterate), and learns that the writer is a woman searching for her missing son. He believes, however unlikely, he is that very son and that the writer is his mother.

If the viewer expects details about the Mozambican Civil War itself, just note that those details never appear. Prata elects to keep the affiliations of the roving militias as ambiguous as possible. Like Couto’s text, this film adaptation of Sleepwalking Land has not taken any sides or political stances – save the notion that war is solely a destructive force. But it is not war itself that Sleepwalking Land focuses on, but how its central characters respond to the traumas it has unleashed on their lives. Muidinga and Tuahir enter the film with unrevealed, if not unknowable, pasts. “You don’t even have a story,” Tuahir tells the young boy.

Muidinga responds by creating his own life story, however fantastical. He is reborn; the particulars of the civil war, the loss of his parents, and the famine that affected Mozambique prior to this rebirth is fully removed from his lived experiences. Muidinga’s imagination leads the film into its magical realism. Having never seen the ocean and despite being nowhere near the beach, Muidinga transports himself and Tuahir there – without ever leaving the bus. Muidinga has broken the inescapable cycle that has trapped him and Tuahir. Upon this development, Tuahir realizes that the young boy he has been accompanying has learned all that he needs to survive in desperate, nightmarish times. In each of these scenes, Paulo Rebelo’s (2000’s O Fantasma) editing does well to transition between the scenes depicting the diary entries the roundabout travels of Muidinga and Tuahir, lending a documentary-like feel to the latter.

Plot-hungry viewers will probably demand for explanations for Muidinga’s amnesia and Tuahir’s past, but the film refuses to provide any answers. To those viewers: stop resisting the film’s refusal to accommodate your expectations, and allow it to tell its story on its own terms.

And as for expectations, one shocking scene in Sleepwalking Land will undoubtedly startle Western audiences and requires explanation for anybody reading this review after viewing the film. The behavior in that scene is custom in Mozambique. In Mozambique, young boys and girls are “initiated” by elder men and women, respectively, as they reach puberty. In a secluded environment, the elders will teach the young ones about sexuality. Sexual initiation of Mozambican children was banned by the left-wing FRELIMO party after securing independence from Portugal and establishing one-party control. FRELIMO argued that initiation rites promoted female subservience; their many critics dismissed this as simplistic, saying that the rites provided women with sexual education they might not otherwise get.

The ban on initiation rites has long been lifted in Mozambique, though the practice is no longer as prominent as it used to be. In keeping with the film’s fidelity to Mozambican culture at this time, Prata includes Muidinga’s initiation in this film. The scene is filmed obliquely, in a matter-of-fact way. The audience never sees anything graphic and Tuahir’s verbal descriptions are innocuous, but the implication of what he is doing to Muidinga is clear. Prata, a child of both Africa and Europe, could not have filmed this scenario with any greater respect to her actors and the cultures she was raised in. For Western viewers like myself, it is one of more than a few teaching moments in Sleepwalking Land.

The film’s two leads in Nick Lauro Teresa and Aladino Jasse are both non-professional actors. Their acting might not be the most accomplished, but the dynamic between the two is a joy to watch. Though they probably are not related, their characters have an asymmetric emotional intimacy understandable considering their situation. In what might have been a dour, overlong experience, Teresa and Jasse inject enough charm and humor to keep Sleepwalking Land bearable. The same cannot be written for the parallel story fronted by Kindzu (Helio Fumo) and Farida (Ilda Gonzalez), which throws the film’s narrative propulsion off-balance whenever Teresa and Jasse are not on-screen. To everyone’s credit, the acting ensemble helps Sleepwalking Land feel like a vivid dream – from the silences paired with the rural landscapes, the decisional logic, and the film’s impossible conclusion (but it is one that, mind you, works).

Though Sleepwalking Land has made appearances in film festival across the world, it – and Teresa Prata’s career (this is Prata’s most recent movie, and by what is provided in Sleepwalking Land, I would like to see much more from her) – has never found much traction. I may not have read Couto’s novel prior to viewing this film (the novel is available in an English translation), but its novelistic overtures are felt throughout the film. The blending of narratives flows like something from a printed page, rather than quickly edited into yet another one of Christopher Nolan’s moviemaking mazes. From its humble, low-budget origins, Sleepwalking Land is composed in its singular artistic vision and confident about the depth of human endurance.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

NOTE #1: This is the second of an unspecified amount of film reviews on this blog relating to films that I saw as part of Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) Women Make Film marathon.

NOTE #2: Sleepwalking Land is currently available to watch on YouTube for free. The print includes English subtitles in the closed-captioning options.

#Sleepwalking Land #Teresa Prata #Nick Lauro Teresa #Aldino José #Hélio Fumo #Ilda Gonzalez #Laura Soveral #Dominique Gentil #Mia Couto #Women Make Film #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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cyberstabbing · 7 years ago

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The Pureblood Pretense

Okay this needs its own post. Seriously. For me, The Pureblood Pretense is on the same level as THROAM, and that’s saying something. Anyways, let’s get to it.

TPP is a series made up of four books as I’m writing this, each book making up one year, same as the HP books.

“Hold up,” a voice interrupts. “I don’t read unfinished fic.”

Yeah, yeah, I know. Even I was wary of the WIP factor when I first stumbled across it. But worry not, my child, for this fic will keep you entertained for an eternity and a half. How so, you ask? Because it’s over one million words long. 1,144,996 words. 1145k. To this day, the longest time I have been awake (hellish times at airports with ten minute naps here and there not included) was when reading TPP for the first time. It wasn’t until I was having Harry Potter themed hallucinations that I finally put the fic down and crashed for 14 hours.

Anyways, I’ll add that when Violet (aka Murkybluematter) does update with a chapter, she releases chapters that are about 40k words. And if you’re anything like most readers you’ll get a rush like no other when you receive that sweet, sweet email notifying you of the new chapter. Be sure to follow the tags on tumblr, hang around r/hpfanfiction and especially the Rigel Black forum on FF.net when the next chapter drops (hopefully this summer) to join in on the celebration. ;)

EDIT #1: The chapter dropped! Hallelujah!

EDIT #2: Another chapter dropped this summer!?!

What about the plot, you ask? Well I suck at putting that in words, so lemme pull up the description from the author herself:

The Pureblood Pretense

Harriett Potter dreams of going to Hogwarts, but in an AU where the school only accepts purebloods, the only way to reach her goal is to switch places with her pureblood cousin��the only problem? Her cousin is a boy. Alanna the Lioness take on HP. 229k

Right, so that’s the first book in the series you’re looking at. And I know what you’re thinking, “Harriett Potter?! Oh god.” But don’t worry, she goes by Harry. Or, well, Rigel for the most part. Sometimes Archie. You’ll understand when you read it.

If that wasn’t enough, here’s a fun description from the author of a fic that’s a fic of the fic TPP (The Rigel Black Chronicles by Elelith) Confusing, I know.

Summary: For those of you who haven't read Murkybluematter's Rigel Black series – What are you doing? Go read it now. If for some incomprehensible reason you haven't but still want to read this- this is what you have to know:

Harry Potter is actually Harriet Potter and she secretly exchanges place with her male cousin (Sirius Black's son) to go to Hogwarts because he wants to learn healing in America and she wants to learn potions under Potion Master Snape but Hogwarts only allows purebloods and she doesn't qualify. She makes friends with Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson all the while masquerading as her male cousin and is apprenticed to Severus Snape.

Actually, all you need to know for this chapter is that Rigel Black (aka Harriet Potter) has an unhealthy obsession with Potions and is both very smart and a clueless idiot when it comes to social cues.

Stephan Sokolow wrote a lovely review of TPP on his blog. I recommend reading the entire thing even if you’ve already read TPP in its entirety. Below are some excerpts.

First, this is a damn good “Draco and other Slytherins as interesting characters” story. The interactions between Rigel’s friends remind me of Harry and co. in canon or the Scoobies (main cast) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I really enjoy reading about them.

[…] Murkybluematter really has a talent for good pacing. The ebb and flow of threats and resolutions kept me on my toes beautifully and, if the foreshadowed build-up in the series-level conflict arc is delivered upon, this is going to be one amazingly satisfying read when I get into the later volumes.

All in all, this is one of the best fics I’ve ever read. Of the multiple gigabytes of fanfiction I’ve chewed through in the last 15 years, I’m not sure I can find half a dozen which came this close to the satisfaction I get from a good professionally published novel.

Still not convinced? Well check out this post from years ago, it’s still relevant!

FANWORKS

Check out this two-page comic of the first chapter! It’s hella well made.

And if you’ve already read it? Well go read som TPP fics! There’s a thread on the Rigel Black forum that houses most drabbles and several comments pointing one in the right direction to find more fic. Additionally, the Google doc Recomended Fics has a list on 18 TPP fics, plus more HP fics.

Some excellent TPP drabbles:

Reactions to the ruse reveal (and a bit of humor) by The Four Eyes - I was thinking about how each character might react to finding out that Harry=Rigel and Archie=AIM!Harry, and thought I'd post it here. This is mostly a way to channel my current obsession with the story since I just finished rereading.

Some excellent TPP fics:

Breaking the Lines by kitsunerei88 - Caelum's life is full of lines, between pureblood and Muggle, powerful and weak, pure and impure, fake and real, right and wrong. Harriett Potter shatters them all. A story about Caelum Lestrange, first and foremost: about his childhood, his life, and his relationship with a certain Harriett Potter. 36k

Moments of Realization by kitsunerei88 - A collection of the moments in which various characters discover or realize the ruse, and their reactions. 13k

Liar Liar by kitsunerei88 - Some people are not all that they seem to be. Rigel Black is not, and neither is Aldon Rosier. [AU post-Ambiguous Artifice] 176k

The Rigel Black Chronicles by Elelith - Approved one-shots based on Murkybluematter's Pureblood Pretense & Serpentine Subterfuge fics. Different POVs, cracky, funny, and just plain weird snapshots of Rigel Black's double life. Synopsis: Harriett Potter dreams of going to Hogwarts, but in an AU where the school only accepts purebloods, the only way to reach her goal is to switch places with her pureblood male cousin... 55k

The House of Black – Fanfic of The Pureblood Pretense Series by SakinaoftheAlleys - This takes place before anything that happens in The Pureblood Pretense, and focuses on Sirius after the death of Diana. 7k

And lastly, check out all the wonderful fanart on this site by following the tags pureblood pretense, rigel black etc etc. I’ve reblogged most of it on a sideblog under the tag the pureblood pretense: link. Here’s another comic from The Ambiguous Artifice (book three) :3

MORE LINKS

Rigel Black Ebooks on Google Drive (via rebell-k)

Google doc: Things Leo knows (color-coded!)

WHAT THE CHARACTERS LOOK LIKE

I like having a few images of what the characters look like to keep it fresh in my mind, so here are some links to my favorites.

Well first of all, there’s this thread: What do these characters look like in your head? aka Casting Call! ... it’s pretty much the mecca of suitable images.

Harry Potter/Rigel Black/and Archie I guess

Blop OoOo art (year 1-2)

Rigel Black~ (year 1-3)

Harry’s Magic Core (year 1-2)

Harry and Rosier, counting drunk people during the gala. (year 3)

Edwardian style dress robes (year 3)

Harry and Addy at the gala (year 3)

Harry in duel outfit. (year 4)

Arcturus Black

Archiiiiie!

Addy

Harry and Addy at the gala

So, that’s it, that’s Addy for me.

Draco Malfoy

The King of Slytherin (Well, that would be him from third or fourth year).

Pansy Parkinson

Copic on Bristol.

Aldon Rosier

Harry and Rosier, counting drunk people during the gala.

The Promise

Alesana Selwyn

Selwyn and Rigel. Ink on bristol.

Caelum Lestrange

Listen this drawing is so perfect I’ve saved it to my phone so I can go stare at it occasionally when reading TPP it’s so fucking accurate and amazing: That’s C-A-E-L-U-M.

Severus Snape

Young genius Severus Snape

Just try me (Severus and Lily)

Tom Riddle

Age 12

Blop OoOo art

The Ambiguous Artifice

Other characters

Gavril and Irina of the Strigoi Shrouds

#rigel black

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mjvliteraryblog-blog · 6 years ago

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Why Book Reviews Are So Important

Photo by Chris Benson on Unsplash

“Disappointing”; “deflating”; “soul-destroying”; and, “a real jolt back to Earth!” These are just a few things authors have said to me after self-publishing their book, and realizing what comes next.

It’s such a shame! As an author, I know full well the amount of hard work, passion and dedication which goes into writing a book: the first drafts; second drafts; third drafts… rewriting; editing; proofreading. This is not to mention all the work which goes into the self-publishing process itself: the conversion to formats; getting the metadata right; formatting page and text, over and over, because you just can’t get it to display properly; getting the dimensions correct. Then, downloading – or even purchasing – your proof copy, only to find that it is still wrong! (Scream!!) So, to finally get it right, publish your book and draw a line underneath it is a massive achievement, a weight off your shoulders and a moment for celebration. Now, you can ensure it’s on Goodreads and Amazon, sit back, do a bit of social media and wait for the sales – and subsequently the reviews – to start coming in, creating a self-fulfilling cycle.

So, where are they!?

Unfortunately for the self-publishing author, promoting and selling your book is a full-time job, which requires expertise and investment of time - and often money. Simply put, it is a business. And, as we all know about business, you need to speculate to accumulate; in any industry, those with time and money to promote themselves will invariably be more successful than those without it. That said, few businesses are as competitive as the book industry: over a million new books are self-published every year – that’s over 2700 per day! Can you imagine any other industry in which you are up against that level of competition? Therefore, whilst of course a promotion budget definitely helps, it may not be enough; there is another thing which a book as a product relies on heavily, to stand out from the crowd – perhaps more so than any other business: customer (or in this case, reader) reviews.

THINK ABOUT THE PEOPLE BUYING THE BOOKS

Buying books – particularly fiction books – is often an impulse. Unless a reader is looking to purchase a specific title (in which case, they will probably do so via your link somewhere), it is safe to assume that they are probably browsing; as an unknown, self-published author, this is probably going to be your customer base. So, whilst not exactly relevant to this specific blog, it is still important at this point to advise of the following: ensure your book’s tags and keywords in all the blurb and copy are spot-on and comprehensive. If a reader is browsing for the following, for example: a medical thriller set in a Dystopian future, then you need to make sure your book’s description and metadata include those keywords, or you haven’t a hope of being found. Your author name, whilst obviously a relevant keyword, is meaningless to them and is not what they are looking for – if it were, of course there would be no need for any of this. Imagine looking for your book on a book-market stall, using the same search criteria: “medical, sci-fi, future” – even then, in a big market, there will probably be hundreds of matching titles. Your potential customer, therefore, needs some other means of making their decision.

The first, of course, and the most purist-driven, is the cover. People are drawn to a book’s cover when browsing in a bookshop – if it falls under their preferred genre – so this has to be eye-catching and relevant (read the blog: “Do People Actually Judge A Book By Its Cover? Why Your Book’s Cheap Exterior Might Be Hiding A Literary Gem”). However, that applies when browsing in person. Online – where a self-published author will most certainly be trying to sell their book – readers will probably have narrowed their criteria even further, and the most common way online shoppers do this is by customer reviews. According to latest research by Qualtrix (2019), 93% of people say that their online purchasing decisions are influenced by reviews. Therefore, it would seem that those searching by a book’s cover are unlikely to see past a mediocre one, whereas those searching by review rating are less likely to care about the cover at all!

Simply put, customer reviews are a must for any new business, but especially books by unknown authors.

HOW DO I GET BOOK REVIEWS?

Many of you are now thinking that this much is obvious, and that the issue isn’t whether to get reviews – you already know that you need them – the issue is how to get them.

If you search book reviewers online you will be inundated with blogs and websites by readers who just love to read books in your genre – there are literally hundreds; perhaps thousands. Of course, to locate then contact them all would take weeks, to be optimistic. To make life easier for you, just assume that the best of them can usually be found on the following lists (myself included):

· BOOK BLOGGER LIST

· KINDLE BOOK REVIEW

· BOOK REVIEWERS’ DIRECTORY

· TWEET YOUR BOOKS

Whilst all excellent resources, sometimes the information can be a little out of date. Often you’ll find, when your visit the individual bloggers’ sites, that they have restricted the service, or suspended it altogether. There is a very simple reason for this: they are utterly overwhelmed by submissions (at the time of writing this blog I have well over 200 books on my TBR list!). If you are able to send them your book, many will reply outright that they simply aren’t able to read it, or that you should come back in a few months; some say they’ll do their best. The number of reviewers able or willing to say yes straight away is far smaller than that which are not. Moreover, if a reviewer agrees to add your book to their list and promises to read it, bear in mind that it may be months before they actually get around to doing so. There are no guarantees at all.

At MJV, we have compiled a comprehensive global list of reviewers, including preferred genres and first name contacts, and can contact all relevant bloggers on your behalf. To find out more about the MJV reviewer service, visit https://www.mjvliterary.com/reviewer-submissions.php

SHOULD I EVER PAY FOR A BOOK REVIEW?

This is a contentious issue amongst many authors. If you search this question online you will find many people who say you absolutely should never pay for a review of your book. Their arguments against doing so are most commonly, though not exclusively:

1. There are literally hundreds of reviewers out there willing to read your book for free;

and, more importantly:

2. How can a paid book review be considered impartial and honest?

The first is pretty self-explanatory, and of course true, but as mentioned above, “willing” and “able” are not necessarily the same thing. But, as a blogger who offers both free and paid reviews, I have to say that I find the second insinuation – that payment somehow indicates bribery or coercion for a positive book review – particularly insulting. There are many paid services, in many industries, to which this allegation can be equally applied, yet it isn’t, so why book reviews?

This is where a reviewer’s policy comes in particularly important, which you should always read, and certainly if your review is a paid one. Any reviewer of any integrity should ALWAYS stipulate, very clearly, that paying in no way implies or guarantees a positive review, and has no bearing at all upon the rating he/she gives. My own policy clearly states “I do not offer favourable reviews in exchange for Premium payment” (www.mattmcavoy.com). If you are intending to pay for positive reviews, there are plenty of bogus offers out there, on websites such as Fiverr and even eBay, which can provide these in the same way as fake followers and likes on social media. If you do choose to undertake these services, consider that this makes you as active a participant in these online scams as the vendors, and live with the fact that your book reviews are not genuine; I would strongly urge you to follow your conscience in this respect. Decent, ethical reviewers may offer a paid service, but they should not be tarred with the same brush as the corrupt ones. Whether you choose to pay for a review is your choice, but don’t expect that you are buying a guaranteed positive one, because with any decent reviewer, blogger or influencer, you will not be.

So, why do some ethical book reviewers offer paid reviews? Simple: to guarantee your book will be read and your review posted within a timeframe, and no other reason. Payment may enable them to prioritize your book in a way that other work commitments may restrain them from so doing, and they can reasonably be expected to post before or on a specific day, as stipulated by the authors – for example, to coincide with a book launch. The alternative option may only be to sit on their TBR shelf and wait for something which may never happen.

AND FINALLY… PROBLEMS POSTING AMAZON REVIEWS

Aah… Amazon (shaking head emoji)!

This website, I’m afraid, is a law unto itself. I challenge you to find one habitual book reviewer who has not argued at least once with Amazon about having their reviews suddenly, indiscriminately and unexpectedly removed. Their interactive features are monitored by bots, and these bots, frankly, are quite mad. Imagine the Mad Hatter’s tea party with A.I. guests, and you’ll probably see Amazon’s review bots there. They are ruthless, and they remove reviews simply in response to their voices in their own heads!

The reasons they cite are usually related to their posting policy, which is generic and ambiguous at best. It is also dynamic and constantly changing to provide a more secure and genuine customer experience – in other words, what is acceptable today may not be tomorrow; you’ll simply never know; I gave up trying to second-guess them long ago. Obviously they do this to tackle the very same scam artists mentioned earlier, and it will only get tougher, in response to the currently ongoing TripAdvisor fake reviews scandal. Whilst this is understandable and admirable, the problem with Amazon is their proactive approach, and their unofficial policy: “if in any doubt, shoot first, and don’t ask questions at all.” Often, bloggers don’t know their reviews have been removed until the author has complained to us, and we can offer no explanation. Incidentally, I recently had reviews removed because I hadn’t spent enough money on Amazon (genuinely) – I bought a few things for $50, and my reviews were reinstated.

Photo by Pinho on Unsplash

The simple fact is that nobody can guarantee the longevity of their reviews on Amazon – if they say they can, they are lying to you or themselves. The review might be posted easily enough, but whether it is still there a year later is anyone’s guess - even Amazon don’t know what their policy will be then. In a nutshell, don’t expect reviews to stay on Amazon – expect to keep having to work, tirelessly, to get them and keep the cycle going. This is very concerning, to be honest, because Amazon is undoubtedly where most self-published authors are trying to sell their books. If only there was another way.

If you would like your book reviewed, send it to Matt McAvoy at https://www.mattmcavoy.com/your-book-reviews.php

#authors #selfpublishing #bookreviews #amazon #bookbloggers

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unlessimwrongwhichyouknowimnot · 8 years ago

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You’re Just Different and There’s Nothing Wrong with That

For @buckysbears, inspired by her FitzSimmons autistic headcanons!

Check out her Autistic Jemma and Autistic Fitz posts!

Summary: After a misunderstanding, Fitz reveals to his new girlfriend that he's autistic. Jemma begins to research and discovers that she might be too.

Read on AO3

Jemma Simmons would be forever grateful to her friend, Daisy Johnson, for introducing her to Leopold Fitz. Jemma had never been one to believe in “soulmates” or “love at first sight,” but the moment she’d met Fitz, she’d felt a connection with him that she had never felt with anyone else.

Fitz was brilliant, and quirky, and kind of awkward, and he made her laugh with his corny science puns. He knew a lot about monkeys, and loved to talk about them. He took her to the zoo for their first date, and they’d spent an hour at the primate exhibit while he’d told about each and every species on display. He had also asked permission to hold her hand, which Jemma thought was very sweet.

They went out to dinner on their second date, to a very nice French restaurant, and it was very romantic. Jemma was expecting a kiss afterwards, but nothing happened. She was disappointed, and a little confused—her previous dating experiences had gotten physical within the first couple dates—but she was willing to let Fitz move at his own pace for now.

For their fifth date, he invited her to his dorm to watch a movie. Fitz spent the whole time twisting a Rubik’s Cube in his hands, eyes glued to the screen. Jemma couldn’t help but feel confused, and a little hurt. “Fitz?” she asked after movie was over.

“Yeah?” Fitz glanced back at her before returning to focus on putting the DVD into the case.

“Why haven’t you kissed me?” she blurted out. He looked up at her as he snapped the DVD case closed, his expression going blank. “I mean, I’ll respect your boundaries, of course, if you don’t want to,” Jemma continued, “but if you don’t like me like that, you could at least tell me instead of continuing to take me on dates.”

“I do like you,” Fitz told her, fingers tapping against the DVD case, his eyes moving to look out the window. “What makes you think that I don’t?”

“Well, you invited me over to your room, and then you ignored me the whole time!”

Fitz looked back at her, confusion written all over his face. “I invited you over to watch a movie,” he said, holding up the DVD case as proof. “We watched the movie.”

“Yes,” Jemma said, “that’s true. But I was expecting something a bit more, Fitz. At the very least cuddling while watching the movie! We haven’t even touched since you asked to hold my hand at the zoo!”

Fitz bit his lip and looked down. “I’m sorry.”

Jemma waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “That’s it?”

Fitz sighed and shifted on his feet. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he told her.

Jemma sighed. “Something more than just ‘I’m sorry!’” she snapped, standing up and gathering her purse and sweater. “If you think of something, you know how to reach me,” she told him, before leaving his dorm.

Jemma retreated to the library, the one place on campus where she felt comfortable. The library was quiet, peaceful, and no one bothered her, expect for Daisy, and that was only on Tuesdays and Thursdays when they met to study. She found an old edition of her chemistry textbook and took it to her favorite spot on the third floor. She opened it and began to read, pressing her hands against her neck and jaw while she did so.

Jemma was partway through the third chapter of the textbook when her phone lit up with an email notification. She was about to ignore it, but saw that it was from Fitz, so she swiped her finger across the screen and began to read.

Jemma,

I’m so so sorry for misleading you. I talked about what happened with Daisy and she explained that when a guy invites a woman to his room, it’s usually implied that something more is gonna happen, but I didn’t know that so I’m sorry. I’m autistic, so sometimes I don’t always understand what’s expected, especially when it comes to dating. I really really like you, Jemma. I really want to keep seeing you, but it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way.

Fitz

Jemma put her phone down. Autistic. Jemma rubbed at her fingers with her thumb as she thought about it. She’d heard of autism, of course, but only in the context of children, and really only in the context of the children who couldn’t communicate. But Fitz was not a child, and he was able to communicate just fine. She picked her phone back up and hit reply.

Fitz,

I really really like you too, and I really want to keep seeing you. Thank you for telling me about your autism. I’ve heard of it, of course, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about it. Could you send me some good resources so I can learn? Or maybe we could go out tonight and you could tell me more?

From,

Jemma

She pressed send and tried to concentrate on the chemistry textbook while she waited for a response. Twenty minutes later, her phone lit up with another email notification and she immediately swiped to open it.

Jemma,

Here are some links for you.

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

What Is Autism?

Inclusive Autistic Traits

If you want, you can come see me tomorrow. I don’t think I’d be able to have a good conversation tonight.

Fitz

Jemma clicked on the first link and began to read. Different sensory experiences, non-standard ways of learning, passionate interests, atypical movement, need for consistency, routine, and order, difficulties in understanding and expressing language, difficulties in understanding and expressing social interaction. Well, that last one explained the confusion over their earlier date.

She clicked on the next link and it took her to an explanation of the autistic brain:

“Autistic people process and use our senses differently from most people…”

“Stimming helps an autistic person sooth and calm ourselves, regulate our senses, process our environment, and think clearly…”

“Most autistic people … have a hard time understanding what another person is saying to us. Many autistics use or understand language … literally.”

“We may not be comfortable with ambiguity, change, or lack of structure. We may seem particularly ritualistic, compulsive, or detail-oriented.”

Jemma bit her lip as she read. Some of the descriptions sounded familiar to her. She clicked on the final link and it took her to a more detailed breakdown of different autistic traits:

“Different use of eye contact…” Jemma put her phone down and pulled a small notebook and pencil out of her purse. She opened the notebook to a fresh page and wrote that down, adding: Too much eye contact? next to it. As a child, her mother had often scolded her for staring, but no one had ever explained exactly when looking turned into staring. Was that something other people instinctively understood?

“Different use of literal and metaphorical communication…” Jemma wrote that down too. She’d always had a tendency to take everything literally, or not understand idioms that others seemed to find obvious, which often led to people giving her weird looks whenever she corrected their metaphors.

“Different desire for relationships…” Jemma had never really had a real friend until she met Daisy, and even then their relationship began because Daisy had needed a tutor. She’d dated before, but she’d never really connected with any previous partners, not like she’d connected with Fitz.

“May find presenting to crowds easier than reciprocal interactions…” Well that was definitely true of her. She was very comfortable giving a lecture, but struggled in smaller group interactions when the others weren’t discussing anything she was interested in.

“May prefer practical and pragmatic interactions or have difficulty with unfocused interactions…” Yes, Jemma definitely preferred when she knew what needed to happen in a social interaction.

“Pressure stimming…” Jemma added pressing neck/jaw to her notebook.

“Tactile stimming…” Jemma added rubbing fingers to her notebook.

“Intense focus and interests…”

“Preference for routine and sameness…”

“Differences in experiencing and processing emotions…”

“Different approach to patterns and systems…”

“Different ways of processing and making decisions…”

Jemma reread her list and then closed the notebook and put it and the pencil back in her purse. She put her phone in her pocket, put the textbook on the ‘re-shelve’ cart, and made her way back to her dorm room. She needed a cup of tea and her laptop in order to do some more intensive research.

~*~*~*~

Jemma stayed up until four in the morning searching the internet, reading blogs, taking tests. Autism Spectrum Disorder, autism in females, atypical autism, the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, the Aspie Quiz, the Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised, the diagnosis process, getting diagnosed as an adult, getting a diagnosis as a woman. Everything she read and every quiz she took seemed to point toward the conclusion that she was autistic.

She finally made it over to Fitz’s dorm later that afternoon, entering the building when some shirtless boys exited with a football. She made her way to Fitz’s room and knocked on the door, running her thumb across her fingers on her other hand.

Fitz opened the door and let her in. “Jemma,” he started to say, but she interrupted him.

“I spent all last night doing research,” Jemma told him. “I read those links you sent me, and—well, I thought they described me, so I spent last night reading everything I could, and taking the online tests, and I even went through the diagnostic criteria and wrote down examples from my life that fit. I filled up ten pages, single-spaced. I think—I think I’m autistic too.”

She bit her lip and watched as Fitz scratched at his cheek, taking time to process everything she’d just blurted out. “Welcome to the club,” he told her. “Do you have any questions?”

“About a million,” Jemma admitted, “but I think right now I need time to think it through in my head before I actually talk about it out loud.”

Fitz nodded. “Want to watch a movie?” he offered. “Take your mind off it? We could cuddle under my weighted blanket.”

Jemma smiled at him. “That sounds nice.”

#aosficnet2 #auapril #thefitzsimmonsnetwork #buskidsnet #autistic headcanons #autistic fitz #autistic jemma simmons #autistic fitzsimmons #fitzsimmons #leo fitz #jemma simmons #agents of shield #fanfiction

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sheilalmartinia · 7 years ago

Text

Insights into a newsroom: learnings for content marketing

Journalists are renowned for sniffing out a good story; they instinctively know how to get to the crux of a matter, asking the right sort of questions to get to the truth, and can decipher complicated subject matters succinctly for everyone to understand.

Pick up any newspaper or magazine and you’ll find it packed with a wide variety of content with something for everyone; from hard-hitting news investigations to human-interest features, opinion-based columns and picture stories.

Print media may be on the decline, but there is a lot that content marketers can learn from this profession. While content that targets a Google algorithm is a good strategy to have, you should also create content that builds and engages with people.

Back to the start

My career in journalism began in 1989, when I joined the Bucks Herald as an editorial assistant. One of the first lessons I was taught was how to write attention-grabbing content to grab attention from the very beginning.

I had been shadowing a senior reporter and went with her to the local police station to find out what crimes had been committed overnight. We then had to come back to the newsroom to write a series of short, snappy articles – news in brief (NIBs) – to publicize the incidents.

I started my first story: “A house in Wendover was broken into on Wednesday night and £300 worth of jewelry was stolen.” But this was quickly edited to read: “Heartless thieves stole £300 worth of jewelry from a house in Wendover on Wednesday night.”

The senior reporter explained that although my attempt was factually correct, starting with ‘A house’ was not anywhere near as powerful as starting with ‘Heartless thieves’.

This was an invaluable lesson and one that holds true for content marketers: it is vital to hook a reader in from the beginning using emotive language that makes them want to read on.

Keep it succinct

When writing a news article, it’s paramount to summarize the story in the first few paragraphs, giving the reader all the facts quickly. The who, what, where, when and how must be covered in the first two to three paragraphs, while subsequent paragraphs will add more color and detail to the story.

Just look at The Sun newspaper, for example; love it or hate it, they give readers all the information they need/want in around 5 minutes.

The content we consume daily – particularly on social media – is the same; it’s attention-grabbing, quick and easy to understand.

We often enjoy this content on-the-go because we don’t always have time to read swathes of copy, or are more frequently consuming content on mobile devices.

However, sometimes short and sweet just isn’t enough. Once you have a person hooked, you may find they want/need more, which is when in-depth content can be invaluable.

Getting into the detail

In newspapers, feature articles are included in every edition. These tend to spread over two pages, with the words broken up by pictures, fact boxes and graphs.

One of the best ways to keep a reader engaged with a longer piece of content is using quotes. Depending on the subject matter, you can include quotes from thought leaders in a given field or bring a story to life with the power of the human interest angle.

Of course, it depends on the subject matter, but ultimately people love reading about people and will engage with long-form content that educates, informs or entertains. This is important to remember when creating long-form content for marketing; while you may be writing to capture a particular keyword of with SEO in mind, you can still be creative.

Every piece of content should keep ‘the audience’ in mind. Ask yourself:

Who are you writing for?

What kind of questions do they want answers to?

How do you keep them engaged/reading for longer?

What will make your content stand out from the crowd/capture those answer boxes/make people remember you/go back to your site?

Google rewards sites with a low bounce rate and it’s clear why: if people are visiting your site for longer, you have given them content that is not only relevant to their search, but also resonates with them in some way. There is nothing worse than clicking on a meta title and description that you think answers your question, only to find the content beneath it is irrelevant.

A picture is worth a thousand words

In 2001, I became editor of the Boston Standard in Lincolnshire. Boston is a busy market town with a small port, and agriculture is one of the main industries. Consequently, it attracts a high volume of workers from outside the UK and as a result, tensions between communities ran high.

In 2004, when England were defeated by France in the European football championship, this tension spilled onto the streets with more than 100 people rioting. We covered this story in detail, interviewing the police, shopkeepers and witnesses, but we wiped out the front page using just one image to capture the carnage and destruction – better than words ever could.

This ethos can also be applied to content marketing efforts; sometimes an image, video or graphic can be a powerful tool to bring a written story to life.

Nowhere is this more evident than on social media, and particularly Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and Snapchat, which rely on images and video to spread a message, including light-hearted memes and funny videos.

What makes a good story?

Understanding what makes a good story is an essential part of being a journalist.

When working as a features editor, the news editor and I would meet every morning with the editor and deputy editor to discuss a list of potential stories we thought were worth pursuing and agree where they would go in the paper.

The basic rule of thumb we followed for coverage and placement was based on how interesting the story was deemed to be, and how many people it affected.

Of course, this can be subjective, so when trying to decide whether a content marketing campaign has the potential to go viral, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the hook?

Do you have unique data?

Is the idea open to ambiguity?

Is it credible?

Does it provoke an emotional response?

Does it tell a story?

Why this idea now?

Who – and how many people – does it affect?

Appealing to your audience

The types of content we included in every newspaper was varied and would, we hoped, appeal to a variety of people – a process that content marketers could also to adopt. However, in order to do this properly, it is paramount to understand who you are targeting, the sort of content they enjoy and where you can find them online.

It is easy for a newspaper as the journalists know they have to produce content that appeals to everyone in the community they serve, but in content marketing it can be slightly more restrictive.

The brand you’re working for should have plenty of audience data, but there are also a wide variety of tools available online to help you flesh out your personas and give them a personality to target your content with.

Where to find story inspiration

Despite all these tips and tricks, they can only really be put to good use when you have something to write about. An easy way to continually have content to share is to localize a national story, for example.

Content marketers often do the same by blogging or Tweeting about a national story or seasonal event. Often referred to as ‘newsjacking’, this is a powerful tool to promote a brand across the web.

One of the best examples I have seen is by the toilet tissue brand, Charmin, using the Oscars to promote the brand:

But you must act fast for the greatest impact – sending the tweet after the main event would have had little impact for Charmin.

The final word

As you can see, there are plenty of valuable lessons the digital world can learn from print. It really is simple: people want content that resonates with them. Content that educates or entertains them; something they can share with others to make them look good or make them laugh.

Print media may be declining, but the journalistic principles many of us hold dear still ring true. Storytelling is as relevant today as it has ever been; the platforms may have changed, but the delivery remains the same.

from Search Engine Watch https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/05/21/insights-into-a-newsroom-learnings-for-content-marketing/

0 notes

srasamua · 7 years ago

Text

Insights into a newsroom: learnings for content marketing

Back to the start

The senior reporter explained that although my attempt was factually correct, starting with ‘A house’ was not anywhere near as powerful as starting with ‘Heartless thieves’.

This was an invaluable lesson and one that holds true for content marketers: it is vital to hook a reader in from the beginning using emotive language that makes them want to read on.

Keep it succinct

Just look at The Sun newspaper, for example; love it or hate it, they give readers all the information they need/want in around 5 minutes.

The content we consume daily – particularly on social media – is the same; it’s attention-grabbing, quick and easy to understand.

We often enjoy this content on-the-go because we don’t always have time to read swathes of copy, or are more frequently consuming content on mobile devices.

However, sometimes short and sweet just isn’t enough. Once you have a person hooked, you may find they want/need more, which is when in-depth content can be invaluable.

Getting into the detail

In newspapers, feature articles are included in every edition. These tend to spread over two pages, with the words broken up by pictures, fact boxes and graphs.

Every piece of content should keep ‘the audience’ in mind. Ask yourself:

Who are you writing for?

What kind of questions do they want answers to?

How do you keep them engaged/reading for longer?

What will make your content stand out from the crowd/capture those answer boxes/make people remember you/go back to your site?

A picture is worth a thousand words

This ethos can also be applied to content marketing efforts; sometimes an image, video or graphic can be a powerful tool to bring a written story to life.

What makes a good story?

Understanding what makes a good story is an essential part of being a journalist.

The basic rule of thumb we followed for coverage and placement was based on how interesting the story was deemed to be, and how many people it affected.

Of course, this can be subjective, so when trying to decide whether a content marketing campaign has the potential to go viral, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the hook?

Do you have unique data?

Is the idea open to ambiguity?

Is it credible?

Does it provoke an emotional response?

Does it tell a story?

Why this idea now?

Who – and how many people – does it affect?

Appealing to your audience

It is easy for a newspaper as the journalists know they have to produce content that appeals to everyone in the community they serve, but in content marketing it can be slightly more restrictive.

Where to find story inspiration

One of the best examples I have seen is by the toilet tissue brand, Charmin, using the Oscars to promote the brand:

But you must act fast for the greatest impact – sending the tweet after the main event would have had little impact for Charmin.

The final word

from Digtal Marketing News https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/05/21/insights-into-a-newsroom-learnings-for-content-marketing/

0 notes

alanajacksontx · 7 years ago

Text

Insights into a newsroom: learnings for content marketing

Back to the start

The senior reporter explained that although my attempt was factually correct, starting with ‘A house’ was not anywhere near as powerful as starting with ‘Heartless thieves’.

This was an invaluable lesson and one that holds true for content marketers: it is vital to hook a reader in from the beginning using emotive language that makes them want to read on.

Keep it succinct

Just look at The Sun newspaper, for example; love it or hate it, they give readers all the information they need/want in around 5 minutes.

The content we consume daily – particularly on social media – is the same; it’s attention-grabbing, quick and easy to understand.

We often enjoy this content on-the-go because we don’t always have time to read swathes of copy, or are more frequently consuming content on mobile devices.

However, sometimes short and sweet just isn’t enough. Once you have a person hooked, you may find they want/need more, which is when in-depth content can be invaluable.

Getting into the detail

In newspapers, feature articles are included in every edition. These tend to spread over two pages, with the words broken up by pictures, fact boxes and graphs.

Every piece of content should keep ‘the audience’ in mind. Ask yourself:

Who are you writing for?

What kind of questions do they want answers to?

How do you keep them engaged/reading for longer?

What will make your content stand out from the crowd/capture those answer boxes/make people remember you/go back to your site?

A picture is worth a thousand words

This ethos can also be applied to content marketing efforts; sometimes an image, video or graphic can be a powerful tool to bring a written story to life.

What makes a good story?

Understanding what makes a good story is an essential part of being a journalist.

The basic rule of thumb we followed for coverage and placement was based on how interesting the story was deemed to be, and how many people it affected.

Of course, this can be subjective, so when trying to decide whether a content marketing campaign has the potential to go viral, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the hook?

Do you have unique data?

Is the idea open to ambiguity?

Is it credible?

Does it provoke an emotional response?

Does it tell a story?

Why this idea now?

Who – and how many people – does it affect?

Appealing to your audience

It is easy for a newspaper as the journalists know they have to produce content that appeals to everyone in the community they serve, but in content marketing it can be slightly more restrictive.

Where to find story inspiration

One of the best examples I have seen is by the toilet tissue brand, Charmin, using the Oscars to promote the brand:

But you must act fast for the greatest impact – sending the tweet after the main event would have had little impact for Charmin.

The final word

from IM Tips And Tricks https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/05/21/insights-into-a-newsroom-learnings-for-content-marketing/ from Rising Phoenix SEO https://risingphxseo.tumblr.com/post/174107495255

0 notes

ncmagroup · 7 years ago

Text

By Bill Widmer

Listen. We both know that “best practices” don’t mean much.

… right?

If you aren’t A/B testing, you are leaving a ton of money on the table.

True.

BUT here’s the deal.

A/B testing is a time-consuming method of optimization. It’s effective, but if you can simply click “edit” and make an obvious improvement, start there.

This is why “best practices” can be so powerful. They let you apply what others have learned and get quick wins when nothing is working. Plus, when you begin implementing a solid A/B testing framework, best practices can give you some great hypotheses for your first round of tests.

In today’s post, we’ll cover 21 proven best practices, backed up by case studies, statistics, and data.

Let’s begin.

#1: Start with a great headline to boost conversions 41%

The headline is perhaps the most crucial element of your entire landing page. Why? Let’s ask David Ogilvy, famous advertising revolutionary, his thoughts on headlines:

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

If this has changed in the digital age, it has only gotten worse. Now, let me hammer it home with a case study…

BettingExpert is an online betting forum where tipsters can share their experience and tips. They ran an a/b test on their headlines with three variations: One with a question, one with a benefit, and one utilizing loss aversion.

Three similar headlines on this page delivered very different results.

As you can see, the benefit headline (which spoke directly to its target reader’s dreams and aspirations) boosted conversions by 41.14%.

The takeaway here? Focus on the benefit and writing amazing headlines.

#2: Add strong testimonials and social proof to be 12X more trusted

Have you ever seen a testimonial like this:

“Awesome service! Definitely recommend!” – Jane Dough

You may even have used something like that in the past.

The thing is, social proof works. Studies show nearly 70 percent of online consumers look at a review prior to making a purchase and reviews are 12-times more trusted than product descriptions and sales copy from manufacturers.

But, weak social proof can harm your conversion rates.

Frankly, most customers will write a poor review or testimonial, though they mean well. Derek Halpern from Social Triggers actually increased conversion rates by 102% by removing social proof.

So, use social proof. But, you’re probably better off writing a strong testimonial yourself. Then getting permission from your customer to say it matches their experience. This ensures it will work more in your favor.

Pro Tip: Use exact numbers in your testimonials if you can. This works due to a principle in psychology known as Ambiguity Aversion, which states that humans prefer known risks over unknown risks (i.e. we like to know what we’re getting into). Robbie Richards does this well on his blog.

Your testimonials should be written by you with the agreement of your customer.

#3: Write action-oriented copy to increase clicks by 93%

If you’ve ever written a paper in high school, your English teacher probably told you to write in “active” voice, not “passive” voice. Why?

Because passive voice has a weak quality, is bland, and can be boring. Active language excites, energizes, and drives action. See what I did with the previous two sentences?

It turns out that your English teacher was right. Here’s why.

The company L’Axelle sells underarm sweat pads and ran an A/B test on the product landing page. Their original page used passive headline attempting to integrate the benefit, “Feel fresh.” The second used direct language and strong verb “Put an end to sweat marks!” With language like this, the exclamation point is probably redundant.

Version A

Version A: Passive Headline Copy

Version B

Version B: Active Headline Copy

That simple change in copy leads to a 93% increase in clicks, for a total conversion rate of 38.3%.

It goes to show – landing page copy matters. Make your copy action-oriented.

#4: Use contrasting CTA colors to grow sales 35.81%

This seems so mundane and simple (and sometimes, it is). However, a simple change in the CTA button color can have surprisingly large effects on landing page conversion rates.

Wanna know how? Here’s a case study:

A major eCommerce site that sells hand-painted porcelain wanted to grow their business (who doesn’t?). They decided to get Unbounce to help them out.

Unbounce came in and made one super simple change: They made the “ADD TO CART” button green instead of blue. The result?

A 35.81% increase in sales (yes, sales, not just clicks).

Increasing the visibility of the call to action increased conversions.

Now, why did this work? I don’t think it’s because green is a particularly compelling color.

Changing the CTA color worked because the green gave the button some contrast.

The blue didn’t stand out at all, whereas the green pops. Our focus, then, is not on particular colors being better for CTAs than others, but on ensuring a color contrast to draw the eye.

Wondering what color to use? Try picking the opposite color (from your brand’s or landing page’s main color) on this color wheel:

Designers use the color wheel to select complimentary–and conflicting–colors.

In other words, if your main color is yellow, try a blue or purple CTA. If your main color is green, try a purple or red CTA.

#5: Command 31.03% more people to click on actionable CTA copy

You had to have seen this coming – if the action-oriented copy in your headlines and body increase click-thru rates, of course, they’d work in your call to action (CTA) copy as well. The CTA is usually located on the button or link on which the visitor must click.

But, don’t take my word for it. Let’s take a look at a case study:

WriteWork offers essays and writing guides for students. Their original checkout page CTA (shown below) simply said: “Create My Account”. Who wants to create another account?

However, when they changed the text to say “Create Account & Get Started”, they saw a nice 31.03% increase in conversions. Not too shabby, eh?

The new call to action copy delivered a significant conversion increase in this test.

The verdict? Make your CTA copy actionable, and tell your customer exactly what will happen when they click it.

#6: Use faces, but not near a CTA (unless they’re a top industry influencer)

The human brain is very drawn to faces and eyes. We have a tendency to look at faces before anything else on a web page. This can be a good thing… or it can hurt conversions.

When it comes to using faces on a landing page, they can add credibility and trust. However, they can also distract the reader from a message or CTA.

To get around this, only use faces of people the user is bound to recognize and trust (such as an authority in your industry) near CTAs. For maximum effect, have them looking at, and potentially even pointing to, your CTA.

Of course, you still want to put pictures of you and your team to help build trust – just don’t place them near the call-to-action.

In a case study, Medalia Art was able to boost clicks 95.4% by replacing the images of art on their homepage to images of the artists.

The images of the artists increased conversions in this art case study.

#7: Format like a boss

Just as formatting makes your blog posts more engaging, so too does formatting make your landing pages easier to navigate and understand.

What do I mean by formatting?

Use bulleted lists to state your key benefits.

Use images to give the eyes a rest from reading the text.

Utilize white space to avoid extra noise and distraction.

Include headings and subheadings to break up your page.

Use directional cues (like arrows) to point the viewer’s eyes to your CTA.

Great formatting makes your landing page easier to skim–and you know most of your visitors are only going to skim–making the most important points immediately apparent.

Just as people prefer better-looking people, people prefer better-looking websites because they associate beauty with perceived trust and credibility.

Want an example? Basecamp redesigned their landing page and found a 14% increase in conversions.

Formatting will help your visitors digest your page.

Here’s one more example, for good measure: Swedish company Unionen saw a 15.8% click-through boost when they bullet-pointed their benefits:

Version A:

Version A: A big block of text at the key call to action.

Version B (15.9% Increase):

Version B: You don’t have to read Swedish to know that bulleted text and white space wins.

#8: This is 2017… use spellchecker already

Having grammatical or spelling errors in your copy can seriously hurt conversion rates. It makes you appear unprofessional at best, and like a scam at worst.

Want a real-life example of how badly a small mistake can harm your business? Take a look at this case study from Practical Ecommerce on a website selling tights – correcting their spelling from “tihgts” to “tights” on their product category page shot conversions up 80%.

Bad spelling can destroy visitor trust.

In a world where tools like Grammarly and built-in spell checkers exist, there’s just no excuse not to have immaculate grammar and spelling. Take an extra ten minutes to read through your page to ensure no errors get through.

Pro Tip: I actually like to read my writing out loud at least once. This helps me catch any errors and get a better idea of the flow and overall sound of things.

#9: Consider adding multiple CTAs

Multiple CTAs?! Are you crazy?

Before you scroll down and leave me a nasty comment, hear me out. I’m not talking about having a variety of buttons and forms leading to different places.

Rather, on longer pages, you should have multiple buttons and/or opt-in forms that lead to the same outcome.

Having more than one chance for the customer to opt-in allows them to scroll through and click at their own pace. If they don’t click your above-the-fold CTA, for example, they’ll have another chance in the middle or at the end of the article.

That said, too many buttons can cause your visitors to get decision fatigue, becoming tired of too many choices and leaving the page.

So, the short rule of thumb? Place multiple CTAs on long pages, and a single one on short pages.

#10: Ditch the sharing buttons (unless you only have one other option)

One of the 21 persuasion techniques for conversion optimization was something called the “Hobson’s +1 choice effect”. This effect essentially states that having over two choices can cause anxiety and negative feelings, but we also want to have the choice to choose.

As such, if you only have one option on your landing page (the CTA), adding a “Tweet this” button can help, according to the choice effect. However, if you already have multiple offers, CTAs, or links in your offer, social buttons can add to the noise and reduce conversions.

In one case from Taloon.com, removing social sharing buttons from their product pages increased conversions by 11.9%.

Removing social sharing buttons increased conversion rate.

However, I’d like to point out two key elements here:

They had four social sharing buttons instead of one (like “Share this product” or “Tweet this”), creating too many distractions.

They also have many other choices on these pages, like clicking on a separate category or page on the website, putting them well above that ideal two-choice limit.

I’ve already said it, but I’ll say it again: you have to test these things to find out exactly what works for your product, audience, and business.

#11: Highlight your guarantees to build trust

Purchasing is an emotional decision, which is then backed by logic. Therefore, once you’ve sold someone emotionally on your product or service, you must then provide them with logical reasons to actually get through the checkout page.

One way you can do that is to highlight your guarantees.

A money-back guarantee is an amazing way to get people to commit. It’s truly risk-free. If they don’t like it, they can get their money back.

Neil Patel increased sales of his Traffic System course by 21% when he highlighted a 30-day money back guarantee.

It doesn’t have to be a money back, either. Other guarantees you can try include:

A risk-free trial period.

A low-price guarantee (where you’ll refund them if they find a higher price).

A forever guarantee (where you’ll replace the product for life).

Don’t be afraid to test different guarantees, just as we talked about testing different offers. You may find a free trial–a $1 trial to avoid credit card complications–converts better than the money back guarantee.

Pro Tip: Another way to build trust is by adding an SSL certificate to your site. That’s the green lock that says “secure” next to it. This shows your visitors their information is safe.

#12: Use the inverted pyramid method (keep the most important stuff at the top of the page)

The inverted pyramid is a writing style coined by journalists. It means keeping all of the key benefits and most important takeaways at the top of the page, then getting into the details as you get further down the page.

It looks like this:

The structure of the inverted funnel.

(Source)

So, your attention-grabbing claims and statistics should be used at the top of the page to get visitors engaged, then your body copy, as you go down the page, should build anticipation for your product, at which point you give your CTA.

Of course, not all landing pages will be long enough to use the inverted pyramid method, but for longer pages, it works wonders. Afterall, only about half of all your visitors will ever even reach the bottom of your account – you need to entice them.

Percent of article content viewed.

Use the other best practices mentioned in this post, like formatting and imagery, to ensure you have the most important stuff first.

#13: Add related imagery and videos for 80% more conversions

Images aren’t just for formatting. They can be used to convey your main benefits and to help users understand what your product or service is about.

One study by eyeviewdigital.com even found that using video on landing pages can increase conversions by 80%. Check out their case studies if you’re interested in learning more.

When it comes to images and video, however, there are two things to keep in mind:

Don’t overuse them. White space is your friend.

Make the images relevant. Stock photos usually work against you.

If you’re in need of some images to add to your site, check out Unsplash. They have free high-res photos anyone can use. You can also use a tool like Canva to edit the images. For free.

Check out KISSmetric’s guide to creating unique landing page videos for more help on the video side of things.

#14: Remove any extra links

You’ve probably heard this tip before. “Remove navigation links so your visitors have to make a decision.”

However, with only 16% of all landing pages following this practice, does it really work?

HubSpot tested it to find out. They created two landing pages: One with a navbar, social sharing links, and footer, and one without any of the three.

Navigation should not be necessary on a complete landing page.

The results? Up to a 28% increase in conversions. They even tracked every change and put the results in a nice little chart:

In this case study, navigation hurt conversions on most pages or didn’t help at all.

In other words, it’s worth a shot to remove extra links. It may not always work, and it may not be worth losing the clicks to other parts of your website, but it had potential to increase sign-ups.

#15: Keep your landing page consistent with your brand and ads

The first job of the landing page is to keep the promise made in an ad, email, social post or link. Any variation can cost you conversions.

Consistency is key to a great many things, from blogging to getting fit. It’s necessary to succeed, and people love seeing it.

Especially on landing pages.

I can think of no better example than Optimizely’s case study on their PPC ads. They ran two tests:

In the first one, the Headline was kept the same, regardless of the ad copy they used. In the second test, they matched the landing page headline to the ad copy.

Test A:

Test A: One landing page attempts to keep three different promises. Unsuccessfully.

Test B:

Test B: These landing pages keep the specific promises made in each add.

The results? A 39.1% increase in conversions.

Of course, the headline isn’t the only thing you should keep consistent. Also, try to:

Match the colors of your ad/brand with your landing page.

Use similar images and design.

Use similar (and even an exact match) of your ad copy on your landing page.

Keeping things consistent ensures people aren’t confused when navigating your site, and they know to get what they expected to get when they click your ads.

#16: Achieve a 214% increase in conversion rate by asking for more information

One of the landing page best practices you often hear is to reduce the number of form fields as much as possible. It’s true, this reduces friction for the customer and has been shown to increase conversion rates.

BUT (there’s always a catch, isn’t there?), asking for more information better qualifies your leads and, in many cases, shows them you’re actually capturing the information needed.

Let me give you an example.

Advanced Grass is an artificial grass solution. They were able to achieve a 214% increase in conversions by splitting up their lengthy opt-in form into two parts: contact information and qualifying information.

Part 1:

Part 1 of the multi-step lead generation form.

Part 2:

Part 2 of the multi-step lead generation form.

By simply splitting their form into two parts, they are taking advantage of the psychological principle of commitment and consistency, well known in the marketing world thanks to Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Basically, Cialdini found that people are more likely to take additional steps towards something if they’ve already committed to the first step. In the case of advanced grass, they already committed to entering their contact info, so they’re more likely to enter the few extra details.

Additionally, asking for the right information builds trust. How could you give an accurate quote for your artificial grass if the company didn’t know how many square feet you need or what kind of project it is?

The bottom line? Ask for more info, but split your form into two steps.

#17: 10X clicks by testing different offers.

Sometimes in our landing pages, we’re focusing on entirely the wrong offer. Maybe people don’t want a ‘free trial’ or ‘free consultation’. What about a free eBook or a free tool, instead?

I didn’t pull those examples out of my you-know-where. WordStream actually increased conversions 10 times over by changing their offer from a “Free Trial” of their software to giving away a free tool they created: The Google AdWords Performance Grader.

WordStream found success by changing their offers.

Of course, creating your own tool requires time, capital, and finding a good developer, unless you happen to be one. Here are some other offers you can try:

A free ebook or video explaining how your software works (alongside a free trial, of course)

A free case study detailing how others have used your software to maximize their business.

A template or worksheet helping your visitors accomplish something specific.

The key is to offer something highly relevant to what your software does and that’s very valuable, meaning you didn’t slop it together in five minutes. Put some thought into it.

#18: Boost engagement by 102% using scarcity

If you’ve been building landing pages for any amount of time, you’ve surely heard of using scarcity as a tactic to increase sign-ups.

Using scarcity means limiting resources in order to get your visitors to take action right away.

For example, putting an expiration date on a coupon, limiting an offer to a certain number of customers, and announcing that you only have a few items left in stock are all versions of scarcity.

Going back to Cialdini, scarcity is one of his psychological principles of persuasion. People place more value on that which is limited.

Let’s look at a case study by KISSmetrics:

Hiten Shah decided to reduce the free trial period from 30 days to 14 days – and he found a 102% boost in engagement. In other words, twice as many people took action and used the free trial during the 14 days than the 30 days.

More people signed up during the 14-day free trial than the 30-day trial.

So, use scarcity on your own pages by including a countdown timer on your page or offering a limited number of products.

This post is part of the Conversion Short Course. Signing up on the right earn points for reading valuable articles and getting prizes.

19#: Pay attention to “the fold” to lift conversions 220%

You think I’m going to tell you to put your CTA above the fold, don’t you?

Well, you shouldn’t necessarily do that. This is one of the most common of landing page best practices.

Instead, pay attention to the fold. While there is research that supports above-the-fold CTA, there is research against it as well.

Most engagement happens right at or just below the fold. Let me explain…

Most engagement happens right at the fold or just below it.

As you can see in the chart above, people view the topmost area of the page the least and view the area “just above the fold” the most (i.e. right where you begin to need to scroll).

Joanna Wiebe of Copy Hackers and Airstory had this to say:

“Don’t cram everything above the fold. Countless tests and scroll- / click-tracking studies have shown that visitors are willing to scroll… as long as they know there’s something to scroll down for. (So don’t create a false-bottom.) Don’t prevent people from exploring your content by making assumptions about their use behaviors.” (via Copy Hackers)

So, where should you really place your opt-in form or CTA?

It depends on the complexity of your offer (and thus, the amount of information needed to explain it). This chart by KISSmetrics explains it perfectly:

Offer complexity affects the placement of your call to action on the page.

Let me give you a more direct example. Marketing Experiments tested one of their client’s CTA placements above- and below-the-fold. Below-the-fold actually resulted in 220% more conversions, likely due to the complexity of their product.

In this case, placing the call to action near the bottom of the page increased conversions.

(Source)

What did we learn? Above-the-fold isn’t always best – test your CTA placement.

#20: Don’t rely on these landing page best practices. Test.

All of the best practices on this list can (and probably have) been broken with exceptions at one point or another. Like I said in the very beginning of this post – best practices make a lot of assumptions. Use them, but don’t be afraid to go against them.

In the words of Mark Twain:

“When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”

I’ll leave you with one final case study to prove just how important it is to a/b test your landing pages. Convert Verve, whose examples you saw in some of the practices above, ran a simple test on the checkout page of one of their clients – removing the green arrow pointing to their CTA button.

As it turns out, removing that green arrow actually reduced conversion rates by 12.29%. Who would have thought? Of course, if you followed along above, it makes sense – removing the arrow reduces the chance for the button to draw the eye.

Removing the arrow reduced conversion.

So, in parting: Always test your landing pages, and don’t be afraid to go against best practices once in a while.

Conclusion

Landing page best practices are just that – best practices. We can take what’s worked for others and copy it for our own use, but ultimately, it comes down to trying different things.

As Mark Zuckerberg says, “Move fast and break things.” Follow the expert advice to make your first page the best it can be, then start experimenting.

Now, what did I miss? There are surely more landing page tips & tricks out there I didn’t cover here. Drop me a comment and let me know.

And, if you found even one thing useful about this article, please take a moment to share it.

Go to our website: www.ncmalliance.com

20 Landing Page Best Practices to Kickstart Your Conversion Lift By Bill Widmer Listen. We both know that “best practices” don’t mean much. … right? If you aren’t A/B testing, you are leaving a ton of money on the table.

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