If you have registered, you can now access our comment search-engine by going down to the link that says Site Admin at the bottom.  This will also let you scroll through comments beyond just the 15 most recent ones.  (As before, registered users also get to use HTML coding in comments).  If you haven’t registered, why not?  It’s free! 

I’ve been updating the index of writing articles like a fiend.  Give it a look!  Yesterday it had 80 articles, and 120 today.  Unfortunately, I have about 150 more to go.

The query is a letter written to an agent or publisher explaining what you’re writing and why they should want to represent/publish you. #Queryfail collects amusing anecdotes about authors that need to work a bit more on their pitch.

• “The only thing worse than ignoring guidelines because you think you’re special is actually telling me that in the query.” — AgentGame
• “Querying for a book you admit isn’t great, but saying you thought you’d take a shot at getting an agent anyway? Obnoxious.” — AgentGame
• “REMEMBER 50k words is not enough to get your novel published – most pubs want 75 – 120k novels!” —EelKat [B. Mac adds— most of the advice I’ve seen in this field suggests that first-timers should stay south of 100,000 words, but some genres are more forgiving than others.]
• Before you query, read your first few pages aloud and tape-record yourself. I bet you’ll identify problems.
• All agents who received “Book Query 51” today, raise your hand.

The author behind My Writer’s Block got off lucky with this one– it definitely wasn’t that easy for me to get rid of Vista. 

This reminds me of my freshman year, when Dell computers suddenly started melting (and at least once bursting into flames) across campus.  I signed on as a marketer for a team of computer guys who were selling homemade computers that were suddenly desirable.  Our motto was “one melted computer is a tragedy; a hundred melted computers are an opportunity.” 

Just register here (it’s free) and you’re good to go.  Here’s an HTML crash course.

Continue Reading »

I set up a new page for Feedback. If you’d like to give me suggestions, insults or compliments, that would be the best place to do so.  Alternately, please feel free to e-mail me at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com as always, but I can’t respond as quickly to e-mail.

Legal disclaimer time! The FTC is requiring US bloggers, as of December 1, to disclose the receipt of free products. 

1.  Please assume that every novel and comic book I review has been given to me as a promotional copy. 

Continue Reading »

Hello. If you haven’t taken my survey yet, I would really appreciate if you gave me 10 minutes of your time. That will help me get published. You can take it by clicking here or by reading under the fold.
Continue Reading »

Here’s an amusing excerpt from a Washington Post article…

“We are at a point where no one could have even imagined 15 years ago,” said Albert J. Lurigio, a professor of psychology and criminal justice at Loyola University who has written about electronic monitoring and privacy since a New Mexico judge, inspired by Spider-Man comics, became the first to sentence a defendant to home confinement with an electronic monitor. 

Does this mean we’re on the verge of surgically implanting explosive nanites in dangerous parolees? In your face, recidivism!

I’ll be back in a few days and won’t be on much until then.

I just bought a webcam, but I’m ambivalent about using it here.  Would it be helpful if I supplemented our usual lineup of written advice and reviews with some webcast material? Or would it feel like a gimmick?

Here are some of the factors I’m considering. What do you think?

1. The visual element can provide a solid opportunity for style and personality. For example, Angry Nintendo Nerd’s rants and Ask Prudie’s etiquette advice both use the author’s presence to create flair.  However, quite a few webcasters waste that opportunity by dully reading a script.  What’s the point?  I wouldn’t subject my readers to something that’s slower and more complicated unless I was confident that I had the style to make it work.

2. Webcasting generally strikes me as more entertaining but less informative than pure text. For one thing, it’s harder for readers to follow a video at their own pace and it’s easier to misconstrue something that is spoken rather than written.  However, university classes about fiction writing often involve a lot of oral instruction.  So I think something like a video-lecture is plausible.

Continue Reading »

I’m just getting back from San Diego.  If my brother had had the foresight to schedule his wedding a week later than he had, perhaps we could have done Comic-Con.  (Because comic books are obviously awesomer than real life… haha).  Here are some San Diego tips that might help you if you’re going to Comic-Con.

Continue Reading »

Here is some grilling advice for beginners.  Now go out and have a barbecue.

Hello.  If you haven’t taken our survey yet, I would really appreciate if you gave us 10 minutes of your time.  That will help us get published.  You can take it by clicking here or by reading under the fold.
Continue Reading »

I have a business trip to the East Coast this week.  I’m very excited!  I will probably be less active than usual this week.

If you’re a blogger interested in accumulating a large audience, it’s really important to do posts as regularly as you can.  But life sometimes gets in the way.  Anyway, I’m back!

We just got up to 10,000 comments. Congratulations to Holliequ.

Earlier this month, Praxis Comics’ site had gone down for a few days and I assumed that the publisher had folded. After all, it’s a cutthroat business and their website had previously mentioned some trouble with investors.  However, I am pleased to report that the website has returned with a new design.  (I’m generally fond of Praxis’ art, but I think the design probably uses sex-appeal a bit too blatantly.  Ah well.  That’s pretty standard for this industry).

I also came across Radical Comics.  They don’t accept unsolicited submissions, so I won’t add them to our index of comic book publishers.  But I think they’re worth looking into because they have book trailers for all of their series.

So, if you’re interested in doing a trailer for your comic book (or perhaps even a novel), I think you can learn something from their approach.  Their trailers are striking because they have no narration and hardly any words; they only use wordless images and an instrumental sound-track.  That’s a surprisingly interesting way to present a simpler story like Calibre, an Arthurian legend retold in the Wild West.  It did not work for series with a more complicated setup.  For example, the premise of City of Dust is that fictional stories have been outlawed 100 years in the future.  I don’t feel like the images gave me a good idea of what was going on or why I should care.

Penn State recently released a workplace orientation video about potentially angry students, such as veterans. But which angry students did they miss?

Continue Reading »

It took us three years, but we finally got to 1000 posts.  These include about 400 writing articles totaling ~150,000 words.

Hello.  I’m still dealing with major technical issues on my end that will keep me from adding new moderators.  I’ll let you guys know when I have resolved these issues; I expect it will take us a week or two.

Now we have a tiny favicon to help you keep track of which browser tab belongs to Superhero Nation. Favicons are only 16 pixels by 16 pixels, so they’re very hard to read. Here’s the 64 by 64 version.

I was mulling over a few alternatives, but they were fairly uninspired or unworkable: a book, a cape, something with a pen, etc. I’ll let you know if this significantly affects user-retention rates.

What do you think?

We don’t sell ads or subscriptions here.  I’d really appreciate if you could donate to help offset our art and hosting costs.  Thanks.

It’s been our most successful month so far.

• Most importantly, we completed the first draft of our nonfiction query.  We are almost ready to start pitching to agents.
• We had 15,000 visitors, about 500 a day.  In contrast, we only had 350 visitors per day in February.  A 40% growth rate is pretty impressive.  We can’t sustain that rate of growth, but if we could, we’d be up to 10,000 visitors each day by December.
• Our readers spent a combined 1310 hours here.  That’s 65% higher than our previous record.
• We doubled our amount of review forums.

1. We’ve resolved most of the technical issues about volunteer moderators and we will begin inducting them on Friday.   The volunteer mods will have enhanced HTML access and comment-editing powers from the very beginning.  We’re still working on providing access to our comment search-engine.
2. I will be leaving within a week or so.  I hope it’s been as fun and rewarding for you as it has been for me.

If you look at the top of the site, you’ll find a link that says Behind the Scenes at SN.  Here are a few of the things we’ll cover there:

• How to join our volunteer staff
• Details for our staffers
• Our statistics

• Notre Dame just announced that the President is doing our commencement speech this year.  I’ve always been opposed to the idea of commencements and do not plan to attend mine, regardless of the speaker.  This announcement merely makes it absolutely certain that my absence will cause my parents to flip out.  They’re still sore that I successfully missed my high school commencement, even though I had a valid excuse then.
• In other Notre Dame news, the police busted my St. Patrick’s Day party.  Very exciting.
• Over these past three days, we’ve been averaging 1000 visitors per day.  That’s about three times as many as normal.

Hello.  In the last week, we’ve had about 650 comments.  Currently, Cadet Davis and I do basic proofreading on each one.  That’s a lot of work!  As a result, we’d like to begin taking on volunteer moderators/proofreaders. If you might be interested, please read on.

Continue Reading »

Here are some brief tips for stimulating visitor loyalty on your site.

Continue Reading »

Site titles play an important role in search engine optimization.  A site named “Superhero Nation: a writing advice site” has a much better chance to place for a search like superhero writing advice than a site named just “Superhero Nation.”  Site titles also helps draw people into your website by explaining what viewers will get out of your website.

For example, check out how a typical search for Superhero Nation appears on Google.  The site name plays more prominently than the name of the article does.

Continue Reading »