When Amazon launched Alexa Skill Blueprints last week, they drastically lowered the skill level required to develop new tricks for Amazon's smart speaker. Now anyone can put their work in the Alexa Skills Store...
Continue reading
Category: Web Publishing
Google Plus is Shutting Down on 2 April
When Google announced last October that they were sunsetting Google+, they didn't tell us when they were going to turn off the lights. According to the emails Google started...
Continue reading
Amazon Drops Product Display Ads, Launches Lockscreen Ads for Authors
Over the past few months I have been hearing rumors of Amazon changing its ad program while at the same time I've been seeing indie titles show up in...
Continue reading
Someone Was Impersonating My Blog on Facebook in 2012
I learned two things on Facebook this morning. The first is that I apparently won an award in 2012 for being one of the 50 best blogs for authors....
Continue reading
Google Site Kit Will Make It Easier to Integrate Google’s Services Into WordPress Sites
Between its SEO, traffic analysis, and performance optimization tools (Search Console, Analytics, and PageSpeed Insights, respectively), Google supplies a number of key tools used by just about everyone who...
Continue reading
What’s the Best Option for Rescuing Your Content From Tumblr?
Tumblr's announcement this week that all adult content will be deleted on 17 December has many users running for the exits, and that really should include you (even if...
Continue reading
Here’s What You Can Do with That Old Blog After Launching a New Website
If you write online for years on end there will come a point where you will end up with multiple old blogs and abandoned writing projects residing on various...
Continue reading
Tumblr Reminds Us Why Creators Need to Own Their Platform, Part Three
Almost like clockwork, every couple years Tumblr gives us another example of how if you don't own your own platform, you don't get to decide what you can say....
Continue reading
Gutenberg is Now Being Foisted Upon WordPress.com Users – Here’s How to Avoid it
We're five days away from the official launch of Gutenberg, the new WordPress post and page editor, and I finally have an answer to one of the most important...
Continue reading
Guest Post: The Key to an Effective Social Media Strategy for Writers
Whether you’re a writer of nonfiction — blogs, articles, technical and nonfiction writing — or an author of books and fiction, you know how important it is to be...
Continue reading
Google+ Isn’t Shutting Down, But It Will Be Retasked For Enterprise Use
It's been pretty obvious for a while now that Google's social network has been so completely abandoned by the public that its remaining users, Google employees, could use it to...
Continue reading
Gutenberg Will be Released with WordPress 5.0 on 19 November – Here’s What You Need to Do
We have known for the past 18 months that Gutenberg was going to one day change just about every aspect of running a WordPress site from publishing posts to designing...
Continue reading
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Authors Should Be on Holonis
Join the #holoauthor family No matter what type of business you’re in, nothing is more important to personal brand than storytelling. No one knows that more than us authors....
Continue reading
The Digital Reader is Now on Instagram and Pinterest
It belatedly occurred to me this evening that I've never announced that I've expanded my bloging to include Pinterest and Instagram. As a result of an epiphany about blogging...
Continue reading
Instapaper is Charging for Premium Once More – The Free Ride is Over
One of the first things that Pinterest did when it bought Instapaper from Betaworks 2 years ago was to make Instapaper's premium service free for all users. Now that Instapaper...
Continue reading