Quiet humans are not defective. Loud humans are not defective. Unless there is a significant change, assume your human is operating at normal levels.
Human words do not mean the same thing all the time. Look up the study of human tone if you want to always know what your human means.
Human females will smell of blood each month. If this changes, ask your human in private if something happened.
Human males often do not know how loud they are. Asking them to lower their voice is not offensive.
Human cultures vary greatly and various cultures have conflicting beliefs. Most humans will not be offended if you cannot keep up with this.
Humans do not share a hive mind but do have several musical triggers that activate a human chorus. These triggers transcend most cultural and language barriers.
All Stabby units come with a human locator setting. Use liberally.
Ask for a detailed explanation before agreeing to join a human on any non work activity.
Be aware of human hobbies and skills. Humans enjoy company and will likely teach you whatever they know. It is also beneficial to know what your human may do should they get bored.
Do not be too concerned over what humans ingest, so long as they do so willingly and with the full knowledge of what they are ingesting.
Unless you hear a human say something along the lines of ‘I hope this works’ or ‘here goes nothing’, assume they have a working knowledge at the attempted task.
If you hear a human say one of the above phrases, take cover as it is likely too late to stop or report them.
Dont leave your property unless you’re willing to return as something slightly different.
Don’t be fooled by the summer warmth. It’s perfect to lull you into a false sense of security. Wouldn’t you just love to go for a walk in nature, lie down, exposing all your vital organs, and close your eyes?
Don’t be fooled by the summer sun. When it’s dark, you may not be able to see what’s coming for you. But when it’s light, you won’t be able to hide.
Don’t linger on the people crossing your path. They’ll give you a nervous nod and walk faster, because they’ve been where you’re going. They know what you’ll see.
Can you hear all those sounds? The birds singing, the crickets chirping, the leaves rustling, the twigs snapping, the humming? They’re all excited you’ve come. Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you. Worry when everything falls silent, that means she’s arrived.
Don’t try to cross the swamp. I know you can see your house from here, you’re supposed to. I know the ground seems treadable and firm, until it doesn’t. The neighbour watching you won’t help, she’ll just wait.
What the heck is Bias Tape and how do I make it?!?
Great question! I had this exact question (without the great phrasing) when I asked my grandma, “how do I make the trim thing around the apron?!” To which her response was, “you make bias tape!!”
Now, this led into an entire other conversation about bias tape, what it is and what it’s used for. To avoid using my own poorly worded version, here is the definition from Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing:
“Bias tapes are fabric strips of varying widths, with prefolded edges. Suitable for curved hems, or as casing. Double-fold type is folded in half (off center) for quick use as binding.“
Well that’s great and all, but we need to dig a bit deeper to get the true meaning of the bias. What we really want is info about bias strips.
“Bias strips are bands of fabric cut on the true bias (that is, any diagonal at a 45-degree angle to the lengthwise or crosswise grain).“
That’s the definition we really want and with that we can proceed with learning on how to make bias strips and bias tape!!
First, you will need some sort of measuring instruments. You will need something to mark a 45 degree angle on your fabric as well as the width of the bias strip. Bias strips can be any width, but are commonly 1 or 2 inches. I will be making 2 inch bias strips which will result in 1/2 inch bias tape later on.
The measuring device I used is my cutting mat which is super nifty and already has the bias marked up for me. My fabric is super see through which works to my benefit. I lined up the salvage edge with the yellow edge of the cutting mat and took a rotary cutter along the bias lines marked on the mat. (You can see the lint from where the fabric was cut.)
Pictured above are my two bias strips that I just cut out. Now, if you’re like me, I used scrap fabric to make these strips which means they need sewn together to make the bias strip longer. There is a specific way to do this correctly! See below...
Cut off the ends of your bias strips at a 45-degree angle. Line them up as shown in the picture above so your strips are making an “L.”
Stitch them together!
Now you have a super long bias strip! Continue in the same fashion to make your bias strip as long as you need. Press the seam connecting the strips open when you’re all done.
Time to make bias tape! If you’re making 1/2 inch bias tape (2 inch bias strip), fold your bias strip hot dog style bringing in each edge by 1/2 inch.
When you’ve folded in your edges, press it with an iron! Above shows my bias strip after I pressed it.
Fold it off center and press one last time!
You have bias tape yay!!! Bias tape is super versatile and can be used for hem facings and even piping! I recently used bias tape to make the lines on my Sailor Jupiter collar. What will you use it for?
So, everyone’s telling you that you need to build a mailing list and an author newsletter, right? Direct marketing to interested subscribers is definitely the best way to sell your product. But just how do you go about finding those subscribers?
Well, as an author with a mailing list of over 18,000 engaged subscribers, please allow me to give you a few pointers.
Instafreebie is, in my opinion, the best way to go. What you do is upload a book or story you are willing to give away for free, and join every group promotion you possibly can. Beware if your book/story is in Kindle Unlimited - you can only upload the 10% that is visible in the preview, or you’re in breach of KU terms and conditions.
Make sure you check the box, when setting up your promo in instaFreebie, that says “Email Opt-In Required”. Otherwise you are giving away the story and getting nothing in return!
If you are with MailerLite or MailChimp, you can integrate accounts and the subscribers will automatically be migrated to your mailing list, where you should have a special ‘welcome!’ sequence set up. This should be an automated email (you can use a sequence of several, but I just use one) which thanks the person for joining your list, tells them what they can expect from you, and shares social media links etc.
You can see the automated email which goes out to new people joining my instaFreebie (and Bookfunnel, which is a similar service) subscribers here. I set up an automated sequence which kicks in after a 3-day delay and moves subscribers who DO open that email into my ‘good’ subscriber list, and those who don’t into my ‘unengaged’ list. Either way, they’ll get my regular email the following Sunday. How often you send out newsletters is up to you… some people only send out when they have a new release, some send monthly, biweekly, weekly or even daily! Personally, I’ve found that weekly is a ‘sweet spot’ for me. (see all my past NLs in my archive here… and you can also sign up to receive future ones if you like. I give away a Kindle Fire 7” once a month, paid for my my Amazon Associates income!)
You get 1 month free full service (including mailing list signups) from instaFreebie and then you have to pay $20 a month. You can get a LOT of subs in that one month if you join a few promos and you have an appealing cover, though. I'm talking up to 10,000. I've had as many as 3,000 from a single promo.
Eventually you reach a point of diminishing returns. HOWEVER, if like me you are with MailerLite, having both accounts actually gets you a 30% discount off your MailerLite subscription, which means once you get to 15,000 subscribers, instaFreebie basically pays for itself. Nice, huh?
Note; you get up to 1,000 subscribers free with MailerLite before you have to start paying. If you’d like to sign up using this link you will get a $20 credit, and if eventually you do start paying, I’ll get a $20 credit too!
The best place to find group promos is on Facebook. I usually join a few every month - some are free, some are $5, some are $10. How many subscribers you will get is a who knows question. I've had $10 ones that got me 100 subs and free ones that netted a thousand, but generally the paid ones are a bit better.
Here are the groups I know about (in my genre) where these opps are posted… there may be others in different genres, note!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/674062869429630/ (these are ALL free)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/621477138043905/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/578910405624973/
As a general rule, the main requirement for entry is that you share with your NL. Some have minimum NL requirements, some will take anyone as long as you pay the entry fee and agree to share. I started off with about 20 subscribers and got accepted into a couple of small ones, built up to 1,000 really quickly and then I got accepted into the bigger ones.
What do I do once I have a mailing list? What do I put in the newsletter?
Well, don’t forget that you’ve got all those instafreebie group swaps to share!
But for the rest, this is where Newsletter Swaps comes into play. Most people don’t put out a book a month, but what they do instead is build up goodwill by sharing about other authors’ new releases. There are FB groups for newsletter swaps as well - most of them won’t consider you worth swapping with until you have 5k subs at least, though.
There is also BookBoast (https://www.bookboast.com) and Bookclicker (https://www.bookclicker.com). On Bookclicker you can actually monetize your list, if you don’t have swaps you’re working towards. I charge $15 to send out a ‘mention’ to my 18k subscribers and $30 for a ‘feature’ headline ad. I get quite a few bookings a month… enough to pay for my MailerLite subscription, so it makes it all worthwhile!
I don’t recommend putting too many ads in your NL. I have one Feature spot and two Mention spots a week and that’s it. Too many turns your subscribers off.
What I would definitely suggest is subscribing to the mailing list of a few of your favourite authors and seeing what and how often they send out. Check out their website or their Amazon page and I can just about guarantee you’ll find a mailing list link somewhere!
And don’t forget, you can always subscribe to mine here...
