How to Make a Million Dollars Writing a Book

Inspiring Me Today: The Over-Ambitious

So, you've heard about all these people writing books? Just sit and type, and out comes a paper-bound money maker. But how do you start?

Ready to rake in the cash? Let me tell you how to make a million dollars writing a book.

1. Come up with a stellar novel idea. Vampires and Mermaids are hot right now. So are ghosts and love stories. Ok, so, a vampire mermaid falls in love with a ghost! Awesome! Step one done!
2. Now, go to a Starbucks and write the book. Get a Starbucks credit card to pay for all the mochas you buy.
3. Get an agent to fall in love with your vampermaid love story. This is the easy part.
4. Now, the agent gets a publisher to fall in love with it too. The agent sells the book for a low 5-figure advance. Hooray! The advance will almost pay off the Starbucks card!
5. By some tragic statement about the tastes of today's youth miracle, you just pay through the advance. Now, time to write Vampermaid 2!
6. Go back to Starbucks and pull that credit card back out. 
7. Sit down with your PC and piping hot mocha, and perpare to write.
8. The person next to you asks what you're doing.
9. You tell them who you're the author of VAMPERMAID, and say that you're writing book 2. Maybe they want an autograph.
10. The person says, "Hmm... Never heard of you."
11. A little irritated, you accidentally hit your cup and spill mocha all over you and your computer.
12. Sue Starbucks for medical bills, damages to your computer, and pain and suffering.
13. Win million dollar settlement with Starbucks.
14. Congratulations! You've just made a million dollars writing a novel!

So there you go. Just follow those easy steps, and you're on your way to riches!

What Search Terms Find Your Site?

Inspiring Me Today: Google Analytics and Claire Legrand

Recently, Claire Legrand did this awesome (lol. Read to see why I laugh) blog post about the hilarious search terms people used to find her blog. While my results can’t hope to compare to her baffling results, I did find my results (from Google Analytics) interesting.

My top results are:

• S Kyle Davis, Kyle Davis, or some other variant obviously.
•  Various searches for info on J.K. Rowling’s plot planning sheet because I analyzed it here
•  Intern Amie variations because I defended her back in the day
• Dialog vs. Conversation variations because of this post
• “Finding a plot” variations for similar reasons
• Logline-related searches because of a critique session I did once
•  Searches for Steven Malk because I did a post on something he said in an interview once
• Jodi Reamer variations because I mentioned her ONCE in passing
• Searches for other people I’ve mentioned in passing, etc.
• yWriter variations because I’ve mentioned several times how the software is awesome and free

So, those are the normal results. What about the weird ones?

• “kyle davis” stranton. you make one Office joke…
• Celtic demi-goddess. You know, you can just say you think I look nice in my photo. You’re taking the flattery too far.
• Faster faster kyle davis. Fine, fine. I’ll hurry up.
• Graffiti on the wall interview skills. I’m not sure what this means
• How do you get “a thicker skin”? some sort of body armor perhaps?
• If your name is kyle your name is davies. No, it’s Davis, actually, and that’s a logical fallacy.
• Kyle davis it’s your life Great, now I have Bon Jovi stuck in my head. “Bow wow.”
• Meaning of “ledger domain”. This is because my book used to be called “The Ledger Domain.” If you’re searching for this, it’s a pun. Legerdemain is a French-based word meaning “sleight of hand” or magic
• Nextbook 2 (and variations). No clue why searches for this come to my site. Maybe Nextbook wants to sponsor me! If so... sure! I’ll say they’re the best things ever if you give me one for free!
• Semiotic analysis of beatles blackbird. This. Is. Awesome. If someone actually does this, please leave the link in my comments.
• The man in the trenchcoat and the fedora dreams umm… creepy…. (especially if you’ve read this book)
• The usual suspects logline. I love this movie, but... ???
• What influenced james patterson to write daniel x? Kyle, remember: if you can’t say something nice...