English Research

The hardest yet most essential element of writing great fiction is character—specifically, creating a central hero who is relatable, compelling, and worth the audience's precious time. In this entertaining and practical guide, popular blogger, writing coach and screenwriter Matt Bird breaks down what makes characters embraceable and unforgettable, and presents insider tips and tricks for writers of all levels and genres.

After enjoying my best-selling book, How to Publish a Book on Amazon, people have sent me scores of emails asking me to write a follow-up book about how to market a book on Amazon. Many of them say that although they wrote a great book, the sales just aren't coming in. They are discouraged because they put so much work into their book. They are desperate for an answer to one burning question: How can I get the word out about my book and start making sales? I’ll give you an easy-to-follow, step-by-step launch and maintenance plan for your book’s success.

In Plotting a Fantasy Novel, you’ll discover how to create a novel outline in five easy steps. Fantasies are our secret escape to utopia. And with the right tools and techniques, you can create many more escape gateways by writing compelling fantasy novels…novels your readers will be itching to get their hands on. If you dream of seeing your name among the masters of storytelling, it’s time to learn the secrets.

From the fall of the Soviet Union to the Arab Spring to today’s continuing conflicts, media have played a decisive role in political affairs across the globe—driving the revolutionary changes shaping today’s new world. This is the first book presenting a comprehensive look at the emergence of media as a primary actor, and not merely an observer, of global affairs. With the rise of digital technology, the power of media to intervene in global affairs is in the hands of everyone—including you.

Things are scary right now. We’re all being swept along by a tidal wave of history, and it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not helpless: We have minds, and imaginations, and the ability to visualize other worlds and valiant struggles. And writing can be an act of resistance that reminds us that other futures and other ways of living are possible. Full of memoir, personal anecdote, and insight about how to flourish during the present emergency, Never Say You Can’t Survive is the perfect manual for creativity in unprecedented times.

When actress and activist Brittany Snow was a teenager, she read an article about another woman’s hardship that made her feel seen and less alone. She carried that story in her back pocket for a long time. This experience was a gift that Brittany then paid forward when she revealed her own experience in a published article. Brittany’s story resonated with a young reader, who kept that story in her back pocket, where it was when the two crossed paths serendipitously.

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors is the National Archives' official guide and is written in an accessible style from the unique perspective of a custodian of the records. It details all the latest internet developments, including a chapter on family history on the web. It also points to more traditional resources, explaining step by step how to research records of births, marriages, and wills.

Presenting a clear, accessible guide to solving important leadership challenges through human resources-focused and other data analytics, this engaging audiobook tells you how to transform the HR function and overall organizational effectiveness by using data to make decisions grounded in facts vs opinions, identify root causes behind your company's thorniest problems, and move toward a winning, future-focused business strategy.

Gary Webb had an inborn journalistic tendency to track down corruption and expose it. For over thirty-four years, he wrote stories about corruption from county, state, and federal levels. He had an almost magnetic effect to these kinds of stories, and it was almost as if the stories found him. It was his gift, and, ultimately, it was his downfall.

The best stories linger in the hearts and minds of readers for decades. These tales gain their power through plots that connect with the audience on both an emotional and intellectual level. Ronald B. Tobias details these 20 time-tested plots. Each is discussed and analyzed, illustrating how a successful plot integrates all the elements of a story. Tobias then reveals how to use these plots effectively in your own work.

The one real difference between the American press and the Soviet state newspaper Pravda was that the Russian people knew they were being lied to. To expose the lies our media tell us today, controversial journalist James O'Keefe created Project Veritas, an independent news organization whose reporters go where traditional journalists dare not. Their investigative work - equal parts James Bond, Mike Wallace, and Saul Alinsky - has had a consistent and powerful impact on its targets.

In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.

For those unfamiliar with copywriting, this article will provide an overview of the subject and explain why it is in such great demand today. The field of copywriting is vast and growing at a rapid pace. Copywriting can be defined as the process of presenting a creative message to a consumer. According to the book Copywriting, copywriting is founded on three essential ideas. When writing to a consumer, there must be some level of interaction between the customer and the vendor. You must then ensure that you communicate the benefits to the buyer up to the point of purchase.

Gay has made many important revisions to keep her foundational, award-winning text relevant for today's diverse student population, including: new research on culturally responsive teaching, a focus on a broader range of racial and ethnic groups, and consideration of additional issues related to early childhood education. This book demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through students' own cultural experiences.

Don't wait! Publishing insider Brent Sampson reveals revolutionary advice guaranteed to increase your book sales on Amazon. Learn the powerful secrets used by successful Amazon authors every day. This informative and practical "how-to" guide shares new techniques that are proven to work.

Writing Without Bullshit is the first comprehensive guide to writing for today's world: a noisy environment where everyone reads what you write on screens. The average news story now gets only 36 seconds of attention. Unless you change how you write, your emails, reports, and Web copy don't stand a chance.

Slow Down, Sell Faster! does this by introducing a simple yet powerful method for buyer-focused selling that is practical, repeatable, and easily customizable. This buyer-focused approach extends to proposals and presentations, loyalty and retention, and, of course, cultivating more business. Each step in the book corresponds to a role you should adopt to meet customers’ needs at each stage of the buying process. Increasing sales is not just about learning more sales techniques; it’s about understanding the buying process - from your customer’s point of view.

If today’s brands want to succeed, they have to be in the conversation, and influencers make that happen. The Age of Influence is an essential guide for marketing professionals and business owners who want to create and implement a highly effective and sustainable influencer marketing plan.

For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimize our own “utility”. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to “cognitive biases” with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement.

This House of Grief is a heartbreaking audiobook by one of Australia's most admired authors. Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain.