Maria's Journal

In the spirit of love and passion and all those primitive traits that make humans tempting sexual creatures, comes my three-part series: Irresistible Body Parts. In this three-week series, I’d like to discuss the parts of our bodies that make us so attractive to the opposite sex. Week One: The Mouth. The lips have it! Research shows that men are drawn to a woman's mouth more than any other facial feature. In fact, the study showed that men considered women’s lips the most attractive part of her body particularly, if she’s wearing red lipstick (big surprise!). The study, which was carried out by scientists at Manchester University tracked the eye movements of fifty men as they were presented with images of different women. Scientists found that in the ten seconds after meeting a lady for the first time, the average male would spend more than half his time gazing at her mouth. If the lady applied lipstick, the male subject found it difficult to look away. A dash of pink ...

A blog is a great way to connect with your readers and an excellent way to reach a wider audience. If the content of your blog is interesting and updated frequently readers will subscribe to your blog, or at least you hope they will J We, as writers, need to realize that getting readers interested in what we have to say is important specially if we are to create a buzz about us as authors and even more so if we want to create a buzz about our books. So, all this sounds great, doesn’t it? But here’s the catch, no great outcome will come to pass unless you have the motivation and time required to commit to a blog. So, let me be honest here: Blogging is not for everyone. And, that’s okay. Let’s say, however, that you decided 2014 would be your year to start blogging, there are some important questions you need to ask yourself first. See below: Who is the blog for? Don't try to be all things to all people. It's best if you narrow your focus. If you’re like me, a ...

Ebooks are changing the way we read and write and as sales continue to rise, more authors are buying into the idea of writing specifically for the eBook market. The unique format of an eBook, however, makes writing one a little bit different from penning a printed book. Below are three important pointers that will help authors excel in the world of eBook writing. Think SEO Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will help your eBook get discovered, so you should think about using relevant keywords in your eBook’s title, headings, and subheadings. For example, suppose you’ve written a memoir called Out of the Dark , this title won’t really show up on anyone’s online search results because it's too broad, but if you instead called your book  Out of the Dark: My Struggle with Multiple Sclerosis this title would yield more 'hits'   because it's more specific, anyone searching for  “multiple sclerosis ” would likely locate your eBook with much more ease. Add lots of l...