This is it! The final day in the e11even series. For the last eleven weeks we have been celebrating the start of 2011 with posts about fun and interesting websites.

We’ve had crafty posts, funny posts, helpful posts, and more. I hope you have enjoyed the variety and that you have found inspiration, were able to relax, or even just had a little laugh.

I’d love to have feedback, so if you created any of the crafty projects or used any of the tools or anything of the sort, please leave a comment here or on Facebook.

To see all the posts in the series, check out our e11even archives.

Thanks for following along!

As a writer, part of honing your skills is to find an author and imitate their writing. When I was in college, I even had a creative writing class where this was the point of the course. We would read a piece and then imitate it.

But then you develop your own voice. You work on it until it sounds like you want it to sound. Then you go to promote your book and people want a comparative title.

Back you are to square one of comparing your writing to someone else’s. But this is certainly not a bad thing. When people have an idea of your writing style, you can gain new readers on that recommendation alone.

So how do you figure out who you write like? I Write Like makes it easy.

This statistical analysis tool analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of famous writers. Any English text will do. You can use a blog post, journal entry, comment, chapter of your book, and more. For reliable results, you will need to paste at least a few paragraphs.

I checked a few of my recent posts and here are the results:

Yesterday’s Discoverability post was like Cory Doctorow. Last week’s How Long Does It Take for My Book to Show Online was like H.P. Lovecraft.

Share with us who you write like.

We are kicking off 2011 with eleven weeks of fun and interesting websites. Whether you find inspiration, relaxation, or just a laugh, we hope you enjoy these sites related to publishing and books.

Photo: Kazarelth, Creative Commons

First, a disclaimer for this blog post: I did not go to either the Digital Book World or Tools of Change conference this year. But I did follow on Twitter and read articles about the shows after, and they sounded great and like a lot of things were discussed.

One theme that seemed to come up at both conferences was the issue of discoverability. Booksellers and their bookstores used to fill the role of gate keepers, but with eBooks and online sales, this vital step gets skipped.

Enter Bookigee. “Designed to address a challenge discussed at both Digital Book World and the Tools of Change conference–discoverability–Bookigee is designed to help consumers match their interest with better book choices online” (Shelf Awareness, February 16, 2011).

Bookigee isn’t just about algorithms. It is about people. You put a book in the center and then can explore an interactive matrix of other books, suggestions, and related media in a customizable way.

Bookigee hasn’t launched yet, but you can visit the website to join their list to get an invitation to their first closed test community.

We are kicking off 2011 with eleven weeks of fun and interesting websites. Whether you find inspiration, relaxation, or just a laugh, we hope you enjoy these sites related to publishing and books.

Photo: JMacPherson, Creative Commons

Speaking in front of people ranks as one of the top fears many have. Reading in front of people can be even worse, especially if the reader perceives that their reading skills aren’t great. This is especially true for children.

Animals are a much more forgiving audience, and thus can put struggling readers at ease.

Intermountain Therapy Animals has created the program R.E.A.D.® (Reading Education Assistance Dogs) to improve the literacy skills of children through the assistance of registered therapy teams as literary mentors.

And who guess who is a part of the therapy team: dogs. These dogs are registered therapy animals who volunteer with their owner/handlers as a team to be reading companions for children.

Find R.E.A.D.® affiliate programs and regional workshops in your area.

We are kicking off 2011 with eleven weeks of fun and interesting websites. Whether you find inspiration, relaxation, or just a laugh, we hope you enjoy these sites related to publishing and books.

Photo: Dartmouth Public Libraries, Creative Commons

We are finally here, the eleventh week of 2011. We have been posting a fun or interesting link for you for this e11even series for ten weeks now, and it is time to start wrapping up.

We will start off this week with a useful tool for you. This site can help you ensure your writing is interesting and varied. The WriteWords Phrase Frequency Counter can be modified to search for phrases as short as two words and as long as 10 words.

Just paste in a copy of your piece and hit the submit button and it will bring up any phrases that are mentioned multiple times. You may find that you say certain phrases over and over again without recognizing it. This is a good first step to self editing before you send it to a professional editor.

I saw this site mentioned on GalleyCat on February 9.

Were you surprised with any repeat phrases in your writing?

We are kicking off 2011 with eleven weeks of fun and interesting websites. Whether you find inspiration, relaxation, or just a laugh, we hope you enjoy these sites related to publishing and books.