Monday, January 13, 2014

Taking care of writer business...


A few weeks ago, on my writers group loop, a friend posted a link to a blog post about how to stay connected to readers without feeling overwhelmed by all the social media platforms available these days.

The advice was two fold--be clear and consistent and make it easy.

The blogger suggested that I and anyone else reading his words of wisdom take an hour and write a new message. From scratch. Then post it wherever I or they maintain an online presence.

Saturday morning while the house was quiet, I took that hour. Then I posted my message on my website as well as Amazon and here and an abbreviated one at Goodreads (they only accepted 2000 characters) with a link to the page here. If you want to read it, click here.

The thing that I really liked about this post was that this blogger verified my feeling that it's okay to be on only one or two platforms consistently rather than being hit or miss across all of them. Someone else has said it before too, though I don't remember who. Kristen Lamb or J.A. Konrath, I think. Writers get inundated with social media advice, most of which says you have to be everywhere. When are we supposed to write if we've got to juggle a day job, kids, spouse, and house too? And if it's not fun, you're less likely to do it.

One of the reasons why I finally took that hour--well, really, it was forced upon me. DH was sick and had to sleep on the loveseat, so I didn't want to disturb him with housework and stuff while he was actually getting some sleep.--is that last week I worked to get my second Romance Writer's Guide book ready for publication and I wanted my author message current, consistent, done and out there.

Remember, one of my goals for the year is to publish at least three more of them. The topic had been percolating for a while and it needed to get put on paper, so to speak. So I spent time before and after work, writing and revising and finding examples. I read it out loud to hear the cadence and flow of my sentences. I tweaked some more. I added new text. I deleted repetition. It needs another read through before I'm comfortable putting it out there. The cover is done too. I took some time this weekend to create it as well. That's my least favorite part--creating the cover. I find the process tedious and time consuming. But it's ready to go when the book is.

Another of my goals was to read books about plotting--the hardest part of writing for me. I think. I spent some time on Christmas day looking for books about plotting on Amazon and bought five of them with the gift card I had. I started reading one of them last week. We'll see what nuggets I can pan from it.

How about you? Making any headway on this year's goals?


3 comments:

Regina Richards said...

Good for you, Jen! You are always moving forward and it inspires me to keep moving forward as well. :)

Anonymous said...

What Regina said :-)

Nancy

Kiran Jameel said...

I guess I am the only one who comes here to share my very own experience guess what? I am using my laptop for almost the post 2 years.

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