A few years ago I was lucky enough to attend a conference for writers in Vancouver, British Columbia. The event took place at a perfect time for me in my writing journey and spurred me on to step up my Internet activities specifically around my writing life.
Already I’d spent a few years writing a blog on blogger.com which was called Beader Girl Jewels and celebrated my life both creative and personal. After attending the Vancouver conference I mentioned above, though, I stepped up my social media footprint to start a new writing blog (On Becoming a Wordsmith), get active on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and build my list. I even joined Pinterest when it became a thing. The promise was that all of this activity would help me get known for my writing.
Today I’d like to spend some time telling just what I’ve learned about the value and uses of the various social media platforms I’ve used.
Twitter: In the beginning this was really useful. I went on the Twitter Feed and narrowed my search for sites to follow according to my writing and marketing needs. I was interested in seeing sites which taught me about these topics and I learned a lot. At this stage I would run down the Twitter feed and see what people were publishing. Then I’d follow the sites that interested me and I found some fabulous people and information this way. As the years went on and I built my list and my needs changed so did the time I spent reading the Twitter feed. Now my Twitter time is spent liking and retweeting friends’ stuff as well as checking out new people whose work I want to follow. I rarely take any time to just run down the Twitter feed.
Pinterest: I do a little here but have certainly not used it to its potential. I’ve enjoyed seeing amazing libraries and books pictures but, truthfully, most of the emails Pinterest sends me do not catch my attention. My current goal is to create my own Pinterest poster about my Loyalist books and see if I can get some traction in book sales that way. Always looking for new and interesting ways to market.
LinkedIn: In the beginning I used LinkedIn’s groups to connect to a lot of writing/book related groups. I joined quite a few of them and used them to gain a wider market for my regular blog posts. It was fun and instructive to connect with other writers. One problem began to occur, though. Many of the groups did not want me to post links to my latest blog posts even though those posts had loads of pertinent information for other writers. One even told me I could not use any links in my posts. Gradually I realized I didn’t have time to tailor my group submissions and I opted out of several. The thing that I learned is that a writer’s needs change along the way, going from specific writing questions, to publishing, to marketing, and a LinkedIn member needs to keep abreast of help groups for whatever is the particular need at a specific time. I realized I had to use my social media time as it best helped me. Now I am a member of two marketing type groups and that’s all.
Facebook: My most useful SM time has been spent on Facebook. I have a personal page which helps me keep up to date with family and friends as well as a number of writing friends. Then I have my writer’s page at ElaineCouglerAuthor which is more tuned to the writing world which is so important to me. If you haven’t liked my page, come visit me. Here I post my weekly blog post and any other interesting writing-related things I find along the way. I am most appreciative of those who share and like my articles on this page. I have also done some Facebook advertising which worked pretty well although it takes a few months to actually see the results in sales. You can hone your marketing reach for these ads in several ways which all makes knowing exactly who your audience is absolutely crucial. The FB stats on this are good and the procedure itself is well-documented and easy to follow. Also my audience for my books coincides with the main audience for FaceBook which works out well for me.
I do find sometimes that the world works in mysterious ways. Today as I was writing this blog post, I received a newsletter in my InBox from The Writer Magazine with an article by fellow Canadian Brent van Staalduinen entitled “Stepping away from social media (and back into what matters.)” Interesting because I felt it was kind of serendipitous. How did The Writer Magazine pick that moment to send me that article? Anyhow, I hope you’ll click on the link and read what Brent says.
Over the years I’ve really learned to limit my time on social media. The writing and the marketing are what matter the most to me. Every person on social media must decide where to spend time to get the most value. I think that we must also consider which platforms are the most pleasurable for us. I am much more likely to prepare articles to post in places that are fun. Aren’t you?
A final note to consider when deciding how much social media to do is its effect on getting your message out. I often get comments about my high level of visibility as I market my work. A lot of that is because of my social media time. One final thing I really try to do is make a FB event out of most of my speaking and workshop events. Even if people can’t get to these events they see the notice and are reminded about my writing life. Many people do come because of those ads as well. Life is good for me as long as I don’t let social media take over!
Today I’m giving my readers a second look at a post from a year and a half ago which gives suggestions on how to increase sales of our books. A few things have changed since then but the basic advice is still very timely. Click here to go directly to the post. Enjoy!
Today I have the distinct pleasure of entertaining here on my historical fiction blog an author from a different genre. Maaja Wentz is a Toronto writer whose joyous smile shown at left is heightened in her lively guest post below. Welcome to Maaja! Enjoy, Everyone! And don’t forget to enter Maaja’s contest.
Just before you begin Maaja’s guest post I have to mention that last week my website let me down and even though I wrote my usual Wednesday blog post it didn’t send properly. Consequently my readers didn’t get their notification. After you finish reading Maaja’s interesting words below please consider checking out last week’s post, War on Our Doorstep! It’s got loads of photos in it. Ah, technology! And now read about inspiration—
How Do You Keep Your Inspiration?
Guest post by Maaja Wentz
When authors speak in public, readers and newbie writers alike ask the same question: Where do you get your inspiration? This weekend I attended Toronto’s Ad Astra science fiction and fantasy convention where I listened to authors such as Brandon Sanderson, Robert J. Sawyer, Julie Czerneda, and Diana Whiting. None of them expressed difficulty getting ideas. In fact, Sanderson read us a story which he had written on the plane and in the airport on his way to Toronto.
There’s a little secret writers share. Most, myself included, have more story ideas then they have time to develop. Between life events, the news, and new discoveries in science and history, there will never be a dearth of story sparks. The challenge is to stay inspired through early drafts, revisions based on beta reader feedback, and multiple revisions after editorial review. For traditionally published authors this process often takes a year, leaving sequel-hungry fans waiting.
At least traditionally published authors have editors with deadlines to goad them into action. As an indie author, seeing things through to the end is lonelier because editors are freelance and deadlines are self-imposed. I love the exhilaration of writing a first draft. The blank page holds limitless possibilities and new scenes come quickly, but editing is a slow slog.
What is the secret to persevering from idea to polished book? For many, it’s the same element that drives actors, singers, and dancers — the joy of performing. Doing public readings where I can see the audience laugh or hold its breath is its own reward. On the Wattpad reading app my novel, Feeding Frenzy, has received over 124 000 reads to date. Winning a Watty Award and interacting with Wattpad readers online keeps me going because I know real people are enjoying my characters and their adventures.
When I can’t share my work, reading keeps me motivated. Writers get inspiration from the same source readers get entertainment and food for thought. We need to see what other writers are capable of, the creative challenges they set themselves, their differing voices and styles, and their solutions to technical puzzles. Reading fiction also helps us remember the pure pleasure of books from the reader’s point of view.
There is a danger inherent in this kind of inspiration according to Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Robert J. Sawyer. At Ad Astra on Sunday, he read from his work-in-progress about the Manhattan project and the inventors of the atomic bomb. Sawyer said he wouldn’t read anything fictional featuring Enrico Fermi, Robert Oppenheimer, or Richard Feynman. He worried fictional depictions of historical figures might overlap with his own research-based ideas. For fear of accidental plagiarism, or of having to limit his imagination to avoid it, he is sticking to non-fiction for now.
Unlike Robert J. Sawyer, I’m still learning the craft and business of writing. My inspiration comes from reading my favourite genres: fantasy and science fiction. To stay current, and for the pleasure of reading, I purchased ten of the top fantasy and science fiction novels on the Amazon ebook charts. The idea is not that I will be inspired to write like these authors, but that their books will motivate me to keep revising, editing, and polishing to the end. If I never wrote another story, I would still have over seven novel drafts on my computer, waiting to be edited and published. All I need is sufficient motivation.
Want to win the chart-topping fantasy and science fiction novels I chose to inspire me?
Click on this link to enter the contest, but act now. Contest ends May 30, 2017.
Maaja Wentz is the award-winning author of poems, short stories, and her lighthearted supernatural thriller, Feeding Frenzy, coming soon. To find out more and get free stories, visit: maajawentz.com
The Loyalist Trilogy
The Loyalist’s Wife 2nd edition Chill With a Book Award winner!Second in the Loyalist Trilogy Discovering Diamonds Award WinnerThird in The Loyalist Trilogy Released November, 2016
So you think that all a writer has to do is write that magical tome and then sit back and reap the rewards. You know the writing is sometimes tedious, often frustrating and even a little difficult, but, really–authors have nothing else to do. You can hardly wait to sign the copies, accept the accolades, and cash the cheques.
Now that all my writers are clawing the ceiling, let me tell the truth. Being a published author today is a full time job. We write, edit, rewrite, get critiques, rewrite–well, you know all that. But at the same time as an author is polishing her work, she needs to be doing a host of other things, a large part of which is preparing the world for the impending birth of her baby.
Indeed there is so much to do that I have struggled over and over to find a way to keep stuff from slipping into oblivion in my file drawers and out of my mind until I realize a deadline has passed or I’ve missed applying for another award.
A few weeks ago my very clever and well organized daughter who is a minimalist of the first order told me about something she discovered. Prior to her wonderful suggestion I used:
a small white board,
countless To Do sheets,
multi-coloured sticky notes,
my computer desktop to put current items, and
my iPad and iPhone for countless lists which could be easily transferred.
File folders didn’t really work because of the old adage out of sight, out of mind, plus my curious mind has spent a lifetime collecting valuable and extremely important bits of knowledge, so much so that I fear it is just running out of space. Things slip away.
from the KanBanFlow website at https://kanbanflow.com/.
On KanBanFlow’s site they have 4 columns but I chose to just use 3: I left out Do Today as most of my projects take a few days and In Progress seems to make better sense for me. Also they have shown how to use the board with several different teams which I did not need. Would be nice to have a staff, though!
Here’s yesterday’s version of my KanBanFlow chart and you can see the progress I’ve made. That is why I love this system. Tasks stay on the board for me to keep track of. The Done column has changed considerably. Yay!
I learned to use marker on the later notes so that I can read them from my desk.
Of course I still use the earlier methods but this latest one is a keeper. It’s helping me get caught up and organize my new ideas which are percolating a lot these days.
The Loyalist’s Wife, The Loyalist’s Luck, The Loyalist Legacy
I hate coffee. In my first year of university I sat in the cafeteria with a bunch of friends who were convinced I could learn to like it if only they fixed it the right way for me. They brought me black coffee, weak coffee, strong coffee, sugared coffee, coffee with cream, coffee with milk–you get the picture! I didn’t like any of it and the cafeteria staff didn’t like all the extra dishes they had to wash because of our testing.
Instead I’ve pretty much spent my life drinking weak tea a couple of times a month,–to be sociable, don’t you know?–lots of water, and way more Diet Coke than I ever should have. Still, I like tea a lot more than coffee.
What can coffee drinking possibly have to do with writing? Well, here’s the thing. All my life I’ve played with different writing forms. I’ve written narrative poetry and sonnets, short stories and novellas, descriptive paragraphs and song lyrics. I’ve even tried my hand at plays although I never got beyond the second page. Of course, love poems were a rite of passage for any girl in her teen years back in my day and probably still are although I’m a little old to speak for teenagers!
The point is, never did I contemplate writing a novel. I didn’t even know that idea was lurking in my overcrowded brain until my son asked if there was anything I wished I’d done so far in my life. “Write a novel,” I blurted, and the rest as they say is herstory.
A week later I started down my novel writing journey and haven’t actually looked back for ten years. In the beginning many new writers alongside me were writing short stories and forming critique groups to improve their work, all of them sure these were the right steps. I tried to follow along and have about fifteen pieces in my filing cabinet that were great fun to write but which didn’t begin to thrill me. I sent a few out into oblivion.
And that’s what it seemed like. Short stories just weren’t my thing. You see, I left my heart out of that writing and just as a soulless person is dull and lifeless so also were my stories. At the same time I reveled in researching my historical subject and writing my three pages a day for a year until I finally finished my first draft. I loved it. I thought it was great but my saner self knew about that little thing called revision. I did that for another four or five years.
How could I keep at that first book for the six years it took to bring it to publication?
Finally I had unearthed the thing that touched my joy spot deep inside. Writing those words about my character babies and their part in creating the country I live in today just seemed real. And worthwhile. Important, even. I learned so much that my conversation became peppered with exciting facts I’d dug up about our history as a country but also my own family history. Finding references to my great great great grandparents and using some of that in my novels has been a thrilling and enlightening experience not only for my readers (so they tell me) but also for me.
Were those early writing attempts of any use? Absolutely. I learned so much about cadence and word choice, rhythm and the lilt of my sentences, showing not telling, allowing my reader to fill in the blanks, and above all about listening to my varied characters for their individual truths. Were they like real people? Or were they flat?
Yesterday I was working with someone who is going to do a media sheet for me and my books. She left our Skype conversation for five minutes with instructions for me to write her some ideas about what I might talk about when interviewed. When she came back I’d written a couple of lovely (if I do say so myself!) paragraphs. I wasn’t exactly sure if she could use the points but she did! Every one of them. (I’ll be putting that sheet up on my website when we’re finished.)
I had to swallow my nervousness about being put on the spot like that and just write. And I could! All of those courses and conferences and critiques and rewrites made their mark.
Reading informs so much of our writing. As I get longer in the tooth (well, actually my dentist has shortened my front teeth, much to my dismay!) I’m more choosy about what books I keep reading through to the end. I now give a book about 50 pages and if it hasn’t hooked me by then, I toss it. Life is too short to read stuff that bores or confuses me. (My latest bugaboo is starting a new book and all the characters have similar sounding names: Ellen, Eleanor, Eileen, for example. I can’t keep them straight. Note to self: Name your characters with different sounding names: Ellen, Charmaine, Sue.)
Sticking to genres that I enjoy works for me, too. I have a good writer friend who writes horror/sci-fi/mystery mashup books and his audience loves them. Bravo, John! I didn’t want to review them, though, as I’m not a lover of that stuff so wouldn’t be able to do his books justice. Give me a great Sharon Kay Penman or even Bernard Cornwell and I’ll read right through to the end in no time.
In both reading and writing, then, I hope you’ll consider sticking to books and stories that work well for you. Your soul will thank you for it!
The Loyalist’s Wife, The Loyalist’s Luck, The Loyalist Legacy
Today is special because fellow Canadian author, Kristina Stanley, is here to talk about her fabulous app for writers. I first noticed Kristina in the blog world as she wrote her posts about and during her sailing journey with her husband. It just sounded so romantic and so “out there”! She loves dogs and writes tirelessly. And now she’s going to tell us about her app. Take it away, Kristina!
I’m very pleased to be invited onto Elaine’s blog to share my writing and editing journey. I’m an author who loves to edit, and I believe today’s author must also be their own structural editor.
The difficulty with editing is the time it takes and the cost of an editor. So what if I could speed up the process, spend less money, AND write better fiction?
This is the story of how I’m developing an app to help writers edit faster, for less money, and create a novel readers love.
What is the Feedback app?
The Feedback app will help writers turn a first draft into a great story by becoming their own big-picture editor.
With Feedback, you can focus on plot, character, and setting. You can evaluate on a scene-by-scene basis or on the overall novel structure. Feedback will show you the most important structural elements to work on first and guide you through the rewriting process.
Why a big-picture editing app for writers?
Creating Feedback began when I finished the first draft of my first novel. By then I’d read over 50 how-to-write and how-to-self-edit books. I’d taken writing courses and workshops, and had 100s of writing and rewriting tips swirling about in my head.
I knew I had to begin the editing process and improve the quality of my draft before sharing my work, but I didn’t know how to go about it.
My Worries:
How was I supposed to remember the torrent of advice and apply it to each scene? A spreadsheet, that’s how!
I created a spreadsheet with a chapter-by-chapter, scene-by-scene structure. Then I listed the different writing advice I needed to consider for EVERY scene. I ended up with over 75 “key elements of fiction”. I used the reports from the spreadsheet to visualize my novel.
Did Feedback Work For Me?
After the hard work of self-editing and rewriting my drafts, the high quality of my fiction was validated when my first two novels were shortlisted for prestigious crime writing awards and I landed my publisher (Imajin Books).
My first editor said: “If every manuscript was this good, my job would be so easy!”
The next exciting moment came when DESCENT, my first novel, hit #1 on Amazon’s hot new releases. I’ve since sold the German rights to Luzifer-Verlag for publication in Germany, and the audio rights to Auspicious Apparatus Press. Imajin Books also published BLAZE and AVALANCHE.
Building The Feedback App
I wanted to share my process, so other writers could benefit from an immediate approach to self-editing and rewriting first drafts. But who would want to use a spreadsheet? Perhaps a fun, fast, app that helps writers visualize and self-edit their novels would be better.
I formed a company called Feedback Innovations just to build this app. The prototype is being developed. We’re currently testing the app on my novels. Then we’ll reach out to beta testers in April.
Download our free eBook BIG-PICTURE Editing And 13 Key Elements Of Fiction and learn how big-picture editing is all about evaluating the major components of your story. We call these components the Key Elements Of Fiction. Our eBook shows you how to use the key elements of fiction to evaluate your story and become your own big-picture editor.
At Feedback Innovations, we believe the app will help authors turn their first draft into a great story.
Kristina’s Bio:
Kristina Stanley is the best-selling author of the Stone Mountain Mystery Series.
Her short stories have been published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and The Voices From the Valleys anthology. She is the author of THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO SELLING BOOKS TO NON-BOOKSTORES.
She is the co-founder and CEO of Feedback Innovations, a company started to help writers rewrite better fiction. She loves the self-editing process and wants to help other writers learn how to do a structural edit on their own work.
If you’d like more self-editing tips, you can find out more about her and Feedback at www.FeedbackForFiction.com. Connect with her @FictionRewrite.
Descent Blurb:
When Kalin Thompson is promoted to Director of Security at Stone Mountain Resort, she soon becomes entangled in the high-profile murder investigation of an up-and-coming Olympic-caliber skier. There are more suspects with motives than there are gates on the super-G course, and danger mounts with every turn.
Kalin’s boss orders her to investigate. Her boyfriend wants her to stay safe and let the cops do their job. Torn between loyalty to friends and professional duty, Kalin must look within her isolated community to unearth the killer’s identity.
The Loyalist’s Wife, The Loyalist’s Luck, The Loyalist Legacy
Author Elaine Cougler. A 9-minute tv interview on Rogers TV’s program “Oxford County Living”. Thanks to John Payne for filming this at my home. Click on the image to watch.
The Loyalist’s Wife, The Loyalist’s Luck, The Loyalist Legacy
Next week I’ll be celebrating my ten year anniversary since I started writing the Loyalist trilogy. On Wednesday, March 29th, I’ll have special prices on my books and a couple of surprises for those who log in and leave a comment or two. Please take a few minutes to celebrate with us! For a notice whenever I post here, click on the right to follow this blog (if you haven’t already done so). I’d love to have your input. And don’t forget to comment next week!
A special welcome today to the wonderful new subscribers who’ve joined us this week for the first time. You are especially appreciated because you love historical fiction. A special invite to you all to come back next week for the celebration!
You’ll notice if you’ve been around since the first book in the Loyalist trilogy came out, The Loyalist’s Wife, that our lovely logo above has the second edition and not the first. Not to worry. You can still order the lovely first cover edition on Amazon and from me personally until I run out of copies. Also Diane at our local bookstore has copies.
Readers or writers, you can always contact me by leaving a comment or by using the Contact tab above. Send me questions, topics for blog posts, great books you’ve read, or anything else related to historical fiction and books.
And help me celebrate next week, please!
The Loyalist’s Wife, The Loyalist’s Luck, The Loyalist Legacy
“Write a novel.” I answered my son’s question immediately surprising myself with my words.
“You’re 60 years old. You’re in perfect health, you have all that English background, you’ve read all your life, you have the time, and you have the computer skills. If not now, when?” My son took his eyes off the road for a moment to fix his blue eyes on me.
I don’t remember exactly what happened then but a week later when my husband and I arrived in Hilton Head, South Carolina, for a holiday, one of my first stops was to the local bookstore where I bought a book about writing and selling a first novel and I was off and running.
And now, here I am almost 10 years later with my historical fiction Loyalist trilogy out there in the world in various formats, an audio book soon to be released, and a book for writers about writing close to being announced. It’s been a tough but rewarding ten years for me who never wanted to retire and play cards every afternoon while wondering what part of my body would next fall apart.
It’s been mostly a terrific experience to spend most of every weekday writing, editing, marketing, and doing all the other necessities which have made my life so interesting. Hundreds of new people have enriched my life, most of them in the writing business themselves, and all of them willing to share and help me along the way.
As I celebrate this milestone I’m very aware that I could not have done this without the help of many people. Of course, my son, Kevin, whom I mentioned in the first lines of this post and my daughter, Beth, who keeps my brain ticking with new ideas and who is a great sounding board for my own ideas, are top of the list. My husband, Ron, joins them there as a ready listener to my ideas, my plans, my troubles and always encourages me to go farther. He has fueled my ambition. My sister, Linda, gone now, always kept my off-site flash drive safely in her kitchen cupboard and my brother Ross whose own achievements and then early death fueled my drive to succeed while I still could.
There have been a few missteps along the way but thanks to great and constant support from my peeps, I’ve found the way to go on. The biggest problem was when I joined an online group of great people whose mission was to help authors get published and editors and agents find worthy clients. For reasons which are not going to be aired here, I gradually sunk lower and lower as I struggled to work in that environment but I finally realized I not only could leave the group and go on but absolutely had to for my own sake. When my husband said to me in the kindest of words that I did not have to continue with my book, I took stock. He did me such a favor because I realized I had to go on for myself. I dumped that group, walked away from three prospective agents and a senior editor with Penguin in New York, and have never looked back.
Writing and finding a measure of success has given this second part of my life more meaning than I could ever have imagined. Because I’m so thankful to so many for helping me, I’ve decided to have a celebration with my online friends and those I’m so fortunate to know in person. I’m picking March 29th for my celebration blog post. I’ll have giveaways, reading suggestions, messages from other author friends about their writing and a grand prize of the whole trilogy, bound and beautiful, for some lucky person. Keep checking back here and on my twice monthly newsletters for more information. And invite your reading and writing friends to join in the fun.
Check back next week for more exciting news about March 29. Help me celebrate!
This has been a terrific month for me and my books as number three in the Loyalist trilogy has made its way into the limelight. Last Sunday the last of four book launches took place right here in my home city with lots of people sharing readings and cake with me and my wonderful team. It made me think of all the help I’ve had over this almost 10-year journey and of the kindness shown by so many.
Here’s the cake we ordered for this final event. Dee at the local Dee-Lights Bake Shop went out of her way to design this large facsimile of the new book cover. Fabulous! Both in the rendering of my book cover and in the taste of the cake. Everyone loved it.
A number of people attending were strangers who came out to buy books and meet me. Wasn’t that a surprise! And they came on the day of the first snowfall here. London had too much snow for some to venture out but luckily our town just had a sprinkling.
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This all made me think of the people I’ve met over this almost ten-year journey and how kind and helpful they have been. In the early days of writing the first book in the trilogy I was mostly on my own but, after a year, I had the first draft researched and written and started moving ahead on the journey to publication.
Here are some of the steps along the way:
–Some local writers joined a small group here and four of us continued critiquing each other’s work for about a year. They helped me move to the next step where I attended several writing workshops led by the well-known Brian Henry here in Southern Ontario.
–For about 8 weeks I drove an hour and a half to Oakville for an extreme editing course full of about 20 writers like myself in Brian’s course. We listened to each other’s work, we commented, we rewrote, we agreed, we disagreed and along the way we learned. Several of us are still supportive writing friends today about seven years later.
–A conference I went to in Niagara Falls, Ontario, brought me more writing friends, two or three of whom are moving along their journey as am I. We haven’t necessarily gone the same way but we’ve supported each other the whole time. Tomorrow The Loyalist Legacy and I will be on Sally Moore’s blog and though Sally is in a particularly busy work time just now, she is helping me out. I long for the day when her amazing, well-honed, and extremely interesting books find their way out into the fresh air of the publishing world.
–Another conference I went to was in Vancouver a few years ago and its focus was on using social media and other methods to get our writing out in the world. I loved that conference and starting a new writing blog as soon as I came home, highlighting the lessons I’d learned and those who had taught me. On Becoming a Wordsmith still has loads of helpful articles.
–Through Sally again, I joined WCDR and drove for two or three years once a month for meetings of this forward-thinking and very helpful writing group of around 250 members or so. Their speakers are fabulous. They also have associate memberships for people to join and be on their mailing list to receive loads of helpful information: workshops, book selling events, reading sessions at bars, visiting writers and many more things are part of this organization. The cheaper memberships give a lot of information to people who can’t possibly make the journey to Ajax once a month. They just finished hosting Bookapalooza.
–I joined the London Writers’ Society and spend quite a lot of time with them these days. Having received so much help through critique groups and guest speakers in the past, now I try to help writers who are not as far along in their journey. It’s a pleasure to have answers won over years of searching and moving ahead on the journey. Our current president has raised the level of the group so high that every meeting we have new meetings and will have to find a larger room one of these days. Another group there has stepped up the learning about marketing, specifically getting our names out in the media.
Writing is a pastime, a hobby, a job, a passion, a soul-searching and gut-wrenching activity for most of us in differing levels depending on who we are. One thing is for certain, though. If we want to succeed, we must keep searching, keep learning, and keep writing. Thanks so much to all of those who have helped me along the way!
A few years ago I was lucky enough to attend a conference for writers in Vancouver, British Columbia. The event took place at a perfect time for me in my writing journey and spurred me on to step up my Internet activities specifically around my writing life.
Today I’m giving my readers a second look at a post from a year and a half ago which gives suggestions on how to increase sales of our books. A few things have changed since then but the basic advice is still very timely. 
“Is there anything you wish you had done, Mom?”
This has been a terrific month for me and my books as number three in the Loyalist trilogy has made its way into the limelight. Last Sunday the last of four book launches took place right here in my home city with lots of people sharing readings and cake with me and my wonderful team. It made me think of all the help I’ve had over this almost 10-year journey and of the kindness shown by so many.
