This is Lizzie Chantree’s debut non-fiction book about networking for writers. I’m familiar with Lizzie’s romance novels having had the pleasure of reading and reviewing Ninja School Mum and If You Love Me I’m Yours.
Did Networking for Writers meet my expectations? Absolutely. This is a clear, well-written and invaluable resource especially for those who are fairly new to writing, getting to grips with the marketing and business side can be daunting. It is also a great book to refer to for writers, such as myself, who have been blogging and writing for five years plus. I learnt new things and was reminded of aspects of networking that it’s possible to forget in our daily busy lives. It’s simple things that are so easy to do which make a difference.
Lizzie’s personality shines throughout this book. She is honest, helpful and caring in her approach to help you with your networking skills.
Soon, on Tuesday 5th of May, there is to be a Writers’ resources evening at Cambridge Writers, the group that I am a member of, so with this in mind, I thought I would do a little warm up, and type up some helpful website links for Writers, Bloggers and Book Worms.
I have been gathering the details of this list for some time so hope that it will be a useful resource.
So to kick it off my first discovery was Wasafari, who are they you might ask? “Wasafiri is Britain’s premier magazine for international contemporary writing. Published quarterly, it has established a distinctive reputation for promoting work by new and established voices across the globe.”
Cornerstones who have their very own publishing house http://threeharespublishing.com/#latest-work, and have written a self help guide, Write a blockbuster and get it published, authored jointly by Helen Corner and Lee Weatherly, “it offers not simply a guide to writing a novel, but an introduction to writing a plot-based, action-focused blockbuster.” http://cornerstones.co.uk/
Poetry Enthusiasts:
I’ve just recently rediscovered my love of poetry and with this in mind I would highly recommend joining in with Ron’s Weekly Haiku prompt challenge. It’s fun, and gets the old creative juices flowing on a weekly basis and that can only be a good thing! Ron has an excellent blog overflowing with all sorts of interesting articles so he’s certainly one to follow.
Switch your torch light on, don your spy costume, now on to the nasty business of finding agents, and publishers. This is when life becomes complicated, the writing is easy in comparison, I know I’m in this process and it seems to be a never ending slog of decisions, (which is utterly painful for someone like me who tends to be indecisive,) waiting, trying again, waiting. So with that in mind here are some resources to help my fellow wannabe authors out there who may be struggling like me to find a publisher or an agent. Never fear, help is at hand. Good luck!
Another way to approach agents is to meet them in person. There are many events which are organised with this in mind, conferences, workshops and talks are all good opportunities to meet agents and tell them about your story, so have a look for those – locally in the UK there is the Norwich Writers Centre http://www.writerscentrenorwich.org.uk/ and plenty will come up from a google search on the internet.
Guide to self publishing and promoting, click on the tab on the top left section of author E. Rawls blog, there are all sorts of writing tips too as well as haikus, book reviews, blog hops, author interviews. https://rawlse.wordpress.com/
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In the beginning of September I reached the eagerly awaited number of 10,000 Twitter followers. This important milestone was something I’d been expecting for months, since I’d been gaining new followers at a standard pace. Except for a short-lived dip in my performance that I mention at the very end of this post, I’d been gaining anywhere between 1,000-1,200 new followers per month.
Now, when it comes to Twitter, not everyone has the same strategy. Some people, including authors like me, prefer to use this social media platform to build a quiet, familiar community where every single contact is carefully chosen. I surely appreciate the benefits of such an approach, since it’s guaranteed a timeline where it’s easy to find things of interest, and you feel as least estranged as possible towards the stuff you read.
For me, the benefits of such a strategy end there. Actually, to me personally…
This post was inspired by the Writers’ Digest blog column 7 things I’ve learnt so far and written as a guest post for Fabulosity Reads. The column features various authors, who list 7 things they have learnt so far, regarding writing, editing, inspiration, promotion and marketing. Here are some of my favorite ones, along with my notes!
read out your dialogue
Dialogue can be such a challenge. Do it realistically, and everyone will be bored to tears:
“- Hi!
– Hey!
-‘What are you doing?
– Erm, nothing much… Just… Give me a moment to finish up what I was typing… Yes, that’s it. Sorry, you were saying?”
When I started writing, my dialogues just didn’t sound … human. They seemed out of place, vague and monotonous; every person sharing the same voice. Browne & King’s Self-editing for Fiction Writing gave me a handy tip: read out loud your dialogues and see how…
Today, I’ve decided to change the colour scheme on my blog a bit. I hope you like it, with that in mind here’s a share from the Fiverr blog, The Psychology of Colours in Marketing which I originally found on http://mmjayewrites.com/
Colour can have such a profound impact on us. So I hope you like my new colour theme? I’ve abandoned the Pink Dogwood, and, the possibility of the Forget-Me-Not blue, in favour of the exotic Tiger Lily.
First of all, congratulations! You’re now a published author – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Second, you’d be amazed how often I hear that question in LinkedIn’s author groups. With some 3,000 new books published every day, I have serious doubts that you can just sit back and wait for readers to stumble on your book, or for word of mouth to work its magic. The chances of that happening are probably similar to that of winning the lottery, in which case you don’t even need the long hours and hard work that goes hand-in-hand with a career as an author (if you don’t believe me, you may want to check out this post by Pedro Barrento on Indies Unlimited).
So, what are the next steps after publication? Before I can answer that, I need to ask one question of my own first: is this your first book? You see…
M J Mallon YA Author and Poet 