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Writing Careers Begin and End with Purpose

Taking Stock

Every year businesses have taxes to pay and stock inventory to take.

Artists also need to take stock: not only of their supplies, but of everything they invest into their art. So, I’m taking stock… of my writing. I ask myself:

What is my purpose in life and how is the writing a part of it?

GOD has called me to be a Watchman.

If you’re not sure what that is (and it took me a while to work it out), you can think of Nehemiah Read more “Writing Careers Begin and End with Purpose” →

Email List Building for Readership Building

Studies show that email promotion is the most effective return on invested time and money.

I’ve highlighted a few here. You can also search “Building your Email List” on Google or Bing and get some more ideas. In fact millions of ideas. The ones here were posted numerous times, so I figure these are tried and true.

Know this…

• Your website is the first mining tool. Include that Anti-Spam blurb!!
• Ask for your visitors’ email address by using a pop-up, opt-in, or other tool to ask viewers to sign-up for your newsletter/book updates/contests/etc. Be sure to tell them what you will use their personal information for: mainly to send them information about your books. That is promotional material. They should know that already, but you have to tell them anyway.
• Make sure your readers see you as a real person, not an impersonal brand. You’ll do things for a real person, but not for something inanimate. In other words, people will share your stuff because they recognize you as a real person; they’ll buy from you because they trust you. People will bend over backwards to help you when you ask for help. Let them into your secret musings. Ask for ideas and when you get one, share it, praise the person, give everyone who shares a public thank you.
• Create interesting content. (Content is king.) (Duh!) Read more “Email List Building for Readership Building” →

Best Practices for Self-Editing

Sarah Tun

Writing is a joy, and sometimes a battle. But the bigger battle (at least for me) is the editing. It’s always best, I recommend, to write-write-write, and to leave the editing until you’ve finished your Draft. Otherwise, you can spend eternity on Chapter 1 and never finish the story!

Once you DO finish a draft…. yes sadly 🙁 , you must edit.)

I find, the best way to edit my work is to leave it alone for a while (a week, a month) and then when I do come back to it, I read it out loud. My ear tells me what my eyes have otherwise missed. I am listening for the following… Read more “Best Practices for Self-Editing” →