Should Indie Authors have a Blog?

Blogging is a crapshoot.

Actually, as much as I don’t want to admit this, anything on the internet is a crapshoot.

Websites take time to build and lots of work to keep fresh. And the thing that trips up most authors? All that work might end up being a giant waste of time.

Because there are no guarantees in internet marketing. No guarantees that keyword research, SEO, snappy headlines, and consistent posting will even bring in an audience. As authors, it lessens the chances even more because our customer base is so much more streamlined.

Probably not encouraging but it’s something every author should consider before deciding on blogging as part of a business strategy.

The thing that keeps many of us continuing to try? The work might not be a giant waste of time.

If you knew there was something you could do that could give you an edge above your competition, wouldn’t you want to do it?

That’s what a blog can be.

Here’s the thing, though.

I can regurgitate a thousand articles about blogging. Why you need to use marketing and not selling, why you need to write 1200 word posts at least once a week to stay in touch with readers. Why all of those posts need to be about them and not you. Something they’ll learn or something that entertains them. Why you should never try to sell your book with a blog.

The trouble with all of that is our industry doesn’t always fit into the standard marketing vibe.

Why?

Because, as writers, we are our jobs. We are what we do.

We’re entertainers first and foremost

Fiction writers in particular. We’re like actors in a one-woman show. We have to become each of our characters, figure out what they’d say, do, who they are, where they live, what they care about.

And then we have to figure out a way to express all that with words.

And then we have to attract the people who want to read those words.

As you know, we have a lot of competition. Television, streaming, video games, happy hours with friends, movies, sports. Not to mention, other books.

So that always begs the big question – who in the world are we writing for and how do we reach them with a blog?

Or, maybe the better question – is it even worth trying to reach them with a blog?

Let me back up for a second with an example.

A concrete company has a product to sell, just like an author with a book. The cement company, however, has an advantage. Their customers are cut and dry – people who need concrete for numerous types of projects. Anything from setting deck posts to paving a freeway.

The company can easily blog about concrete topics their customers care about – tensile strength, colors, how to tint countertops, and a million other applications for the specific concrete product they sell.

The readers of that blog are already interested in concrete and the company can laser focus on a handful of topics their customers want to learn about. Blogging in a business like that is essentially easy.

But an author?

Blog with your brand in mind

Remember I mentioned above that we’re first entertainers? Well, that’s important because we aren’t just selling a product, we’re selling ourselves.

Because we’re the face in front of and behind the scenes. No matter how many assistants, ghostwriters, marketing and publicity reps we hire, the people reading our books still see us as the only face of our brand.

It’s our face in that little thumbnail on the jacket of our books, after all.

While it’s true we do have customers looking for a particular product – our book – that singular product is limited. What we really need to sell to people is our brand.

In the case of entertainers, the brand is us.

The genre of fiction we write will depend on our audience. Most people who read every erotic romance ever written are less likely to gravitate to a historical war story. And vice-versa.

So that begs another question: should our blog focus on us, our book, how we write, or something else entirely?

And that’s the rub. Writing fiction and selling that product by using another form of writing.

Should you write a business or personal blog

Blogging for personal reasons takes all of the “rules” away from blogging. You can post about anything – your dinner, cat, writing life, etc. A personal blog is a great thing if you want a separate creative outlet to vent or stay connected to family and friends.

Blogs like that fall in the category of journaling. Sadly, there isn’t much traction for fiction writers with a personal journal. If you write non-fiction or memoir, however, a journal style can be a beautiful compliment to your book.

If you want a blog to help you sell fiction books, you need to shift focus. Blogging for business is the key.

True, that business is you, however, blogs need to come in the form of information. Something you can teach. Something you know about inside and out. And, preferably, something that relates to the genre of books you write.

Pick a topic, theme from your book, or even a character and write about that. Make sure it’s something you’ll be passionate to write about for a long time over many posts.

For example, if you write cop thrillers, perhaps you’d enjoy writing about cold cases. If you write chick-lit, maybe your main character loves makeup and you could build your blog around that topic.

Keep in mind your audience and main themes in your fiction when narrowing down possible topics for your blog.

You’ll need to do keyword research within the topic you choose, stick to that topic, and consistently post. Keyword and SEO targeted, weekly posts would be ideal. Even more ideal, writing those posts for the specific search engine you want to target.

Search engines and how to work with them

There are three main search engines to focus on – Google, YouTube, and Pinterest. Where you target depends on your book and what you want to get from your blog.

Google is about learning through words. Articles, chunky ones with lots of detailed, researched info, that’s what Google wants. They want keywords without stuffing, helpful content so the person searching will find the answers they’re looking for.

Their questions are the keywords you’ll use in your blog.

If you write non-fiction, blog for Google. If you’re blogging about those cold cases, Google is a good engine to target because you’ll find a slew of awesome keywords. To learn more about writing for Google ranking I highly suggest checking out the guys at Income School. They give tons of awesome info for free and even have a paid membership site to dive in deeper (no spons/affiliate).

If you write illustrated books or other image heavy books, consider Pinterest. This could mean non-fiction like cook books, children’s books, or even fiction books about the makeup loving main character. Makeup is a visual medium, perfect for Pinterest.

Pinterest is about killer images that lead the viewer to helpful content when they click through from your image. For more info on how to optimize Pinterest for business, I suggest the folks at Create and Go (no spons/affiliate).

YouTube is the 2^nd largest search engine next to the Googs. So, if you have something to teach and you’re comfy on camera, write scripts and get on film. Then, write posts to compliment your videos (or vice-versa).

Any author can maximize YouTube if done correctly. This is very personal, brand dependent, and similar to Google ranking in that you want to do it consistently and always on-topic. One YouTuber who seamlessly blends blogging with video is Allison Lindstrom (no spons/affiliate).

What not to do with a blog

1. Don’t sell. Only point people directly to a book occasionally (1-2 times per quarter at most). And only do that if there’s a reason – new release, giveaway, price drop, price promo, etc. Marketing is connecting, a blog is a casual way to connect over information.

2. Don’t blog about trends. The moment the trend passes, so will your blog. Stick to evergreen topics and themes related to your book(s) and post consistently.

3. Don’t make it all about you. You are your brand but, unless you write memoir, readers want to learn about the topics that interest them with whimsical hints of you woven in. Not 1000 words on your life.

4. Don’t expect immediate engagement. It takes months, sometimes years, to gain any sort of traction from a blog. Check your analytics regularly but don’t quit writing if you don’t see thousands of visitors in the first few months.

5. Don’t discount the power of social media. Joining groups in Facebook, chats on Twitter, or any other socially based platform can really help. But help is the key. Be sure to adhere to the rules of posting, be helpful, and engage often. Then, when your blog helps answer a question, you can post the link without it coming off like spam.

A blog, like I said to open this post, is a crapshoot. Building a successful blog takes strategy, time, and most of all, hard work. But if you keep at it, a blog can really help you reach a larger audience – the people who will want to read your books.

My Boss is Kind of Crazy but in a Good Way

We’ve all been there. We get to work and immediately encounter a boss who makes almost impossible seeming demands of our time, talent and resources. We come home at the end of the day exhausted, wondering if this is really what we should be doing with our life.

So what happens when you work for yourself? Do you tell your boss she’s crazy for the schedule she wants you to keep, or do you blindly follow everything she wants you to do in order to run a successful business?

As self-employed people we have a great responsibility resting on our shoulders. We’re everything in a company from intern to owner and sometimes it’s really tough to keep at it day in and day out.

And, if I’m being truly honest here, that dedication can be more intense for a writer running a self-publishing business. Why? I think this quote pretty well sums it up:

Because it can take years, decades even, to become a writer who starts making a steady income stream from their words.

If at all.

Seriously.

We can type, scrawl and scribble for years and never make any headway at being able to do it full-time. Hell, I wrote fiction since I was 14 but didn’t even publish my first blog until I was 34. The books came later and the income? Well, that’s an entirely different issue.

Right?

Disheartened yet? Thinking of quitting? Believe me, I’ve been there.

But bear with me and hopefully you’ll see why:

Quitting is the last thing you should do!

Last fall something amazing happened and not only did I blow my own mind but I completely changed the way I looked at my writing. It’s made all the difference in my dedication level to running this thing I call a business and I actually can see an income stream beginning to grow. Yes, as a fiction author!

Want to know what happened?

It was two-fold.

First, I fractured my wrist in early October last year. I’d love to tell you I was doing something super cool like playing hockey but not so much. Drunken patio yoga did me in for almost 2 full months. Sigh. What can I say, I’m human. AKA: sometimes a freaking idiot.

But, second, and this is actually where my mind-shift began, I had to do that to myself. Because, in the end, it led to my ah-ha moment. It was imperative I allowed myself to go through the physical and mental pain of that injury because it solidified my thoughts from the entire prior year.

So let me back up and give you a bit of that story.

Will write for pay

I was freelancing for a couple years ghost-writing/tweeting, blogging, writing web copy and other marketing pieces for clients. It was okay. I was pretty good at it. I made money. That’s where my love for it ended, however.

Because I didn’t want to do that shit for someone else. I wanted to do it for myself. I just struggled to see how all that blog, tweet, newsletter writing could lead into anything for my company.

My flailing, sinking, haven’t-released-a-book-in-3-years company.

If I could just figure out how to write blogs and tweets for my readers, I could probably re-launch Writesy Press, LLC.

Fucking lightbulb.

All the work I’d been producing for clients for two years was my training. I learned how to write to entice. To write marketing stuff and keep it going consistently by establishing a schedule.

And I had all of this old work (fiction and reference) just sitting around doing nothing. Like I had been doing for 8 weeks with a broken bone. We both needed to get back in the game.

I bought voice-to-text software immediately.

No way was my stupid identified drunken injury going to keep me from doing my job anymore!

And at that moment, my job was all about getting my real message weeded out, shared, and to start connecting with people. Helping other writers who might be struggling with writing their first book.

Because I was a fiction author at heart, not a freelancer. I’d already written 3 books, released 2, and it was the only job I ever did as a writer that brought me joy and income (regardless of how small that number was to start).

Once I started dropping freelance clients I simply replaced the hours I worked for them with doing the same thing for my company. Blog client gone? I write blogs for my readers. Web copy client gone? Time to start that newsletter I’d been mulling over. You get the point.

When the last client dropped off, I knew the time was there to get back to writing my books too. So I started and in the process lost sight of all the other stuff – blog, newsletter, twitter – making real connections.

Enter Oktoberfest and broken wrist

Isn’t it Murphy’s Law that as we get ahead we fall behind? Well, after a few weeks of introspection & lack of activity due to pain (Hallmark movies rule!), I turned it into a sign to get my shit together before trying to move forward.

During my downtime I handwrote a lot of the book Reckless Hearts (broke left wrist & I’m a righty) and started getting my marketing materials in check:

• First and foremost, wrote a business plan.
• Second, wrote and implemented a marketing plan.
• Blogs that furthered my message were left alone.
• Blogs that didn’t were deleted or moved.
• Created shortened links to remaining posts.
• Developing a spreadsheet to track/organize/manage tweets.
• Researched hashtags for writers.
• Started a tweet database with hashtags & links.
• Opened a hootsuite account so I could schedule my tweets (AKA: free up time for fiction).
• Created a newsletter template.
• Established a monthly schedule for work days and days off (very important!)

And within three months not only was I following the schedule, I was crushing it! Why? Because I birthed a viable monthly schedule out of 2 of my darkest months ever.

What’s that quote about doors and windows opening and closing?

If I never got hurt I wonder if I even would have finished Reckless Hearts, not to mention seven months of consistent tweeting/connecting and a second title this year – Creative Writing Kickstart. That title is a culmination of six months of writing prompts, plus a lot of new ones, that I shared with my fiction writer following.

Holy shit!

Even writing it out I’m amazed I was able to pull it together to write a business plan but it was that very document, coupled with my marketing plan, that forced me to evaluate in total honesty where I came from, where I was and where I wanted my business to be.

From misery came determination and if I learned anything on that journey it was this:

When you want to give up is when you’re most honest, your emotions are raw and that truth is going to come through in every word you write.

Use it as fuel to stoke the fires of your business building and you’ll never look at your boss as the crazy person ever again. Instead, you’ll build a business you can be proud of, high-fiveing yourself for being the best boss you’ve ever had!

If you need a nudge at killing writers block and want some cool story starters check out my book Creative Writing Kickstart. With over 365 writing prompts you’re sure to find something that jumpstarts your fiction and career.

Because there’s no better way to shut up the boss than by doing your job, am I right?

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And the Winners Are…

Sometimes it’s hard to admit that the things we do aren’t working. We really want to believe we’ve put our effort in the right basket. Especially when you’re really good at something. Like writing blogs.

As I watched the views tick up on the post I wrote 2 weeks ago, I also sat in wonder at a irtual lack of activity.

Because, while the views were good, not a single person entered the giveaway.

Which forced me to take a very long, hard look at my work day. To look at it without the rose colored glasses I'd been wearing for years as I continued doing the same thing over and over, never getting different results, but hoping for those different results every time.

Can someone say 'definition of insanity'?

I had to admit some harsh truths and at first, the truth was tough to digest. Because when I really allowed myself to admit it, the truth was:

My blog is lots of work for very little return.

And there it was. Admission that the thing I love to do, that I've been trying to use as a business builder and engagement tool, might just be the wrong thing to put the biggest percentage of my focus into.

You see, I work for myself as a writer and an author. Which means I write books and blogs and tweets and newsletters and anything else that allows me to connect on a personal level.

And every single day I sit in my office or out on the sofa all alone and I beat my head against the laptop to put well-crafted words out there that can both help and entertain.

Everyone loves getting help for free. Hell, I surf the internet on a daily basis looking for free advice, information and guidance, so clearly I’m no exception.

But if I’m going to share it, especially for free, with an expectation that an audience will grow, people actually have to want it, to make the growth occur, right?

I mean, if I'm only talking to myself then why should I waste precious hours blogging when I could be writing what I really want to write.

AKA: fiction.

I want to turn this to a positive so I guess the best thing I can do is see the whole thing as having learned something. Learned about marketing and how it does and doesn't work. Where to concentrate my efforts and where to pull back.

So as of this moment, my blog is getting lopped off at the waist.

Bringing it down to manageable

I’m reducing my posting to once a month (and honestly, that’s only going to happen if I get around to it).

Because a girl can only type so many words in a day. And from now on, when I want to share, market, connect with people, I'm going to focus on twitter and my newsletter.

I would absolutely love to connect with you in either of those places, please stop on by and say hi on twitter and sign up for my newsletter: Facts & Fiction for self-publishing and writing advice and articles.

Maybe this blog will become something I do more often again in the future but for now I'm looking forward to the restructure and getting back to the thing I love to write - fiction!

Responsibilities of, and Legal Issues for, Authors Writing Mystery Fiction

In late 2014 I went to hear a fabulous author present on all things Mystery writing. Betty Webb is a local author, winner of literary awards, and one heck of a story teller. Her mystery stories range from cozy to dark and disturbing, but all of them have one thing in common.

What’s that thing you ask?

None of her books are going to get her sued for libel anytime soon.

To explain why that is, let me share a story with you about how Betty helped stop me in my tracks. And why I owe her a huge debt of gratitude for the information she shared that night because she singlehandedly saved me a LOT of potential future headaches.

Short answer, long story

Most of you know I took part in NaNo again during November of 2014. I failed miserably at achieving the 50,000 word goal. Between trying to write with a fractured wrist and getting my Dragon Software used to my vocal inflections, I simply ran out of pain-free time to get my novel finished.

Was I upset?

Well, I mean I wanted to “win” of course but in the end I wasn’t all that sad. Why? Because I’d written 38,000 some odd words and had the next two novellas in my Shaw McLeary Adventure Series essentially plotted out. In fact, one was completely plotted and even had a few chapters written.

For the second book in my series I planned to set the story in a day spa type of place. There will be a body found of course and Shaw will have to hunt down the killer. I’ve never been to one so anything I wrote for that book was being created from nothing more than my imagination.

But then there was the third book.

I had about 15,000 words down where a murder would take place at a well-known ice hockey arena. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an avid hockey fan. I couldn’t wait to get this one written!

Then, enter Betty and her presentation.

She explained that authors can’t use real people OR places when setting the scene for a murder. That authors cannot locate a dead body in a well-known place and name it in the narrative.

I saved my question to the end of the presentation then asked:

Why not?

Her response was simple:

Because businesses don’t like that stuff. It could be construed as bad press. And it could actually impact their bottom line in a negative way. You could be sued.

I’m paraphrasing here since I didn’t record what she’d said, but that was the gist. It felt like a punch in the gut, but almost in a good way.

Knowledge for how to be a smart writer, even if it disrupts my writing world in a huge way, is never a bad thing.

Time to make a new plan

I already explained that I love ice hockey so, to me, the setting was going to be a cool way to share my enjoyment of a particular arena. In my mind it would attract fans, not work the other way around.

Boy, was I ever wrong! Perhaps my mind works that way because I write murder & suspense? Not everyone has that same morbid curiosity of course, and that’s where the law comes into play.

Because I don’t want to be sued for libel, defamation, slander or anything else for that matter, I came home from that meeting a little crushed but ready to do my research** on this subject.

Libel, by definition, means: anything that is defamatory or that maliciously or damagingly misrepresents. (Dictionary.com)

As I thought about my potential plot line I suddenly understood exactly why I can’t write this one the way I’d originally intended.

I wouldn’t have malicious intentions with my story, but pulling a dead body out from under the hood of a Zamboni in a named, major hockey arena*** could be construed as a misrepresentation of what a person might see or experience while in that building.

And the sense of that misrepresentation is all this place would need to bring a suit.

Yikes!

But thank you Betty! Because now I know exactly what I need to do.

What to scrap and what to keep?

This is where story writing inspired by real-life stuff becomes tricky business.

I can set a murder in an ice hockey arena but I must make everything about the place and the people unique.

How?

Change the town/state where the story is set. I’d need to pick a setting without an arena in that same level of hockey in which I’d planned to set the story (ex. NHL, AHL, OHL, etc.).

Change all aspects of the team. Come up with some amazing team name that doesn’t already exist. Give them a unique logo, colors, and nickname. Build my own team from the ground up.

Change the look of the building inside and out. Though I can’t use exact descriptions of existing arenas, here’s where imagination meets inspiration and probably where the most care needs to be taken in fictionalizing life.

I’ve been to many ice hockey games and seen them in all types of venues from NHL level arenas to local league rinks and every level in between. I’ve also had the privilege of touring the “backstage” areas of multiple rinks over the years.

All of the arenas I’ve been to have certain things in common because they’re a vital part of the sport of hockey in a general sense in North American venues:

• Ice with standard field markings within the standard rounded rectangle shape of 200 x 85 feet
• Walls around the perimeter of the ice (boards)
• Glass panels and stanchions above the boards
• Player benches
• Penalty boxes
• Seats/benches for fans
• Locker rooms
• A Zamboni to clean the ice
• Doors for the Zamboni to fit through getting onto the ice
• Goalie nets (during game play/practice but sometimes removed when the ice is quiet)

Any or all of those areas could be used in a story as long as I make them my own.

So, not only do I need to build a team from the ground up, but their arena (AKA: scene of the crime) as well.

The moral of this story

I plan to go back and revise a LOT of that third book in order to remain smart about legal issues in my writing, but I’ll likely still write some version of that story.

But that’s a job for April. For now I’ll be reviewing the content in book two; making sure I protect myself and my work.

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• • • • • • • • • • •

**I’m not a lawyer. Nothing in this post should be taken as even a hint of legal advice from me or anyone else. I always suggest contacting your own attorney with questions or concerns related to your own writing. This post is meant to be informative relaying my personal experience but in no way should be taken as actual legal advice. Once again, I am not a lawyer and can’t advise anyone in matters of the law.

***This was not the actual story line I was going to write, it’s an example of something that could bring cause for a libel suit.

Resources:

If you want a good place to start, read through this expert opinion from Rights for Writers and then contact your attorney or the attorney of your publishing house for more info.

Local to Arizona, Maria Crimi-Speth, lawyer and author, has written a really comprehensive book: Protect Your Writings: A Legal Guide for Authors. I’ve read it and have found lots of the information vital in releasing my books – highly recommended!

Image courtesy Simon Howden on freedigitalphotos.net

The Two Words Any Home Based Business Owner Needs to Embrace

The black hole of time suckage.

It’s what I’ve been affectionately calling that well known social media site (you know the one) for a few years now. And you all know why.

Open the app or page, check out everyone’s everything, and next thing you know you’ve easily lost 30, 60, maybe even 120 minutes of your life. (More?)

But is it really lost if you’re connecting to your friends, family, business relations, etc.?

It depends on how you make a living

The majority of the world doesn’t have to worry about this loss of time.

Many of my friends have full-time jobs where they get paid regardless of the work flow during the day. Some days are so busy there’s no time to check the online scene, while other days are super slow and my friends post copious numbers of quiz results.

As a self-employed person, a business owner, I have to have willpower to overcome the rampant temptation that can draw me into that site.

Why?

The answer has to do with those two words I mentioned in the title.

But before I get to that, check out this shiny thing!

Because the internet is overloaded with more to see, read, do, learn, laugh at...

Articles about our favorite reality television “stars”. The hundreds of emails you’ve let build up for weeks. Streaming anything. All of these things are meant to inform and/or entertain.

And they’re fun!

And they’re so easy to access!

And they’re going to kill our business if we spend too much time enjoying them.

All play and no work makes for a pretty small bank account

By now you’ve likely gleaned the two words I’m referring to right?

Time management.

Business courses can teach us how to do our marketing. They can train us how to more effectively close a deal. They can even set us up with a full content strategy.

But they can’t come to your house and smack you when you want to procrastinate on actually doing all that work. They can’t force you to do your job before you play.

From all I’ve seen, heard, read, the only person who can help a self-employed business owner to manage their time is themselves.

Wait, where did all this crap come from?

This morning I opened up a couple things that required my attention – my blog comment moderation and my email.

For the past few weeks I’ve really thrown myself into work. Call it a resolution or whatever you like but there’s so much I need to do to take my business to the next level. So I started working on all of it right after the holidays.

Since then I’ve managed to rack up 228 emails in my inbox and 27 comments requiring moderation.

This might seem like it requires immediate attention and in former years when I was flailing around I probably would have spent my morning reading all of that stuff, responding or otherwise convincing myself that these items were the highest priority.

But they’re not.

Because, think about this for a second (or at least humor me while I think it out loud). If I spent the entire day reading newsletters, getting on social media or moderating comments, when would I get the writing done?

I’m a writer, an author, and in order to sell my work I have to have that work to sell!

Every day I spend doing other things means I’m one day further from ‘The End’ in any of my books.

That’s one day further from royalty checks. One day further from a real live career as a writer.

So what’s a gal to do?

The simple solution is to just ignore all that stuff of course. Take my career back into my hands! Slay the time suckage dragon on the mountainside!

But what happens after a week? A month? Will I still have the same unwavering resolve to avoid all those places that I abandoned at the beginning of the year?

The answer is yes. And here’s why:

My desire to make a living as a writer outweighs my desire to see a dog riding a skateboard.

Or whatever other time suckage distraction that draws my attention on any given day.

So what have I let go of recently in order to keep my career on track?

• Email
• Phone calls
• Social media
• Laundry, dusting, housework in general (if you know me you know this is a big deal)
• Sometimes lunch (but never dinner!)
• Reading entertaining blogs and newsletters (they’re sitting in my inbox)
• Half-finished home improvement projects
• Shipping stuff to people that I’ve had for half a year
• Grocery shopping (my favorite thing in the world is home delivery!)
• Lunches with friends
• Making my own beauty and cleaning products

It’s time to set priorities and take back my career

It’s safe to say that every single thing on that list is something important to me. But it became clear that if I do all that stuff during the week then it leaves me little if any time to work on work.

Would any employer allow an employee to slack off on working in order to do all that stuff?

Hell no!

I can’t be any different.

Because I run a company.

Because I want that company to have another profitable year.

Because I want this year’s profits to far exceed last year’s and there’s only one way to do that – work.

Writesy Press is my micro-press. A publishing house that hasn’t had a book released in close to three years.

Unacceptable!

So as I wrap up the first draft of the second book in my series today I’ll be grateful I let all that extraneous stuff fall to the side in order to push my business to the next level.

After all, I work from home. Who needs clean laundry anyway?

Image courtesy Stuart Miles on freedigitalphotos.net

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Putting my Talents and Skills to Good Use with a New Business Venture

Okay, I'm not going to apologize for this but I know it has been over two months since I shared any kind of update over here.

Like I said, I won't say sorry because life and other priorities do sometimes get in the way of blogging, even when blogging is your life and priority! But what I will do is share with all of you the amazing things that have been coming together over the past couple months.

There has been a very good reason for why I disappeared.

I’m in the midst of starting a new business with a great friend and colleague, a fellow writer and blogger and I am really, really excited to finally share it with all of you!

But before I get to the good stuff let me ask you a question:

Have you ever had an a-ha moment?

That one moment in time that causes all of your everything to come crashing together in a collision that both expands your mind and pinpoints the exact thing you’re supposed to be doing with your life?

When I was about 14 years old I had one of those. I started writing fiction and it was like everything clicked.

I felt like I’d finally found the thing I was good at. The thing I could put my entire personality into. To me, writing fiction was like being sucked into a black hole where I’d lose hours of time but it never felt like a loss because I was living in another time and place. One that I invented.

Fast forward through my life and take a pause in August 2012. That’s the month I wrote my second book, Reckless Abandon. That experience – writing a book that seemed to flow so easily out of my mind and fingers - opened me up to my second a-ha moment:

I knew I finally had enough life experience to use all that fiction writing to become a big famous fiction author!

Um, I know what you’re thinking…

What the hell happened?

Trust me, I thought the same thing.

And I thought it daily.

My sales went nowhere. My marketing was pitiful. I had no clue what I was doing and realized that no matter how good I was at the writing part, all that other stuff was so much more important to being the big famous fiction author I wanted to be.

How did I find that out?

Plain and simple research.

That research led me to read about a lot of tips for marketing online. Tips for how to use a blog to my best advantage.

Then I learned I could write blogs for clients. For an income. That I could actually find people that would hire me to write stuff for them online.

A-ha moment 3.

I’d already been blogging for 5 years. Maybe some of you have stumbled across my Randomness and Lunacy. I loved blogging and always wondered if I could do it for a living. Apparently I could.

But it was going to take a small shift. I needed to stop blogging about my crazy inner ranting and start sharing useful information about my experiences. Then I could blog for myself and others and make some money while I tried to get my fiction stuff off the ground.

I took classes. I practiced. I got some clients to pay me to write for them. I got some longer term people to hire me to write lots of interesting content that forced me to research a lot about a lot.

I made some money. Money that even helped my husband and I complete some home renovations and take vacations.

Not enough to live on just yet but I listened to all those people who taught the classes and wrote the blogs I loved. They said to be patient and work really hard. That I too could make six figures a year as a blogger!

It sounded all kinds of awesome.

I was seduced by the cash. Drawn in by the promise of better paying clients with great work.

I kept waiting for that part to happen while writing and writing. I pitched, wrote consistently and couldn’t get anything going. I would make a tiny bit of money so I’d stick it out. This was my daily routine for well over 2 years.

And I left my fiction in the dust.

I shoved my passion in a drawer.

Want to know the truth?

I missed it. A lot.

But I had all these newly learned skills that I wasn’t quite ready to give up on. Mostly because I paid a LOT of cash to get them and I thought that meant I had to use them in the exact way they were presented.

That if I learned about copywriting I should be a copywriter. If I learned how to write success stories that’s what I needed to offer as a service.

The reasons I’d first started writing seemed so far behind me.

A writer with no purpose or direction, I simultaneously felt like I had far too many potential career paths set out in front of me.

I was struggling with my worth as a writer, struggling with financial independence and struggling with reasons why I shouldn’t just go get a job as a bagger at my local grocery store.

Then I went to my writer’s meeting last spring and every single a-ha moment came into clear focus.

They formed the true and total a-ha moment I’d been spinning toward for years.

My colleague Kate and I sat next to each other, ready to learn from the speaker.

But what we ended up learning that night was that we both needed to stop relying on clients for our income.

We needed to take control of our businesses.

We needed to use our skills to provide a useful service to people like us.

One a-ha moment to rule them all

By the end of the night we realized we needed to work together.

I won’t go into all the details of the creation, (if you want to read about that you can visit our About page) but long story short:

Kate and I found a way to draw on both of our experiences writing for the web as well as our background in fiction to start this business.

It's called Blogging Your Book!

Blogging Your Book is the culmination of the past 27 years of my writing life.

Blogging Your Book is an opportunity to help aspiring authors.

Blogging Your Book is the only thing I want to focus my energy and attention on.

Let me see if I can explain what this feels like…

Imagine a fully finished puzzle sitting on a table. Each piece is attached to a piece of fishing line. At the exact same moment all those lines get pulled into the air, flinging every piece into a state of suspended flotation.

But someone was filming the whole thing.

Now, watch that scene in slow-motion, in reverse.

Every single piece of the puzzle falling so perfectly into their proper place on the table. Like a bird’s feather falling back to the earth to land with a whisper exactly where it belongs.

Years of studying, cramming, practicing finally making sense.

Yup. It’s pretty rad, calming and satisfying.

We’re not 100% up and running yet, our official workshop launch is happening in about 4 months, but you can subscribe to our newsletter now and I really think you should especially if you’re:

•          An author who doesn’t know where to go with your book.
•          An aspiring author who hasn’t published yet.
•          A writer considering penning a book someday.
•          Someone who enjoys blogging.
•          In need of inspiration on your own writing journey.

So what does all this mean for this blog?

It means some formatting changes are likely happening in the next couple weeks.

That posting is likely going to cut to only 1-2 posts per month while I focus on writing for BYB with Kate (blogs, workshops and webinars).

Posts here are going to move back toward Author tips (and I’m so thankful for having learned the craft of blogging for business so I can bring the best advice in the best way!).

And I’m pretty likely going to find some time to start working on my fiction again.

Because what good is it teaching authors how to blog their book and find their fans if I’m not doing the same?

A-ha!

Don’t forget, sign up for the Blogging Your Book newsletter now so you can stay on top of the great tips we’re already sharing as well as the details for our workshops launching next spring!

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