This month marks the anniversary of a wonderful group - Insecure Writer's Support Group. If you are a writer, whether new or old, you have to join the group! The posts are great tools in learning and cultivating skills as well as gaining the much needed support (as we might need help picking ourselves back up a time or two). Make sure you click on the link and definitely check it out! A huge THANK YOU to +Alex J. Cavanaugh for founding this amazing community.
Writer's Cramp
When I first self-published my title I was ecstatic! Of course I had the dream of releasing my beloved story out into the world and the world embracing my writing as much as I adored creating it. However, that dream has been replaced with a lot of hard work and efforts in promoting and working on my writings skills. I was a new fish in a huge evolving pond.
Choosing to self-publish was an easy choice for me. I didn't want anyone butchering my work and as I researched this crazy world of self-publishing it seemed full of glitter and just what I was looking for - cut those middle men (and women) out, I could do this myself! Let's just say I've learned a lot since then.
First, after publishing my book, I quickly learned that I needed to expand my social networking channels. I joined Twitter and Google+ and eventually even made my book its own page on Facebook (there are tons of social media outlets). Since first publishing way back (insert snickering) in 2012, I have worked very hard at gaining followers, likes, and other such annotations.
When researching other avenues to pursue potential readers, I ran across a great tidbit about the blogging universe. I was new to blogging so I did a lot of research and decided to start my own blog. Hence, What Shall We Blog About Today? was born. I immersed myself in the realm and started to learn how to connect with other authors, writers, bloggers, reviewers and readers. It's been a very slow process for me, while others seem to hit the ground running, if you know what I mean.
Now, with managing four blogs and continuing to write, edit and try to pull together book covers, it's all consuming. I do believe though that blogging has helped me, not only to connect with others, also it has helped me with my writing style. Some tools that I love now and couldn't continue blogging without - would be the schedule option under post settings and the labels (blogger). Especially when you are participating in blog tours and such, make sure to open the schedule and create the post for your selected day. I also have a calendar through my hotmail account that I keep all my scheduled posts on to keep me on track.
