Tag: blogging

How Blogging Is Good Practice for Book Publishing

Disclaimer: I do not think blogging is for everyone. These articles are here to help guide and encourage you to discover your own systems and practices, as each person’s journey is and will be different.

Three of my books were conceived through blogging: I am Soul, The Women with Blue Eyes, and Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School.

Let me be clear: I did not start this blog to write these books.

I started this blog for some other reason, and in the process of being creative, I wrote about these topics until they culminated into whole books.

After three years of writing poetry dedicated to Black people and Black womanhood, I compiled those poems into a book called I am Soul.

After sharing excerpts from an exciting short story out of my wheelhouse but fun to write, it eventually culminated into an urban fantasy novel.

After writing Black History articles every Friday for Black History Month that went beyond February, the project culminated in a full-length volume people can now enjoy anytime they pick up the book instead of waiting for Friday.

I hope you see where I am going with this.

In the same way that journaling can help us to organize our thoughts, writing about your area of expertise on a blog can be good practice for book publishing.

Posting content on social media and a blog is a form of publishing. Whenever you hit that post button on a blog article or a Facebook post, you are publishing content. Here are two powerful ways it helps to prepare you to write a book.

It Helps You to Get Used to Writing Publicly

When writers publish books, they open themselves to be judged, not just praised. When you post content online, you engage in a similar vulnerability. Your thoughts are now live for everyone to see, critique, or admire. This is similar to what happens each time an author publishes a book. Writing on a blog or posting to social media helps you to get used to hearing feedback about your writing.

It Helps You to Build an Audience / Readership

One of the significant issues new self-published authors face is publishing books with no readership. While established authors like Ashley Antoinette can pop out with a new book and surprise readers, new authors may have a hard time doing the same because they don’t have the audience for it to be successful. They can publish books on a whim, but they also run the risk of people not buying them. Blogging can help with that.

While practicing how to write publicly, you also build up a tribe of readers who like what you write! You attract people who enjoy the same things you do, not just with writing but with life. You might all like to travel, garden, or camp. You might all be married, single, or divorced. You might all be business owners, work a job you love, or retired.

These genuine connections help build bridges of commonality that eventually lead to mutual support systems. You also get instant feedback that will help you test-drive your story idea.

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

A Seasonal Reflection

Photo by Efrem Efre

I was born in the late 1980s and grew up in the 90s, so groups like Jagged Edge, 112, and Dru Hill are my jam. Jagged Edge has this one song called “Seasons Change,” and although their song is about romance, it also makes me think about seasonal changes in general.

Toward the end of the year, there are always seasonal changes. You might notice the support is different or that you are different. This is part of preparing for a new season and, with it, a new era.

As the golden hues of autumn deepen into the stark whites of winter, nature offers a poignant lesson in letting go. Once heavy with vibrant green leaves, the trees surrender their foliage to the whims of the wind. It’s not a loss but a graceful shedding, a necessary preparation for renewal. 

“Every time the seasons changes we do too. Nothing remains the same, neither should me and you. Gotta have faith in the way that he moves, as the seasons change.” – JE

If I could have glimpsed how this year would end, I would not have chosen to write about joy. I would have chosen overcoming or something more relatable to the times. The truth is joy has been a struggle. I look around the world and wonder if anyone cares anymore. I realize there is a time for everything. In the words of Zora Neale Hurston, “I have been in Sorrow’s1 kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.”

For this, I am reminded that although the seasons do change and nothing is the same as it once was, it is joy in this release, a quiet celebration of trust. Autumn reminds us that letting go doesn’t mean forgetting but making space. The crisp, cool air carries the scent of fallen leaves and the promise of something new. In letting go of what no longer serves us—old habits, lingering doubts, or past mistakes—we find ourselves lighter and more open to the possibilities ahead.

With its stillness, winter teaches us to embrace emptiness’s beauty. The bare trees do not complain, but in the dead of winter, they stand tall against the snow, a reminder that strength remains even when we’re stripped of adornment. There’s comfort in the quiet, a chance to reflect and rejuvenate. Letting go allows us to rest, dream, and trust that life cycles will bring renewal in our own time.

See how joy can be found in letting go. It is not a loss; it’s a transformation. Like the seasons, we evolve, finding beauty in the shedding and the stillness. And as the days grow shorter and the nights longer, we learn that the most profound growth often comes in the quietest moments.

  1. Dust Tracks on the Road by Zora Neale Hurston ↩︎

Don’t forget this year’s poetry contest. The theme is joy! Submissions are Open now through December 1st (Midnight). Click this Link to Enter!

The Stella Series Continues

I published the first book in the Stella Trilogy in 2015 and revised it in 2020. I have been working on a part four recently, and I am excited to continue this family’s story.

If you have not read the series, I highly recommend it in preparation for the next part. (If you read these books from 2015 to 2016, you are advised to read the revised editions with the alternate ending!)

Like the others, it will be a historical fiction novella or short novel.

When Cynthia McNair’s grandmother overhears her and her boyfriend joking about Blacks in a derogatory way, she has a story. Born in 1845, Stella Mae was an enslaved woman on the Saddler Plantation in Shreveport, Louisiana. Forced to stay on the plantation after Emancipation, she endures much abuse and revelation. She eventually gives birth to an only son, whom she names Solomon Curtis Mae. Stella’s story takes place in book one, Between Slavery and Freedom.

Solomon was given land by the same enslaver who freed him and Stella. As a man, Solomon married a white woman, and they had four girls: Deborah, Rebecca, Judith, and Sara.

Solomon’s daughter Judith gave birth to a baby girl named after her grandmother because they looked so much alike. However, this Stella did not take pride in who she was and lived her life as a white woman and raised her children as white. We watch her struggle from delusion to acceptance during the Jim Crow era as she navigates being married to a racist white man who doesn’t even know his wife is Black. Stella has even changed her name to Sidney McNair. Her story takes place in the second book, Beyond the Colored Line.

Sidney McNair, formerly Stella, gave birth to four children: Edward, Karen, Jospeh, and Glenda. Edward is Cynthia’s father.

Because she raised them as white, Sidney’s children did not know about their African ancestry until 1979. The person most conflicted about this was Joseph, who felt sympathy for the plight of Blacks and fought for their freedom with his friends during the 1960s. His story takes place in the third book, The Road to Freedom. In book three, we learn that Joseph married a Black woman named Fae, and they had two children, Tanya and Micheal.

Joseph’s Children: Book Four in the Stella Series (WIP)

Book Four unfolds in 2008. Tanya is now eighteen, her confidence growing as she steps into adulthood with fire in her heart and ambition in her eyes. Her sixteen-year-old younger brother Michael wrestles with the same questions of identity and purpose that once drove their father to leave home in search of answers nearly half a century earlier.

Against the backdrop of Barack Obama’s historic presidency, the heartbreak of Trayvon Martin’s murder, and the rise of Black Lives Matter, Joseph’s children navigate a new era. They face the challenge of defining themselves in a society shaped by their father’s choices and haunted by the truths Stella once fought to conceal.

The story weaves together the struggles of a new generation to find their voice, identity, and place in a world still wrestling with its past. The echoes of Stella’s decisions resound, reminding us that even as times change, the threads of heritage and truth remain unbroken, binding the present to the past.

Stay tuned for a sneak peek at chapter one!

Are You REALLY Promoting Your Book?

Are you really promoting your self-published book?

Or does it just look and feel like you are promoting your book?

  • If you are only telling people you wrote a book, but you are not telling them what the book is about, you are not really promoting your book.
  • If you only show us the cover of the book but do not educate us about the content and core message, you are not really promoting your book.
  • If you only post Amazon links to social media but do not discuss the book and what we can learn from it, you are not really promoting your book.

These things can be a part of book promotion. Still, alone, they do nothing to generate enough interest in people to want to buy the book, and that is what book promotion is:

A culmination of your activities and strategies to create awareness and generate interest in your book.

This includes but is not limited to:

Advertising: Paid Ads (or just ads in general), digital or print material, website or landing page, etc.

Publicity: Interviews, book reviews, media coverage, guest blog posts, podcasts, etc.

Social Media: Building engagement with readers through entertainment and educational content using any of the many social media platforms. Blogging can also fall under this and is a powerful tool for community.

Events: Conferences, Author Talks, Book Signings, Book Fairs

The purpose is to create enough buzz to interest readers to purchase the book.

  • Anytime you share a review from someone who reads your book, you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you create content (graphics, excerpts, videos, etc) that educates or entertains people about your book’s message (nonfiction), characters, or plot (fiction), you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you talk about the book on a podcast or in an interview, you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you share your journey and what it was like writing the book, you ARE promoting it.
  • Anytime you write on a topic that is relatable to the things we can find in your book, believe it or not, you ARE also promoting the book.

We can do many things that look like book promotion on the surface but are ineffective in raising awareness among our readers about the book’s topic and why it’s important to them.

But I hope this post gets you thinking about deeper ways to connect with your audience!

If this has helped you, let me know!

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

PAIL: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

If you log into my Instagram account and go to my for you page, you’ll see tons of pictures of pregnant mommies, infants, and babies.

I didn’t mean to do this. I watched one video of a cute little baby, and now my search bar looks like I am trying to adopt somebody’s chiren.

Even then, it didn’t occur to me that October is a month when we raise awareness of a special kind of loss.

Even as my heart grew sad over some of the pictures, I still did not realize why I was watching this.

My personal journey begins with a miscarriage in the summer of 2020 and then two ectopic pregnancies between 2021-2022. I experienced pregnancy three times (even going through surgery), but there is nothing to show for it.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. It is a time to remember the women who have experienced loss through:

  • Miscarriages
  • Ectopic
  • Stillbirth
  • Infertility
  • Embryo Loss
  • Molar Pregnancy
  • Infant Loss
  • Child Loss
  • Neonatal Loss
  • Surrogate Loss
  • Failed Adoption
  • SIDS
  • Blighted Ovum
  • Chemical Pregnancy

If you’ve never heard of these, this is a great time to research them, to reach out to women/parents you know who have experienced loss, and to overall educate yourself about PAIL.

Tell Us What You Published Instead of How You Published

How often have you heard a traditionally published author say, “I’m a traditionally published author?”

They might say they are a published author but not a traditionally published one. That’s because there are millions of traditionally published authors.

In the same way, introducing yourself as a self-published author does nothing to help the person understand what you write.

It is not bad to call yourself a self-published author or to be proud of that. However, since many self-publishers have smaller budgets, we often desperately identify how we published instead of what we published to get people to take a chance on our books. But this strategy does not work well.

When I pitch schools and bookstores to carry my book, I rarely introduce myself as a self-published author. They will already know this when they look up my ISBN.

Instead, I discuss the book and why it is a good fit for their audience.

Instead of telling people, “I’m a self-published author,” and pushing your book in their face, identify your genre, book, and how it serves your target audience.

You can do this in one sentence:

Original: “I am a self-published author of three books.”

Revised: “I am the author of The Stella Trilogy, a Historical Fiction series that explores African American History, civil rights, and the struggles of Blacks in America.”

I hope this helps someone!

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

Why Not Joy?

Spent time with these cuties this weekend!


Why write poems about joy in such a time as this?

This has been a constant question in the back of my mind. It is not something anyone has asked of me personally, but something that the subconscious, always overthinking part of my brain asks when it wishes to second-guess itself. And, in the rebuke of these thoughts, I answer:

“Why not joy?”

I do not mean always being happy when discussing cultivating a spirit of joy. No one is always joyful in the basic sense of the word. I do not mean toxic positivity or whatever that’s supposed to mean.

In the same way that we embrace anger, grief, and frustration (which are normal and have their place), we can also embrace more joy and gratitude. If sadness and depression suck our bones dry and drain our life force, then joy and gratitude can be a powerful life-saving nourishment.

As I’ve said in Black Joy: “Nobody talks about society’s addiction to Black trauma / how much more profitable it is to talk about pain than poems/depression than joy.”

This constant cycle of death and war is draining to the soul and rotten to the bones. Where do we find or hold onto our sanity without joy? Have we forgotten that it has always been here with us? If enslaved people found joy, why not us? Or do we believe we are that special of a generation that we can survive without it?

In “The Role of Joy and Imagination in a Revolution,” author Marii Herlinger writes: “White supremacy culture values objectivity, overworking, and neglecting self-care — joy interrupts that. White supremacy culture teaches us to be individualistic, self-serving, and distrustful of each other — love interrupts that. Therefore, joy, imagination and love are revolutionary tools which actively defy capitalism and white supremacy.”

Sounds like a page out of Tricia Hersey’s book!

Speaking of Hersey, in the same way that resting more does not make one lazy, nor is it the same thing as being idle (you can be well-rested and still do the work), more joy does not make one blind to the atrocities of the world. On the contrary, it can help one to see things more clearly by stepping outside of the chaos. As Jaiya John puts it, “It can be a revolutionary act of love for yourself and others to not let yourself be sped up by the pace of a toxic, anxious, frantic, desperate, traumatized culture. Stay slow, my friend. Everything beautiful in you is gestating.”

This year, our poetry contest theme is joy, so I want to give you more to consider as you pen your entry!

The Latin word for Joy is gaudium, meaning to rejoice. Think of a time when you found joy in the unexpected. How did that make you feel? In what ways did you rejoice?

I cannot wait to read/hear your masterpiece!

We accept entries from October 21st through December 1st!

PS. I just found out this blog has been listed among Feedspot’s 30 Best Self-Help Book Blogs and Websites of 2024! Thank ya’ll for rocking with me!