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Struggling authors, please read.

Fav Post Quote: ” If you can connect with one person a day, even one person a week as an author, you are doing fantastic. Being an author isn’t a race, and if you treat it like one, you’re setting yourself up for failure, because we don’t all run at the same speeds. Instead, take it slow, build real connections with real people, and they will love you as an author and be your fan for life. Hollow Facebook “likes” mean nothing over a true fan that admires you and your work, trust me.”

That’s what matters to me frfr. If I’ve reached ONE of you, I’ve done my job. Cheers. I’ll toast to that.

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Kyle Perkins's avatarAuthor Kyle Perkins

By Kyle Perkins.

So lately I have heard from a few people that they feel like they should just give up on writing because for whatever reason, they are feeling like it just isn’t worth it anymore. Whether they feel like they aren’t getting enough attention, don’t have enough fans, or whatever the case may be, they are wrong, and here’s why.

Writers and authors have a gift, and because we have that gift, we have an obligation, a responsibility to use it. We may “just” arrange words in such a fashion that people enjoy reading them, but a heart surgeon “just” transplants hearts, and astronauts “just” go to space. We need to stop treating writing like it is simply a hobby that “anyone” can do, because that’s not the case. We “just” take people to places they can’t go on their own, and give them a form of escapism…

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What Keeps You?

First, let me just take a few seconds to thank everyone who supports this blog for doing so. For reading, commenting, liking, re-blogging, and overall being apart of this journey with me.

As I sit back and I reflect on this part of my writing life, I know it’s not easy to endure with someone, be it a part of their blog or other more important aspects of their lives. That said, I am always thinking about growth, expansion, and elevation. Part of that process is to notice deficiencies and to admit mistakes. Even in blogging, without an acknowledgment of failure, no one can grow.

That said, my thoughts went on and I thought, when a blog grows, do the people who follow that blog ten and twenty followers in still find the content worthy three hundred and four hundred followers in? When your favorite blogs grow, what keeps you coming back? That said, what keeps you supporting this blog? What can I do better far as content is concerned that will keep you tuned in? I’d love to hear your insight!

In case some of you don’t want to comment, I’ve designed a poll. Don’t get me wrong, you can poll as well as comment but I have to have the poll as a back-up in case yall get all shy on me! Just choose the category that most intrigues you and that you’d like to see more of:

EC Quote Friday

ECQuoteFri

I don’t usually include any talking points with my EC Quotes, but I had to on this one because one  of the most valuable skills that I’ve gained as a Book Reviewer within the past year is the studying of books. Not only do I simply read them, but now I am also in the habit of taking notes even if I am not reviewing. Currently, I am knee deep into Colson Whitehead’s  Underground Railroad and Toni Morrison’s A Mercy.

Note-taking is a valuable skill and by doing so as you read your favorites, it maximizes your learning, your reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. You get to pull out key points, highlight, underline and look up the definitions of new words, jot down the names of people and places you didn’t know before, meditate on the format and language of the writer and how it is being used, and overall retain and analyze the information. Additionally, not just understanding of the story, but also of how the story is written. The most profound revelation to me of learning to write books, is that reading them is one of the first lessons, stepping stones if you will, we get in how to actually write them.

When Did You Fall in Love with Writing?

love-note

No. Not when you started writing, but when you fell in love with it. I’ll go first.

Freshman year, High School, Survey Literature. Mr. Clark didn’t know it, but his vocabulary list had me open. He thought I’d look up definitions. He was wrong. I devoured them. I tried using every new word in a sentence and like most people in love for the first time, I sounded like an idiot.

I became obsessed with their meanings, their pronunciations, how they looked on the page and, most importantly, how they made me feel.  Seduced by the euphoria of getting words off my chest, letting the emotions ooze from my heart and out of my flesh; stitching my soul into the page one heartbeat at a time, and riding the wave of stillness while traveling through books. I fantasized about how words would pair; how they would rhyme, mix and match. The smells of metaphor, and the taste of simile calling out to me from the words of healing written in a language I didn’t quite understand and yet, knew it was a necessary part of my sanity. For if I could not depend on writing to be my stepping stone to mental clarity, then I was truly lost. Forgotten in a world without meaning. No explanation for the question mark of our existence. No saving grace. No salvation to play just the right scripture to guide us back to the music sheet. Writing. It was my music sheet and goodness, how I loved him.

What about you? Are you in love with writing? When did you fall for it?

Not in love yet? Here’s a post about how to get there! 6 Ways to Fall in Love with Writing

Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge – Strength

When I saw today’s theme, I was excited. I was excited because I have this graphic that’s just been sitting in my phone for about a week that I haven’t used.

Welcome back everyone to Writer’s Quote Wednesday (which I haven’t participated in for too long), hosted by Colleen of Silver Threading  and co-hosted by Ronovan of Ronovan Writes. Today’s theme is Strength and my quote is from an unknown source, I don’t know who wrote it, but it really uplifted me. I hope that it will do the same for you:

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I love this quote because to me, strength is endurance. Survival. It is moving forward without regard to struggle. Strength is the will power to choose to live through what could have killed you, emotionally, mentally, or physically. Some attributes of strength is forgiveness, and patience. I think these two things are necessary for anyone looking to tap into strength. Strength is being taken up by storms, but then afterward straightening your crown and moving forward.

The Top 50 Sites for Indie and Self-Published Authors

Excellent list of resources. Comments disabled here. Please refer to original post.

jenowenby's avatarJens Thoughts

I stumbled across this fantastic resource and wanted to share with you. I’d love to hear any feedback.

#URLCategory
1KBoards – Writers’ CafeALL
2The Newbie’s Guide to PublishingSelf-Publishing
3Amazon KDP & Author CentralResource
4The Passive VoiceIndustry/News
5Dean Wesley SmithSelf-Publishing
6TerribleMindsWriting Process
7The Creative PennSelf-Publishing
8No Rules Just WriteSelf-Publishing
9Self Publishing PodcastSelf-Publishing
10David GaughranSelf-Publishing
11The Book DesignerSelf-Publishing
12BookBubResource
13Nook Press / PubItResource
14GoodreadsSocial
15CopybloggerMarketing
16Jane FriedmanSelf-Publishing
17Seth GodinMarketing
18ScrivenerResource
19TED TalksAWESOMENESS
20Hugh HoweySelf-Publishing
21Lindsay BurokerSelf-Publishing
22Writer’s DigestWriting Process
23The Self Publishing TeamSelf-Publishing
24Kristine Kathryn RuschSelf-Publishing
25KOBOResource
26Digital Book WorldIndustry/News
27Storyfix.comWriting Process
28Karen WoodwardWriting Process
29Publisher’s…

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Why Your Book Isn’t Selling

Excellent points. I loved all of them. I always enjoy Kristen’s posts because they’re so real: Straight, no chaser: “Thing is, we don’t care about you or your book. We didn’t want to see that crap in our feed, we sure aren’t going to subscribe to a blog/newsletter that is nothing but self-promotion.”

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Author Kristen Lamb's avatarKristen Lamb's Blog

Screen Shot 2016-08-22 at 10.22.38 AM Original image courtesy of Juhan Sonin via Flickr Creative commons.

The writer’s worst nightmare. You researched, you wrote, you finished, and then published your book. You wait for the sales and……….*crickets*. This is something that can happen to any kind of author, traditional or nontraditional. We think we have a hit on our hands only to later be checking it for a pulse.

What happened? Why is the book just not selling?

The Market

Remaindered Titles Remaindered Titles

In the not so distant past, there was only one way to get published and that was traditional publishing. Though many authors cheered when they were finally able to cast off the chains of New York, let’s at least respect that agents and editors might have known a thing or three about the book business.

Writers would often get vexed at the stack of rejection letters, believing they couldn’t actually write well. This was…

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