Nancy Christie's Blog, page 81

Literary Lifelines: Books that got me through

I started this post last November in a hospital room, while I was waiting for the discharge papers for my father. The good news was, as things go, it wasn’t so bad. Certainly, when I think back to other days and nights in other hospitals and ER waiting rooms, this one had been a piece of cake. A comparatively minor infection, a few days of IV antibiotics and my 92-year-old father was back with me.

But then a few more health setbacks and “surprises” (not the kind one wants, either!) occurred wi...

Loving writing when it doesn’t love me back

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about success and love and feelings of accomplishment, mostly because I have working on a number of guest posts on what makes me feel successful as a writer. (Check out my recent post on Sione Aeschliman’s blog on my personal definition of success.)

And of course loves factors into that because I love what I do. I love writing—the act of writing, the creation of something that hadn’t existed before, the putting down in concrete form what had hitherto existed only...

3 Must-Haves for your online “home”

It doesn’t matter whether you opt for a website or a blog to establish your online presence as a writer or author.

What matters is that it’s well-designed and well-written, easy to navigate and interesting to those people who come calling at your virtual “home.”

As Kiffer Brown of Chanticleer Book Reviews wrote in Hot Tips for Your Author Website (found on Shari Stauch’s Where Writers Win blog), “The average length of time that you have to make an impression on a website visitor is about 5 to 1...

Setting writing goals? Make them SMART—and flexible!

It wouldn’t be January if there wasn’t a surfeit of books, articles and blog posts about goals.

Figuring out what your goals are—or should be
Figuring out how you’re going to achieve them
Figuring out how you’re going to handle all distractions, disturbances and disasters that seek to undermine your plans and deflect you from your strategy

And I’ll confess that I’m right up there with the rest of them. I religiously set goals every January 1, and talk about goal-setting at the January meeting of...

Book Marketing—Ya Gotta Do It

More often than I have noted, I get a call from a newbie author and the conversation essentially goes like this:

Author: I wrote a book and I thought maybe you could give me some ideas how to sell it.

Me: What have you done so far?

Author: Well, I called a couple of bookstores but when they asked for my book marketing packet and I said I didn’t have one, they didn’t seem all that interested.

Me: Did you start working on putting one together?

Author: Nah. I don’t have time to do that. So how can I...

Planning ahead for 2015

For some of my corporate clients, I am in charge of not only writing blog posts but developing and maintaining the editorial calendar. Once I explained to them the benefits of having such an item in the marketing arsenal, they understood its value.

For one thing, it allowed them to take advantage of already scheduled events or special occasions (think World Fair Trade Day, National Literacy Action Week or Breast Cancer Awareness Month) and, if appropriate, tie it to whatever goods or services...

Five tips for creating a family memoir

The holidays are coming up fast, and many of us will be spending time with parents and siblings, cousins and grandparents—all those family members that we see far less often than we would like. And even those of us whose family tree has far-flung roots reach out for some kind of connection, exchanging letters and pictures, emails and texts, to experience at least a virtual visit if we can’t be there in person.

When I was planning the November topic for my Monday Night Writers group, I thought...

Be inspired!

Are you in a writer rut? Take a walk, look around and be inspired by the beauty of nature!

(Look closely and you can see the rainbow!)

My Top Five Tips for A Great Blog Tour

Book blog tours are great! They are a wonderful (and cost-effective!) way to connect with an audience across the country and across the world—sans boats, trains, cars or planes.

But if you want it to be successful, you need to put some time and effort in the preparation stage. Just because you aren’t leaving home doesn’t mean you don’t need to plan! Here are my five top tips for making your blog tour a success.

Start early. It takes a fair bit of time to find the host bloggers who are most appr...

Victim, villain and victor: the basic components of a business case study

Has this happened to you?

You’re in a meeting with a prospective client and you sense that the contract or assignment is just within your grasp. All it will take is more little push, one more solid reason, one more Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and the conversation will shift from “maybe” to “yes” and the relationship from “prospect” to “client.”

This is where having a relevant case study at your fingertips can do the trick.

But, as valuable as they can be, many business owners aren’t sure ho...