Dana Sitar's Blog, page 33

5 Things I Learned from My Self-Publishing Mistakes

(and what I'm doing differently with book two) My debut ebook Welcome to the Shit Show has been on the market now for three months, and the second in the series, The Hart Compound, will be released this spring. Though feedback from readers on book one has been positive, sales have been low. I know why [...]

What I Need to Improve in the Next 6 Months

Day 7 from Writer's Digest's "A 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises": Write a letter to yourself telling you what you need to improve in the coming 6 months. I spent December brainstorming and planning for 2012. I laid out my goals for the year and drew up plans to achieve them. One month in, I [...]

5 Freelance Success Tips + the Magic Formula

Freelancers are entrepreneurs. We have created a brand and a business of ourselves, and we should approach it as if we had just opened a corner store. From my experiences and watching others, I've come up with this magic formula for success in any business: Midwestern work ethic + California dreams  +  New York City [...]

Top 5 | Freelance Success Tips + the Magic Formula

Freelancers are entrepreneurs. We have created a brand and a business of ourselves, and we should approach it as if we had just opened a corner store. From my experiences and watching others, I've come up with this magic formula for success in any business: Midwestern work ethic + California dreams  +  New York City [...]

This Week in Words | Found My Brand

With my mind turning to marketing myself for the upcoming release of The Hart Compound, I've had to ask this question a lot lately: What is my brand? And, I'm really starting to hone in on the answer. I published my first Friday Feature this week, featuring comedian Johnny Walsh, and had yet another day of [...]

A Blind Guy Walks into a Bar

How Comedy Helped Johnny Walsh See His Identity After Losing His Vision "I would be set up on dates, and I wouldn't tell the girl I was blind. I would just show up to the restaurant early, find a table, hide my cane, and figure out what I wanted to eat. I just wouldn't mention [...]

Be a Nice Person — Upping Your Blogging Customer Service

I live just a block away from one of the busiest grocery stores in Berkeley. When I moved here, I heard great things about the store, a huge natural foods store with tons of fresh produce and bulk grains to help you eat right on a budget. "Like Whole Foods," everyone says, "but local and [...]

Friday Flash Weekly Writing Prompt

this week's prompt: Select a book on your shelf and pick two chapters at random. Take the first line of one chapter and the last line of the other chapter and write a story using those as bookends to your story. ~from Writer's Digest's "A 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises" Here's the deal: Friday [...]

Everyone Has a Story to Tell

I have been trying for weeks to answer this question posed by Alexis Grant: What would your manifesto say? What is the core idea of the work you do, and what effect do you want your art to have on the world? These past 6 months of blogging and working as a writer have led me [...]

This Week in Words | Stir-Crazy

It's been a long week, and weird. Stefan has been feeling pretty restless and stir-crazy since returning to Berkeley, and it's hit me now, too — probably something to do with the past three days of rain in the Bay Area, with three more in the forecast. I started the week well, though. I wrote a lot [...]