August 7th - #IWSG post. - Pen name, building websites, social media...Toni Morrison, Kristen Lamb on Amazon.
Hello all! Time for the August 7 IWSG! Yeah I know. But it's nearly lunchtime 7/8 (or 8/7) in Oz.
Go HERE to visit. more participants.
Alex's awesome co-hosts for the August 7 posting of the IWSG are
Renee Scattergood,Sadira Stone, Jacqui Murray, Tamara Narayan, and LG Keltner!
Please visit them if you can!
Be sure to visit the Insecure Writer’s Support Group Website!!!
Before I begin, I honor Toni Morrison. the great American literati who recently passed. She will be sadly missed, but her words will never die. I plan to resurrect her yellow-leafed tomes for a good re-read.
If you haven't caught it, I recommend reading Kristen Lamb's latest post on Amazon's road to world domination of the publishing industry. It's not a put down of the ZON. She's researched it well - the NY big publishers and how they dropped the ball, never regarding e-books as real competition, to Amazon's well-thought-out, clinical, long range plan to sell books ... fascinating reading.
I know there's an opinion that blog posts should be kept short, but in the same way I love LONG books (bring 'em on - I just read every book in the Game of Thrones series. Even skipping the gratuitous violence, them's some serious word numbers). If a long blog post captures my attention, I'll read every word. And Kristen's post are usually attention capturing.
Now down to little ole me. Not nearly as interesting as Amazon's journey which affects pretty much all of us ...
Keyword - PEN NAME
Who amongst us uses a pen name? Long ago, I decided to go with a pen name when I got around to publishing, whether traditional or self-publishing. I asked for opinions in my self-publishing FB group, 20Booksto50K, and the jury was overwhelmingly positive about pen names. These high achievers write multi genres and seem to write each under a different name.
Back in the day, the idea of a pen name was to publish in secret. Today it can be to separate genres or just to look for the right name on a certain type of book. Not really secret anymore.
Now that I'm approaching the day I publish all those books I've been working on for years, I have a truckload of work to do - new website, FB page, Twitter, Instagram ... As if maintaining one of each of these wasn't enough.
Part of my insecurity is that I no longer have a photo editing program simple enough for me to use, and I'm too impatient to struggle with the steep learning curve of getting my head around a new one, so I spend a lot of time designing headers etc on paper and checking how it looks online, but not a lot of time actually building anything online. I know. I know. I don't have much choice, so I hope when I sit down and actually create these online, it'll all come together.
Writing books is the fun part! The EASY part. All the rest, including BLURBS and SYNOPSES, are the HARD part.
How's it going with you?
- Do you have a favorite photo editing program? (I never got over the loss of free PicMonkey.) Gosh, I was an expert! Now they want over $7 US a month, which is a lot more in $AUS.
- Do you do everything yourself - social media etc - blurbs, synopses, editing, covers? I'll definitely be outsourcing covers and some editing, but think I'm doing the remainder myself.
Now, to the fun part. WEP/IWSG will have the sign up for the August prompt, RED WHEELBARROW, on August 21st - open for 3 days. Go HERE for ideas. Consider writing for us. We'd love to have you.
Go HERE to visit. more participants.
Alex's awesome co-hosts for the August 7 posting of the IWSG are
Renee Scattergood,Sadira Stone, Jacqui Murray, Tamara Narayan, and LG Keltner!
Please visit them if you can!
Be sure to visit the Insecure Writer’s Support Group Website!!!
Before I begin, I honor Toni Morrison. the great American literati who recently passed. She will be sadly missed, but her words will never die. I plan to resurrect her yellow-leafed tomes for a good re-read.
If you haven't caught it, I recommend reading Kristen Lamb's latest post on Amazon's road to world domination of the publishing industry. It's not a put down of the ZON. She's researched it well - the NY big publishers and how they dropped the ball, never regarding e-books as real competition, to Amazon's well-thought-out, clinical, long range plan to sell books ... fascinating reading.
I know there's an opinion that blog posts should be kept short, but in the same way I love LONG books (bring 'em on - I just read every book in the Game of Thrones series. Even skipping the gratuitous violence, them's some serious word numbers). If a long blog post captures my attention, I'll read every word. And Kristen's post are usually attention capturing.
Now down to little ole me. Not nearly as interesting as Amazon's journey which affects pretty much all of us ...
Keyword - PEN NAME
Who amongst us uses a pen name? Long ago, I decided to go with a pen name when I got around to publishing, whether traditional or self-publishing. I asked for opinions in my self-publishing FB group, 20Booksto50K, and the jury was overwhelmingly positive about pen names. These high achievers write multi genres and seem to write each under a different name.
Back in the day, the idea of a pen name was to publish in secret. Today it can be to separate genres or just to look for the right name on a certain type of book. Not really secret anymore.
Now that I'm approaching the day I publish all those books I've been working on for years, I have a truckload of work to do - new website, FB page, Twitter, Instagram ... As if maintaining one of each of these wasn't enough.
Part of my insecurity is that I no longer have a photo editing program simple enough for me to use, and I'm too impatient to struggle with the steep learning curve of getting my head around a new one, so I spend a lot of time designing headers etc on paper and checking how it looks online, but not a lot of time actually building anything online. I know. I know. I don't have much choice, so I hope when I sit down and actually create these online, it'll all come together.
Writing books is the fun part! The EASY part. All the rest, including BLURBS and SYNOPSES, are the HARD part.
How's it going with you?
- Do you have a favorite photo editing program? (I never got over the loss of free PicMonkey.) Gosh, I was an expert! Now they want over $7 US a month, which is a lot more in $AUS.
- Do you do everything yourself - social media etc - blurbs, synopses, editing, covers? I'll definitely be outsourcing covers and some editing, but think I'm doing the remainder myself.
Now, to the fun part. WEP/IWSG will have the sign up for the August prompt, RED WHEELBARROW, on August 21st - open for 3 days. Go HERE for ideas. Consider writing for us. We'd love to have you.
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