(Today’s guest post is by Steve Watkins, journalist, author/entrepreneur and speaker. Steve’s new book, “Light Wins! … and the darkness is defeated forever…” will be published in Fall of 2012. You may follow Steve at www.stevenwwatkins.wordpress.com)
If you’re reading Londa Hayden’s blog, I’ll first make a couple of assumptions.
First, you’re interested in good writing, and beyond that, you’re interested yourself, in becoming a published author.
Next, I’ll assume that you have some talent and you think you’re a pretty good writer. To which I’ll now respond…
“So What? Who Cares? Big Deal.”
I too, thought of myself as a pretty fair writer and honestly, I’m not that bad. So in my mind, it stood to reason that when the right non-fiction idea hit my brain, the words would flow, I’d publish the piece and lay claim to the gold in the storehouse.
Boy, the lessons I’ve learned over the last few months.
Does raw talent still matter? You bet. But it’s a smaller piece of the pie than it used to be.
I see a lot of mediocre stuff out there folks. Honestly it’s not that good, but the stuff is selling. How?
The rise of the author/entrepreneur has been a game changer. Those who practice and refine the science of building social media platforms, metrics analysis, and testing and measuring are dominating the world of self-publishing.
I don’t like it one bit either, but it’s a fact of life if you wanna go where most of us wanna go.
I have a good book that’s going to hit in the fall. It’s well written, well edited, highly visual, highly relational and it has some great take-aways.
Problem is no one outside my hometown even knows I exist, so I’m being forced to change that.
Blogging is a must. You don’t have to do it every day, but you must do it often. You must experiment with different subjects, use your metrics, take a look at who looks at what when, and what part of the world is looking at you. Nothing fires me up more than to get a hit from Kenya or India or the United Kingdom.
Build your following. Do what you must to generate comments and use your blog as a tool.
Use social media: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in particular and blogroll them all together so whatever you do happens everywhere. You must be economic in this approach.
Like many of you, I do, indeed, have a day job, but I also spend about six hours a day pursuing my career as an author, and well over half that time each week is dedicated to building my platform. We can have the most profound thing in the world to say, and if nobody’s home to hear it, the point is moot.
If you’re creative enough to be a great writer, be creative enough to blend both the art and science of this new thing we call the author/entrepreneur.
You are the Master and Commander of your own ship, my friend, and that’s a good thing.
Write on…
If you’re reading Londa Hayden’s blog, I’ll first make a couple of assumptions.
First, you’re interested in good writing, and beyond that, you’re interested yourself, in becoming a published author.
Next, I’ll assume that you have some talent and you think you’re a pretty good writer. To which I’ll now respond…
“So What? Who Cares? Big Deal.”
I too, thought of myself as a pretty fair writer and honestly, I’m not that bad. So in my mind, it stood to reason that when the right non-fiction idea hit my brain, the words would flow, I’d publish the piece and lay claim to the gold in the storehouse.
Boy, the lessons I’ve learned over the last few months.
Does raw talent still matter? You bet. But it’s a smaller piece of the pie than it used to be.
I see a lot of mediocre stuff out there folks. Honestly it’s not that good, but the stuff is selling. How?
The rise of the author/entrepreneur has been a game changer. Those who practice and refine the science of building social media platforms, metrics analysis, and testing and measuring are dominating the world of self-publishing.
I don’t like it one bit either, but it’s a fact of life if you wanna go where most of us wanna go.
I have a good book that’s going to hit in the fall. It’s well written, well edited, highly visual, highly relational and it has some great take-aways.
Problem is no one outside my hometown even knows I exist, so I’m being forced to change that.
Blogging is a must. You don’t have to do it every day, but you must do it often. You must experiment with different subjects, use your metrics, take a look at who looks at what when, and what part of the world is looking at you. Nothing fires me up more than to get a hit from Kenya or India or the United Kingdom.
Build your following. Do what you must to generate comments and use your blog as a tool.
Use social media: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in particular and blogroll them all together so whatever you do happens everywhere. You must be economic in this approach.
Like many of you, I do, indeed, have a day job, but I also spend about six hours a day pursuing my career as an author, and well over half that time each week is dedicated to building my platform. We can have the most profound thing in the world to say, and if nobody’s home to hear it, the point is moot.
If you’re creative enough to be a great writer, be creative enough to blend both the art and science of this new thing we call the author/entrepreneur.
You are the Master and Commander of your own ship, my friend, and that’s a good thing.
Write on…
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