Tag Archives: blogging

A blogging spree in 2020?

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So, how has the new year treated you so far? If you’re like me, you’re happy to see 2019 in the rearview mirror. It’s not that the year was terrible; I’ve had much worse. But when it comes to blogging, yeah 2019 can easily be beat.

But what should I be blogging about? I’m not a negative person.

During 2019, a favorite pet died (our at-least-24-year-old tortoise-shell rescue tabby cat), a favorite website died (the much beloved AgentQuery Connect), and frankly a lot of my energy was depleted before last winter was over.  

I’m not the type to wallow in despair, and even though my household began 2020 with a challenging health situation, I found myself practically jogging to work the other day. And I hadn’t even had any coffee yet!

I still had that energy when I was heading home and reading a book about how to improve as an independent publisher. After all, it’s that return commute when I am most able to focus on Elephant’s Bookshelf Press.

blogging

And it’s that energy that I’m hoping to bring to blogging in the new year, as well as to publishing.

Those of you who’ve read my blogs over the years probably recognize my seemingly annual “I’m going to blog more consistently this year” resolution. Yeah, I make that resolution a lot.

Of course, if I were blogging more consistently, I wouldn’t have to have the same resolution year after year.

But one reason I think it will be accomplished is because I’ve been thinking about you.

Yes, you! You know who you are.

You’re the one who reads these blog posts. You even send an email occasionally, when I ask a question (which I should do more often).

Let’s face it, we’re writers! We like to write emails. Even pithy ones that are short on words but long on witticism. I love those!

From my perspective, 2019 was also a year of new beginnings. I began to write a new novel, for example. I’m excited about it, and I’ll share more with you as things progress. I began 2020 with more than 22,000 words on the manuscript, so I’m not even halfway through it.

I might have had more words written, but I also re-established EBP’s focus on short story anthologies. I love short stories. I always have.

In Flight, I also got to explore my love of science fiction.

Mind you, anthologies are hard to market and sell. And science fiction is a highly competitive genre. But if you believe the stories and the authors deserve an audience, then there’s not any excuse. Publish the damn things!

That’s going to be a recurring theme in 2020, too, as we’re preparing to publish R.S. Mellette’s next novel, Dark Star Warrior: The Morian Treasure. So far, the few people who’ve received a sneak peek have loved it. We have more announcements about DSW to come, too.

In 2019, I also helped launch a new website for writers: QueryConnection. It was established in October by another fellow AQCer, C.M. Fick, and I’m going to have things to share there about what’s going on there, too. In fact, I should have another post in the next couple days about a new online event we’re pushing. (There’ll even be a raffle involved!)

If you’re a writer who wants to learn how to turn your ideas into publishable works, we’d love to have you join us. It doesn’t cost anything.

Like AQC before it (and for that matter, like From the Write Angle, one of my other late, beloved writing homes), what you put into it is your perspective and willingness to share and learn from your peers – and perhaps a few folks who’ve been around the authorial block.

So, like I said at the beginning, I’m happy to see 2019 in the rearview mirror. Because 2020 looks like it’s going to be a heck of a ride!

Talk to you all soon!

PS: What is your favorite science fiction book or series and why?

What would you like to see in 2019?

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For Elephant’s Bookshelf Press, December and January are often about finalizing all the planning we’ve been doing throughout the year. We begin 2019 with several projects under way, including our latest anthology of short stories around the overarching theme of flight. We have received some wonderful stories and are excited about publishing the best.

We have some other items in the pipeline, and also have several ideas. Just as importantly, we’re able to switch things up a little if we need to. Who says elephants can’t be nimble?

But what I’d like to know is what would you like to see this year from Elephant’s Bookshelf Press?

A novel from another emerging author looking to develop his or her audience? Got someone in mind? We’re open to submissions!  Direct queries to submissions@elephantsbookshelfpress.com.

An online course? (And if so, what would is it you have in mind? How to publish anthologies? How to write/self-publish short stories? How to develop your authorial voice? Something else?) Frankly, we have a couple course ideas that are in the hopper, but we are still trying to determine which makes the most sense. I believe the best way to start is with a free course for writers, but there are a lot of them out there already. But maybe you want to hear what the elephants have to say about that!

Another anthology of short stories? By “another” I mean in addition to the one we have in process right now. Anthologies take time to prepare, so if you’re looking for a second anthology in 2019, we need to know that early on!

A collection of nonfiction essays (and if so, on what topic?) We haven’t really tried this before, which could be exciting. But we need to have a focus. It’s one thing for our brain trust to bang ideas around, but we want to know what readers are looking for.

Something else? There is no end to the number of possibilities. And we love learning new things, so perhaps we can learn together! Perhaps you want to see some sort of Facebook group or a series of author interviews. Let’s face it, we’ve had some fantastic authors grace the pages of EBP anthologies before they became best selling and award-winning authors in their own right. Would you like to know what they’re doing now?

We love to hear what our readers are looking for more of, so please let us know!

You can leave a comment here or send an email to matt@elephantsbookshelfpress.com.

Happy New Year!

 

Setting attainable goals: Writing 500 words a day

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I was shocked. My brother, who isn’t really a writer, sent me an email inviting me to join him in a writing assignment. It was the 500-words-a-day group that Jeff Goins leads through his blog.

To be honest, even though I’m on Goins’ mailing list, I hadn’t noticed that email invitation. So, when it came from my brother, it carried more weight. And when Goins indicated his commitment included blogging, I realized it was just the kick in the pants I needed to start the year right. By writing!

Now, truth be told, I write 500 words a day nearly every day anyway. It’s what I do for a living, after all. But while I could use those words to weasel my way through to the finish line, the personal goal of writing that much was what really mattered most to my ambitions.

So, in addition to a blog and an article for work, on my way home I popped open one of the works-in-progress that I began last year and refreshed myself. I added a scene. Added some tension. Introduced a character. There’s still a lot of flesh to go on this skeleton, but there is more to the spine than there was twenty-four hours ago.

Then, some ideas came to me while I was in the shower this morning. More tension. And the story’s resolution came into view. It’s a children’s story – kind of a late birthday present for my daughters – but it’s also the beginning of a series. The inspiration to write was gelling into a marketable product!

You might say that an unexpected email from a trusted source resurrected the manuscript. But it’s more than that, really. What made it worth pursuing was that the goal was tangible and attainable. Five hundred words is essentially two pages. I know of writers who write thousands of pages a day. I’ve just hit 300 and I’ve only been typing about 20 minutes.

Of course, doing it day after day takes discipline. In my opinion, that’s a crucial ingredient to the recipe of a full-fledged writer and author. Call it discipline, call it consistency. Whatever you call it, it boils down to this: Writers write.

So, my writerly friends, it’s January 3rd. What have you written today? I’m not going to criticize you if you haven’t written anything. I don’t know your schedule. But if you aim to reach your writing goals in 2018, there’s no time like the present to get into gear.

If my brother can do it, you can too.

A few minutes with Jean Oram, author of The Wedding Plan

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One of the many wonderful writers I have met at AgentQuery Connect is Jean Oram, who is described as the “super moderator” of that writers’ community. In the fiction realm, she tends to write romance, and in the nonfiction area, she focuses on child’s play, with sites like It’s All Kid’s Play.

Jean’s latest new release, The Wedding Plan, is about a secret marriage between ex-lovers. But with their past and being stuck in a cabin out in the small, nosy little town of Blueberry Springs you can be sure their secrets will be difficult to keep! The Wedding Plan is from her new Veils and Vows series and can be found on all major online bookstores.

She also has been an important supporter of Elephant’s Bookshelf Press since its beginning and served as copy editor of our best-selling anthology, The Fall. For this interview, we talked about marketing and her approach to building her audience.

Do you have a mailing list and newsletter?

I sure do!

How often do you send anything to your mailing list?

It depends on a lot of different things, but typically I try to reach out to my subscribers every 4-6 weeks so they don’t forget who I am. 😉 It has to be meaningful though—I never want to annoy my subscribers.

Do you have a blog?

Yes.

How often do you post on your blog?

That, like my newsletter, depends on what’s going on. My blog is a place for my readers to find updated news, items of interest, giveaway entry forms, and the like. Sometimes there will be four posts in a week, sometimes nothing for 6-8 weeks.

What else do you do to market yourself as an author?

I try everything and an answer to this question could fill an entire book.

Basically, you never know what’s going to work for you, so you’ve got to experiment. Some things that haven’t worked for others work for me. Some things that work for others don’t work for me. Things that worked two years ago no longer have the same effect now. For example, doing a basic signed paperback giveaway used to create avid fans—like a 90 percent conversion rate. Now it’s more like 25 percent which makes it less financially feasible to use those kinds of giveaways in that manner. So, now I use few signed paperback giveaways and use them for different purposes. Why has it changed? Who knows, but if you’re going to keep selling your books, you have to stay hungry, stay smart ,and keep rolling with the punches.

Do you offer services like editing, query review, etc.?

I do not.

What do you consider success for your marketing efforts?

It really depends on what the purpose/goal on a particular marketing effort was. Recently, I wanted to increase the number of people in my reader group (on Facebook), and so I gave it a push from several different angles and met my numerical goal for new members. My next goal is to get them active, make friends with those members. After that will be to find rewarding ways for them to help me share the word about my books—that’s going to be a more difficult thing to measure. Because what are my goals? Visibility? Then having a few members share a post can help. If it’s getting sales directly from posts being shared…well, that’s more difficult to measure directly.

Thanks, Jean!

Jean Oram is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling romance author who loves making opposites attract in tear-jerking, laugh-out-loud romances set in small towns. She grew up in a town of 100 (cats and dogs not included) and owns one pair of high heels, which she has worn approximately three times in the past twenty years.

Her life contains an ongoing school theme, having grown up in an old school house, then becoming a ski instructor in the Canadian Rockies, then going on to marry a teacher and becoming a high school librarian. She now runs a fundraising committee for her daughter’s school.

Jean lives in Canada with her husband and two kids. She can often be found outdoors hiking up mountains, playing with kids on the soccer field, racing her dog on her bicycle–sometimes the dog lets her win–or inside writing her next novel.

Subscribe to Jean’s newsletter and get a taste of her small-town comedies that will have you laughing while falling in love. Get your FREE ebook by signing up here: www.JeanOram.com/FREEBOOK.