Finding a Writing Guru -- A Necessity if You Want to be a Writing Success

Unfortunately, success all too often depends on marketing.

Yeah, all the marketing gurus, keep telling me I need to play in all sorts of social media puddles. But, keeping up with GoodReads, Goggle+, Facebook and other social media feels like the death of me. At the end of the day, I'm panting from scurrying around the web ... and still have a bunch of places I should post ... or something-or-other. I'm beginning to think marketing gurus don't have a life, or at least a creative writing life.

Does that sound anything like your marketing life?

If so, I sure hope you like promoting your books more than I do.

My biggest failure? Commenting on blogs. All too often it's one of the things that gets left undone ... though there are quite a few I check on regularly ... No, it's not rebellion on my part. It's just that it's usually late at night by the time I read them, and I'm thinking of the nice paper book that's laying by my nice comfortable chair. If I get downstairs soon enough, I might even get a purring cat on my lap.

Some Writing Gurus I read -- and listen to -- more than others.

The Passive Guy at The Passive Voice is my "main man." Recently, I read this little item that motivated me to post some blog links this blog around. Did you know that "Self-Publishing is Dumb?" So, says the Passive Guy. The discussion is more about literary vs genre fiction than self-publishing per se. -- My opinion: any publishing venture is dumb if the practitioner doesn't know what they're doing. Which is why writers should read blogs to learn from others' experiences.

I think I learn more from The Passive Guy than almost any other publishing guru. Maybe because he isn't pushing his own products as he doles out advice. He's got another blog about the importance of value in the publishing equation you might find interesting.

Other blogs can be just as interesting and helpful. At Leigh's Wordsmithery I found some interesting market information. One of which I plan to submit to since I had already started re-editing the piece before I read the blog.

Lastly, how about a bit of fun?

 Margo Berendsen posted some writerly pins about editing on a recent blog. I share !!illustrating the writer's condition on my Facebook author page, but I don't know how to transfer pins. [I've still tons to learn about playing on the computer.]
 

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I'm still begging for reviews for The Ghost in the Closet. The book is free on Smashwords until May ... if you would be so kind. Hint. Hint.

And Ta-Dah!

A Cover Reveal for a Free Short Story that's in Process.

[No, it's not the one I'm thinking of submitting.]

 

I don't know if I'll be using this cover or one still in process. For free stories, I usually get two cheap covers and chose the one I like the best.