My Amazon.com author image!
Over the past six months or so, I’ve been doing a lot of blogging. I relaunched this website to become a “writer’s paradise” of sorts (still working on that, obviously), and I tried to focus my efforts on the writing niche, at the intersection of marketing, self-promotion, and being a great writer.
Because of all that, my non-blog writing projects have also morphed. I used to imagine writing books about camping and wilderness survival (a childhood interest), music, or “life-hacking.” Now, though, I’m realizing that my particular career trajectory is somewhere within the realm of marketing. I love marketing, but I really love marketing great work. To me, the culmination of a well-written book comes not at writing “The End,” but in watching a well-executed marketing campaign launch that book to the world.
So today, I wanted to write a short post on just what, specifically, I have been doing outside of maintaining this blog. Below is a list of the books, manifesto, and guides I’m working on, have written, or will be releasing soon. As always, I support the blog through affiliate links and a few third-party resources I know and love, so the links you’ll find are affiliate links that go to Amazon.com.
Building A Blog for Readers: How to Blog in a Way that Matters
I had the idea for this manifesto (short nonfiction, ~30,000 words) when I first relaunched the site back in January. I wanted to collect information from well-known “successful” bloggers about what really makes a blog (and the blogger!) tick. However, I didn’t want to rehash the tried-and-true, and sometimes overdone, “how-to” guide for building a blog.
For that reason, I asked the bloggers to contribute questions that an up-and-coming blogger should be asking themselves, and I compiled these questions, along with some intro material describing each section, into the 101-question manifesto that you’ll find.
It’s been my biggest seller so far, but that’s probably due to the fact that it was my first book and I’ve done far more promotion for it since the release date.
Also, check out the “101 Question” cheat-sheet that I made as a free complementary download (you have to “Tweet” to get the link).
Welcome Home: The Author’s Guide to Building A Marketing Home Base
My first full-length book was released two months later, and I borrowed a theme that’s been passed around the Internet a lot lately — the “Home Base,” or a fancy way of saying “online platform.”
I wanted to detail what I’d done that was working — and what wasn’t — in my own “platform-building” endeavors, and this book is the result of that. I walk the reader, step-by-step, from concept to completion of a blog-based platform, and at each step of the way I discuss the pros and cons of the different options available.
The book is geared primarily toward the writer, or creator (artist), but the information is useful to anyone, in any field, wanting to start building their own platform.
I got a great response to Welcome Home from the initial beta readers, but a few people asked questions about whether or not the information “transferred” to other industries, markets, etc. I feel like it does, but I decided to strip down one section of the book to its bare essentials, re-release it as a more general book on blogging, and that’s what this little guide is.
The content has been reworked, and I’ve tried to limit the mentions of this stuff working for authors, writers, and creators, and left it at that. This is a brand-new release, and I may follow it up with a few more short guides culled from the pages of this blog and/or the Welcome Home book.
The Dead-Simple Guides are a series (three, right now) of long articles on one single subject. The ones I’ve released are The Dead-Simple Guide to Amazing Headlines and The Dead-Simple Guide to Guest Posts. I’ll be releasing one more at least, called The Dead-Simple Guide to Pillar Content.
Obviously these little guides are about blogging, writing better content, and making the most of your readers’ time. But the lessons and tactics really do translate well into other areas, specifically nonfiction writing of any sort.
I’ve been “announcing” this book since day one, but it’s still being edited and worked on. I was blessed to have a professional editor come on board, and he’s been doing some serious work to the book (a good thing, as hard as it is!).
My (hopeful) release date is sometime toward the end of September/beginning of November, but I’ll keep you posted. If you want to check out more about the novel, click the link above or visit the book’s website at www.thegoldencrystal.com.
What are you working on? As an author in this world, it’s important that we’re constantly and consistently working on or toward something. We don’t need to only write books (in fact, that’s probably a recipe for obscurity!), but we should be working on stuff that pushes our careers forward.
I believe I’m doing this, but it’s still interesting to see all of the things I’m not doing so well at — I’ll be trying to improve on each of them, but I want to hear from you: what types of things are you writing? Are you writing at all, or focusing on something else? Why? Leave a comment below and let’s discuss!
Pingback: Friday Features #21 - Yesenia Vargas