Online Resources
Fall Favorites Link Roundup
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Fall is harvest time. Look what I’ve gleaned from the Web for our quarterly link roundup.
Inspiration
Susan J. Reinhardt on “The Care and Feeding of Writers”
Self-publishing
Jerry Jenkins, “My Quarrel with Self-publishing”
Rachelle Gardner, “Will Self-pub Sales Affect Your Future?”
Social Networking
Andrea Merrell, “To Tweet or Not to Tweet”
Building a Platform
Erin McPherson, “Platform 101 for Regular Not-Famous People Like Me”
Technology Frustration
Ethan Waldman, “How to Reduce Technology Frustration and Write Distraction-Free”
Online Writing Opportunities
Neither of these is a paying market, but, if you need to get your name out there, perhaps one of these would work for you.
Subscribers, if you have found good articles on any of these subjects, please share them with us by commenting on this post.
Summer Link Harvest
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Summer is the time when fresh fruit is plentiful. This week, I’ve harvested the fruit of other writers’ labor to share with you. Below, I’m sharing links to several articles I’ve found both interesting and useful.
- 5 Free E-Books Every Writer Needs by Jane Friedman, Writer’s Digest blog
- Handling Rejection by Ava Pennington (CAN blog)
- How to Study Magazine Markets Online by Susan Titus Osborne
- Five Legitimate Reasons to Self-Publish by Andrew McKay, Believer’s Press blog
- Check Out the New Bible Gateway from Gospel.com
- The Future of Publishing: e-Books vs. p-Books by Jane Urbanski on Faithwriters blog
Subscribers, if you’ve found articles that were helpful to you, please share them by commenting on this post.
Also, help spread the word about this blog by posting to Facebook orTwitter using the appropriate button below. E-mail to a friend using the “envelope” button, or use the last button, “share,” to post to other networking sites.
Readers seem to like the link roundups, so I’m making it a quarterly tradition on Blog4Writers.
Spring Link Roundup
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Last winter, I bookmarked several articles that I wanted to share with Blog4Writers subscribers. I’m spring cleaning my bookmarks, so I’m sharing these great links with you this week.
- Many of you are interested in using social networks to promote your writing. Take a look at this great article by Donny Gamble: Use Facebook and Twitter to Drive Crowds to Your Blog.
- Earlier this year, I encouraged you to comment on other blogs to help create interest in your blog. See my article here. Then, check out: Don’t Just Read a Blog, Comment.
- Many of you commented on my article, “Should You Write for Free?” A recent post on Faithwriters blog dealt with the same subject in more detail: Should Christians Write for Free?
- For those of you who are still trying to get published, take a look at Terry Whalin’s Strategy for the Unpublished.
- Getting rejections? Consider this: The Positive Side of Rejection.
- If you want to know more about self-publishing, this article will help you: Key Categories of Self-Publishing.
- And, finally, check out this list of time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts for the Busy Writer.
Comment on this article to suggest topics you’d like to see on Blog4Writers in the future.
Free or Premium: That Is the Question
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FREE-–it’s the one word that gets everyone’s attention. Writers, like everyone else, love to use blogs, websites, backup services, and a host of other free-on-the-Web products. Some of them are truly free, while others are free for a limited time or limited purposes, a free trial, so-to-speak. Online businesses have learned that offering the free trial often gains them paying customers. This marketing model is called “freemium.”
Really Free: Google offers a number of free services including Gmail, Groups, Blogger, Google Analytics, Feedburner, YouTube, and many more. Here’s a complete listing. I also use other free services offered by Yahoo, MSN, and Microsoft Office Live in addition to Google.
Free services usually work great, but, if something goes wrong, you have to figure it out for yourself. The “help” section is sometimes no help at all. For example, there was a glitch in the email messages that went to my blog subscribers through Feedburner. Some of the links in the message would not work, and the YouTube embeds didn’t show up at all. I couldn’t find an answer by searching online or in the help section. Of course, there’s no one to call, so I had to come up with my own solution.
Premium (Freemium): Most freemium services offer expanded or premium services for a fee. For example, Mozy online backup offers two gigabytes of storage free. If you need more storage space, you must upgrade to a paid plan. See the details for their free service here. Notice that the free version does not include live chat support or support tickets, which means you’ll have to get help from their support community or knowledge base.
With Mozy online backup, I started out using a free account. I chose not to back up my photos in order to avoid paying for the additional storage. When my computer crashed last year, I lost everything on my hard drive. I restored my documents from Mozy, but I had to rebuild my photo collection from the ground up. Some of the photos I lost did not have backups anywhere. I decided it was worth the fee to have everything backed up on Mozy. Other freemium services I’ve used include Dropbox, Webs.com, WordPress, Bravenet, and Shutterfly.
Time is money? The bottom line is this. Free services may not cost you money, but sometimes they cost you time. It’s been a year, and I still don’t have all my photos restored. I’m waiting for certain people to remember to send me their copies of the photos I lost. The time I’ve spent rebuilding my photo collection could have been used writing new articles. My new rule is that, if a free service becomes a time-saver for me, I’ll probably take the upgrade to the paid version when it becomes necessary.
Subscribers, would you like to recommend a free online service that’s proved useful to you? Please comment and share the URL.
More on the Freemium Concept:
Build-Your-Own-Conference Update
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Monday, April 11, 2011
Planning for 2011, I realized I would not be able to get away for conferences this year, so I decided to build my own. Today, I want to share with you some of the resources I’ve found.
Faithwriters.com: As a “free” member, I had taken advantage of some of their services. However, I discovered that the paid membership offers many other services. I joined as a platinum member for one year. I was particularly interested in the free courses they offer. I’m still exploring, but I think the weekly writing challenge will be what I need to get me back to writing new material regularly. The fee is $10 a month or $120 a year, but that is much cheaper than most conference tuition. I’ll share more about Faithwriters later in the year.
Book Proposal Help from Terry Whalin: As I browsed the Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference blog, I found a video interview between Alton Gansky, conference director, and Terry Whalin. The interview promotes Terry’s conference classes, but what caught my interest was the news of his membership site devoted to teaching people to write a book proposal. You may be familiar with Terry’s book, Book Proposals That Sell. The course-work is based on the book, but Terry offers additional materials on this memberships site, http://www.writeabookproposal.com/. If you are working on a book right now, this would be a great way to get help from an industry pro without leaving your desk. It’s a three-month (twelve-week) course for only $27 a month. Read the FAQ’s on the site here. Also, see the interview on YouTube here.
Publishing Industry Blogs: A new writer can learn a lot just by following blogs offered by publishing professionals. Sign up to receive these blogs regularly. It’s almost like taking classes from conference faculty. You’ll get more out of it if you comment on posts and/or ask questions.
- Rachelle Gardner, Agent
- The Borrowed Book (for fiction writers)
- There Are No Rules (a Writer’s Digest blog)
- Cecil Murphey’s Writer to Writer
- Linda Clare’s Writing Tips
Subscribers, if you have opinions about the sites and blogs I’ve mentioned today, I welcome comments. Also, if you follow a publishing industry blog that’s not listed, please share the URL by posting a comment on this post.
More Writers’ Online Helps
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“Toot your own horn, or the same shall not be tooted.” Such was the advice I got from a college music teacher. I’ve always thought that he should have added something about having some humility, too. This sage advice came to me as I thought about the wealth of writers’ resources I’ve collected on this site.
Last week, I posted links to several sites featuring writer helps. Together, the writers featured in that post have published hundreds of books and articles. Who better to help you figure out how to get your work published than somebody who has traveled that road ahead of you?
This week, I want to point out the resources available on my site. First, you might want to know more about me before you check out the advice I’m passing out. See a partial listing of my published work here and visit my bio page here.
I’ll now take you on the grand tour. (more…)
Writer Helps Link Roundup
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Announcement: The second winner of the drawings for Time Management is David Telbat. He’s working on his website and will provide a link when it’s ready for public consumption.
This week I’m sharing links to other sites and blogs that I follow regularly. Some I may have mentioned before, but I think they’re worth a second mention.
- Cec Murphey’s Writer to Writer. Especially useful for beginning writers is the recent series entitled “Articles First?” Many beginners dream of writing a book, but they need publishing credits. Writing articles can help with that. Read the five posts here. Then check out the other posts.
- Jane Friedman’s There Are No Rules. One of the Writer’s Digest blogs, this one has great information on every aspect of writing for publication.
- Sally Stuart’s Christian Writers’ Marketplace. Sally posts regular updates to listings in her market guide.
- Rachelle Gardner’s CBA Rants & Ramblings. Rachelle is a literary agent serving the Christian market. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
- Terry Whalin’s Right Writing. This is not set up as a blog, but the site offers a wealth of how-to information for the Christian writer, beginner or otherwise.
Online Bible Resources
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Part of observing the passing of the old year is looking back, sometimes with nostalgia and sometimes with thanksgiving. This year, as I made my writing plans, I looked back to how we used to get our writing done—with a typewriter, paper, and an eraser. A writer had to be truly dedicated to persist with those tools. Today, my job as a writer is so much easier with the technology available to me.
It’s hard to say which of the computer-based tools are the most useful, but for Christian writers, I have to say having numerous online Bible versions has to be near the top of the list. For my writing, I’ve tried to find one online source that offers all popular translations. I submit regularly to publishers who use the New International Version (NIV) or the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). In addition, I like to use The Message on my devotional blog. (more…)
Twitter Bible
2I’m working on an article about the various online Bible study tools, but I’m not ready to post it yet. However, I recently discovered Twitter Bible, and I think it’s something everyone needs to see.
The Twitter URL is http://twitter.com/WWGT (What would God tweet). The writer’s moniker is Holy Ghostwriter, and the location is listed as “heaven.” The Twitter page shows a link to an article on a Web site named Not the LA Times. Huh? And, God Himself is supposed to be the writer.
The writer attempts to craft Bible verses in the latest modern language while keeping it under the 140-character per-tweet limit. Spiced with humor, the writing is very creative. On the Twitter venue, the writer is sure to reach some people who don’t know or have lost interest in the Bible.
Check out this example of the Twitter “translation.”
“Jesus foresees Twitter, shortens 10 Commandments to under 140 characters: Love God 110%, love neighbor like self. (Mark 12.30-31)”
OK, so I should have called it a paraphrase instead of a translation. I’m going to follow WWGT for a while and see where it goes. Check back next week for my article on the online Bible study tools.
Update: Google Reader Tutorials Online
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Do you subscribe to blogs by e-mail subscription? If you have too much e-mail already, you might prefer to subscribe in a reader using RSS feed. There’s plenty of information about this on my Subscribing by RSS Feed page, but I just found another great resource I’d like to share with you.
Authortechtips.com has a post with some video tutorials on using Google Reader that are just excellent. Link to the post here.
I’ve recommended Google Reader to people wanting to use RSS feeds because so many people because it’s simple to use and tutorials are not hard to find. If you have a Gmail address, just log in to Gmail and look for the Reader link at the top. If you don’t have Gmail, go to www.reader.google.com to create an account.
Once you set up your Google Reader, come back to this blog and subscribe! Also, see the links to my other blogs in the sidebar to your left.
