How can a book review blog help you promote your writing? Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? When I started my book review blog in June of 2007, I didn’t plan to use it for anything other than sharing my thoughts about the books I was reading. But, now I’m getting free books to review and the traffic from the book review blog has helped increase the traffic to my website. Continue reading
Thanks to all who participated in my survey on the conference workshop topics I’m working on. I had responses from Blog4writers subscribers and from members of Christian Writers Fellowship International online group. If you missed the original post containing the survey, it’s here.
Now for the results. Here’s the list of potential conference workshop topics I’m developing. Which ones do you think were the most popular?
The online survey asked each person to rate the above titles from 1 to 5 with 1 being first choice, 2 being second, etc.
The Winner Is: Business Approach, garnered an equal number of #1 (love it) votes with Social Networking. But, networking received just as many of #5 (hate it) votes as #1 votes. And Social Networking got the largest number of negative votes of any topic. I guess you either love it or hate it. So, I have to pronounce Business Approach the winner based on the negative votes for Social Networking.
Taking into account the total of #1 votes plus the #2 votes for each topic, Business Approach got the most votes, while Write What You Know came in second. Social Networking came in third, followed by Self-Editing at fourth and Journal Entries last.
Alternate Method: I posted a message on Christian Writers Group International asking members to respond by choosing two of the five topics without rating them. This method more accurately mimics your situation if you are attending a conference. You have two time slots and five topics. What do you choose?
The results were totally different from the survey above. Journaling and Self-Editing got an equal number of votes. The other three were close. I only had five responses on this one, so I think the results of the survey are more telling.
Comments: One respondent, Julie Baker, made an interesting comment. “We should already have acquired writing skills. The bigger concern is how to market and sell our work”
Readers: Please give us your opinion by commenting on this post.
Have you attended a writers conference this year? I’m checking out fall conferences that might fit my finances and my schedule. These three conferences are on my wish list. It’s hard to choose, but I use these criteria in making my decision:
Cleveland (near Chattanooga) is a beautiful place to be in October. Fall color will be near-peak on the weekend of October 14th and 15th. Definitely a perk.
This is a new conference, this year’s edition being only the second. My friends Lettie Kirkpatrick Burress and Wendy Brown are among the organizers. And Sally Stuart , the authority on the Christian market, is featured speaker.
The conference starts mid-afternoon on Friday with sessions on Friday evening and all day Saturday. The fee is only $85 for both days (includes a couple of meals). There are no writing contests or private appointments with faculty. Hotels with reasonable rates are nearby. I think this conference is worth the fee and the travel expense just to be around Sally Stuart. She lives in Oregon, and I live in western Tennessee. When will I have this chance again? Visit the SECWC site and check it out for yourself.
I’ve attended this conference
several times in the past, and they always do a great job. It’s sponsored by Wesleyan Publishing House and is held at their world headquarters in Fishers, IN, northwest of Indianapolis. Keynote speaker is Angela Hunt.
The conference starts at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, November 4th and runs through 4 p.m. on Saturday. There’s a full schedule including workshops and private faculty appointments. The fee is $149 for both days, no meals included.
This conference provides excellent networking opportunities. It’s well-attended, and their faculty includes some of the most knowledgeable writers, teachers, and editors in the Christian publishing industry: Lin Johnson, Terry Whalin, and Jim Watkins, to name my favorites. It’s a long way to go for me (6-7 hours), with at least three nights in a hotel added to the expense of the fee. All details are now up on their site.
This conference, located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, has not been around very long, but it has grown by leaps and bounds. May
be that’s because everything in Texas has to be big? I have wanted to attend this one for several years, but it hasn’t happened.
Although the fee for this conference ($265 for both days) is higher than the first two I’ve mentioned, it offers more. Not only do they have workshops and featured speakers, they have private appointments, contests, and mentoring clinics. And—the fee includes continental breakfast and lunch each day, plus dinner on Friday. The faculty includes Gail Gaymer Martin, Frank Ball (organizer), DiAnn Mills, Kathy Ide, and Mary DeMuth, among others. The hours are Friday, 8 a.m. until 8:45 p.m. and Saturday all day.
For me it’s 9 hours of driving with probably four nights in the hotel. There’s a guilt factor associated with this one, too. I have family living in the Dallas area. If I were to attend a conference at Keller, I’d need to take an extra day to visit them before heading home.
So—What to do? Making these decisions is hard, but it’s time to think about registration. Last year, the Indy conference sold out, and there were no at-door registrations. How about you? Which of these would you choose if you were me? How do you make your decisions on what conferences to attend? Your comments are welcomed.
Freepixels.com
Readers, I need your opinion. I’m preparing workshop proposals for a writers conference next year. Here’s a list of the workshops I’m working on:
Would you take a couple of minutes and participate in my survey? Make believe you are attending a writers conference. Based ONLY on the title, rate the following workshop titles from 1 to 5 with 1 being your first choice, 2 the second, etc. If you are not at all interested in a title, you do not have to rate it at all. There’s space for you to put additional comments, too. E-mail subscribers, if the link to survey does not work, click on the title of this post above and go to my site where the link will definitely work.
Click here to link to the survey.
Thanks for taking the time to give me your opinion. I’ll share the results with you soon.
PS—I invite you to share this post with your writer friends to help me get more input. Here’s how:
Today’s guest post is by Rebecca Livermore, and the full title is “Writers’ Block Buster: Idea Jars.” Be sure to visit her website Professional Content Creation.
Does writer’s block ever get you down? Try putting together idea jars so that next time writer’s block strikes, you’ll be able to shake it. Here’s how to do it:
1. Get two jars, or containers of some sort. (Don’t obsess over this step! They don’t need to be anything special, unless you want them to be!) Label one jar “ideas” and the other one “words.”
2. Grab a newspaper or magazine, or head for your favorite news source online. Skim through the articles, looking for interesting stories, or a mediocre story with an interesting element. For instance, I just saw a story on MSN about two people being stung by scorpions on an airplane. In my view, that’s an interesting story!
3. Jot tidbits of information and words on strips of paper. For the above story, I would jot, “man on plane bit by scorpion” and perhaps, “leg swells due to scorpion bite.” I would also write some of the primary words on strips of paper such as, airplane, scorpion, bite, swell, venom, etc.
4. Put the words in the word jar, and the ideas in the idea jar.
5. Get into the habit of doing this regularly, as you read the newspaper, or even as you watch the news on T.V. Over time you’ll collect a lot of words and ideas.
Next time writer’s block strikes, grab the two jars and do the following:
1. Pull an idea from the idea jar, and pull three words from the word jar.
2. Set a timer for 30 minutes, and write like mad, using the idea and the three words you’ve drawn in your writing.
The fact that the words you’ve drawn may have nothing to do with the idea you drew is part of the challenge and part of the fun. The sheer silliness of it takes away from trying to “be serious” in your writing.
Don’t worry about writing a masterpiece. You may not. But I’ll bet this exercise will get you writing, make you smile, and perhaps got you out of your slump.
Used by permission. Copyright by Rebecca Livermore, a Christian speaker and writer from Denver, Colorado. Her passion is helping people grow spiritually. To read more of her articles, visit her Associated Content page at http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/60801/rebecca_livermore.html.
Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS
Rebecca on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rebecca.livermore
Morguefile image: http://mrg.bz/1s0YNG
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.
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.
Kentucky Christian Writers Conference founders and attendees celebrated its fifteenth anniversary June 24-25, 2011, at College Heights United Methodist Church in Elizabethtown, KY. Conference offerings included Cecil Murphey, keynote speaker, numerous workshops, and private faculty appointments.
I attended two workshops by Cinda King, Hopefully Devoted to Devotional Writing and Curriculum Writing for Small Groups. In the devotional workshop, King advised us to be prepared for “unplanned inspiration.” She said she gets her ideas when she least expects it. The curriculum workshop included a step-by-step guide to writing studies for small groups or retreats. In both workshops, she provided copious handouts.
Carlton Hughes, a professor of journalism, children’s pastor, and award-winning freelance writer, taught Unlocking the Inner Journalist: Basics of Article Writing. Hughes covered the basics of getting ideas, planning, interviewing/research, writing, and submitting articles. He based part of his session on a book by William E. Blundell. Check out The Art and Craft of Feature Writing: Based on The Wall Street Journal Guide on Amazon.com using the Look Inside feature. I’ve ordered the book so that I can study it in detail.
Stirring the Pot: Writing for Chicken Soup and other Inspirational Markets, led by Tracy Crump, included a history of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series along with tips on how to write and submit for future editions. It was news to me that Chicken Soup is not considered a Christian series. Although they are open to stories about faith, no scripture is used in the stories.
Donna Clark Goodrich led a session entitled How to Sell What You Write. At the beginning of her workshop, she quoted Yogi Berra: “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” Then she gave us great directions to get us on the road to publication. She distributed several handouts to the class. The most valuable part of the discussion for me was the portion dealing with reprint rights and simultaneous submissions.
Goodrich also presented a keynote on “The Freedom of Letting Go.” She has a book in the works by the same title. The jist of her talk was that we must let go of all the things that keep us from being our best. Primarily, our reluctance to let go is a result of wanting to be in control. But, she said we have to let go of that, too.
Cecil Murphey gave three keynote addresses, all drawing on his extensive experience as a writer and ghostwriter. He began with examining why we write, emphasizing that writing is not a talent. It’s a gift from God. In his second appearance, he discussed voice. He noted that finding one’s true voice can be painful at times. He asked the group to affirm: “I am a unique, unrepeatable miracle of God.” His third keynote dealt with learning to be genuine in your writing—“giving what you want to receive.” Readers appreciate writers who truly show their vulnerabilities as well as their strengths as they write. Murphey’s prayer for this session was: “Loving God, show me the truth about myself, no matter how wonderful it may be.”
Here’s the main thing that I learned at this conference. Very little of what I heard in workshops was new information for me. However, in every session, I picked up tips and tidbits that are useful to me right now. Networking with other writers gave me the jumpstart I needed to renew my interest in my writing. It definitely pays to take advantage of all opportunities to learn from and share with other writers.
Last weekend, I attended Kentucky Christian Writers Conference in Elizabethtown, KY. I realize that I am fortunate to be close enough to such a conference and to be able to afford to attend. If you want to write for publication but can’t attend conferences, you can get the information and encouragement you need in other ways. Since I couldn’t collect handouts for you, I’m sharing a list of sources provided by the faculty of KCWC 2011:
Also, see my previous post about building your own conference. Also, check out my first update on “my” conference.
Next week, I’ll report on KY conference offerings and what I learned from them. If you haven’t subscribed, please do so now so that you won’t miss anything.
And—thanks to Ann Gabhart for providing the photo of Cecil Murphey above.
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This is the second of two posts on using FeedDemon to track blogs and website feeds efficiently. If you missed the first post, go back and read it now.
Google Reader is adequate for organizing your blog reading, but I am sold on FeedDemon. And here’s why:
When I open FeedDemon, here’s what my display looks like. I do not show the full screen because, if I shrink the graphic to fit the space, you can’t read the text.
And, here’s my reading method. I usually start at the top of the Subscription list. When I click on a blog showing unread articles, it shows them all on the right. I scan the titles. If I’m not at all interested, I Mark All Unread by clicking on the newspaper icon at the top left of the frame. If something looks interesting but complicated, I can leave it marked unread to return to later. Sometimes I’ll read a piece that I might want to read again or use as a reference. I star these articles so they’ll be easier to find.
It’s possible to be subscribed to too many blogs. If I find myself routinely skipping the content of a particular blog, I unsubscribe. Every couple of months, I have a cleanout of my blog list. Like my closet, FeedDemon gets cluttered.
Give FeedDemon a try. Develop your own methods for organizing and reading your subscriptions, and tell me what you think.
How-to Information:
Download FeedDemon 4.0.0.22 here.
Image courtesy of Salvator Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Are you looking for an efficient way to follow blogs without filling your inbox with e-mail subscriptions? Look no further than FeedDemon, the desktop RSS reader. I’ve been using it for months now, and I love it. I’ve mentioned it before in previous posts, but I think it’s time for an update and some tips on how to use it.
Before we get into the how-to, I want to mention this. A Christian friend was horrified that I would use a tool with the word “demon” in its name. I looked up “demon” on the Merriam-Webster site, and the fourth definition is probably what the creators of FeedDemon had in mind: “one that has exceptional enthusiasm, drive, or effectiveness.” I have to admit that nothing about the name was a put-off for me, but I felt I had to mention that.
FeedDemon is a desktop program that you can download FREE at FeedDemon.com. There are two versions. “FeedDemon Lite is free ad-supported software which contains a subset of the features found in FeedDemon Pro. Features available only in the Pro version are listed here” (copied from FAQ page).
To use FeedDemon effectively, you must have a Google Reader account. FeedDemon syncs with Google Reader so that you don’t have to worry about losing your marked or unread articles. If you already use Google Reader, skip down to the Further Information section for tips on using the reader. Here are some pointers on getting your Google Reader set up.
In the next post, I’ll share my favorite features of FeedDemon and provide information on downloading and setting it up.
This is the first of two posts on how to use FeedDemon desktop RSS reader to minimize your time and effort following blogs.
Further Information:
Google Reader: Cut the Time You Spend Reading on the Web
YouTube video (8 minutes) on how to use Google Reader
