Next week, starting on 12th November, my new book Settlement is going on blog tour organised by the lovely Kelly at Love Books Group. This means there will be a different Settlement related post on seven different book blogs – one on each day – until the final day when there will be two.
The book blogging community are just fab! It’s made up of lots of wonderful book lovers who review books, interview authors and give writers guest spots on their blogs. And it’s all done out of love and in order to spread the word about books and reading. So much work is involved and all of it unpaid. What a tremendous resource and source of support for all of us authors.
And today, I’m delighted to be a guest on Anne Williams’ Being Anne book blog where I talk a bit about the background to Settlement and why I chose the settings that I did. You can read the post here.
I also have guest spots coming up on Linda Hill’s Linda’s Book Bag blog at the end of the month and then I’m a guest on Kate Noble’s blog The Quiet Knitter in early December. More about these later…
I don’t know about you, but I get almost all my reading recommendations from book bloggers nowadays. I’ve discovered so many good authors and thoroughly enjoyable books that I’d never have heard of any other way.
So let’s hear it for the Book Bloggers. They rock!
How do you find your next reads? Let me know in the comments section below.
In this recent series of posts – ‘Writing for Love or Money’ I wanted to explore what motivates writers to write, how money can be made from writing even without a traditional publishing contract – and to discover if money is ever the main motive. As part of the series I have invited several authors to contribute a guest post on what motivates them. The contributors write very different things and for different reasons. I hope you enjoy discovering more about all of these talented writers.
The first guest post is from Helen Mackinven. Helen has recently completed an MLitt in writing. She’s a fellow Scot and twitter friend of mine. She is currently working on her first bestseller. You can find out more about her over at her own blog here http://helenmackinven.wordpress.com You can also find her on twitter at @HelenMackinven
She originally posted the piece below on her own blog in June last year.
THANK YOU HELEN! – over to my guest:
Fame and Fortune from Writing by Helen Mackinven
“There is no telling how many miles you will have to run while chasing a dream.” But the inspirational quote makes no mention of how much chasing a dream might cost in pounds and pennies. Like the dress stashed at the back of the wardrobe (it was a bargain, and I’ll get lots of wear out it, honestly!), sometimes it’s best not to admit to the true cost of spending money on something you love. And I’m all for listening to Jessie J’s advice, “It’s not about the money, money, money… Forget about the price tag.”
But it was still a great feeling this week to receive the first cheque I’ve ever been given for writing. Woo Hoo! I won 2nd place in the Roy Wood Short Story Memorial Competition run by Alloa Writers group.
You can read my story, ‘Practice Makes Perfect’, here.
And my picture was in, drum roll please, the Alloa Advertiser (okay it’s not the Arts section of the Glasgow Herald but I’m all for keeping it real and supporting local newspapers striving to report what matters most in the community, e.g. page 3 has the headline, ‘Bin torched in Alloa’ and page 5 ‘Lamb bitten’ yes, these are actual news story, even as a fiction writer, I couldn’t make them up).
So over and above being a media star in Clackmannanshire (I daren’t go near the Hillfoots in case I’m mobbed for autographs), the £50 was most welcome as a very small step towards offsetting the thousands of pounds I’ve spent on following my writing ambitions. To date, there’s been Arvon residential courses x 2, numerous day courses/conferences/workshops, author events, books, not to mention the biggies giving up the day job to do the MLitt course. If I added up the cost, eh, well… let’s not go there! I don’t think hubby would want to see the actual figure in black and white.
On Twitter this week, lots of folk I follow made me laugh with the hashtag #thingsnottosaytoawriter and one of the most common phrases was a variation on “So what do you do for money?” I could relate to that, especially after ignoring the voice of reason and giving up my day job.
But once I’m a successful writer, I’ll be able bask in my fame and fortune, right? And I don’t need to worry about bagging that rare elusive beast-a traditional publishing deal; I can always self-publish and cut out the middle man. The phenomenal commercial success of trash books like Fifty Shades of Grey should surely spur me on (or turn me on if the ‘mummy porn’ hype is true).
So what am I waiting on? I could upload the two books I’ve already written today, sit back and rake in the profits…
EL James is making more than $million EVERY WEEK!!!
Maybe not, in fact it’s highly unlikely that I would become rich by going down the self-publishing route. A recent article in the Guardian, ‘Stop the press: half of self-published authors earn less than $500’ made it very clear that the millions of dollars made by the likes of EL James and Amanda Hocking are the exceptions. If you’re like me and want to be a writer, you’re not in it for the money (although as Tesco says, every little helps).
I ‘met’ Karen Cole on Twitter. She is chief executive of Ghost Writer Inc. When she offered to do a guest post for Write Enough, I was delighted to accept. I had only a hazy idea of what ghost writers do until I read her post. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.
Hiring a Ghost Writer – for Clients
By Karen Cole
Many people nowadays have websites, and they need to have professional content written for them. In order to do that, they will need to hire ghost writers. The fact is that ghost writers are people who are specialized in writing any piece of work, as long as it involves information that is easily accessible on the internet. Upon completion of their projects, the ghost writers will be paid for the pieces they have written, yet they will not be given any credit by the buyer.
How to hire ghost writers:
1. First of all, clients need to define the scope of their ghost writing projects. Buyers who hire ghost writers must be specific about the topics they want the ghost writers to research and write about, the number of words the projects will contain, the styles of the pieces, and if the buyers have special instructions, they should tell the ghost writers about them. Depending on the number of words the buyers request, the ghost writers will charge them accordingly.
2. It could be that the buyers will hire ghost writers who have experience within their niches. This will further increase the prices of their projects, so they need to be aware of this. Such ghost writers are perfect for those looking to have ebooks written, as well as printed books and screenplays. If the topics are highly technical, hiring ghost writers who are proficient at ghost writing in such styles is recommended.
3. Coming up with a realistic budget for each project must be considered. The budgets should allow buyers to get the best
ghost writers. More experienced ghost writers will charge more than newbies. Success will depend on the expertise of the ghost writers, and that is why hiring experienced ones should be a priority.
4. Before hiring any ghost writers, it’s recommended that people check out their portfolios and also references, if they can find them on the Internet. This way, buyers can assess the skills of those ghost writers and decide whether or not to go with their ghost writing services.
5. Last but not least, if the buyers agree to hire one or more ghost writers, contracts must be drawn up. Each one must specify who gets the rights and recognition for the work, the method of payment, and the total cost of each project.
Finding ghost writers is not hard, but it requires buyers to do some research before going with a ghost writing service. Choosing ghost writers who don’t have experience in needed subject matters and hoping for them to deliver quality ghost writing work at low prices is unrealistic and should not be attempted. The quality of ghost writers is always more important than a few extra dollars.
