One of my goals for 2016 was gathering data about my writing process, so I could better anticipate what was actually possible in terms of planning my writing time and figure out how to patch the holes where writing hours seemed to evaporate. A lot of my grander plans associated with that goal fell apart, throughout the year, since one of the big holes in my process was basically depression and insane levels of stress. Gathering data fell by the wayside and I focused on just having a process at all, rather than refining it. That’s starting to change now, very late in 2016, thanks to the combined effects of antidepressants, a new job, and a restructure of my writing time in order to eliminate some of the temptations that usually distract me from writing. I implemented the goal of devoting 21 hours a week to my writing career a month ago, and started tracking it pretty religiously. Then, back on October 19, I started a project I originally meant to do way back at the beginning of the year – plan and draft a novella on the PC, rather than a notebook, so I could use RescueTime to get some accurate

Lead generation is basically marketing speak for “how will you initiate interest in your product or service.” It’s not something many writers are encouraged to think about — there is a mindset, more prevalent in other genres than here in the romance community — that once the book is done, it generates interest simply because it exists, and there’s a sense of frustration when the newly released book (or books) aren’t generating the kind of visibitiliy and sales they’d like. Truth is, all writers need to generate leads. We call it different things — running a newsletter, building a platform on social media, blogging, generating adds on Facebook or Amazon, newsletters swaps, and putting calls to action in the back of a book — but they’re all predicated on the same idea: get someone interested in you and your writing so you can further that relationship and build a sale. It may be horrible marketing speak, but I actually like the phrase lead generation because it keeps me focused on high level strategy rather than immediate tactics and tools, which have a tendency to be less effective as more people use them. In just the last year we’ve seen Facebook

The folks over at Writer Unboxed recently put up a pretty good post about what going to a writers conference really buys you. As someone whose in the thick of organising a major writers conference myself, it’s always good to see these things discussed and get some idea of how other people are placing value on the conference experience. It’s also a useful reminder of something that’s been true ever since I first started working with writers: writers will map their future success onto some pretty weird-ass things. Which means there’s a big difference between the things that will have the most benefit for attendees, versus the things you actually have to sell in the marketing to get them at the conference. I make very little secret about my personal belief that networking and discussion between writers is the most valuable thing an event like GenreCon can offer the writers who attend. Attending a course or panel where you learn something important is great, but the long term benefit of having a broad pool of other writers who are aware of your ambitions and your work is significantly greater. Your network is a source of advice and support, and it

I’m off to nurse my throat infection today, spending some quality time drinking tea and staying warm. With that in mind, I figured I’d throw out a grab-bag of recommended reading for writers from elsewhere on the internet. Two of the links below are on the list of things I wish every writer read before they started their career, while the other two are interesting ideas that really change the way you approach either the craft or the community of writing. A Definition of Author Platform (Jane Friedman) The internet irreversibly changed the nature of writing and, as a result, the nature of writing advice.It became truly noticeable about five years ago, where suddenly new writers would ask as many questions about blogging and promoting their work as they would getting their work published, with Author Platform replacing the publishing deal as the thing every writer was chasing. Jane Friedman breaks down the idea of Author Platform into its component parts and really looks at what it is and why it’s useful. Along the way, it actually serves as one of the most useful advice columns about Platform that I’ve come across, in addition to providing an effective definition. For my money, this