Guest C. Hope Clark talks about the importance of networking

cj Sez: I am excited to welcome C. Hope Clark to Lyrical Pens. Hope authors the well-respected Funds For Writers. (The site has been on Writer's Digest's “101 Best Websites for Writers” list every year since 2000. Yowza!) Today Hope shares her thoughts on why writers should network…and “the magic that happens in a face-to-face.” 

You Are Not Alone . . . and Shouldn’t Be

By C. Hope Clark

Writing is a profession of isolationism. If we didn't have internet, we'd be recluses of the highest order. Or would we? 

Writing takes considerable alone time, but without the internet we would be out amongst the masses, getting ideas, discussing concepts because, after all, we can’t know it all. Add to that connecting with agents, publishers, editors and the public in general. In years past, writers made a point of meeting other writers, and coming into New York to dine with editors. Agents were life-long friends. Hemingway often socialized with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Max Eastman, and he was acquainted with the painters Miro and Picasso. He appreciated rubbing elbows with other creators, even if in many circles he was considered their superior. Back in those days they propelled, endorsed, and gossiped about each other, making for great news . . . and sales.

Paris...1920s networking

Networking is critical in any profession. While we need the alone time to create, we need feedback on our quality. We need professionals in the other aspects of writing and publishing to guide us. We need to see how those ahead of us got there. Regardless of how independent we think we are in your publishing, which self-publishing has allowed us to be, we still find ourselves needing the knowledge of successful indie authors, graphic designers, formatters, and the people at CreateSpace, IngramSparks, Draft2Digital and other self-publishing resources.

We cannot know it all.

Then there’s the magic that happens in a face-to-face. Meeting people in person comes with its own rewards that are more unobtainable online. Professional organizations, Yahoogroups, critique groups, and conferences make you walk in as a writer and see how you measure up. While that scares introverted types, rarely do we walk away from those experiences without knowledge we would not have achieved otherwise.

Online, we learn what we query, but sometimes we aren’t certain which questions to ask. We search and search, hoping we are hitting the nail on the head, but then nobody is there to tell us whether we did.

In person, we can achieve so much more. For instance:

Sitting in a conference, we hear the best-of-the-best talk about how they achieved their success with anecdotes we might not find in a blog post or magazine interview.

Sitting in a conference class, we hear how-tos and examples, but then hands shoot up. We hear questions we hadn’t thought to ask, which makes us think of additional questions, and we find our own hand rising.

Seated in a room, we grow weary of the silence so we introduce ourselves to the people on either side of us, or across the table. The conversation leads to promotion tactics and publishing preferences, and soon you’re meeting them after class or following them to the lobby, excitedly sharing comparison.

We share business cards and email addresses in person, the eye contact visceral because they have connections . . . or you have connections they want, and in exchange they are willing to make introductions for you, barter editing each other’s book, or promote each other.

We sit next to a writer who has won awards, and we learn how that works. We enter a presentation of panel of authors who’ve made six figure incomes from their talent, and we are able to ask detailed questions as to how those journeys took place.

We sit in a class, hearing the lecture, but that’s not what’s important. The charisma, the passion, the excited enthusiasm of the speaker makes you listen keener and raises your own excitement. This person has done something with their writing, and they are who you’d like to be. You want that feeling. 

However, many authors avoid conferences because of the cost. There are ways to diminish that expense.

Share a motel room with someone.

Watch for conferences closer to home, or close to relatives you need to visit.

Volunteer to work the conference in exchange for the fee.

Apply for scholarships. Some conferences have them but do not advertise them. Ask.

Apply to your state arts commission seeking financial assistance.

Ask your writing group to sponsor you, with you bringing back handouts and lesson plans that you in turn will teach them.

Or you could apply to writing retreats, many of which have scholarships and financial aid. They may not have speakers, but they often have other writers on site whom you can still share experiences and knowledge with.

Or you can join professional organizations like Romance Writers of America or Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators and learn from those local chapters or attend their one-day conferences held around the country. That cost is minimal.

Regardless how you network, find ways to step outside yourself and learn from others. If I had not attended a Sisters in Crime chapter one Saturday, I would not have heard about libraries needing writers to teach. From there I landed a contracted gig enabling me to get paid for speaking in three dozen appearances across my state. From there, I was chosen for the SC Humanities Speakers Roster, opening up more doors.

None of this was on my to-do list for the year, but I was willing to make the adjustment. The grant was not on the internet. The roster was on the web, but I didn’t know about it until getting involved with this grant.

       Networking opens doors. Face-to-face exchanges can create ideas and connections found no other way. You cannot answer all your problems yourself. We do not operate in a vacuum. The maxim that it’s better to have more than one set of eyes carries merit.

Conference and retreat references:

http://www.newpages.com/writers-resources/writing-conferences-events

http://www.pw.org/content/writers_conferences_colonies_and_workshops

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/writers-conferences

https://www.awpwriter.org/wcc/directory_conferences_centers

http://writing.shawguides.com/

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/pw-select/article/69157-writers-conferences-festivals-and-book-fairs-in-2016.html

http://www.fundsforwriters.com

http://www.resartis.org/en/residencies/upcoming_deadlines/

http://residencyunlimited.org/opportunities/100-west-corsicana-2016-residencies-for-artists-writers/

http://www.artistcommunities.org/

C. Hope Clark is founder of FundsforWriters.com, a resource of grants, crowdfunding, agents, publishers, and markets with calls for submissions. Her newsletter reaches 35,000 writers. She is also author of six mysteries in two award-winning series, with the latest being Echoes of Edisto released August 2016. www.chopeclark.com / www.fundsforwriters.com

cj Sez: Thanks, Hope. This is great. Guess I need to do more thinking outside my little box and getting outside of my comfort zone. And best wishes for great sales and marvelous reviews on your new release, Echoes of Edisto.

Readers: Got a thought to share or a question?  The comment section is open and waiting for you.

You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

cjpetterson@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/CjPettersonAuthor

Choosing Carter  -- Kindle  /  Nook  /  Kobo   /  iTunes/iBook

Deadly Star --  Kindle  / Nook  / Kobo

Amazon Central Author Page:  http://amzn.to/1NIDKC0

Post vs. Articles Part II

As a continuation of last week’s post about blogs vs articles, I recently read an article that purported to show the differences between a blog post and an article online. Let’s look at some of the elements they listed:

Article: Casual writing style on a blog post, scholarly in an article.

MC: If you are writing on a travel blog about your vacation or recent mission trip, you could be casual with lots of photos and comments on the fun you are having and give some historical information about the site without being scholarly. However, if you are writing an article for an online encyclopedia about deserts in Egypt, a scholarly style is in order without your comments about the fun you had sliding down a sand dune in Egypt with your children. Note I said scholarly; I did not say boring.

Article: A blog post is primarily your opinion about the topic; whereas, an article post is more factual and doesn’t allow for your opinion.

MC: Don’t be fooled. Readers want to know what the topic will do for them, and they depend on your  help to see that.

Followers are Key: Readers expect more from those they follow. They expect well-researched information, but they want more from you. They want your opinion. They can find a list of facts in any encyclopedia or a quick Google search. If you want them to follow your site regularly and recommend it to others, they must “tune in” to find out what your take on the subject is. They want to know what you think, feel, and opine about the facts based on your experience. A few clicks and they know whether you are regurgitating a list of facts or interpreting the list to assist them to understand the topic. And, yes, they want to be up close and personal.

Caution: Giving out personal information may come back to haunt you. You’ve seen the cops and robbers television shows that send shivers up your spine. Use some practical safety guidelines when giving out family information like home address, children and grandchildren names and pictures, your social security number - gotcha ya! Be smart about what your share with the world you cannot see.

As a freelance blogger and newsletter writer for a wide variety of clients from plumbers to physicians (although what they do is similar in construct: analysis and treatment), I do research on a specific topic with a request from my client. Coupling that information with client personalization: opinion, their services that address the topic, coupons, specials, recipes, etc. all in the same vein, is the difference in whether someone signs up for their site and cashes in the coupons they offer. I could regurgitate facts from Internet research, but the post would be dry as dirt and far too technical for their average client. When I write for IT companies, I include the products—software, hardware, apps—they have tried, along with information on what worked and what didn’t meet their expectations and the hype. These are the experts readers turn to when making purchase decisions.

Article: Grammar and spelling correctly are optional on a blog and optimal in an article.

MC: Ridiculous on sooo many levels.

Do you honestly believe that misspelled words and grammar mistakes, which aren’t intentional like using the word “sooo”, improve your professional appearance online? However, having fun with regional idioms and words you create like I wrote last week with “bloggish” make you as the writer more human and win followers, which is the name of the game. One thing I have always liked about Hope Clark on her Funds for Writers sites is the casual and friendly pictures she posts of herself, her dogs and chickens, her gardens. They bring her to life on the page. I learned quickly to respect her weekly editorials and referral sites for freelance work, contests, grants, etc., but it was her smiling face that lured me in that first year. I’ve been following her for ten years!

Article: A blog post has no interviews; an article has research and interviews from experts.

MC: This no longer applies. They both have interviews and research.

Interviews build credibility for the owner of the blog/website and the person being interviewed. You gain respect for your contact capability and insider knowledge. The expert, well, you know that part.

Create a list of questions to draw from. Use four to six of them that speak to the expert’s specialty. Be sure and include “insider” questions such as what is your favorite writer, quote, book, food, or vacation - anything that makes them more human and humane. Think this doesn’t work? Look at any magazine on the newsstand. Almost 100% of them have at least one interview. Pull questions from those lists to make your list reader-friendly. If you are knowledgeable, readers will keep coming back.

Article: A blog always focuses on SEO’s (search engine optimization); an article doesn’t.

MC: The assumption here is that search engines don’t care about keywords in an article; they let the length do all the work. Not absolutely true.

When Google tightened down on keyword stuffing, some people assumed keywords were a waste of time. If your piece is to promote your new fiction book about preppers in the United States, and you don’t use the title of your book, the words preppers or United States or better yet, preppers in the United States, frequently in the article, particularly the title of the post, how are browsers going to find your piece? I won’t go into the standard way of calculating keyword density here, but there is a basic formula to use. If you want more info, go to http://www.bestseoideas.com/seo-factors/keyword-density-formula-calculation-for-google-seo-6 or http://www.ehow.com/how_2341682_calculate-keyword-density.html. If you type calculating keyword density into your browser, you will see hundreds of other sites as well.

Responding to Comments

Never ignore a comment to your post or article. Never.* Unless you don’t care about what your readers have to say or think it’s stupid, or your disagree so vehemently, you snatch out a handful of hair when your read it.

Take a few minutes to think about what you want to say and then type. A simple “Thank You.” isn’t enough. Come on, you’re a writer, you can think of at least one sentence to explain what you are thanking them for.

Example 1: “Mahala, I agree with your comments about freelance blogging. My experience is….”

“Thank you, Marilyn. I had a similar experience when….”

Example 2:  “Mahala, I completely disagree with your comments about freelance blogging. The people I wrote for were rude and never wanted to pay me more than $10 for a 300-word post! What a waste of my time!!! You shouldn’t encourage writers to take that kind of money.” 

“Thank you for your feedback, Marilyn. I’ve also talked to potential clients who wanted to pay low fees, some as low as .0001 a word. I never work with people who aren’t willing to pay a respectable fee for the research and time it takes to create a professional piece. Best of luck with your freelance work.”

If James Scott Bell, Rhys Bowen, James Patterson, Hope Clark, Stephen King, and other very busy and popular authors can take the time to respond to hundreds of comments weekly, I can do my part in my slip of the world. And, yes, I know that these authors may pay a person to do the responding for them, but what does that say about them? They respect their readers enough to pay out of their own pocket to ensure that each comment gets a personal response.

*Except for obvious spams, which we were inundated with several years ago. This brings up another point. Always, always, always have administrative control over the posting of comments, so that a comment is never posted online for the public to see unless you approved it. It’s a control mechanism that comes with every reputable blog and website vendor, and you can opt in or out of the control.

Headlines (aka as titles)

One final thing about headlines to encourage readers to click on your post/article. In September 20, 2013, Marcy Kennedy, author of Strong Female Characters wrote a guest article on http://writersinthestorm.com, an excellent site with valuable information. It did a beautiful job of explaining how to write killer headlines and why that is important. I mentioned this last week, but it bears repeating. Go to their archives to read the rest of the article. The example on bacon is wonderful. This is the idea Marcy explains:

The Shocking Truth About Doctors (vague) What shocking truth about what? Overweight cardiologists? Anesthesiologists who steal from patients under anesthesia?

The Shocking Truth About What Your Doctor Might Be Doing to Harm Your Health (specific)

Marcy reminds writers to follow with a piece that gives the reader an obvious benefit. What’s the takeaway from the piece? In a piece like this, it obviously needs fact-based research with article references to back it up. This goes back to my post last week. What do you want the reader to see, know, and learn after they read your piece. See previous post in Archives on Blog Post vs Article/August 26, 2015.

If writing headlines send you around the bend (Southern for drive you crazy), go back to the magazine section of the library or newsstand and look at the covers. Magazine marketers are experts at writing headlines, so we will buy their magazine.

Drop me a comment about your experiences with your freelance and personal writing of blog/site posts and articles!

Write Like You Mean It   ~ Mahala

Blog Post vs Article

Two years ago, the expected norm for word length for a blog was 300 words. Supposedly, readers didn’t want to read more than that at one time. Two years prior to that, it had been 500 words. Once again, things have changed, and it seems with the lack of printed news, more people want to read more reliable content, so the number of words jumped to 1,000 per post. However, that changed the definition of a post, which is similar to the length of a memo in office speak.

 

Truth be told, it’s all about search engines, specifically Google. As I gathered articles to write this bloggish article, I found that to say what I wanted to say will probably take two posts on this blog unless I want to write a short book on the subject, which I don’t.

Part I:

It’s not all about length; however, length is the MVP when it comes to leading the team of words to success. There are a host of factors to consider as you look at your posting campaigns. Most people have over 5,000 words of general information on their websites, including About, Bios, Publications, Blog, etc. in addition to words that suggest the reader sign up for the blog, newsletter, products, etc. My list of factors to consider when writing includes:

Purpose: Here is where the first list of questions comes into play. Are we talking substance as in this is my purpose for writing this post, or are we talking marketing as in this is my purpose to write this post. For most posts by writers or anyone promoting a business, both should be the answer.

A. Why go to the trouble to write anything and waste your time and the time of potential readers and your followers if your piece has no substance? Like drafting a good book, you should always ask yourself three questions before starting to write, then ask the questions again when you are finished.

1. What do you want the reader to see?

2. What do you want the reader to know?

3. What do you want the reader to learn?

B. If you can say what you need to say in 150 words, do it. If you need more than 1,000 words, then do that. I tell my students if they regularly blog in short splurts and decide to write a lengthier piece, tell the readers up front: This post is different and this is why.

C. If you have Internet presence, there must be a reason you opted for it. Usually that reason is to spread brand awareness, educate, build a social engagement process (emails, newsletters, Facebook or Twitter followers, likes and retweets), and sell products - books, shirts, short stories, invitations, or services such as plumbing, personal training, editing, painting, workshops, etc.

Style: Think about the way you send a quick email to a co-worker - business tone, short, and to the point. But when you email your BFF, you tend to write in a conversational tone with emoticons and funny or sad stories - personal. Generally, I find writers and others in their school of thought such as agents, publishers, publicists are in two schools of style online, and their style definitely influences the length of their posts.

1. Polite but all business with a point to make about services, products, workshops, topics such as genres, finding an agent, new books, etc. Use links and clickthroughs often. More advertising. More sophisticated look to the site and the posts. http://www.foliolit.com/ is a good example.

2. Friendly with a personal tone and pictures of them and recent events. They make points about the same things as those in 1 above but more casually, more prone to strong language and opinions. They also use links often. They “atta girl” others in the field more often and refer to others in their field, frequently hosting another writer. Some are very sophisticated sites and some very laid back. A lot has to do with their success thus far and funding restraints or money to invest back into their business. http://fundsforwriters.com is a good example. She started small and her weekly newsletter exploded over time as she became a well-published author and a brand that is well known in writing circles.

Format:  I’m including one last comment about style here. If you use infographics, the number of words to introduce the post topic is usually short, under 100 words. There may also be similar verbiage with each of the infographics used. The same goes for videos.

Never underestimate the impact of formatting with online posts. Readers, by and large, are scanning your post, even if they are your regular follower. After all, we can’t say something every week that appeals to everyone, although that would be brilliant wouldn’t it? It is important to put a lot of thought into your heading. It will be the first and sometimes only thing that grabs the reader’s interest. Be honest but be VERY creative!

I teach my students to use subheadings liberally. Bold them. Underline them. Italicize them. Enlarge them. Use all CAPS and all lowercase. Change the font mid-article. Like the good fairy godmother, sprinkle images here and there. Use Color. Follow journalism rules for writing with short paragraphs and clear sentences.

Why do any of this? Because differences draw the eye to them; therefore, potential readers can scan your article to see what they need to know, what interests them, and if they want to recommend it to others - a nice bonus. Take readers on a journey with you. Don’t drag them along with posts that look and sound like everyone else. Dare to be BOLD.

Readers: Your targeted readers have a lot to do with your style. If you write to the sci-fi audience, you can have fun with different takes on language and colors. If you write to the gothic horror audience, a lot of red and black and ghoulish types of words will give your posts a twisted difference. If you write to the romance audience…I bet you can figure out that one all on your own.

Check out http://www.jungleredwriters.com/ one of my favorite sites. Their tagline “7 smart and sassy crime fiction writers dish on writing and life. It's The View. With bodies.” The colors and format of the various posts are each unique and spot on for their mystery followers. Look at our tagline for Lyrical Pens and you will learn about who we are.

Frequency: If you have spent the money and time to develop an online presence, use it to your advantage. Never post less than once a week and twice is better. Naturally if you post less frequently, you might want to add more information. But two shorter posts in a week will keep your products on their mind. There is a fine line between boring and blasting them. Tiptoe along it carefully.

IMPORTANT

Yes, it is important to get recognized by search engines and moved to the top of the heap on their lists, but the most important thing you can do for your reputation and to treat your readers with respect is to write quality material. I did not say perfect. I said quality.

Before posting, type your posts in Word or whatever software you use first. Correct typos, grammar, and spelling. You can write in fragments; grammar police won’t drag you “downtown.” But you must make an effort to be cogent in your thought process, have a plan and follow it.

If you are unsure how to start, copy and rewrite posts from sites you particularly like. It isn’t plagiarism, and it’s a smart way to develop craft fairly quickly. Study the formatting of the sites you like.

• What caught your eye?
• What made you stop and read?
• Were there links?
• What is the POV?
• Is the style casual, terse, friendly, etc.? 
• Can you tell their theme and did they deliver their message? I despise online come-on’s and when you get to the posts, it is bogus, never getting to the false heading they grabbed you with.

I enjoy hearing some of my favorite sites say occasionally, “I couldn’t think of anything to say this week, and then I did… or read… or saw… and I was back in the game.” It makes them quite real to me. And best of all, it puts my little gray cells in gear, and I suddenly have an idea to share with my readers.

What are your favorite sites and why?

Write Like You Mean It!

Mahala