All About Web Space for Authors

It's guest Monday and today Sierra Godfrey is schooling us on the often confusing waters of deciding what you want your web home to be--website, blog, self-hosted, free, etc. She's going to give us some practical tips to make it easier for us to know which direction is best for us.

 



BLOG TOUR ALERT: Today I'm at Sexy Lady talking about From Blank Page to Published Book - How CRASH INTO YOU Came To Be

 

 


 

Take it away, Sierra...

 

 

All About Web Space for Authors
by Sierra Godfrey



When I'm not writing, I work as a freelance graphic designer. I design brochures, logos, and Wordpress-based websites with my build partner, fellow writer Mike Chen. We opened shop on our joint project, Atmosphere Websites, last summer. In that time, we've had a ton of questions about blogs vs. websites. And funnily enough, authors seem to be the ones asking the questions. 

 

Roni has written a lot on the subject of author websites as she's emerged out of the chrysalis of unpublished writer with a strong blog into the butterfly of published author with a real need for a website that accomplishes many things. I've written about this at length, too, especially for unpublished writers. A few weeks ago, Anne Allen had a post about whether you need a website at all. Here are some answers to some of the more common concerns and questions we've gotten:

1. What's the difference between a blog and a website? 

Put very simply, blogs are for social interaction. They're for engaging with others. It's okay if you want to use yours as a soapbox, but remember that the basic function of blogs is for people to comment and interact with you.

Websites are more for information purposes. They don't always nor automatically feature mechanisms for you to interact. For published authors, they're perfect for marketing books.

Of course, you can market your books just fine on your blog, but if you do only that, people will stop coming around--because you're no longer having a conversation with them.

Some published authors have asked us: Do I really need a blog? The answer is no, of course not. But if you want to provide an easy to way to converse with readers and writers, then yes.

2. What's the advantage of paid services over free ones?
First, here's the breakdown:

  • Blogger is free,
    run by Blogger and hosted by Blogger.

  • Wordpress.com is free, run by Wordpress and hosted by Wordpress.

  • Wordpress.org is free content management software that you download and install on your own server space


Server issues

Why on earth would you use your own server space and pay all associated hosting fees when you could just use Blogger or Wordpress.com's server?  The simple answer is that if they go down, so you do. 


Custom Design


One of the questions we get a lot is why anyone should pay for website design when there are so many free templates out there--for both blogs and websites. And it's true, there are free templates and some of them are really great looking. I personally maintain a blog through Blogger's free service, although I've tricked the heck out of it so it looks exactly how I want it to look. (I address why I use the free Blogger site rather than my own Wordpress site below.) Here are a few reasons for both:



With a paid web host, you:
  • Have control over how it looks and acts, and can customize the graphics

  • Can add customized features that a lot of free templates don't allow

  • Can change it, add to it, grow it,  and you generally have a bunch more options for doing this, including account size space



Free services are great because:

  • They're, well, free

  • There are a lot of beautiful templates

  • A company (Blogger, Wordpress) runs the server and takes care of upgrading templates and updating the interface

Domain names

"But I can get my own domain name on my free Blogger blog. Why do I need to pay for a hosting package?" You're paying for that domain name--and still not owning your blog space, and you're not getting extras like your@yourname.com email addresses, which you usually get for free with paid hosting packages. And, if you don't have a website, there's no room to add one later. But if what you want right now is a blog atwww.yourname.com. then the domain name option through Blogger or Wordpress.com is a good one.


3. So why are you using Blogger?


A few weeks ago, I was telling someone about the advantages of getting your own server space and domain, and installing Wordpress on it, and paying someone to do a custom design. And then they asked me, "So how come you're using a free Blogger blog?"
 

  
To be honest, there's no good reason--I just haven't gotten around to switching yet. I don't even have the excuse of having to buy or set up my own website, because I already have it. So for me, it's the matter of transferring my Blogger blog over to a Wordpress blog. I see no advantages in staying with Blogger except that I'll lose my blog followers; this is pretty easily overcome by publishing a post begging people to switch and leaving it up there. And I don't have the number of followers that Roni does. She's a little more cautious about losing her hordes--and yet, she's expressed to me that she worries about losing all the content she's published on her Blogger blog.


When I move my blog over to my own website, I'll get a better blog publishing interface (in my opinion; Wordpress has many more blog-friendly features than Blogger does even with Blogger's new interface, which strangely mirrors Wordpress's now). And all the posts I've written for the past three years will import right over, and the chance of losing them all to a crash of Blogger's doing will be minimized.
 

In the end...

Using a free blog or website vs. a paid, custom-designed one is a personal choice. Generally, you're going to want more space, freedom, and control when you're a published author, which are things a free service can't supply as well. And there's no question--a yourname.com site looks professional. 
For marketing reasons, I always advocate having your own server space. There are a number of low cost and very reliable hosting companies that offer space, email, and domain names at affordable prices. (I use 1and1.com and have four web hosting packages through them; my business partner Mike uses Bluehost.com for the same reason.)
But free blogs offer wonderful, great-looking services as well--and work just fine for lots of folks. Blogs and websites are all a part of how you manage your identity online, and as an author all those choices are highly personal. 
Please ask me any questions, or let me know how YOU plan to go forward with free or paid web spaces.

About Sierra:

 

 

Sierra has enjoyed crafting stories for as long as she can remember. She especially likes stories that feature women who grow from the choices they face—and get the guy at the end. She’s a member of RWA and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two little boys, and two annoying cats. In her spare time she works as a freelance graphic designer and technical writer. To the untrained eye she can appear somewhat sassy, but at heart she loves a good story and is really quite sweet, especially when the lighting is right. Visit Sierra at her blog or Twitter.


 

 


“...a sexy, sizzling tale that is sure to have readers begging for more!" –Jo Davis, author of I SPY A DARK OBSESSION

 

 

CRASH INTO YOU is now available! Read an excerpt here.

All content copyright of the author. Please ask permission before re-printing or re-posting. Fair use quotations and links do no require prior consent of the author. ©Roni Loren 2009-2012 |Copyright Statement|

 

How Low Can You Go? The Important All Is Lost Moment by Sierra Godfrey

It's guest post Monday! Today the lovely and infinitely wise Sierra Godfrey leads us through that dark black part of our manuscript where we go all sadistic on our characters. Fun times!


Over to you, Sierra...


How Low Can You Go? The Important All Is Lost Moment
by Sierra Godfrey

In women’s fiction, one of the main story features is the transformative journey our main characters usually go through, which ultimately ends in self-realization and a life change by the end of the story. But getting to that resolution first requires our gals to go through some tough times and situations. And it’s our job to put them through the literary wringer.

 In plot structure, one of the hardest moments in a character’s transformative process is the All is Lost point—also called the Dark Moment, or the point about ¾ of the way through the story when after everything our girl has been through, she’s lost. She’s defeated, broken, and there’s nothing left. The All is Lost point comes after the midpoint, and is the point at which our girl will fall, and then ultimately gather herself up and head into the finale where she’ll (ideally) take back the day and win. (The All is Lost moment really applies for any genre of fiction--must apply, really--but in women's fic, it's especially important in our heroine's journey.)

In the movie Bridesmaids, the midpoint of the story comes when main character Annie snaps spectacularly at the bridal shower. She throws things, swears a lot, and makes a massive scene--all in public. Her behavior is the culmination of lots of tension, and she lets it all out. After Annie storms out of the shower, her car’s pesky broken taillight (the one she was told to fix repeatedly) causes an accident and she gets stranded (which is bad). Worse, she calls the only person she can think of, the smarmy guy she was dating/sleeping with, who greets her with possibly the most insulting greeting ever—“Hi F- Buddy!” Worse, he does this right in front of the nice Irish cop Annie’s been sort of dating. Oooh. Ouch.

Cop leaves Annie, and Annie has no choice but to go with smarmy F- Buddy guy. He continues to be obnoxious, and she gets out of his car and has to walk home. It’s the movie’s All is Lost point. Annie has lost her friends, her place in the bridal party (let alone maid of honor position), her car, her Irish cop, even her smarmy her F-Buddy. The next few scenes see Annie really take in the despair of this moment by lying on the couch in misery and watching TV.You need this All is Lost point in a story so your heroine can sink as low as she can go before she can rise again. It’s a natural story dip. Your job is to make this moment as low as possible. Take everything away from your character that you can—everything that matters.


Your All is Lost moment should:

  • Feel like the heroine’s lowest emotional point in the whole story—she should die inside a little.
  • Be a huge blow to every goal the heroine’s been trying to achieve.
  • Happen after the character has resisted hard against every obstacle.
  • Take away things from the heroine and leave her bereft.
In general, the lower you go, the better the high of the bounce back up will be, and the more satisfying the story’s conclusion.Let’s look at a few more All is Lost moments:
  • In the movie Tangled, Rapunzel and Flynn finally come together and are sharing a loving moment out on a boat. But then Rapunzel’s evil mother tricks her, and takes Rapunzel back in (in a great display of maternal guilt tripping) and Rapunzel is heartbroken and bitter, and has lost her freedom and her love. Flynn is also captured by the mother’s henchmen and tied up in a boat so palace guards will capture him. For both Rapunzel and Flynn, all they’ve fought for has been lost.
  • In Pride and Prejudice, the All is Lost point can be hard to pick out. It initially looks like the point after Elizabeth hears the news that her naughty sister Lydia ran off with the equally naughty Mr. Wickham, wreaking general disgrace and havoc on the Bennett family. Elizabeth thinks Lydia’s disgrace will cause Elizabeth to end her acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. But in fact the real All is Lost moment comes when Mr. Darcy’s stink-face aunt, Lady Catherine, visit Elizabeth and tells her to renounce Mr. Darcy and that he’s engaged to her own daughter, Anne. Elizabeth goes for a walk, unable to sleep. Of course, she meets Darcy on that walk, but that walk is your moment. (Austen clearly knew about modern plot structure way back in 1813!)
In the story I'm working on now, I just took away my girl's house, fiance, and job--and for good measure, I let her see that someone had been tricking her for most of the book. And I loved doing it.

What are some of the low All is Lost moments you've put your character through?

About Sierra:
Sierra has enjoyed crafting stories for as long as she can remember. She especially likes stories that feature women who grow from the choices they face—and get the guy at the end. She’s a member of RWA and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two little boys, and two annoying cats. In her spare time she works as a freelance graphic designer and technical writer. To the untrained eye she can appear somewhat sassy, but at heart she loves a good story and is really quite sweet, especially when the lighting is right. Visit Sierra at her blog or on Twitter.

Is It Chick Lit or Women's Fiction? An Agent Answers by Sierra Godfrey


Welcome to genre Monday! Ever wonder what kind of books fall under women's fiction? Have questions about chick lit? Today guest contributor, Sierra Godfrey, interviews my lovely agent Sara Megibow and gets us some answers.

Chick Lit vs. Women’sFiction
by Sierra Godfrey

I write women’s fiction—or what I think of aswomen’s fiction—even though most people, including my husband, think of it aschick lit. Many women’s fiction writers are particular about what people calltheir genre, because it matters to the publishing industry. We have heard chicklist no longer sells. We’ve heard editors are looking for upmarket women’sfiction. We think what you call it in a query matters. Or does it?

In my RWAWomen’s Fiction special interest chapter, one of our members definedwomen’s fiction as the story of a woman on a journey. But if my protagonist isa 22 year old woman who is searching for her sense of self, would it beclassified as chick lit? What if upped her age to 36? What if the storyfeatures none of the stereotypical elements of chick lit like martinis, a city,and shoes? Similarly, if I write a story about a 32 year old woman on a journeythat leads her to save herself, that might be women's fiction--but is it stillwomen’s fic if I nudge her age to 21? How much does age have to do with genre?

I asked Roni’s agent, Sara Megibow at Nelson Lit, whorepresents women’s fiction. She had some great—and surprising answers.

Chicklit is selling Sara says not only is chick list selling, but thatshe would never discount a submission based on concept. Sara’s method involvesreading and evaluating submissions based on quality of writing—and looking atthe elements of a book and choose editors whose imprints are producing similarkinds of works. She said, “To that end, Ballantine Bantam Dell produces booksby Sarah Addison Allen, which I would consider solidly women's fiction.Meanwhile, Broadway - another imprint of Random House -produces THE DEVIL WEARSPRADA which I would consider chick lit.”

Knowwhere your book rests The job of the author, Sara said, is towrite the best book possible.
But you should have a general understanding of where theirbook would rest on the bookshelf in a store. But that’s it. The agent is theone who should really be familiar with the different editors, imprints, andhouses.

There isan age-range, but… Sara clarified something I saw her say in asummer issue of my RWA women’s fic chapter newsletter (RWA is a fantasticresource!). Ages do influence genre, but story elements matter. Sara said thata submission about a woman who is learning about life after college, whose daysare filled with the first job, dating, money, apartments, martinis, clothes andboys is a chick lit story. “These submissions are almost entirely ones in whichthe heroine is 22-35ish and she has the only POV (or maybe an alternating POVwith the hero). There can be a happy ending, although there doesn't have tobe.”

Meanwhile, for Sara a submission about a woman who is 35to 55ish is women's fiction. “These stories are about family, marriage, midlife crises, divorce, health and health problems (life REAL LIFE AND LIARS byKristina Riggle). Similarly, the story is in the heroine's POV or maybealternating POVs and the ending can be happy but doesn't have to be.”

But, Sara, said, “If the book is about a mature womandealing with life issues - marriage, health, career, family, children, but thatwoman is,
24 years old, I would still shop it as women's fiction.Then, I would troll through my database and choose editors looking forcommercial women's fiction. If, however, that 24 year old woman is spendingmost of the narrative talking martinis and dating, I would choose chick liteditors.”

Justwrite the book of your heart As Sara pointed out, trying to writeto genre is tough. I certainly have discovered this with a story about a 32year old woman who is learning about life – a late bloomer. I struggled a longtime with whether it would be chick lit or women’s fiction and finally decidedit fell more on the women’s fiction side. I questioned whether I should bewriting it at all. In the end, I came to the conclusion that echoes what Sarasays:
“Honestly, the only thing for a writer to do is write thebook of their heart….If the book is about a mature 24 year old and it's women'sfiction, then it's women's fiction regardless of age. Likewise I could see a 40year old woman partying, dating and etc and sell it as chick lit. A savvyauthor will look at titles on the shelves and see where their book might fit.If that author imagines a pretty pink cover with cutesy pictures on the front,then it's chick lit. If the author imagines a more complex, deeper cover indarker tones and maybe even in trade paperback or hard cover it's likelywomen's fiction.”

Thanks so much to Sara Megibow for taking the time toanswer my questions.

So what would YOU classify as chick lit and women'sfiction? If you write either, how do you feel about the the aboveclassifications? Does genre matter to you?

My recommended read for this month is Samuel Park’s" This Burns My Heart, which is probably commercial fiction, but easilywomen’s fiction. It deals with a protagonist who starts young and grows throughlife into her 30s and 40s. It deals with marriage, love, duty, and sacrifice.It’s a gorgeous story with a wonderful female protagonist who will stay with mefor a long time.

Sierra Godfrey writes stories about women who grow fromthe choices they face—and get the guy at the end. She's amember of RWA and RWA-WF, the women's fiction special interest chapter andworks as a freelance writer and designer. Visit Sierra at her blogor on Twitter.







“...a sexy, sizzling tale that is sure to have readers begging for more!" –Jo Davis, author of I SPY A DARK OBSESSION

CRASH INTO YOU is now available for pre-order!
Read an excerpt here.


All content copyright of the author. Please ask permission before re-printing or re-posting. Fair use quotations and links do no require prior consent of the author. ©Roni Loren 2009-2011 |Copyright Statement|

Creating Strong Female Characters by Sierra Godfrey

 

 

Welcome again to genre Monday! Today I have the funny and talented Sierra Godfrey who will be sharing posts every 5th Monday of the month on topics related to women's fiction and/or marketing and promotion. Though today her post can definitely be helpful across all genres because none of us want to create a wimpy heroine. Ick.

So over to you Sierra...


Creating Strong Female Characters by Sierra Godfrey


In April, I had a baby boy. I also have a four year old son, which means I’ve become very much outnumbered by males in my house. Sometimes I have to work to understand them, I admit. My four year old is at the stage where he’s exploring and playing with his parts almost nonstop, and my infant son uncannily pees on me at diaper changing time with an arc of urine that boggles the mind in its reach. (In fact, right after I birthed him, he celebrated our post-utero bond by soaking me with pee. Kind of the same way you break a champagne bottle on a newly commissioned boat.)

 

Anyway, with all that male in my house, I found myself recently pondering strong female characters. Well, to be honest, I’ve always been interested in them. Some of the greats that come to mind:

  • Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games

  • Lisbeth Salander from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

  • Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice

  • Claire from the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon

Because I write women’s fiction, creating a strong female character is of particular interest to me. Strong leading ladies are independent, smart, and plucky. But there are some other key elements to strong female characters:

 

She’s got it hard
Create sympathy with your character, but don’t overdo it. Put her harm’s way, trot her through hardship, or dump a heap of bad circumstances on her. She’ll come through it swimmingly and without feeling sorry for herself if she’s strong.

She’s relatable
Strong women are also normal ones--and we want to see that we can identify with her. Then when she doesn’t cave under pressure, or she takes high road, it’s particularly satisfying because we know that could be us, too.

She’s witty
Funny ladies are also usually smart ones. We like a sense of humor and a good attitude. There are notable exceptions to this rule--Scarlett O’Hara is one. She’s got a terrible attitude and is super selfish, but she also nails the sympathy vote.

She has great inner conflict
She’s fearless, she’s sure, and she takes action. Great! Strong character, right? Well, no. We want some inner conflict that shows she’s also human, that she struggles with the same doubts that we do, that she works her way through life figuring things out as she does, just like us. But she does these things with grace and with ultimate success. She doesn’t hurt people on the way toward solving her conflict, either. She’s a fighter--and we love her because we know she’ll fight her way to solve her conflict.

The above traits don’t just apply for strong female characters, but serve as a good blueprint for all characters.

What are some of your favorite strong female characters? What are some of the things you've done to make your ladies strong?

Sierra's recommended read for August:

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
In the small village of Edgecombe St. Mary in  the English countryside lives Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the  unlikely hero of Helen Simonson’s wondrous debut. Wry, courtly,  opinionated, and completely endearing, the Major leads a quiet life  valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations:  honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But then his  brother’s death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali,  the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their  shared love of literature and the loss of their spouses, the Major and  Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But  village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and  regarding her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship  survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of  culture and tradition?

The character of Mrs. Jasmina Ali is a fantastic example of a strong woman. She has a wonderful dignity, she's resolved, she's smart and funny, and she has great inner conflict.

 

 

Sierra  has enjoyed crafting stories for as long as she can remember. She  especially likes stories that feature women who grow from the choices  they face—and get the guy at the end. She's a member of RWA and RWA-WF, the women's fiction special interest  chapter, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two  little boys, and two annoying cats. She is always working on a story. When she's not writing stories, she works as a freelance technical writer and designer.

Find Sierra at her blog or on Twitter.

 

Thanks, Sierra! And remember that all of our guest contributors have their own blogs, so if you like what they have to say here, be sure to check them out on their own blogs as well. :)

 

    All content copyright of the author. Please ask permission before re-printing or re-posting. Fair use quotations and links do no require prior consent of the author. ©Roni Loren 2009-2011 |Copyright Statement|

 

Writer Under Construction - 10 Things I'd Do Differently

I feel like over the last few months (and even now) I should have yellow and black construction tape wrapped around my head. Just like anything else in life this whole being a writer thing is a learning process. You do the best you can as you go along and do better when you know better.

And the hard part is that no one is really sure what the right way is anyhow. There's a lot of advice out there (including the stuff on this here blog). But for every post you find, you can find one contradicting it. It's both beautiful and terrifying that there is no definitive way to do things.

And this is most evident when looking at advice for building your platform and blogging.

Some things you'll hear out there...

Don't just write about writing because you're only reaching other writers. 

Write about writing because readers aren't visiting author blogs anyway, so you should hook into the network of writers.

Don't get a website until you have a book to sell.

Have a website when you start querying because agents will look you up.

Don't do group blogs because no one will know your name.

Do group blogs because it will free up more time for writing.

Social networking is the only way to be a successful authors these days.

Social networking doesn't matter, the only thing that counts is writing a good book.

You must have your blog on _______ (fill in the blank) --wordpress, blogger, your own domain, tumblr

And the people behind each of these views have totally valid points to back up their case. So I can't tell you who is right or wrong. But I will tell you what I've learned in my two years of blogging and along the journey of going from very pre-published to preparing for my debut.

How I'd Do Things Differently If I Did It All Over Again

1. Build your blog where you want to keep it.

This is the one that has caused be much grief these last few months. I built this blog on blogger. And I like blogger. I find it an easy, no-fuss blogging platform. I also like the community on blogger and love the people I've met over here. However, blogger isn't really set up to integrate with a real website once you have one. And moving your followers (and archives and permalinks) to a new place (unless you move to Wordpress) is pretty much impossible from what I can tell.
This doesn't feel like a big deal when you're just starting out and are happy to have fifty followers. But blogs can grow fast. I've pretty much locked myself into blogger now unless I want to start all over again. So that's why I've had to move to maintaining two blogs.

2. Don't limit yourself to one kind of topic like writing.

This is one Kristen Lamb has talked about recently. And I tend to agree. I made this a writing blog. I'm happy I did and I don't think I would have built the following I have if I had started up a blog without a unified focus. However, this approach does box you in a bit. When I wanted to start stretching so that my posts appealed not just to writers but to non-writing readers, I was left in a bit of a quandary. Some of you would be totally fine with me putting both romance-y posts (like my Boyfriends of the Week) mixed in with the writing stuff. And honestly, if I could've figured out a way to merge and move my blogs, I probably would've done that. But I also know many of you aren't really coming here for that type of posts and are only here for the writing stuff. It would've been a bit of a bait and switch. So that's why if I had to do it over again, I'd still blog about writing, but I'd mix in the other stuff as well from the very beginning so that everyone knew what to expect.

3. Only do the social networks you enjoy.

There is so much out there to connect with. I feel like sometimes it's like being in a bed strapped to all those machines and tubes in a hospital. Except all the wires are attached to our brain. It can become too much. So pick which social networks you like the best and focus on those. I like blogging, twitter, and tumblr. So that's where I put my effort. Yes, I'm also on facebook and google+ and goodreads, but anything I post at any of those is really just a feed from my other sites. If I totally dialed into all of them, I'd never get anything else done.

4. Think hard about the kind of books you want to write and what that author brand would look like.

This isn't always possible. I started out writing YA and ended up getting pubbed in erotic romance. o.0 Yeah, I know. Big leap. But this also meant my brand kind of shifted midway through. I'm always me, but I'm talking more about topics I covered and the "look" of my websites. I'm getting pubbed in dark, erotic romance and I had this bright, colorful Fiction Groupie blog. It didn't really jive. So that's why I eventually changed it to match the feel of my website. So if you know you're going to be writing dark horror, don't build your site with sparkles and puppies. You're not going to attract the people that are actually going to want to read your book.

5. Do hook into the community of writers.

I actually got this one right. Writing can be a very solitary act. I don't know if I'd have survived it through writing my books if I hadn't found lovely writer friends and crit partners. This is by far the best thing about blogging and social networking.

6. None of it matters if you're not writing and working on your craft.

Duh. I know. But it's SO easy to get so caught up in the social networking that you start sucking up your writing time. I have fallen into this trap because I love blogging and twitter. But writing has to come first. This is why I've been shifting around my blog schedule so often lately as I try to find the right balance.

7. Put your name on things and reserve your web domain early.

When I started I was just Fiction Groupie. I didn't want to put my name out there and *gasp* have people actually know that I was attempting to write something. What if I failed? But this was a mistake. You are your brand. Kristen Lamb says it best when she says, you can't go into the store and look for a book from Fiction Groupie. People need to know your name. Otherwise, what brand are you building? (And you'll notice I put the Fiction Groupie title back at the top this week. But I have my name on top. Now that I've decided to keep this a writing blog, I figured it needed it's name back to decipher it from my author blog.) 
As for web domain, go into this with the expectation that you will one day be published. You don't want to miss out on having yourname.com because you didn't spend the twenty bucks a year it costs to reserve it. So get thee to a service like Go Daddy and spend a few bucks to hold on to that name. 

8. If you plan to use a pen name pick one and use it early.

Made this mistake too. I used my real name for the first year that I blogged. Then when I decided to write erotic romance and wanted a pen name, I had to change EVERYTHING. Domains, email addresses, facebook, twitter, yadda yadda yadda. It was a major pain. Luckily, I kept my first name so everyone knew me as Roni and that didn't change. But on the logistic side, it was a bit of a nightmare.

9. Trust your gut and weed through advice.

Sometimes you (and by that I mean I) can get caught up in the "expert" opinions. Like I said at the beginning of this post. There is not RIGHT way to do things. Read the advice that's out there and then use what resonates with you. Different things work for different people. No one thing is going to work for everyone. So take things as guidance not gospel. (There is irony in me giving advice about not taking all advice. Hmm.)

10. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

I'm a control freak. That's not going to change. I tried a group blog on Tumblr and it quickly fell into feeling like I was back in high school working on a group project where I wanted to keep everyone on task. Not good. However, I knew when I decided that I was going to keep this blog on writing while maintaining an author blog as well that I was going to have to ask for help.

So this is where I get to the exciting news part of this post (if you've made it this far in this LONG post, lol). I am implementing a new feature here on Fiction Groupie. Every Monday we are going to have regularly occurring guests who are authors in genres other than mine. They are author friends who I know are great at posting about writing craft and publishing and I am SO excited to be bringing people with fresh and different perspectives to the blog.

So here's what the new schedule is going to look like starting next week:

Monday: Guest post from one of our Monthly Genre Columnists 

Wednesday: Writing/Publishing Post from me 
Friday: Fill-Me-In Friday -- best links of the week 
Tuesday and Thursday, I'll be posting on my author blog.

So join me in welcoming our five new stellar guest contributors!

♥ 

Julie Cross

 - YA Debut Author

(first Mondays)

♥ 

Ashley March

 - Historical Romance Author

(2nd Mondays)

♥ 

Suzanne Johnson

 - Debut Urban Fantasy Author

(3rd Mondays)

♥ 

Joan Swan

 -Suspense/Thrillers - Debut Romantic Suspense

(4th Mondays)

♥ 

Sierra Godfrey

 - Women's Fiction & Marketing

(5th Mondays)

See all their

bios and books here

!

I hope that you all are as excited as I am about the new re-re-re-revamping. :)  Thanks for sticking with me through all my changing as I continue to figure things out as I go along.

Now, I'd love to hear what you've learned since you started this whole writing thing. What would you do differently? Do any of the points on my list scare you? Oh, and if anyone knows any brilliant way to combine my blogs all onto my squarespace and still keep followers and archives, let me know--I'll love you forever.

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