Let’s get this thing over with shall we?
The creation of this blog is to serve as a dumping ground for any writing that I do and anything that stems from it. At the moment that just consists of this blog, which if you think about it too hard sends you into an infinite downward spiral.
I’m writing this even before I’ve done the blog design, layout or worked out what kind of stuff I’ll put up here. I guess that’ll evolve over time. I have done some writing though. There’s a handful of short stories and a novel.
The novel is the main reason for this blog.
The reason came from listening to this writing podcast I stumbled across a few months earlier – The Writing Show – in particular this episode – What Do Publishers Want from Query Letters and Proposals? Jennifer Silva Redmond is an editor and in the interview (about 20 minutes in) she says that a writer needs to not only sell their story but also themselves. Any positive points you can toss into the mix is a bonus and a way to stand apart from all the other wannabes. One such tip is to not be a know-it-all arsehole. Another one is to write a blog.
I’ve worked in internet marketing for the past 9 years and run a few other blogs so this was a bit of a no-brainer for me and one that hadn’t escaped me, it’s just that, who wants to read the blog of an unpublished author? What kind of twat calls himself an author AND announces it to the whole intrawebnet when he has had absolutely nothing published before?
I was planning on starting one when I was No.1 on the Amazon bestseller chart and my publisher would gladly fork out for a top web design agency to build me an achingly beautiful Web 2.0 site so I could entertain the world!
Jennifer’s point was, of course, creating and running a blog would show dedication to one’s career as an author. Show that you take it seriously and are prepared to put the time and effort in to not only writing but marketing yourself, after all, publishers have to make a profit and don’t want to plough money into a lazy, good for nothing author.
So my first tip since seriously preparing to look for a publisher was to ‘market yourself‘ and ‘the internet‘ was one way of doing so. As an ex-stalwart of the internet marketing world this should be a piece of piss!
O’yeah, unless I suck major arse as a writer.
So where am I at the moment? I’ve nearly completed the 4th draft of my novel, ‘Railroaded’. Just got a couple of little touch-ups to do and then that’s it, the search for an agent begins.
The fruitless, rejection slip laden saga begins.
I’ll keep this blog updated with each step, every disappointment and various crap inbetween, whether people visit it or not! I mean, who cares about an unpublished writer? They’re a dime a dozen.
Well I’m gonna make you care you heartless little website visitor…o’yes, you will care.