Writing Rituals

Do you have any ritual activity you do before you sit down and begin to write?

It can be anything from journaling, listening to music, walking, going out for a cup of coffee, or anything that works for you to clear your head of the daily gunk so you can have an uncluttered mind so the words flow easily from your mind to the screen.

There is a good deal about rituals for clearing one’s mind in order to be open to the art of writing.

Once you begin writing, just put the words down and don’t worry about editing along the way, editing comes later.

Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way talks about Morning Pages, which I affectionately call Mourning Pages as a way to clean the stuff from my life to get rid of it. Julia also speaks about Artists Dates. This is the time to get out and smell the roses, time to see how real people interact in situations. As writers, it's ok for you to people watch, just don’t be obvious about people watching.

How can you write about real characters if you never see any?

If your readers can’t relate to the setting, and the characters being in the setting, they will probably not like what you’ve written. I know as a reader I don’t. We all want to believe in the people, place, and time in the book we choose to read.

Rituals are something to tell the mind that now it’s time to settle down and write, to get the creative juices flowing for the time you spend writing a book, article, or blog post.

I hope you have a blog; it’s a good way to improve your writing. I always try to write using the active voice, and compare myself against the last piece I wrote to measure my improvement. I never compare myself to other writers, only myself since I am the only one that has something to say in the way I say it.

Robert Medak

Freelance Writer/Editor/Reviewer/Marketer

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How to promote your book free of charge

Most authors I know are not rich and need to find ways to promote their books for as little money as possible.

Most people have heard of “Social Media”, but many are not clear on what it is even if they use it every day.

Essentially, Social Media is any place where people visit. This is sites like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Web sites, and YouTube. All of these services are free if you just look around.

Talk with other blogs or groups to hold a virtual book tour for your book.

The main point of this is that you need to let people know about the book almost before you begin writing it. Authors need to build reader interest in their book, and how it's progressing.

Writing about your book and letting people know about is the best way to build interest in the book and you as the author.

Word of mouth is still the best form of advertising. So is making friends by writing about your book and becoming a real person in the eye of the reader. The more they can relate to the author on a personal level as a writer they would like to read is to develop a relationship with readers using and sites where possible readers might congregate.

If you don’t have accounts on popular sites, consider opening one and start writing about your book on a personal level and not just harping about buying. You want to establish relationships and encourage people to become friends on these sites.

Robert Medak

Freelance Writer/Editor/Reviewer

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MY hiatus from posting

Things have been hectic with moving from Kansas to West Virginia and some health issues.

I have been writing reviews and working on edits.

I will be posting more often and trying to keep up with everything going on.

I am also tired of my present web host and will be rebuilding my website from the bottom up with a new host.

I am working at learning marketing and how to better promote books.

I am also going to rewrite my book “Taming the Freelance Market”, a new title to reach a broader audience and be more relevant to today’s internet and people wanting to work from home.

This is all while trying to maintain both physical and psychological health.

We all need to stop and smell the roses.

Follow me on Twitter RJ_Medak

How to Promote Your Book

Image by brody4 via Flickr

Authors promoting their book

In today’s publishing environment it is up to the author to promote their book anyway they can. Unless your name is King, Bradbury, or someone as well known, the publishing houses are more likely to ask you about your marketing plan, and how many followers you have.

It’s up to authors

Do you self-publish, try to get an agent, use a publishing company such as Lulu, Book locker, Amazon or someone else? You will need to pound the pavement to get your book sold no matter how you get your book published.

How can authors promote their book?

There are many viral methods of promoting your book.

The time to begin promoting is before you publish the book.

You need to start building a following by creating a website, book trailer, using social media, virtual book tour, talking about the book to create a demand from followers.

Using social media to promote your book

By social media, I am not talking about Twitter and sites like that alone. Social media is anywhere the people congregate. Blogs, someone else’s blog, networking sites, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, building a website for the book, create a blog about the book, or add it to a list of books you have already published.

If this is your first book, you will have to work a little harder. You will have to work at creating a demand for your book sooner rather than later.

Obtaining a review

Once you publish your book, you will need to get reviews from reviewers. You can accomplish this by contacting reviewers, submitting your book to review sites via query, purchasing a promo package from companies, and through social media contacts who may know of reviewers.

How to approach a reviewer Do’s and Don’ts

• Do not send anything before you talk with them to get a feel for the reviewer and the genre they review. Most reviewers don’t review everything and every genre.
  

• Be professional.
  

• Never send any kind of PR. As a professional reviewer, I toss it out. Leave it up to the reviewer to write what is an unbiased review.
  

• Never take a review personal.
  

• Never contact the reviewer to ask how the review is progressing
  

• When contacting a review publication, query before sending a copy
  

Whenever you are promoting your book, always act like a consummate professional. An author is a businessperson, like it or not, writing is a business.

Robert Medak

Freelance Writer/Blogger/Editor/Reviewer

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