Mandy Eve-Barnett's Blog for Readers & Writers

My Book News & Advocate for the Writing Community ©

Wordsmith’s Creative Thursday – Creative versus Freelance Writing

March 17, 2022
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When I initially, made the decision to branch out into freelance writing after a couple of paid gigs, I had no idea how it would affect my writing style. Obviously, it was interesting, but also gave it me another avenue to learn my writing skill.

When I write creatively, I am in control of what happens, where the story leads when I write and ultimately when I finish. However, with freelance projects I quickly learned to accommodate another person’s viewpoint, requirements and adhere to a deadline. Fulfilling another person’s vision for their project is about asking questions – lots of questions and then reiterating them to ensure you are both on the same wavelength. Among my past projects, I have written new bio’s, edited manuscripts, created blog and social media posts, written articles and information leaflets, mentoring and ghost written a hybrid marketing book to name a few.

Through this business I have gain experience and knowledge from each project, which allows me to hone my skill. I have also gained valuable insights into other styles of writing, which in turn have assisted me in my creative writing. You may think that cannot be the case, but all writing teaches us something. It can be as simple as writing to a deadline or writing to a specific style or tone to align with current literature or media. It also gives me great backstories for future characters, who work in environments I am writing and learning about so a win-win situation.

Have you broaden your writing into freelance? What has your experience been like?

You can find my freelance website, testimonials etc. here:

WordPress Anniversary – 11 Years!

August 8, 2021
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Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 11 years ago.

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

A huge thank you to all my followers for continuing to read, comment and participate in my blogging life.

Here’s to another 11 years!

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Wordsmith’s Collective Thursday – Organizing My Writing Life

January 21, 2021
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As you may know, I have made a goal for 2021 to enter contests, submit articles to magazines and stories to anthologies. This seemed an easy process until I began to look at all the paperwork accumulating. For each submission there is of course, rules, guidelines, email address and accounts to create. On top of that, I have author interviews for this blog to monitor as well as a novel writing workshop with four other authors. Not to mention my freelance writing projects and my current work in progress.

So how should I organize it all?

Each ‘task’ has its own specific process, so I needed to come up with a way to keep track. Firstly, I printed out the relevant contest, magazine and anthology links and highlighted the deadlines for each one. Noted passwords required and any dates submissions were sent.

Now to catalogue them in separate folders. (And yes I use actual physical folders! I’m a hands on type of girl)

Green folder: Anthologies

Purple folder: Contests

Orange folder: Magazines

White Folder: WordPress Interviews

Orange folder : Presentations I will host

White folder: Novel Workshop

Black folder (not shown) Freelance Projects

Then I separated the relevant information for each in date order with the submission dates – first to last. I printed a calendar for the blog interviews so I can mark each one down, so there is no duplication. I have also bought a large desk calendar to mark submission deadlines, writing events, presentation dates, freelance projects, conferences, interviews etc. Having everything there in front of me lessens the panic that I have forgotten something.

How do you keep track of your writing life?

Wordsmith’s Collective Thursday – Author Platform

January 9, 2020
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As published authors, we soon realize that writing the book is only half the story – literally! Now we have to promote it in order to sell it. When I published my first children’s picture book, Rumble’s First Scare this became clear quite quickly, when I was asked where my author platform was. As a new author, I had not heard of or experienced an author platform, never mind created one.

It was a steep learning curve for sure and I began this blog, with a lot of trepidation as I did not have a clue what I was doing. It has, over the past ten years, morphed into a site for support, sharing and encouragement for the writing community and I am proud to be a writing community advocate. However, I am refocusing in 2020 to get back to posting about my writing life as well. So back to the point in hand.

An author platform can range from a just a website or blog highlighting your books to being present on a multitude of social media sites and promoting your novels but also your writing life.

I am sharing a really good definition of an author platform, written by Jane Friedman. It certainly gives us a guide as to what to include and not. https://www.janefriedman.com/author-platform-definition/

So what are the first steps to creating a platform?

1. Put up a website and/or blog and purchase a domain name for it.

2. Write articles and publish them online, utilizing your ‘expertise’ on whatever topic you know. It can be parenting, traveling, baking etc.

3. For fiction writers find literary magazines where you can publish short stories then share the links.

4. If you have a book ready for publication, there are numerous ways to gather interest. Post excerpts, the new cover, a character interview, events you are attending etc.

6. Start webinars and/or interviews online. And organize a blog book tour.

7. BLOG!! Make your posts interesting and make sure you edit! It also allows you to acquire an email list.

8. You do not need to be on every social media site – apart from anything else it is a lot of work! Decide which ones you are comfortable maintaining and how your theme/topic/message can be related on them.

9. Create a newsletter to send to your email list – giving glimpses into the narrative, special offers etc.

What author platform tips can you share?

What has your experience been creating your platform?

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Ask A Question Thursday

April 18, 2019
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Today’s question is: How did you build your author platform? Was it by personal effort or did you have professional help?

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Last week’s discussion answered this question: If you were given the opportunity to form a book club with your favorite authors of all time, which legends or contemporary writers would you want to become a part of the club?

 

J.K.Rowling, Carol Berg, Edgar Allen Poe, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne (but only if he can speak English as my French is terrible), JRR Tolkein, J. Michael Straczynski,. I would be totally tongue-tied, but I would LOVE to just sit and listen to them talk about stuff.

Jenna Butler I can never seem to reply on the blog for some reason! But my dream group would be Lawrence Hill, Joy Harjo, Lee Maracle, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Claudia Rankine, and Lorine Niedecker.

 

 

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