Reading Aloud: My Tip of the Week

As some of you will know, I'm about to publish my first novel. I'm deep in the process of proof-reading and cover design at present. Hopefully the whole thing will come together early next month. But this isn't a marketing piece (that will come later!). Today I want to share a tip that has been invaluable to me in the past couple of weeks.

Another Change of Direction

I've been trying out a few different approaches to this blog over recent months. Firstly, I finished my year-long series on Writing as a Small Business. This was partly because I ran out of topics; there are only so many things that can be dealt with by a non-accountant, non-lawyer - and it gets boring to continually read (or write) "if in doubt, consult a professional". Also, I wanted to pull all the articles together into a 'how-to' book; and that's my December project (October being sort out the novel in time for a competition deadline and November being NaNoWriMo). And I wanted to widen my topics so I could talk not just to other writers, but to non-writing readers too.

 

Next, I started posting snippets of new prose at the end of each Monday's blog.  I know there's a huge debate on whether writers should give away their work for free or not (and I'm not going to go there today), but I also know free samples are a tried and tested method of marketing in other industries, so I thought I'd give it a go. However, that didn't work too well, as each post ended up way too long. So, I moved my new prose to a Thursday, keeping the Monday slot for factual posts.

 

 

And then I ran out of things to talk about. You might say I was stumped for ideas!  Actually, that's not quite true; as anyone who knows me will confirm, I can always find something to talk about. But something interesting that other people might want to read - well, that's a different matter.

 

So I did what I always do when I'm uncertain of the way forward: I wrote myself a plan!  I plan to post a different type of blog each Monday of the month, which meant sorting out four different types (and an extra one for the occasional month with five Mondays).

 

And here's the new schedule:

• First Monday: The best ...
• Second Monday: An interview with...
• Third Monday: My thoughts on...
• Fourth Monday: How to...
• Fifth Monday: My top ten..

I hope you're all impressed at the thought that's gone into this plan. I'm particularly excited about the interviews I've got lined up between now and the end of the year. I've tried to come up with some interesting questions and will be introducing a range of people from different walks of life, not just writers (although they will feature quite heavily of course).

 

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But today's the first Monday in the month (OK, in most parts of the world, it's actually Tuesday, but somewhere, on a remote island just this side of the international date-line, it's possibly still Monday) so, here are my nominations for three of the best bloggers for writers.  

 

I always read Molly Greene. Molly describes herself as a author, blogger, blogging specialist and coach. She blogs weekly with an emphasis on advice to indie authors. If you hate new twitter followers who send automatic DMs urging you to like their FB page/subscribe to their website/buy their book, then you might enjoy 10 Tweets You Should never Send and, like me, consider sending the link to anyone who commits any of the 'sins' listed. Alternatively, if you read her article on 101 Fabulous Blog Topic Ideas, you will recognise just where my shiny new plan came from.

 

Anyone who reads my snippets of new prose will recognise the name Morgen Bailey. Morgen's writerly activities are so widespread, they run into six lines of menu, including online writing groups, critiquing, book reviews and competition lists! I regularly use her daily writing triggers for my warm-up exercises and find them particularly good for flash fiction.

 

My third blogger is author Matt Haig, who posts periodically on a variety of topics addressed both to writers and readers. Recent non-writerly posts have included a moving piece on depression, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Weaker and the self-explanatory The World (A Rant). But my main reason for putting Matt on this list is recent his post on 30 Things to Tell a Book Snob. I particularly like numbers 3, 17 and 19. I'm sure you all know people who would benefit from reading that post. I know I do!

 

So who would you nominate as 'best blogger for writers'?

Enrichment, Recovery and Twitter

I spent Saturday at the RSA South West conference in Taunton. The RSA (or the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce to give it its full title) is a charity with the strapline of ‘21st Century Enlightenment’. On the website, it describes itself as: “committed to finding innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges. Through its ideas, research and 27,000-strong Fellowship it seeks to understand and enhance human capability so we can close the gap between today’s reality and people’s hopes for a better world.” I’ve been a Fellow of the RSA for more than twenty years, have used ‘The House’ in John Adams Street as my London office to hold meetings with clients; dined in the elegant restaurant in the vaults; and listened to interesting lectures in the state rooms, including a memorable one by management guru, Charles Handy. And, like millions of others, I have marvelled at, been entertained by and educated by the Animate presentations, (developed by the RSA with Cognitive Media), particularly the brilliant discussion on Changing Education Paradigms from Sir Ken Robinson. If you've ever thought there was something wrong with how we educate our kids (and who hasn't at some point?), then do take a look at this presentation next time you have a spare 10 minutes.

 

 

 

But until now, I haven’t managed to really get a handle on what the organisation does — or why I am involved in it. At the conference we met the new Chairman of the RSA, Vikki Heywood, who gave me exactly what I was hoping for. In addition to the strapline, I now have an elevator speech I can remember: enriching society with ideas and action. The RSA is the only organisation with which I’ve been involved which doesn’t really provide benefits for the members; it’s more a case of what the members can do for others. And yes, I know there are lots of other organisations which have the same focus, from Rotary and Round Table to the Mothers’ Union, but this is the only one to which I have belonged. So it's nice to finally understand what it's all about.

 

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One RSA project which is dear to my heart as a former production manager is The Great Recovery. The idea is to work with designers and manufacturers to develop products which at the end of their life-cycle can either be repaired (remember when we used to repair things that broke, rather than throwing them away?) or recycled. Someone described it as ‘Cradle to Cradle’ approach to manufacturing, rather than ‘Cradle to Grave’. In a week where we have just bought a new printer and discovered a full set of replacement ink cartridges is more or less the same price as a new printer (complete with cartridges), this is music to my ears.

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One of the perennial problems for any organisation of people from disparate locations is how to communicate effectively. Our region covers the three counties of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset and we only get together physically once or twice a year. Someone suggested we might use Twitter to hold regular discussions or get-togethers. Putting aside the fact that many of the people in the room are not Tweeps and have no wish to be, this raised the question in my mind, and not for the first time, what is Twitter for? Do we use it effectively? And is it really an appropriate medium for bringing large groups of people together?

 

(Yes, I know hens don't go tweet, but these were the only birds I could get close to all weekend!)

At the Winchester Conference forWriters in June, Eden Sharpe from Independent Author Resources described Twitter as a cocktail party for the world, at which one could listen in on all sorts of conversations, and, if invited, even join in on some of them. At the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August, someone described it as being in a large dining room with a huge buzz of many conversations going on, some of which you could plug into, but most of which you missed. It’s certainly a crowded arena with lots going on, most of which gets missed and is so transitory, it doesn’t matter.

There is a growing body of work on Twitter etiquette. Molly Greene publishes some wonderful articles on the subject. A recent posting on ‘10 tweets you should never send’ was so popular that it has garnered more 100 comments to date, is still receiving feedback several weeks later - and some of her readers, myself included, have taken to Tweeting a link to the article to anyone who spams us with those awful automatic direct messages: thanks for following me; now ‘like’ my Facebook page/link with me on LinkedIn/buy my book.

Writers who are building their ‘platforms’ are told they need to be on Twitter to market their books. Jonathan Gunson writes great articles on effective marketing via Twitter. I'm a relative novice when it comes to Twitter, so whether I can make it work as a marketing tool remains to be seen.

 

I occasionally take part in ‘Devon Hour’ a manic scramble to chat to, follow and retweet local businesses, which takes place at 8pm on Wednesday evenings. It’s great fun and I have made some useful connections, especially with the local press; but I don’t kid myself that I have developed a real relationship with any of the other businesses to whom I’m ‘talking’. To do that, I believe one needs to be in the same room; to look into someone’s eyes; to be able, sometimes, to read what they are thinking behind the words they are saying. That’s not possible from one keyboard to another and certainly not possible in 140 characters!

 

So, do you use Twitter and, if so, what do you think of its effectiveness as a method of communication?