The process of querying has a lot of moving parts. Right now I’m arranging my pieces to begin playing what might be an enduring game of chess with patience and foresight being the attributes needed to survive.
If you don’t try, you’ll never know – that’s my philosophy as I look over my drafted synopsis and query letter. The truth is, I can follow as much guidance one can find online to perfect them but this is always going to be leap of faith. These days, it is a lot easier to find ways to connect with others online and I’m hoping social media and wider online world can be used to my advantage. Finding the right person to enjoy and then embrace my work is a game I’ve been playing for many years now. Being an indie author to me is convincing one person at a time to have faith in my stuff.
My very own chess board already contains some distinguished pieces and so I’m hopeful they can help with the process. Right now ideas are forming in my mind about putting together a specific query diary series to share with my closest and best followers. Afterall this is going to be a journey of learning.
Pursuing dreams matters to me. Pursuing things that make me happy also matters. Writing and telling stories has been something I’ve dreamt of doing longer than pretty much anything else so when I do write, it makes me happy. Above everything, doing things in life that make you happy matters the most.
As I am just about to finish drafting my latest writing project, I cannot help but feel pride for enduring and finding everything I can to nearly complete the journey. To me, every project is different but everything required to finish it always feels the same – there are struggles in some capacity every time and it is up to the story teller to overcome them. My inspirations come from many different corners of life and I do my best to express them in the words I lay out. Of course the editing process takes us away from the original intentions sometimes but that process is nearly always necessary to create a polished finished product.
This project in particular is a stage play that will be performed within a year – a very special outlet I am lucky to have. Guess I better get to finishing it…
It has been fifty years since ‘Gabriel’ last confessed and so when he does there comes a story of confession through literary depth. For a short read, Gary Gautier packs in so much to construct a tale of reflection, feeling and memories.
I’ll admit, I’m not sure if I did grasp everything within the layers of this book as there is plenty of metaphoric or even symbolic moments interwoven with stylistic description, sentences and the overall flow. For only fifty or so pages, I’m definitely urged to maybe go back a few times a read it just to capture everything which is just one of the unique values this book has.
Like many great reading experiences, our individual interpretation and the relationship it has with what the author has laid out makes it and here they work very well together. The reader’s imagination is given room to breathe while also being taken along the path by the author .With some heavier themes and emotion mixed with lighter funnier moments, the journey this book took me on was interesting from the get go. The existential and moral dilemma ‘Gabriel’ explores through his relationships gives this shorter read a great amount of depth with some great writing.
For some time now I’ve managed to make my corner of social media a pleasant place to be. Not that I am claiming to be some hero in the process but for everything I have tried to achieve on this journey, its becoming something I am probably the most proud of.
We’re all fighting or striding for something and this sometimes volatile world of always trying to get results can make us forget that perhaps a pleasant environment is important. Most of us have seen the darker side of social media, the trending feeds full of commentators with plenty of cents and no real sense. The trolls who create accounts to simply fulfil their existence lurking under whichever bridge they choose. The straight up hatred, anger and whatever intimidating emotion these crowds can feel while they try to cancel whoever, what if, just what if there was a place away from that?
I know in my heart that the majority of people I connect with on here and across social media are decent. Genuine people who are just trying to get reads, views, sales or even friendship or connections. Some even have guidance to offer or are in need of some. My Twitter has grown through the simple act of helping others and trying to stay afloat with positivity and in doing so has become a decent pleasant place. Maybe that’s what I will eventually be known for. Not for books, writing or what I sell, but what I offer on that basic level, something that cannot be purchased but still experienced. A nice place on social media. Nice places are hard to find in this world and kindness goes a long way.
As a social media creative who regularly gets views and sales from various endeavours, I have concluded in order to get them consistently over time you need to stand out. Most marketing advice online is either out of date or easier said than done and standing out to me is to simply go against the grain of what everyone else is doing and hope it gets noticed. While that may seem easier said than done, and it is, only you can figure out what works for your brand or persona online but passion above all, resonates with near enough everyone.
Social media seems to contain this giant echo of everyone copying one another to the point where most folks just blend into the bandwidth. The passion in all of this is distinctly lacking. Understandably, it can be easy to get caught up or even daunted by this vacuum of repetition but where is the creativity? Buy this or subscribe to that. Everyone seems to be mining for numbers and sales with no real end game when really all you need to seek on social media is enrichment through conversation. That alone will drive visibility, engagement and eventually trust. Trust that you are more than a miner trying to score more points in an endless game that you can’t take anywhere useful. Gain the trust of someone and they’ll invest in you. And this is something that cannot be fabricated. Top that off with a little human passion and things will start to move.
This revelation came to me after I spent way more time than I probably should have on social media, scrolling, watching and talking – maybe it wasn’t in vain after all because for that time I gained the rewards from a high following to regular sales and now a belief this may some day be a career. That is without mentioning the true value of friendships through those things because I found others who share my vision. All I did was spend time conversing and less time trying to sell things and now people have become my power.
It would appear many creatives loathe the thought of marketing, but me, I actually quite enjoy the challenge and results which are always an opportunity to learn and pass information on. All driven by the desire to go against the grain and try something new fuelled by people who believe in me. Those days of reverting to zero are few and far between for me now, long may it continue.
When I began my foray into blogging way back in 2014 I didn’t really know what I was doing. Other than giving my writing brand a home I had no clear cut idea where it would take me or how it would work out. This wordsmith journey extended into blogging as a way to build a bridge to others because writing for the most part is a solitary thing and I knew from the very start that anything creative is better shared with others.
In truth, my whole persona as a blogger and author would be nothing if it wasn’t for the support I have found on here. The day in day outers who like my posts, read them and comment on them – you are the people who keep me going and you are all over the world. Many of you share the same struggles as me, we might not have a lot in common but our bond no matter where we are is shared on here, together.
Writing to me is a person journey and by that I mean spending the journey convincing one person at a time to read what I have to say and take part. We have write the damn thing first but after that, I know there is an audience for me. I half jokingly named this blog Lee’s Hall of Information and now it stands as the central pillar to everything I do in writing and blogging, it is my home and I am joined by 900 followers – something I take very seriously because that’s an incredible amount of people to have in my corner.
This post could have been so many things, from elaborate celebrations tagging the various influences and supporters that hold this place together to something much more but sometimes in this busy world a simple thank you is enough. After all I’ve got blog posts to write, books to write and a career to build out of this, all of which started from scratch, all of which started with your loyal support. .
You know who you are, so thank you for being here. And whether you signed up yesterday or years ago, thank you. My advice for anyone who wants real success in writing and blogging, its kind of simple, just keep going.
And so the notifications fall silent but the words I have laid down are seemingly just as loud in my absence. In the near week I have been away from Twitter the amount of followers I’ve gained has gone up by over 300. While silence is sometimes solace, I see enough of it while writing and I’ve concluded this journey is nothing without the company I have found across social media.
I did say previously I am on this journey because of the writing but now the social media connections, the personal connections I have made with so many like me are now a part of that. The good things I have found and created for myself outweigh the bad by a lot. This always has been an eye of the beholder type deal and I know social media can be a grind, for some, it can chew you up and spit you out, but only if you let it. With my following, we made Twitter a good place to be, a place to converse and sell our work to the world while we learned from one another. We found each other and together we are going to step forward day by day and continue what we started. I value it too much to just walk away. I value personal connections as much as my writing.
The world can be a bad place but it can also be a good place, but you have to be willing to let that positivity in and embrace it because soon enough the negative will emerge. I’ve been away only for a little while and I’ve found my happy thoughts, I’ve found my balance and I’ve concluded that I am all in from now on. I was burned out but you’ll be amazed what a few days of silence will do for the mind.
There always will be others who’ll try to be the opposite of me, folks I have no time for. It’s why Twitter invented the mute, unfollow and block buttons. Tools I’m gonna be using to protect myself, because I come first, my following does too and I’m too far down the track to let a few bad interactions stop me. The bad feelings they present me with weigh nowhere near as much as the good. As I said, balance and I’ve found mine.
Sometimes we don’t give ourselves enough credit as authors and bloggers. This fast-paced world of constant content demand has always got us chasing the next result without really stopping to think that perhaps that one sale or handful of views is actually a great achievement.
Even now and after many years of having my writing in the public domain I still feel weird when compliments come my way through reviews and social media interactions. For a creator who started at zero to receive any type of positive feedback is something I’m still adjusting to. The fact my words can make a difference in just one person’s life or journey is both amazing and something worth giving my self credit for. There is something to be said about valuing yourself and what you contribute. Social media does tend to default to celebration of one’s self but what about one’s work that has maybe only reached one other but might have contributed positively to their life. There is power in that, and not the type of power that most strive for but just seeing just another author take something from my self help book gives me chills – the good type of chills – the type where it makes me feel like this was all worthwhile. For all the struggle and constant grind, sometimes, just sometimes a little glimmer of light appears through the murk, illuminated by someone who has appreciated what I wrote.
It takes time and it takes work but being a creative in the social media age will eventually work out well if you just keep going. Standing out – that’s the key, but how? Keep going and eventually hard workers with the right attitude will rise above most but not in a competitive way because the only competition I have is the me of yesterday.
Slowly I’m coming out of thunder dome. That’s the phrase I use to describe what has been the most intense three month period I’ve ever known as an indie author. From having my book thrust into the hands of 10,000 readers in one day to the arduous road of just releasing another one. Between that I travelled an immense but taxing journey to reach 10,000 tweet machine followers. All of this has taken a mental and physical toll but as I said I’m on my way out of that place. Pressure valves have been released and a quieter time has appeared. I’m now going to do what I have needed to do for a while; I’m going to live in the real world.
For everything awesome I have achieved recently, I feel like an immense amount of pressure has been lifted internally. The fight for the attention of others on social media is something that has diminished, no longer do I have to struggle because now I have an audience who are loyal and are there for me. While having an amazing audience is great, that doesn’t mean that I’ll take it for granted, I just don’t need to perform miracles to please everyone anymore. Yes, the pressure is off but the responsibility remains, these shoulders have taken on a lot recently and they will continue to carry anything else that may present itself. Just now, it is on my terms and my terms alone. My audience have made me and I’ll be doing everything I can to repay that.
My motivation to support others remains and is the strongest pillar that holds everything else up. While I will be backing off for a short time, you can still expect this machine to keep turning but now I’m heading back into the real world!
To those who have supported my recent book release, thank you. You have made it what I hope will be my most successful release ever with just a few more sales!
Hello cultured reader, here are the first few pages of my authoring and blogging guide book which is currently available for pre-order at a discounted price.
I figured it was a good idea to share a snippet of what you can expect in the book which I hope helps fellow wordsmiths on their authoring and blogging journey…
Introduction
This book explores what I’ve learnt on my publishing journey, presenting it in a way that I hope will inspire you to believe in your own abilities to replicate and even surpass my success. Belief is all you really need on any journey and if I can get results that I’m happy with, then you certainly can. Success is based upon how you judge the results of something over time – it’s both fickle and in the eye of the beholder.
I’ve always measured my results beside the number from where I started – absolute zero. And compared to zero my numbers today appear to be quite impressive, but the truth is, they haven’t always been like that. I’ve spent most of my time nearer to zero than any other number and that’s something everyone must be prepared to face. Some call low numbers failure but to me there are no failures in life, just lessons and opportunity. Both go hand in hand when it comes to writing. The most important thing in writing is to start, even if it is at zero.
This guide can be defined as a series of experiences from the many years I’ve spent as both a blogger and an author in the social media age. Much of the content might seem obvious but there is also some advice I have never shared before. My hope is to help you progress in the world of authoring and blogging even if you take just one sentence of advice from all of this; to me that’ll be a good job done. Like I said, this may just be in the eye of the beholder – you, and you alone can go as far as the imagination will allow.
Before we go any further, I will tell you now that this book is for anyone looking for advice and inspiration in blogging and book writing. You could already have an established blog or a backlist of books written and published. You might even be pondering your very first foray into the world of words. Everyone is welcome here and you’ll find something, no matter where you’re starting from. Much of it is delivered from the perspective of a beginner with some of the advanced stuff being advice I follow every day.
For me, writing books and blogging go hand in hand and while they are both explored in detail, you won’t find any information on how to specifically write and format a book or construct a blog site. I am not qualified to show you the latter and the former… well, nobody can formally teach you how to write a book in my opinion. It is my belief that the journey of writing and finishing a book is something only the individual can find within themselves. Instead, we will explore how to market yourself as a creator on social media through all the various channels I have experienced. At times it will mainly be blog-centric, but there are some in-depth marketing resources for authors as well. Many of the chapters ahead are interwoven with blogging and authoring advice because to me, they go, hand in hand.
I have started in this manner for two reasons:
So anyone can see from previewing the first pages if it could be of help to them;
To be upfront about what success I have had in blogging – see the graph below.
This graph shows my blog viewing numbers over many months from September 2018 to recent times. As you can see, they gradually and progressively improved over time forming into a ‘wave’ which will be explored further ahead. The blogging element of this book will focus on how I got to those numbers and how I took the opportunity to continually improve them. The graph stands as proof that everything you write gets results to some extent, and those results echo the message that everything else in this book will take time and that there are no quick fixes.
I say results because for me these things worked; there is no guarantee that they will work for you. I’m in the inspiration business not the miracle business, but every wordsmith faces different circumstances and so I have concluded that, across the board, you need three core attributes to have any chance of success in blogging and authoring:
1.You need to be consistent;
2.You need to be creative; and
3. You need content.
This trio is the main reason why my blogging and authoring endeavours have been successful. Because I hold these attributes in such high regard I even included them in the title of this book.
In some applications you’ll only need one of the trio, in others two and there are a few more vital attributes outside thetrio that I will point out along the way. Some, until now, were my best kept secrets while others appear obvious.
All in all, this guide is laced with ideas that’ll help you improve your authoring and blogging, to achieve greater success. Many of the sections will even begin with snippets of advice from the various authors, bloggers, creators and friends I have connected with over the years – all of whom have found success in their own ways.
Apart from blog views or book sales what else counts as success? Follow my words and I will show you. Remember, you can do what I’ve done and go even further…
This is an exclusive excerpt of ‘Consistent Creative Content: A Guide to Authoring and Blogging in the Social Media Age’ which is currently available for discounted pre-order. The price will rise on release which is very soon. Links below.
Lee's Hall of information 
You must be logged in to post a comment.