A Round-Up of Authorly Links for a Happy New Year

A strange thing happened this week. I felt like a writer.

A real writer. You know, writer(n):one who writes for a living. Don't get me wrong. As far as making money for writing goes, I'm still a newbie. But as far as having real deadlines and multiple projects vying for my attention, I rocked the world of writing this week.

Yeah, it was the holiday season, which is kind of rotten timing, but who cares? I've waited for that feeling for a long time. To celebrate, here our some links to stuff we real authors have to know:

First of all, there was the post 10 Book Launch Considerations. I was hooked from her first sentence: "Promotion is a black hole." Isn't it ever. Kathryn breaks down ten different strategies to promote your newly published book. She talks about the time cost and the money cost, and whether she thinks the strategy is worth the bang for her buck.

This is important to me because my first solo-published book is coming out on January 24! Quite possibly my very next post will be the Big Cover Reveal for Hidden Magic.

I learned a great deal from publishing Alchemy, but the biggest thing I learned is that to launch a book successfully, time and money must be spent! Unfortunately,  the sheer number of places willing to take both is mind boggling. This blog post is invaluable.

Next, by a bit of serendipity, J Scott Savage posted a list called 10 Things Writers Should and Shouldn't Do on Facebook. I've never tried to link to a facebook page before, and I hope it works. You may have to scroll down a little, but its totally worth it, especially if you are as flummoxed by the world of self-promotion on social media as I am.  I tend to have a "Pretend like It Doesn't Exist" mentality about my facebook fan page.

J Scott Savage has got great advice and he's a fantastic writer, so check it out. Besides, he sounds like a very nice guy. Here is a bit of his advice: "One of my favorite things to do is recommend another author's book I know the reader will love. And often, when I recommend books that I have obviously read and know will be a good match, the customer buys my books as well, because they can tell I know what I'm doing."

(So that's what I'm doing. His novel Dark Memories was nominated as one of the 7 best novels of the year on ksl.com)

Finally, a word on New Year's Resolutions: I want to continue feeling like a writer straight through 2014. Corinne O'Flynn wrote a great post about writer's New Year's Resolutions here.

My favorite part of her post is when she mentions that she and two other ladies got together weekly to hold each other accountable for projects during the year. Through much of December I had a friend checking up on me as I worked through a huge editing project. She was editing too, and it brought out my competitive side (in a good way). I'd love to get involved in something like this. Anyone interested? (Connie Keller, I'm looking at you!)

Even if you don't want to get involved in a Personal Accountability Group (wow, that sounds severe, doesn't it?) WorkFlowy sounds like a cool tool. Check it out here.