More on the Starter Guide

Namely, you have the chance to win some free copies!
2 print copies are available through a Goodreads giveaway that closes on April 7th.
Ebook copies are also available at LibraryThing in a giveaway that closes to entries this Friday, March 28th.

Also, I've put together a list of all the posts on this blog that wound up--substantially revised, but with some similarities in structure and content--in the Starter Guide. If you found any of these posts useful or interesting, you'll probably like the book, too.

Print on Demand Formatting for Better Royalties--On how the blank space on your page physically hurts me to contemplate.

Anatomy of Successful Crowdfunding--In which I pour out a lot of thoughts on options, strategy, and success by dissecting the crowdfunding campaign for the Starter Guide on Kickstarter, as well as examining other campaigns on other platforms.

Making Promotional Bookmarks Using Vistaprint--One of the most popular posts on this blog, and pretty useful if I say so myself. I've actually uploaded more pictures to the blog post after using them to illustrate this section in the book (2 and a half of the 50 pages I have on promotion).

Promotion: Now is the Time to Keep The Faith--Turned into the prologue of my 50-page chapter on promotion. Sort of gets one in the mood. The mood being fervent prayer and desperation, right?

Madwoman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge--The personalities of writing and revision, and the story of the story I wrote...almost a year ago, now...on safari.

On 2500 Word Scenes--You can write them. It's all mathematics from there.  Actually, I'm trying to round up more resources and more thoughts on the "Butt In Chair"/Power Through It writing method, so watch this space. The Starter Guide also includes several more methods of beating writer's block, a bit more analytical and less easy to represent in numbers.

It's Fair Trade Friday on this blog, too!

As a child, I was never especially distracted by the weather. Nice days were nice, but I could wait patiently until I got out of class to run around and soak up the sun.

Not so much anymore. It helps that I've learned walking provides necessary fresh air, exercise, and rest for the wordsmith portion of my brain; it also helps that we've just made it through 3 months of snow coming in amounts and at times cruel and absurd enough to awaken anyone's cynicism (I never got angry at weather before this winter). But last week I was outside every day. I discovered the Capital Crescent trail and walked as much of it as I could reach from public transport. I've got blisters now, and I don't regret a thing.

I've also juggling a number of fun projects, when I could focus on them and wasn't distracted by the shiny sunlight.

So in case you've been noting this blog's lack of updates and fearing I was dead: no, rather the opposite. Too alive to slow down and blog, or find something to blog about!

However, when all else fails, I always have my weekly Fair Trade Friday posts from the Amani DC blog to share.

Today I have a particularly nerdy delight to share: Harry Potter fans organizing for social justice! Although I was never quite as into the series as some of my friends, I'm super excited to see this example of the power of narrative to affect real-world change (and also excited at how Potterheads combine with other fandoms, such as The Hunger Games, for other relevant campaigns). 

A few weeks ago at the Amani blog, I did a feature piece on Celia Grace bridal, running some research on their company and sharing links to their site with my write-up.

And now the Celia Grace blog has linked to my post (“They did an amazing job of capturing the spirit, history, and mission of Celia Grace.") and shared some information on OUR boutique.

It’s like these two Fair Trade fashion companies flirting at each other via bloggers. It makes me blush and giggle like a schoolgirl.

I don't always find blogging easy, but I am glad I do it.