Being a writer while being in a full-time doctoral program, maintaining a full-time job, and trying to learn a language is really challenging. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reminded time and time again just how important it is to keep my creative work a priority, because stories and art are my passion. So much of the energy I have for all my other roles stems from being creative and doing creative work.
Read more6 Lessons Learned from the Indie Author Fringe Festival
I just finished watching another great presentation from the 2016 Indie Author Fringe Festival that took place at the London Book Fair last week. Basically, #IAF16 was twenty-four hours of incredible interviews, presentations, blogs and podcasts. You can find them all here. There was so much fantastic information that it was a challenge to keep track of all the things I wanted to work on by the time the event was over, however—I have picked out a few follow-ups I think are achievable within the next year. So without further ado, here are my 6 takeaways from #IAF16, organized into short, medium and long-term goals.
Read moreHow My Research Needs Have Grown Since Becoming An Indie Author
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of non-fiction reading. This is because I'm trying to learn how to better share my books, make them look nice, and adapt them into other formats (ebooks and audio books). There are a lot of amazing tools and resources that enable you to do all of these things within several different budgets.
But one thing I’ve noticed over the last few months is that the type of non-fiction reading I’m doing has changed significantly since I first started out trying to write seriously. Like many writers I know (on Twitter for example), I read a TON of blogs posts and books about writing. I still do. Only now, the books I’m reading are very much about the business side of being an author. I can definitely see how once I made the decision to move in one direction (indie publishing) over another (traditional publishing), the kinds of resources I needed to help me do so shifted dramatically.
Read more