by Scot Herrick on July 31, 2007
Those of us using computers to write often do something else of importance: stay connected to others via e-mail.
E-mail is the gift and curse of communication. On the one hand, it is the easiest form of online communication to those across the planet. On the other hand, it is the black hole of time wasters if not handled properly.
There are tons of articles out there on e-mail management; most oriented to business users. But Freelance Switch offers up 10 Essential E-mail Skills for Any Freelancer, and it’s a good article.
My favorite advanced tip: Filter out all but the essential. Most e-mail programs allow for setting up filters on your e-mail. Have a friend that just sends you jokes? Filter it to a different folder so you can look at it later during your non-writing times. Subscribe to so many feeds via e-mail that your regular e-mail is lost in translation? Filter the feeds into a different folder or use a different tool.
E-mail is fun. It can feel like being productive while processing all those e-mails — but it’s not really work. E-mail should be used to market your work. The rest is for fun after the work is done.
What’s your biggest e-mail time waster?
Scot
by Scot Herrick on July 30, 2007
Have you ever read a long article, scanning the page and then all of a sudden one sentence just pops out at you? Then you sit on that sentence; your speed reading over and your mind racing at the implications?
I had one of those moments recently. In the blog Make it Great, by Phil Gerbyshak (from Milwaukee, where I lived for 25-years or so), he did an interview with Penelope Trunk promoting her book the Brazen Careerist. Here was the exchange that got me:
Phil: I love your advice for getting a six-figure book deal from your blog, and it’s so cool that you were willing to share what many would keep to themselves. What’s the best advice anyone gave you that you couldn’t learn on your own about publishing?
Penelope: Almost everyone who gave me advice told me that you can’t just be a book author, you have to be a book publicist. That is very true. Today publishers are distribution channels for people who have significant marketing capabilities of their own. (Italics mine)
There are still a lot of writers out there who think that all they need to do is get published and all is well in the world. It’s not true.
Penelope casually (to her, since it is a fact) notes that publishers are really just distribution channels. Channels that need to make money, of course, but the marketing work that will help them and ourselves make money is done by…us.
The marketing is done in many ways, of course. But your online presence, combined with more traditional marketing, has become a new channel to market your work. Whether it is through your writing on a blog, “virtual” book tours like the interview Penelope did with Phil, or being interviewed for a podcast, technology can offer you new ways to market your writing.
And the good news — you can do it while still being at home. The Internet is geography independent, allowing you to market your work across town or across the globe. It’s all about readers and reach. Technology helps in both areas.
Scot
by Scot Herrick on July 26, 2007
Writers that I’ve talked to can often casually ignore the impact of their writing online. After all, this is “just a blog.” The “important” stuff is really writing the book. My response is that all of it is important, including the “little” blog you write.
You’d be surprised at what your web presence can do for you. Since publishing this blog means it is available to anyone on the planet with an Internet connection and a browser, anyone on the planet can read it (and does, according to my statistics).
Consequently, people will approach you simply because of what you write in your place on the web.
Or, you’ll be doing your thing in the real world thinking that what you write on the web makes no difference. But it does. It can even get you a job.
Don’t believe me? Check out Daniel Haran Joins Standout Jobs.
What you write using technology to publish is another facet of your resume to the world.
Scot
by Scot Herrick on July 25, 2007
The focus here is on how technology can help a writer market their work. One of the ways to enable technology for the purpose is to do interviews with other people and then present the interviews via podcast on your blog or web site.
Think of interviews with authors on a “virtual” book tour to your blog or interviewing a person who has a view that you’d like people to hear. Or an author round table on a particular subject.
Most interviews are done over the phone, recorded, and put into a podcast.
But what if your person that you wanted to interview you was right in front of you? Dig out that cassette recorder?
Sara Latta, over at I’ve got blisters on my fingers, and Amy Timberlake did reviews on the Xtrememac Micromemo — a device that hooks to your iPod and will record your in-person interview.
Using the Internet for over the phone interviews may work most of the time. But this little device hooked to your iPod will do those in-person interviews you’d have at writers conferences, critique groups, or meetings with someone to do research for your article or book.
Scot
by Scot Herrick on July 25, 2007
Just a quick note to readers on comments. I had thought my settings were that once I approved a comment from a particular person (i.e., YOU, instead of those nice spam machines) that your future comments would automatically post to the articles.
However, that was not the case. I missed removing that checkmark from the options and I couldn’t understand why Dan’s comment on the Danger of Being Off Topic didn’t go straight through.
It’s because those computers are damn literal. A good thing, of course, but sometimes frustrating…
Scot
