Joanna Penn - The Creative Penn

Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today best selling author. She is also a lady that I have followed "forever", as she shares her ideas on writing and publishing in a way that is useful for all writers. Her blog, The Creative Penn, is a treasure trove of material!

Joanna offers "Author 2.0 Blueprint", a free e-book and video series, on her site. In it, she discusses how to write, publish, and market your book. It doesn't get any better than that! (Note: This material is for both fiction and non-fiction writers.) 

Visitors to her site will also find other books that she has written, including "Career Change", "How To Market A Book", "How To Make A Living With Your Writing", and more.

I really appreciate how Joanna has her site organized. I personally view her site as a resource, and love that the resource section is broken down into the following categories: Writing and Editing, Publishing, Book Marketing, and Making A Living From Your Writing. 

She also has over 300 podcasts available - on such topics as "Tips For Editing Your Book", "Strategy and Business Plans For Authors", and "The Business Of Being A Writer". Each podcast is an interview with someone knowledgible on the subject.

There is more! Joanna offers multi-media online courses! Subjects include "How To Write A Novel: From Idea To Book", building an e-mail list, and how to use Scrivner Fast.

I highly recommend Joanna's material for any author that wants to build a presence and be successful!

(c) July 2018 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.     

Writing In A Void

I am about three quarters of the way through writing my second Tarot book, and looking forward to focusing on my fiction (mystery) writing. A lot of things are coming to mind that I never would have thought of before, such as the fact that we do not write in a void.

What I mean by that is that each project, each book, is part of a whole, it is part of what will become the body of our work. We don’t just write a book, promote it for a period of time, hope like heck that it sells, then move on to something else. What we write and promote becomes our “back list”. Our backlist is more than work that we have already done – it is where people originally became interested in us, which draws people to our newer work. Conversely, people who are drawn to our current work have prior work to become interested in too.

We can promote ourselves so that we encompass all of who we are, and all that we have done. I am doing this with my first Tarot book, “Tarot, Birth Cards, and You”, in that I have the Birth Cards out there conversing, reacting to changes on Face Book, and really embodying in real like the energy that they carry. This will, I believe, help me move forward into my next books.

We want to write content that has something to offer, whether it is in a specialized non-fiction genre like Tarot, or the fictional cozy mystery genre that I want to move into. We always want to have something out there to offer our readers, so that our name remains on their mind when they are looking for something to read or work with.

We want to connect with our readers, and we want them to connect with us. We do that through our writing, and we do that through how we promote our writing. If we write in a void, viewing each project as an isolated “happening”, then IMHO we place limitations around ourselves, and on the scope of any possible success.

What are you doing to keep your material alive? How are you connecting with your readers? How are they connecting with you? It is indeed a brave new world out there!

© March 2012 Bonnie Cehovet

Creative Writing

I was blessed this weekend in that I was part of a rocking Creative Writing webinar! I was presenting the webinar, but, as most presenters will attest to, we soak up as much wisdom as we bring to the table! I want to thank Mary Nale for hosting these webinars - for providing the space and the technical expertise to make this all happen.

I am not the only person presenting with Mary - check out her blog site, and see what she is offering! (Attune Magazine). I do have two upcoming classes in February - "How To Get Your Book Published" on February 11th,and "Writing Reviews" on February 25th. Mary is open to hosting many different topics - contact her to discuss what you would like to present, and she will make it happen for you!

During my Creative Writing webinar I talked about what creative writing was, where to find creative writing prompts, how to get started writing, where to get story ideas, and a bit about how to use the Tarot with writing. We did a couple of writing exercises that truly blew my socks off! These ladies could write!

One thing I did find out in researching my presentation was something that I had never really thought about - that creative writing can be applied to both fiction and non-fiction, and that it can be applied to all genres - blogs, stories, articles, poetry, auto-biographies, biographies, literature ... you name it, you can write it creatively! I am not talking about making things up, I am talking about presenting a subject in a fresh manner. That is what creativity is all about.

There is a wonderful side effect to writing creatively - it frees your mind, and it frees your soul! It allows your ideas to flow, and when your ideas flow consistently, wonderful opportunities begin to come your way, like magic!

Happy writing!

(c) January 2012 Bonnie Cehovet