lend a hand to authors (young and old)

Like everybody else I have to limit the amount of time I spend wandering around in the ether. There are so many things to read and keep track of, I could easily spend the entire day doing nothing else. In these difficult times especially it feels like there’s an emergency every hour  on the hour, so getting stuff done is even harder. Add depression and anger (also about recent events) and it’s takes some real willpower to persevere. 

And yet, here I am asking you to read something new.  

Young writers — young people in general — are having a tough time. I see this up close and personal with my daughter and her friends. A college degree doesn’t mean much in this economy (and yes, it’s still pretty bad, especially for the very young and the 50+ crowd).  

Jason Howell is a talented writer who runs a website where writers chime in on questions he poses. One of his talents is asking interesting questions, so I generally get stuck there for a half hour or so when I stop by. Once in a while I participate by contributing an answer.  Please stop by and see what he has to offer. His website: Howlarium; his Twitter account: Jason Howell;  he’s also on Goodreads. Lend a hand. I can’t hurt and it might help.

See this ad to the right? Yes, I’m changing the subject, but not by very much.  

Bookbub seems to forget that if they put authors out of business, they will have nothing to sell. Isn’t that the definition of a parasite? How do authors counter this kind of mind-set? 

Marketing. 

Please remember that like almost every other novelist out there, there is almost no marketing coming from my publishers so somebody else has to do it, and that person is, of course, the author. We scribblers depend to a very large degree on word of mouth and the goodwill of our readers. I have wonderful readers, but you’re all very busy, too.  I hope you’ll understand why I post this reminder of the things you can do to help me keep writing:

1. Hit ‘like’ here and/or on Facebook (see the bottom of this post or the right hand column). 
2. Hit ‘share’ for Facebook and/or Twitter.
3. Save something you see here to your Pinterest pages. 
4. Share a post you like by email.
5. Post a review at Amazon or Goodreads or Barnes & Noble or your own website. Mention something I wrote on Facebook or Twitter or your favorite discussion forum.  

And that’s it. The end of the regularly scheduled fundraiser.