It’s the first Wednesday of the month and time for another posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.
I’m co-hosting this month. Remember to visit my co-hosts: Pat Garcia, and Liza @ Middle Passages!
This month’s optional question: If for one day you could be anyone or thing in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it inspire in you.
Yeah, I’m answering this question the same why I did in the 8th grade: a Rottweiler, specifically, one of my Rottweilers. Reasons are obvious: you sleep, you play, you eat, you cuddle, and you spend time with your favourite humans (the rest you can scare). LOL.
My current furbabies:
I like to think that I learn something new every day, and that I can share the things I’ve learned (especially writerly things) with my fellow writers each year. Last year I shared my top ten indie publishing tips. This year, it’s a little different.
Check your website’s performance once a year. Between AI being used by hackers and spammers to attack your site and advancements in technology making some things on your site (like plugins, widgets and more) obsolete, you need to stay on top of things. There are some great tools out there like GTmetrix that can do performance runs for you and then you can just fix the issues that crop up.
Publish wide. You never know when a retailer closes down or just terminates your account. #TrueStory
Have a mailing list. No matter the size, no matter how fast or slow it grows, this is the one place you have real permission to tell people about your books.
Be patient. Writing a book takes time. Building a career takes time. Though we live in an instant gratification culture, things that matter don’t happen overnight. #NoSuchThingAsOvernightSuccess
You need a business plan and strategies to get to your goals. Whether that’s a strategy per project or an overarching plan for your author career, you need to know what you want and how to get there. Reassess once a quarter (or at least once a year) to see if it is still serving you and your needs.
Never stop learning. I’m constantly trying to be a better writer. I attend webinars, read craft and other writing books, listen to podcasts, and write things that no-one will ever see just to practice something. To that end, I’ve decided to read a book a month for the Ink and Magic podcast book club to learn more from the discussion the authors have for each book in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling Series. I’ll share my progress in my newsletter as well as the link to my full review and the YouTube link to the podcast discussion. #PsyChangelingSeries
Use tools. I like ProWritingAid, Canva and regular MS Word. Pick what you like, not what everyone else says you should like. And if something stops working for you, then drop it and move on.
Don’t ignore marketing. Whether it’s content marketing like my folklore blogposts and podcast or storyboards on Pinterest, one needs to get the word out there that your books exist. Advertising is great – if you want to throw money at gaining an audience. Or you can do the work and build a following over time (true fans who will buy your books in their favourite format).
More formats = more money. Not everyone reads. Not everyone listens to audiobooks. But you can find your perfect fans if you give them your stories in the format they prefer. One book can be an eBook, an audiobook, a paperback, a hardback, large print… Be creative!
Have a calendar. I use the one on my phone (it’s the Google one that syncs to all my accounts and devices). I add my goals and to-do lists, making the most of every day. Each month, there’s a week that it seems like nothing is happening. That’s my buffer. Why? Because everything takes longer than one plans for. Okay, sometimes it goes faster. Sometimes life happens. Sometimes one gets ill. Don’t add unnecessary stress to the equation; just add time.
Know your market and your genre. It’s okay to write a romantic cosy mystery if you’re a romance author. It’s probably not okay to write a grisly murder mystery and pass it off as romance. When I read romance, I expect it to hit certain conventions and tropes. I also expect something only the author I chose to read can bring to the story. If you’re going to write an inaccurate Regency romance (e.g. use the wrong type of fabric for an evening dress) and then add a murder mystery (e.g. an axe murderer out to kill all the debutantes) and then have the duke the young debutante is being courted by turn into a vampire, I’ll mark you as a “do not read EVER” on my post-its of authors to read/not to read. I’ll also DNF the book quite fast.
Edit! Please, please, please edit your books. Use beta readers. Use ProWritingAid or Grammarly – there are free versions – if you can’t afford a lot of editing rounds from an editor or proofreader. Whatever you do, please don’t publish that first draft or that book that’s only in an okay enough state for Wattpad and expect paying customers.
Avoid distractions. It’s so easy to get mired in all the things that have to happen in your author business that you forget the most important thing: writing the next book. Which is why you should schedule everything in your calendar – including writing time. If you have specific goals towards the writing itself, you can outmanoeuvre the distractions the business side wants to engulf you with.
Visualise success. Seeing yourself being successful in the future, imagining how it will look and feel, is a sound psychological technique. You can just as easily see yourself fail. So see success instead.
Persevere. There are a lot of reasons to give up. A lot of things happen that makes one question this career choice. But if you persevere, even when things look bleak, you will achieve your goals. Believe in what you want to write, the stories you want to share, and just do it.
Any tips you’d like to share to be a successful career author in 2025? You can learn loads more on my For Authors page here.
Smashwords has a promotional ebook week (March 2-March 8), so I enrolled the first book in the Irascible Immortals series in it for free. Check it out here.
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No-one writes about the fae like Ronel Janse van Vuuren.
Thanks for co-hosting this month. Being an animal for the day is a popular answer. Thanks for the tips on how to be a successful author.
You’re welcome 🙂
Very wise advice.
And who wouldn’t want to be a spoiled dog?
Thanks for co-hosting today!
Thank you.
Lots of good advice. I forget to update my websites. *headslap* As to going wide, I will with some titles, but I make 80% of my royalties on my WHR series from KU, so I’ll keep my head down and take my chances. Thanks for co-hosting!
One should know where your audience is 🙂
Your babies are quite handsome and beautiful! They look happy and zappy too. Love the photos. Thank you for co-hosting.
Thank you.
Great tips. especially the website check. I discovered my images have been ‘taken over’ by a company putting its name in the Alt and caption fields. I assume this is otherwise harmless, but I need to check with my security software to see if there’s a quick fix. I only found it because it’s in my older images, and I was setting up my AtoZ posts… 😀
Sigh.
Thanks for co-hosting today.
That’s not good… I’ve added another layer of security to my website after a lot of spam bots nearly crashed it. AI is making me a little crazy… Hope your issue gets resolved!
Good choice. All dogs are awesome.
Anna from elements of emaginette
Thanks!
Your rotties are adorable!
I like your advice of publishing wide, which I might try for my short story. Good to venture outside of Amazon once in a while.
Thanks for co-hosting!
Thank you 🙂 Try Draft2Digital — they get you in everywhere and you only have to manage one dashboard.
That is a great choice, probably what I would have picked if I’d thought of it! And your tips are spot on.
Thank you 🙂
Happy IWSG Day.
I always enjoy your tips and appreciate all you do for the writing community.
I enjoyed having you at my blog today and am enjoying your book.
I also love Rottweilers (dogs in general).
Thanks, Toi 🙂 With all the rain the last couple of days, they’re doing zoomies inside the house after running around outside, which means my house looks like mudslide… they’re lucky I love them. LOL.
yeah, my life went to the dogs too. Except you provided a more complete explanation of the dog’s life appeal.
Good points about stuff that I don’t pay enough attention to.
Lee
You’re welcome.
Thank you for cohosting IWSG’s question this month, Ronel. And thank you so much for this informative post. Wow! I learned so much. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with your followers. Have a great day!
You’re welcome 🙂
Thank you for co-hosting and for the helpful advice — it’s far too easy to skip over those tips we don’t really want to do! Wish we had doggies too, but we’re too old to walk them in the snow. Happy spring!
You’re welcome. My furbabies are of the free-range variety as I’m lucky enough to live in an agricultural area, so they can run off their excess energy at any time 🙂
Sound advice, as always! Thanks for the effort you put into organizing and articulating this stuff. I know I won’t ever do it all the way I should (well, “should” if I thought I was going to make it a money-making thing :D), but I always find some little bit I can manage to do that helps out.
Thank you 🙂
Great tips.
Thanks for co-hosting this month.
You’re welcome.
Always good to have these kind of tips! Checking your website yearly is a big one — check for speed, obsolete stuff, and update your bio or whatever too.
Having a mailing list is important too. It doesn’t have to be a newsletter.
Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do with a mailing list if I didn’t send them monthly newsletters…
True, me either. And I know “they” say if you don’t send them something, they will forget who you are and get all mad when you do end up sending them something. 😅
Thanks for co-hosting. Excellent advice. Love that scene from Miss Congeniality:)
Me, too 🙂
Good tips! Thanks for co-hosting! @samanthabwriter from
Balancing Act
You’re welcome.
Love your fur babies, Ronel! Thanks for co-hosting, and thanks for a fabulous article!
Thank you!
That does sound nice! Thank you for the generous amount of tips, and the fun images you graced them with as well. It’s never a bad time for a Miss Congeniality image in my life 🙂
You’re welcome 🙂
Thanks for co-hosting today!
Sounds like you’ll be living a good life. Thanks for sharing your tips.
You’re welcome.
Beautiful rottweilers! I had a doberman pinscher when I was a kid, and she was the most perfect dog ever. I didn’t become allergic to dogs until a few years after she died, but then it was really bad, so no more dogs for me. Great tips for authors! I’ve been listening to 6 Figure Authors, and have been gleaning some writing business knowledge during my burnout. I’ve always heard to market, market, market, but one of their guests said not to pay to advertise until you have a bit of a backlist, and then to start. It was a different perspective and made sense, so I’m looking into that. When you’ve got enough books and readers, merchandise becomes an option, too.
6 Figure Authors was a great podcast with loads of good advice. Sorry to hear you can no longer have furbabies…
That’s some really good advice there, especially for one’s who are feeling discouraged or just straight out burned out!
Totally forgot about Smashwords’s promo sale! Normally they or D2D email notices out but I mustve missed the one in my inbox. I’ll have to check that out.
Thanks to you and the others for co-hosting!
You’re welcome.
Rottweilers are such cuties! They seem intimidating at first, but the ones I’ve met are always up for cuddles. Love the photos, and the publishing tips. Avoiding distractions is still something I struggle with from time-to-time, but I’ve learnt not to beat myself up for it.
Rotties are perfect cuddle buddies 🙂 It’s good that you don’t beat yourself up about distractions.