Friday, March 11, 2016

Helping other writers

I have found the writing community very helpful, especially the blogging community. Everyone is so eager to share helpful writing tips, writing resources and other writing related information. When a blogging buddy’s book is released, we all share in the happiness. It always feels nice to see a writer friend’s book reviews, blog tours and interviews on all our blogs.

There are many ways we can help writers. I know that we all have time constraints and cannot afford to critique many books (I feel bad when I say no to authors who want me to critique their books). I already have a couple of critique partners and between critiquing their books and writing my own and my teaching and free-lance writing, I have no time. And I won’t be able to do justice If I take on more work.

But I am always eager to help other writers in my own small way. I am ever ready to critique a few chapters, their synopsis, query letters and pitches. As these require less time, I do it often especially via Twitter and Facebook. Many writers when they enter Twitter Pitch contests DM me their pitches and I help them tweak and polish the pitches.

And if an Indie writer Tweets about their book release I Retweet them. It’s so important to help other writers, especially the ones published by small presses, as they don’t have the marketing budget of the Big Six.

I read on Twitter that its very helpful if we leave book reviews on Amazon and other sites. I have done a few. Favourable book reviews is a good way to promote books. And I am big on word of mouth publicity. If I have liked a book I recommend it to everyone I know (except stopping people on the roads and telling them about it).

I also make it a point to give books as gifts. It’s so important to help the publishing industry survive.

As I know for a certainty that you all help other writers, I will just ask you all, are there any other ways in which we can help writers?

17 comments:

  1. Support and advice are my preferred way of helping writers, but I also buy their books when I can.

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  2. You've covered most of it. I don't do a lot of reviews, if only because I am a very slow reader. I do buy my blogger buddies' books though. And spread the word.

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  3. Sounds like you're doing a great job helping writers. I do what I can to help on my blog too through sharing advice and the agent query critiques.

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  4. I like to try and leave supportive and encouraging comments on blogs. Sometimes, we need people to celebrate with us, other times we need people to commiserate.

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  5. Rachna, you're definitely a positive presence in other people's lives. I felt it strongly when you were a guest on my blog. Thank you.

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  6. I try to help other writers by featuring their guest posts on my blog and convincing more Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers members to guest post on the RMFW Blog. I do my best to post reviews to Goodreads and Amazon when I read a book I really like...but I admit I'm very far behind on that project (both the reading and the reviewing). And I buy books. I can't help it. I'm a hopeless book addict, so I try to help our local authors as well as my non-local favorites.

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  7. I agree with you wholeheartedly. The only other thing I can think of to do is to recommend specific books to people who write in a certain vein, whether that recommendation is from a small press, self-pubbed, or from a Big Five (Penguin and Random House have merged) publisher.

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  8. Reviews are always great. I try to do as many as possible, but I can never keep up with the writers I'm in contact with. They are a prolific group!

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  9. You've done a lot for writers. That's amazing. All of those things truly make a difference for writers. I do all I can as well. We all should. :)

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  10. You've hit the nail on the head here. The writing community is wonderful. I too, feel badly when I turn down an author's request to critique or review their book. But we do what we can, even if it is simply cheering them on in the journey. :)

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  11. All of those are great ideas. We can also request our local library carry the book and hand out bookmarks to friends.

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  12. Once again late duie a recent travel, but always good to read the pearls of wisdom here, Rachna!

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  14. I do my best to support other authors, and really, if we don't support each other, who will?

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  15. I believe in doing all of this. I've received amazing support from other writers and I like to think I support many through my tweets, posts, reviews, and books purchased.

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  16. B nice article on Blogging. Thanks for sharing.

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