When Life Throws You a Curve Ball

It’s crazy. Just when I have plotted out my life for the next umpteen months and settled back to work the plan, Life throws me a curve ball. It shouldn’t surprise me.

Enough seasons have passed through my earth-bound existence that I should know better than to think any long-term plan will play out exactly as I have envisioned it. It must be the optimist in me, for I keep planning.

Or maybe it’s my insanity. You know the old definition of lunacy: doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different outcome.

However, my recent roadblocks are just that–little obstacles. The unanticipated hiccups don’t really change my plans. My destination is still the same: write books. Now, I will have a few detours through unfamiliar neighborhoods. That can be a good thing, right? It adds color, dimensions, flavor to my collection of life experience.

I’ll stop rambling and be more concrete.

I make my living by farming. I make hay, cut wood, and grow vegetables for selling. This year I planned to add the sale of landscaping stone to my product line. Due to another hiccup in my life plan, my way of making a living was to be more important than ever in 2013. But. . . .

Karma has other plans. I have torn my rotator cuff. I am scheduled for surgery soon and will be convalescing for six months afterward. No farming this season. No farming means no income.

Thankfully, there is nothing wrong with my brain. So I have to ask myself, is the Universe clearing a path for me to write?

Stop Thieves from Stealing Your Content

Stop! Thief!

A reader sent me an e-mail with a link to a wonderful blog post with lots of information about stopping thieves from stealing your content.

Before I go any further, let me clarify something. If a blogger uses a selection — not wholesale copying of the entire work — from another blog AND attributes ownership to the rightful author AND is using the selection for educational purposes, it falls under Fair Use.  That’s the way I roll here — I tell you where the information comes from and tell you how it may help you as an author.

That said,  blogger “Between Naps on the Porch” (BNP) talks about nefarious sorts lifting multiple posts from BNP, stealing text and photos without any attribution, and re-blogging the entire content on a commercial site owned by the thief. BNP slowed the theft using several techniques:

• watermarking original photographs
• using plug-ins to attach messages that travel with content
• asking readers to report content theft
• including back-links to previous posts
• checking the site statistics
• hiring a programmer to write code to make it hard to steal things

and more. Go to the following BNP linked site to learn more about how to stop content thieves from stealing from you. It’s a long, detailed read that is worth your time.

http://betweennapsontheporch.net/stop-scrapers-from-stealing-your-content/

Quotation for 8-26-2012

People stay hired in today’s world of freelance for three reasons: because their work is good, because they’re easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three. Two out of three is fine.

–Neil Gaiman

 

A special thank you to Lightning Droplets for introducing me to Neil Gaiman through a video clip on her web site. The video is of a graduation speech of Gaiman’s and gives budding authors–and other artists–priceless advice. Find it at the link below (May 23, 2012 post):

http://lightningdroplets.wordpress.com/

The Back-up Dilemma

The Back up dilemma.

My galpal Subtlekate has a great reminder here for all writers. If you read her comments on the post, she also name drops a program that she says is easy to use.

I need to practice what I preach — and I confess I haven’t. But do you really want to lose 13 chapters of your current novel because you didn’t back-up your work? Or lose 100 poems you were gathering for publication? Or lose your daughter’s wedding photos? You get my drift.

Why An Author Should Blog

Bestselling Author Shares 3 Tips for Building Your Blog Audience.

The link above leads to a great read for the author who hasn’t yet started a blog. It explains how a blog can help you develop an audience for your work.

In my opinion, blogging does something else. It teaches you how to interact with your readers and let’s you practice and develop those skills.

As a closet introvert, it is work for me to “act” extroverted.  I like interacting with people. That is genuine. But it takes a toll on me, whereas the real extrovert gets energized by interaction. Give and take with readers is part of being a commercially successful author.

The work of the author continues long after the book has been written and published. The role includes marketing the book. That means public speaking, book signings, and promotion, promotion, promotion. Blogging can help prepare an author for the public relations aspect of writing.

Here’s a list of interesting statistics:

1. The average independently published author sells 45 copies per book title in a lifetime.
2. The average traditionally published author sells 4,500 copies per book title in a lifetime.
3. Nora Roberts sells 81 books per minute.

The explanation of the Roberts Success Formula, according to Fay, follows:

Nora Roberts writes and markets every business day from 9 to 5. She treats writing as her job, not her passion or avocation or hobby. She understands that successful selling is part of her role. Her results demonstrate that.

Successful writing is work. It is creation, re-writing, publication, marketing, and sales.

Whew. I am tired just thinking about it. Where’s my vitamin bottle? I am in training, and I’ve already got my running shoes on.

Do what you love?

Do what you love?. Great advice for those Working Joes, whatever their age.