Category: Guest Posts

Using ExperienceProject.com

meGuest Post
by JT Sather

Greetings, my fellow indies. I’m one of the new kids on the chopping block. I’ve been a fan of IU for some time now, and I finally have something to contribute. There’s a social site on the web that is an amazing resource for exposure. I’ve been messing around with it for a little over a year, and trying to figure out how to use it to my advantage. (Yeah, I’m slow. I get it.)

These are my “tips and hints” on how to use experienceproject.com as a tool for authors and bloggers alike. I haven’t told many of you about this place yet for a reason. It can make you, or break your little heart rather quickly. Follow my guidelines, and you’ll go far. If you try to rush into selling your books or blogs, you’ll be shunned like a leper, and it’ll be over as quickly as it started. I’ve been working it for a long time now, and I’m finally, after careful planning and cunning, starting to gain book sales, and even reviews. This is a site on the web that has one of the largest gatherings of people I have ever seen. There is an endless amount of groups, and within each group you can find anywhere between a few hundred or a few hundred thousand people. I have been toying with this place since October of last year. I’m not the most online savvy guy you ever met, so yeah, it took me almost a year to finally start to make use of it. I’ll give you a step by step instruction on how to get started, but be warned, this is a place where if you’re not careful, you’ll be eaten alive and left for the crows. DO NOT start off spamming, or you’ll be cyber-killed in a minute. There is a low tolerance here for such. Read this before you start; Continue reading “Using ExperienceProject.com”

A Merchant of Moments

Author Ken La Salle
Author Ken La Salle

Guest Post
by Ken La Salle

As a writer, I have occasion to be caught by surprise by this thing called writing. Even after writing for most of my life, there are things about it that remain as fresh as the day I set down my first sentence.

This is the story about just such a thing.

Back in July of this year, I took a road trip with my wife across the American west. From California to Arizona to New Mexico to Colorado, we drove. From there, we headed north through Utah and Wyoming and Idaho into Washington. We ended the trip with a drive south along the coast.

This drive south reminded me of a woman I had recently interviewed for my podcast and I considered the landscapes I had recently witnessed and continued to enjoy as I pieced a story together in my head. I find driving is great for this kind of exercise. Even with my focus turned to the road, with music blasting on the radio, I can grab a minute here and there extracting puzzle pieces of a narrative from my brain until I have constructed a story I enjoy. Continue reading “A Merchant of Moments”

A New Gatekeeper Rising

Gate GuardsA guest post
by K.P. Ambroziak

When a new writer starts out, she must find a way to build an audience. It is a known fact that the best way to do this is for her to get others to talk about her work on their blogs, and for her to accumulate reviews on retail sites like Amazon. I will be the first to say that in the beginning of one’s writing career garnering reviews is a slow, yet rewarding process. One by one, a writer may reach out to potential reviewers and offer her words in exchange for theirs. Giving a free copy of a book to a reviewer for an honest review is undeniably worth it. Some of the greatest writing connections I have made have come from this process, both as a reviewer and a writer. Amateur (as in not getting paid for a review) reviewers are some of the most generous and supportive people in the indie writing community. They are the bee’s knees.

That being said, I am one lone reviewer out of millions. And I am one new author out of billions – maybe trillions at this point. Thanks to platforms like Smashwords and Amazon, indie authors can publish without going through the traditional channels. Many brilliant and worthy works of literature have been read because of this. However, there may be new gatekeepers rising. Continue reading “A New Gatekeeper Rising”

A Gift to Give: Writing Your Memoir

Guest Post
by Alastair Henry

Writing a memoir should be on every boomer’s bucket list

The most endearing and enduring legacy you can leave your family is you – your story. And anyone can do it. All it takes is time. You don’t need money. The form that your memoir takes can vary widely: from just a stack of notes, or in a story format if you, your child or grandchild want to convert your notes into a memoir, or even a simple digital recording of you reminiscing about your life.

Imagine how thrilling it would be if you could read, in their own words, what your great, great grandparents had to say about their life – the way the world was back in say 1860; how they lived: what they did, believed in, and what they hoped for the future. Conversely, imagine how meaningful it would be for your great, great, grandchildren to read your words a hundred years from now telling them about your life. Continue reading “A Gift to Give: Writing Your Memoir”