Fay Thompson, Author/Artist

Got more stuff done for the event.

Next up is working on the articulated character. Mostly I want to add a background to the printed sheet and I need to do another colored one and scan and print that. So, nothing hard, just work.

#writingcommunity #booksky #promotional #marketing #freebies #swag

Do research on your town. Visit the historical society. Go to local museums. Ride your bike or walk around in neighborhoods to see what they feel, smell, taste like. Notice differences within a same city. Take photos of locations where you can personalize a story event.

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You want your reader to believe they have visited your town. Their belief in your setting grounds your human characters and makes them more believable. You are borrowing from reality to build your fake world. Get your details as right sounding as possible.

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Marketing opportunities start before you write your first words. A writer has the freedom to locate a novel anywhere. Often they pick somewhere over there - vagueville. Think about what a vague choice gives away. Being more concrete is useful and can pay dividends.

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Gossip can drive book sales.

Your local indie bookstores as well as small shops are more likely to carry local books. Some stores feature local. Simply keep these things in mind as you write. You like local sales and for your friends to support you.

#writingcommunity #booksky #novelwriting #local

You don't want to libel any person living or dead. Why borrow trouble.

The caveat is if you are writing a history or true crime type of book. Then be super careful to do good fact checking.

Portray your town and people with humor and a bit of chin. People gossip.

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Your town or city has a distinct personality and character. It has good aspects and not-so-good aspects. It has secrets. When you write about your own town you should lean in to this personality such that local readers look for hints that certain characters are themselves.

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Create a new location that is suggestive or in keeping with your town. You can think it once existed there, what it looked like and even a semi-plausible history for it. Your local people will know it is bogus but they should think it is fun.

#writingcommunity #booksky #location #novels

When I say to fake the specifics. If you have a location where a 'horror' occurs, it should be an entirely made-up location even if the rest of your location info is spot on accurate. You can base a shop on characteristics but not too close. Don't offend your town.

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When your story is set in your local town, you have choices to make. One of those is how you characterize your town. If you stay to positive or neutral, you are more likely to get general support from the town and its shops.

If you write horror, fake up the specifics.

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The art gallery where our writers group meets offered for us to hole book launch events inside the gallery. No space rental. Super good deal. My launch date for "The Bug Mage" will be early spring so I need to start working up a book party fairly soon.

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I have not yet sorted out the ipad and cricut machines. Remaining old school I did a bunch of stickers that I will hand cut for this weekend. Feel good about it. It's not too many and completes this particular project for the moment.

You have to create the opportunities for other people to see you, to read your writing, to discover they want more.

This is exposure.

Being ready for the moment is important.

You don't know when your opportunities for success will become visible for you.

#writingcommunity #booksky #opportunities

Motivation is personal. What works on you to push beyond your own obstacles may be different from me. There are way more 'reasons' to not do stuff than to do stuff.

Your novels need promotional support. This is thinking about and bringing into existence promotional materials.

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Temporary deadlines are events that motivate us to create something for ourselves. My event on Saturday is a temporary deadline. I welcome that deadline as it encourages me to focus and work on elevating my writing career in a direct way. Create faux deadlines.

#writingcommunity #booksky #markets

I am in the last week of prep for Saturday's market.

Mostly this is finishing up some small details. I know I may well sell zippo on Saturday as this is a first time market. I also know that all the materials I create then exist for other marketing opportunities.

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At my writing group yesterday the speaker used nearly all film references. They knew that more people would understand those references rather than book or novel references.

There are way more novels than films. There is way more diversity in novels than in films.

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Watching, such as television, contributes to uniformity. It is all pre-processed content that is selected for uniformity to the narrative the owner of that content wishes to support. You are the target of television or media. When you select your own readings, you exit narrative.

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Writing makes you better at writing.

Thinking makes you better at thinking.

Diversity of what you read, see, experience radically improves what you can write.

Uniformity is a contraction process that reduces success of thinking. Dare to push out of comfort.

#writingcommunity #booksky #diversity

Don't focus on the 'fairness' of having to invest in your own writing career. That path isn't helpful to you. Your reluctance to do the work isn't helpful to you either. Move to taking action because that IS helpful to you. Investing in yourself is a STRATEGY toward success.

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I encourage you to take two hours today to generate writing that can sell to support your budding fiction writing career. Either you invest directly from your day job, or you create the currency to invest on the side. You can also raise money if you are good at that.

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Look at your own interests. Where is the weird in your hobby or job?

As you write nonfiction you will also research and expand what you know. This will inform your fiction writing because everything you read goes into your fiction brain as your recipe.

#writingcommunity #booksky #contentwriting

You would be late to sell a Halloween article for publication this year but you can write and sell one for next year.

Perhaps you ask yourself about costumes and why they are so extremely popular. When kids grow up they continue to make costumes for conventions.

#writingcommunity #booksky #ideas

You don't need to be an expert on some subject to write an interesting article. You likely need to take an unusual angle to the subject. I recommend you wander off the beaten track or the narrative currently prevalent on any subject. Look at it sideways.

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People also love their hobbies and they like reading about their hobbies. Same premise. What do you know from the things you do everyday that you can talk about in a way that you can sell for $100 today?

You should be investing $100 in your novel marketing today.

#writingcommunity #booksky #ideas

A nonfiction writer takes what they know and converts it to cash by producing information about what they know.

Let's say you work for a bakery.

Write about bakery stuff. Everyone loves to eat and many people love to know baking secrets. Instant content ideas.

#writingcommunity #booksky #ideas

If you can write fiction, you can also write nonfiction.

People purchase nonfiction at a faster rate than fiction. They believe it has more immediate value in their lives.

Likely, your life has or is giving you insight into some mundane industry. You know things.

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For a new writer there remains good opportunities to write content for sale and to use those sales to support your fiction work.

What a writer has that ai doesn't have is human imagination and the ability to understand and interpret meaning. That's your in.

#writingcommunity #booksky #imagination

Today, big tech is attempting to take over the content writing as well as the fiction writing. However, current ai doesn't think, it regurgitates and although it is improving at producing real-sounding articles, it doesn't actually create new content.

#writingcommunity #booksky #contentcreators

If you are starting out today with no money to spend on your writing concerns then you are not alone. Many writers start out with nothing.

Writing is a type of currency.

The fastest access to writing as currency is through nonfiction content.

#writingcommunity #booksky #nonfiction #content