Looking back, I can remember when I first started this blog, back in 2010. I really had no idea what I was doing, or even what blogging was all about, but I knew I wanted to write andWriting to be Read offered a platform where someone might actually read what I wrote. Back then, I really struggled with what to write. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would care to read what I had to say.
Since then, I’ve learned a lot. Acquiring an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, along with my experience as The Southern Colorado Literature Examiner, gave me the knowledge, skills and confidence to imagine that I could create content that people would want to read. I write about what I know. My passion has always been writing, thus that is what I write about.
In 2016, I decided that there was no way that I could produce enough quality content to keep fresh content and keep readers visiting the blog, so I began recruiting other talent. My knowledge was limited to my own writing experience and I wanted to expand the scope of the content. With the help of others who knew more about areas which I wasn’t versed in, I was able to do this.
My first team member was Robin Conley, and her “Writing Memos” are still bringing viewers to the blog, although she is no longer an active team member. Next, Jeff Bowles was added to the team, with two segments. Although he no longer does his “God Complex” segment, you can find “Jeff’s Pep Talk” on the first Wednesday of every month, and “Jeff’s Movie Reviews” posts on the third Friday. Jeff is great at writing motivational posts and he writes killer movie reviews, so if you haven’t checked out his segments, I recommend that you do.
This year, Art Rosch joined the team with his “The Many Faces of Poetry” segments the last Wednesday of each month, and he recently began posting for “Art’s Visual Media Reviews” on the last Friday. Both segments cover subject matter Art was versed in and his reviews are both interesting and entertaining. Also, joining the team in 2019 are Jordan Elizabeth, with her “Writing for a Y.A. Audience” segment on the third Wednesday of each month, which explores Jordan’s inspirations and writing experiences, and Robbie Cheadle with her “Growing Bookworms”, which emphasize the importance of reading for children and explores children’s literature.
In 2018, I ran two twelve week segments of “Ask the Authors”, which was quite popular, where I interviewed an author panel on the various aspects of writing. Although it was fairly successful, it was also a lot of work, and it required a lot of time from each of the authors on the panel in order to respond to my questions with depth and knowledge. The compilation of those segments is currently in process for the Ask the Authors anthology, to be published by WordCrafter Press.
In 2019, we’ve seen a little more structure as I added monthly genre themes to focus on specific genres, and added my “Chatting with the Pros” segment in coincidence with those. We also saw the first “WordCrafter Paranormal Story Contest”, which will result in the publication of the Whispers of the Past paranormal anthology, also by WordCrafter Press. (Jeff Bowles was the winner of the contest for his short story, “A Peaceful Life I’ve Never Known”. He received a $25 Amazon gift card and his story will be featured in the anthology.)
Writing to be Read is growing, and recently had its 500th post. View numbers are up, as well as followers, and I attribute it to the quality content posted by both myself and my team members. Of those 500 posts, 100 of them were made by Writing to be Read team members and I want to take time now to acknowledge and thank them for the quality contributions that they each make to the blog. Writing to be Read is a labor of love and team members don’t receive compensation for the time and dedication they put into their segments, so they really do deserve kudos for the content they provide. To show my appreciation and bring them and the blog segments each one contributes, I’ve created a “Meet the Writing to be Read Team Members” page, and I hope all of you will check it out and learn more about those who provide such great content.
This new page comes along with other new changes as I prepare to launch WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. I’m happy to say that although some parts are still under construction, the website is now live. Write it Right Quality Editing Services, which used to be found here on this site, is now housed on the WordCrafter site, so if you are looking for it, you can now find it there. Other changes you may notice in the near future include the migration of my “Copywriting and P.A. Services” to the WordCrafter site, where it will become WordCrafter Social Media Copywriting and Book Promotions.
These are the most immediate changes which have taken place or are expected to before the end of the year on Writing to be Read. Closer to that time, I’ll be posting another update that will tell you what you can expect in 2020. Can you believe it? It’s just around the corner. So until then…
This is the time of year when I like to take a look back over the year to see what worked and what didn’t for Writing to be Read, but there are exciting changes coming as well. So let’s move forward in the logical order and talk about the old first. Let’s take a look at the past year on Writing to be Read. For me, there were several surprises and if you are following, they may surprise you, too.
I feel like we had a really great year in 2018, featuring two rounds of Ask the Authors, with two wonderful and diverse author panels sharing writing tips and advice in many aspects of writing with almost seven thousand views. Now that may not seem like a lot to some, but when you consider that it’s over three thousand more views than in 2017, that’s not too bad.
For those who don’t know Ask the Authors is a twelve week blog series, where an author panel responds to questions on the many aspects of writing. Panel members in the original series of Ask the Authors, which ran from February through April, included author and ghostwriter DeAnna Knippling, dark fantasy author Cynthia Vespia, Y.A. author Jordan Elizabeth, literary author Margareth Stewart, action novelist Tim Baker, action and speculative fiction author Chris DiBella, women’s fiction author Janet Garbor, multi-genre author Chris Barili, and Y.A. author Carol Riggs. Round 2 ran from October through mid- December with the first four authors from the previous list as returning panel members and seven new panel members, including multi-genre author Dan Alatorre, nonfiction author Mark Shaw, pulp fiction author Tom Johnson, thiller author Ashley Fontainne, romance author Amy Cecil, multi-genre author Art Rosch, and speculative fiction author R.A. Winter. I’d like to thank them all once again for taking time out to share with us here.
We also were blessed with three new Wednesday blog series with three new team members. The team member from the 2018 Wednesday line-up with the most views was Jeff Bowles with Jeff’s Pep Talk, but Jordan Elizabeth and Art Rosch brought in their fair share with Writing for a Y.A. Audience and the Many Faces of Poetry, respectively.
To my surprise, the team member with the mosts post views over 2018 was Robin Conley, who is currently not an active team member, but readers continue to seek out her writing advice in her writing Weekly and Monthly Writing Memos from 2017; the most popular was her Weekly Writing Memo: Word Choice is verything, which had the second most views of all blog posts this past year. Right up there with that is her review of Pride and Predjudice and Zombies, with over one hundred post views.
I was also surprised to learn the most viewed interview was tied between children’s author Nancy Oswald from the 2016 series Pros and Cons of Traditional vs. Independent vs. Self-Publishing and action novelist Tim Baker from the 2017 series Book Marketing; What Works. But those interviews were focused more towards information on publishing and marketing, respectively, so I don’t really count them in the same category as author interviews, because readers may view the series posts for different reasons than they would author interviews.
My author interviews provide a focus on the author, so in this category the most post views came from my interview in 2018 with screenwriter J.S. Mayank. My interview with author Alexandra Forry was next in line, and my interview with performance poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer recieved the third most post views.
In 2018, the top book review was Dan Alatorre’s dark fiction anthology, Dark Visions. Another surprise – the second and third most post views in the review category are both from 2016, with my review of Simplified Writing 101 by Erin Brown Conroy coming in second, and Wild West Ghosts by Mark Todd and Kym O’Connell Todd coming in third.
The other review that I feel is worthy of mention is my review of Mark Shaw’s new release, Denial of Justice. I did the review in December, so it hasn’t been available long enough to acrue a great number of views to rank in the yearly statistics, but it is a tale that deserves telling and Mark did a smash-up job of telling it. I’ve no doubt this book will be as popular or more so than the original tale, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much, because we all love mystery and intrigue, and the story of Dorothy Kilgallen is a true life tale filled with both. I am privilaged to have been allowed to review both of these books.
Along the lines of other content, again my 2016 post Why is Fact Better than Fiction recieved the most viewed, and surprisingly, a post from 2011, The Process Takes Time close on it’s heels, with my 2016 post, A Writer’s Life in No Bowl of Cherriesfollowing not far behind them. Not one of my top three posts was from this past year. My post from 2018 which recieved the most views was Join Me in My Protest Against Facebook, a rant I did about Facebook and their changing policies after I got blocked from posting in groups, including my own group, for a twenty-four hour period. I think this post was my cry in the dark from the frustration I felt as a busy author who promotes her own work and limited time. It makes me laugh to think it was my most popular post published last year.
Views outnumber visitors, so I’m thinking that the increased views of all the older posts comes from new viewers who popped in to read a newer post and decided to browse the site, which is great. If I gained some new followers due to this, I certainly won’t complain.
Overall, it was a great year and my following has steadily grown, as well as post likes and comments. I have to extend thanks to my readers, my followers, my team members and my guests on Writing to be Read for helping me make it happen. I couldn’t have made such strides without all of you.
2019 promises to be an even better year for both Writing to be Read and for me, and I’m excited to share my plans with you here. To start, this site will be getting a facelift: a new theme which will coincide with my new WordCrafter website and a new logo. The WordCrafter site will be the new home of Write it Right Editing Services and WordCrafter Copywriting, now housed here, as well as WordCrafter Press and WordCrafter Online Courses in the near future. Writing to be Read, although remaining here, will operate under the WordCrafter trademark. I was hoping to launch it tonight to start the New Year off right, but time constraints have not favored me. The launch of my WordCrafter and new image and logo for Writing to be Read will happen sometime in January. That’s the revised goal.
On Writing to be Read, look forward to some great new content beginning in January. To start the year off right I already have scheduled reviews for Freedom’s Mercy, by A.K. Lawrence and Fanya in the Underworld, by Jordan Elizabeth, and an interview with western author Loretta Miles Tollefson.
Let’s not forget the new addition to the Wednesday line-up. Starting in January, children’s author Robbie Cheadle will be joining us with her blog series, Growing Bookworms. You can learn more about Robbie and her exciting and creative new series in my introduction and welcome post last Monday.
I also have an exciting new monthly blog series planned for the third Monday of each month, called Chatting with the Pros. Starting in January, I will interview a successful professional author in a different genre, who will graciously allow me to pick their brains for tips and tidbits of writing wisdom from authors who are making it work. I can’t reveal the guest line-up yet, but it shows promise of holding some well known names. And I’m thinking about doing a writing contest, with entrants recieving an invitation for inclusion in an anthology and other cool prizes.
A third round of Ask the Authors is also in the making for this coming summer and I’m planning an Ask the Authors book to follow, which will include material from all three segments. I already have a cover for the book, created by D.L. Mullen of Sonoran Dawn Studios. I hope to have it out by the end of the year.
And of course, you’ll be able to get updates on my other works in progress: The Great Primordial Battle, book one of my science fantasy series, Playground for the Gods; The Homecoming, book two of my western series, Delilah; and my memoir about losing my son to teen suicide, His Name Was Michael. I hope you will all join me in the coming year.
With that, I’ll just say see you next year.
Until then, happy writing!
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We also were blessed with three new Wednesday blog series with three new team members. The team member from the 2018 Wednesday line-up with the most views was Jeff Bowles with Jeff’s Pep Talk, but Jordan Elizabeth and Art Rosch brought in their fair share with Writing for a Y.A. Audience and the Many Faces of Poetry, respectively.
2019 promises to be an even better year for both Writing to be Read and for me, and I’m excited to share my plans with you here. To start, this site will be getting a facelift: a new theme which will coincide with my new WordCrafter website and a new logo. The WordCrafter site will be the new home of Write it Right Editing Services and WordCrafter Copywriting, now housed here, as well as WordCrafter Press and WordCrafter Online Courses in the near future. Writing to be Read, although remaining here, will operate under the WordCrafter trademark. I was hoping to launch it tonight to start the New Year off right, but time constraints have not favored me. The launch of my WordCrafter and new image and logo for Writing to be Read will happen sometime in January. That’s the revised goal.
Let’s not forget the new addition to the Wednesday line-up. Starting in January, children’s author Robbie Cheadle will be joining us with her blog series, Growing Bookworms. You can learn more about Robbie and her exciting and creative new series in my introduction and welcome post last Monday.
Writing to be Read 