Blogs and Other Resources

I tend to read a number of books and print magazines but it looks like I’ve been a bit slack in some recent online reading. Until the recent comment from Heather Ivester on an entry about the Writing Life, I had never heard of Debbie Weil.  She’s got some great resources if you are blogging. I’d encourage you to follow this link and sign up for her newsletter and also the free downloads.  I’ve been reading and learning from a number of these resources. The strange thing about this material is one place leads to another to another. Just watch out or it could consume your afternoon. I’ve had to monitor my own reading of this material—in moderation like other things.

Also today I updated my Amazon blog. If you have books, I hope you are using Amazon Connect as a way to reach out and touch your readers. It is certainly working for me. If you aren’t using Amazon Connect and you have books, then follow the link and sign up to begin the process. For example, when I updated my Amazon Blog, it instantly updated on over 20 different Amazon pages. It’s a great tool and the price is right—free.

Finally, the November issue of Faithful Reader is online. Normally I’ve been reviewing fiction but this month, I was assigned two nonfiction books: Praying For My Life by Marion Bond West and The Unusual Suspect by Stephen Baldwin with Mark Tabb.

This coming Wednesday, October 11th, I travel to the Glorieta Christian Writers Conference. I’m looking forward to teaching the continuing class on the nonfiction book (about six hours) which I’ve called Truth Is Stronger Than Fiction (based on the actual 2005 sales numbers for last year). We’ll see if I get to add some entries on the Writing Life—but if not, you will know what happened to me.

I’m eager to help people improve their book proposals and pitches to editors through this conference. If you are going to be there, let’s make sure we connect. It’s a busy but solid writers conference with lots of opportunity and choices.