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–Newsweek
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Growing in the Gray is a young adult coming of age story that takes you through the world from Krista Clark’s (the protagonist’s) point of view as she navigates a new city, starting college, and maybe being in love for the first time. All while simultaneously dealing with her anxiety, and her family going broke.
Author’s Website for more information: https://www.craftedbychristian.com
About author: Christian Sandra-Elise Cook is from the suburbs of Detroit. At age 16, she graduated high school and then attended Columbia College Chicago. Here, she obtained a BA in Public Relations, and discovered her depth as a woman and a writer by taking various creative writing courses and using the city of Chicago as her campus. After being accepted into a writing program in Paris she rediscovered her passion for her first true love; writing. Paris was also Christian’s first time traveling outside of the United States and it opened her eyes to new experiences, a slower pace, and it made her question life as she understood it. Always curious, Christian discusses life, faith, and all the unexpected occurrences in between.
Author’s Website for more information: https://www.craftedbychristian.com
About her new book to be released September 2022
and then also join us offline at Motown Writers Network meetup
Authors Bio | Book | Authors Website
This month Motown Writers Network Features Christian Cook author of Growing in the Gray
1) Tell us about your current work
Growing in the Gray is a young adult coming of age story that takes you through the world from Krista Clark’s (the protagonist’s) point of view as she navigates a new city, starting college, and maybe being in love for the first time. All while simultaneously dealing with her anxiety, and her family going broke.
2) Name three things you had to accept and come to terms with within yourself and your writing.
I can’t control how people perceive my writing, As a writer my job is to tell a story in it’s fullness, when people read my writing they will either exercise their critical thinking skills or laugh
3) Was it easy to use Michigan as a backdrop?
Yes, I try to go back at least 2-3 times a year to ensure any details I provide are authentic. I love having the opportunity to highlight a place that either people don’t know much about or have a huge misconception of.
4) What characteristics from your teenage years did you carry into your adult life? Did you mean
to hold on to these qualities or did it happen naturally?
I have always had hope and faith that I would be successful, my hope and faith encouraged me to have the discipline to refine my talents, and most importantly I never gave up. I’ll never forget that I learned that the word perseverance meant while attending Laurus Academy and I applied it to my everyday life from there.
5) What would you like readers to walk away learning from this literary piece?
I want readers to know that experimenting and trying new things adds spice to life. The world glorifies youth, and a reason I believe that happens is during those times you are trying new things, and excited about the future you can build. The world literally seems like it has so much to offer. Before you aged and got experience you were excited about something, I want anyone older who reads this novel to keep that part of their youth with them, and hopefully reading Growing in the Gray awakens that part of them!
6)Please give aspiring authors one piece of advice.
If you want to write, WRITE! Start off with just writing your thoughts and as you gain confidence in your skills don’t be afraid to market yourself on your skills. From there, expand your network!
7)Please tell readers where they can find your work
Growing in the Gray will be available for purchase on Sept 6th, 2022 on amazon.com
Authors Bio | Book | Authors Website
About author: Christian Sandra-Elise Cook is from the suburbs of Detroit. At age 16, she graduated high school and then attended Columbia College Chicago. Here, she obtained a BA in Public Relations, and discovered her depth as a woman and a writer by taking various creative writing courses and using the city of Chicago as her campus. After being accepted into a writing program in Paris she rediscovered her passion for her first true love; writing. Paris was also Christian’s first time traveling outside of the United States and it opened her eyes to new experiences, a slower pace, and it made her question life as she understood it. Always curious, Christian discusses life, faith, and all the unexpected occurrences in between.
Author’s Website for more information: https://www.craftedbychristian.com
About her new book to be released September 2022
Growing in the Gray is a young adult coming of age story that takes you through the world from Krista Clark’s (the protagonist’s) point of view as she navigates a new city, starting college, and maybe being in love for the first time. All while simultaneously dealing with her anxiety, and her family going broke.
Author’s Website for more information: https://www.craftedbychristian.com
and then also join us offline at Motown Writers Network meetup
Mid Michigan Gospel Fest is an annual festival that brings families and communities together for a wholesome experience great for kids and adults alike. Every year we work hard to bring great live music, rides, games, activities, ministries and vendors for the public to enjoy. This year we are even working on an Author Alley to help promote writers! It began in Potterville, MI and will be continuing in Charlotte, MI at the Eaton County Fairgrounds August 12th-14th 2022. This is a Christian based event in which our ultimate goal is to glorify God and share the message of love and redemption with all willing to hear it!
About author: Christian Sandra-Elise Cook is from the suburbs of Detroit. At age 16, she graduated high school and then attended Columbia College Chicago. Here, she obtained a BA in Public Relations, and discovered her depth as a woman and a writer by taking various creative writing courses and using the city of Chicago as her campus. After being accepted into a writing program in Paris she rediscovered her passion for her first true love; writing. Paris was also Christian’s first time traveling outside of the United States and it opened her eyes to new experiences, a slower pace, and it made her question life as she understood it. Always curious, Christian discusses life, faith, and all the unexpected occurrences in between.
Author’s Website for more information: https://www.craftedbychristian.com
About her new book to be released September 2022
Growing in the Gray is a young adult coming of age story that takes you through the world from Krista Clark’s (the protagonist’s) point of view as she navigates a new city, starting college, and maybe being in love for the first time. All while simultaneously dealing with her anxiety, and her family going broke.
Author’s Website for more information: https://www.craftedbychristian.com
Three books I would recommend to help you fight writers block and get you to start writing are as followed
Writing Prompts
https://amzn.to/3gV6RsE
Trope Thesaurus
https://amzn.to/3rXB9Rw
Conflict Thesaurus
https://amzn.to/3H3AYIO
I found these books to be great to help with boosting my creativity efforts when I hit brick walls in my story
I hope they can help you.
by Nate Hoffelder | posted in: Author Newsletters | 1
Welcome to the latest installment in my blog post series on newsletters. In previous blog posts we have discussed why you should have one, how to get started setting up a mailing list and newsletter, how to get people to sign up, how to get readers to unsubscribe, and what to put in your newsletter.
If you have been following along at home, you should now have a growing mailing list and should be sending out newsletters on a regular basis, and now is the times to raise the question of maintenance.
To put it another way, how and when should you delete email addresses from your mailing list?
This is a perennially hot topic in marketing circles, and there are as many different opinions as there are grains of sand on a beach. Some say you should run all the email addresses in your mailing list through a validation service, and remove any addresses that raise red flags. Other experts such as David Gaughran say you should cull any email addresses which don’t open your newsletters. And of course everyone agrees you should bring your mailing list in compliance with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
I am of the opinion that you should clean up your mailing list as rarely as possible. In fact, the only time I would recommend removing email addresses en masse from your mailing list is to keep from getting charged more by your mailing list provider (for example, some will charge you more per month if you have more than 1,000; 5,000; or 10,000 subscribers).
The thing is, I prefer to avoid culling my mailing list because I know that any time you cull the list, you will remove active readers by mistake. I’ve actually had readers say this to me after they stopped getting my newsletters, and I have also been culled by mistake. (One well-respected “expert” has cut me from his list twice even though I opened and read all of his newsletters.)
There are many different views on this topic, so I am going to use this post to give you both sides of each argument.
Mid Michigan Gospel Fest is an annual festival that brings families and communities together for a wholesome experience great for kids and adults alike. Every year we work hard to bring great live music, rides, games, activities, ministries and vendors for the public to enjoy. This year we are even working on an Author Alley to help promote writers! It began in Potterville, MI and will be continuing in Charlotte, MI at the Eaton County Fairgrounds August 12th-14th 2022. This is a Christian based event in which our ultimate goal is to glorify God and share the message of love and redemption with all willing to hear it!
Company Description: A marketing tool and community of authors that work together to find reviewers, build mailing lists, increase sales, and stay on top of deadlines
Looking for new readers? Trying to create reader magnets? Collaborate with authors, stay on your campaign creation goals?
and then also join us offline at Motown Writers Network meetup
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
Recently one of our regulars, RLM Cooper, posted a comment, to wit:
What I’d like to know is not how to avoid critics, but how to get your book noticed in the first place. My book has great reviews (all handful of them) but Amazon makes it nearly impossible to find even when you key in the exact title of it. Unless you know the author and the book title, you are toast. I’ve tried advertising (on a small scale – I’m a writer, not a billionaire). I’ve tried having someone “promote” my book by placing posts on their book promo site with “thousands of followers.” And each day, new books are published and mine sinks down a bit in the Amazon ratings….You all know how much work, sweat, time, tears, effort, love goes into your work. How do you cope when almost no one notices? … How do you keep going when nothing seems to help? … I’m becoming discouraged even with the great reviews my book has gotten. Is it worth it to keep on keeping on?
To which our own Steve Hooley offered foundational advice: “Don’t give up, RLM. Remember PERSEVERANCE. This is a topic worthy of a future discussion.”
In this edition of the Reedsy marketing newsletter, we’re going to take an even closer look at — you guessed it — writing conferences. More specifically: how to make the most of them when attending. If you’re wondering which conferences (if any!) you should consider attending in the first place, it means you didn’t read my last newsletter! If that’s the case, you can find it here. Note: Unfortunately, due to issues related to my passport and the unreliable Spanish post, I won’t actually be able to attend SPS Live in London. However, there is one conference I’ll be attending that I forgot to mention: the Stockholm Writers Festival. It could be an excellent option for those living in Central Europe. Check it out here. Tip #1: Plan which sections to attendAlmost all writing conferences will share an agenda with attendees at least a few weeks before. I always like to have an in-depth look at it, and circle any talks, panels, or round tables of particular interest — and even add them to my personal calendar. This way, I can then “relax” during the conference itself and focus on the sessions and networking without having to worry about what the next panel is about, or if I’m missing anything important. Some conferences have several “tracks” with different sessions running at the same time, which means that you might find yourself in a position where you can’t attend two really interesting ones that run at the same time. In cases like this, it’s always good to find a “conference buddy” to share sessions with — each taking notes and then relaying the important information to the other. Some conferences also record sessions live, so you can access the replays later for the ones you missed. Tip #2: Find your peersAs writers, we can spend a lot of time sitting alone in front of our computer, typewriter, notebook, or what have you. And while we tend to have our social media friends, groups, and gatherings, nothing beats meeting other writers in person — especially if they write in the same genre as you. But how do you find those peers and approach them in the first place? Most conferences will have genre- or topic-specific events as part of the official or non-official schedule. The 20Books conferences, for example, generally have genre dinners/lunches/meetups open to anyone writing in that genre. These are a great way to meet like-minded authors and make friends in your genre. If you’re not aware of any such meetups, you can create them! Conferences will usually have a Facebook group or other forums for attendees to chat in. So what you can do is post something a few weeks before the conference asking: “Are any other cat cozy authors coming? If so, I’d love to meet up!” Chances are, you’ll get a bunch of answers and be able to organize your own meetup. The earlier you set it up, the earlier you’ll find your peers and be able to enjoy the rest of the conference in good company. Tip #3: Make the most of the barWant another uber-simple tip to make new connections? Just hang out at the bar. That’s how I originally met most of the people I know from conferences — and that’s usually where I have the most insightful or productive conversations. Bars — or lobbies, or coffee shops, but mostly bars, really — are places where people go to relax during a conference. As such, it’s much easier to strike up a conversation there, mingle, and get to know other people. Let’s say you absolutely want to talk to a particular speaker. What most people will do is try to intercept them after their talk, which leads to massive lines trapping the speaker inside the room when their talk is finished. That’s probably one of the worst moments to talk to someone, as they’ll be exhausted from their workshop, and eager to leave the room. What they might very much be up for, however, is getting a drink (or a coffee). You can offer to get them one, or just politely ask whether they’ll be at the bar (or in the lobby) later, so you can chat with them in a more relaxed setting. Tip #4: Define your post-conference prioritiesOne of the best after-effects of a conference is that you generally feel inspired to take on the world. This is good, because you’ll have probably learned a ton of new things — and added tons of new ideas to your to-do list. That wave of inspiration won’t last forever, though, so you need to ride it hard to implement as many ideas as possible in the first few weeks immediately after the conference. For that, it’s important that you come back organized, with a clear list of priorities. For example, you might come back from a conference thinking that you need to make an audiobook, hire someone to take care of your ads, create a different reader magnet, and get started on TikTok. On top of, you know, writing the next book. Obviously, you can’t do all of that at once. If you try, you’ll likely end up making small progress on all of them, but not fully realizing any of them. And you’ll go back to the same conference next year with the exact same to-do list… Instead, you should take a step back and ask yourself: which of these is going to have the biggest, most immediate impact on my author business? Start with that, focus all your energy on it to get it done as soon as possible, and then move on to the others. Prioritizing your post-conference tasks is a simple mental exercise that doesn’t take long. It’s something you can do on the flight (or ride) back, or once you’re sitting back at your usual desk. That’s it for this week’s tips! Next week, I’ll start sharing some of the insights I gleaned from the last conference I could attend: 20Books Madrid. Until then, happy writing, and happy marketing!Ricardo Over 500,000 authors trust the professionals on Reedsy to edit, design, and market their books. Create your free account to meet them.Google Facebook |
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Why Your Brand Story is So Important Photo Credit: 123rf.comIssue #56: Branding We discuss “branding” a lot in this space. We’ve decided that your brand is NOT just your logo. Your logo is the visual representation of your brand, and that is important, but it’s not your brand. Your full brand tells the full story of your company. Yes, the story of your company. If you’ve been following me here, you probably know my story, and how my brand consistent even while my companies have changed and evolved over the years. Through all of my companies, I help clients to tell their own stories. My original tagline was: “It Matters How You Say It!” Your brand unites everything about your company: the name, the logo, the online and offline presence, and the products and services you offer. Your brand is what you present to the public and what you promise your prospects and clients. This is why your story needs to be authentic, engaging, and truthful. Your brand helps you to build trust with your clients and in turn for your clients to stay loyal to you. Think about the loyalty you have to the brands and companies you love. What is it about those brands that make you stick with them? Your brand story helps you relate to your prospects and clients. You’ve probably heard the maxim: People like to do business with people they like! That is especially important if you are a solopreneur. Your brand story helps you to design the image for your company and gives prospects a reason to choose your product or service over all the others available. Your brand and developing your brand’s story are the most important investments you can make in your business. Your brand is more than a design, a logo, or a tagline. Your brand is also what your clients and customers experience, what your promises are, and the story that you are able to tell. Your brand and your brand story make your company different and unique and set you and your business apart. We’ll discuss further how to develop your brand story, because if you don’t know your own brand story, no one else will either.  I teach Branding and Marketing Monthly Lessons for Independent Writers. The next monthly lesson, “Make a Marketing Plan for Your Book,” begins July 5, 2022. Click this link to find out more and enroll. I teach Branding and Marketing Monthly Lessons for Creative and Solo Professionals. The next monthly lesson, “Develop Your Brand Values,” begins July 5, 2022. Click this link to find out more and enroll .Join the conversation |
| Know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Share it with them. |
| Why Your Brand Story is So ImportantPhoto Credit: 123rf.com Issue #56: Branding We discuss “branding” a lot in this space. We’ve decided that your brand is NOT just your logo. Your logo is the visual representation of your brand, and that is important, but it’s not your brand. Your full brand tells the full story of your company. Yes, the story of your company. If you’ve been following me here, you probably know my story, and how my brand consistent even while my companies have changed and evolved over the years. Through all of my companies, I help clients to tell their own stories. My original tagline was: “It Matters How You Say It!” Your brand unites everything about your company: the name, the logo, the online and offline presence, and the products and services you offer. Your brand is what you present to the public and what you promise your prospects and clients. This is why your story needs to be authentic, engaging, and truthful. Your brand helps you to build trust with your clients and in turn for your clients to stay loyal to you. Think about the loyalty you have to the brands and companies you love. What is it about those brands that make you stick with them? Your brand story helps you relate to your prospects and clients. You’ve probably heard the maxim: People like to do business with people they like! That is especially important if you are a solopreneur. Your brand story helps you to design the image for your company and gives prospects a reason to choose your product or service over all the others available. Your brand and developing your brand’s story are the most important investments you can make in your business. Your brand is more than a design, a logo, or a tagline. Your brand is also what your clients and customers experience, what your promises are, and the story that you are able to tell. Your brand and your brand story make your company different and unique and set you and your business apart. We’ll discuss further how to develop your brand story, because if you don’t know your own brand story, no one else will either. I teach Branding and Marketing Monthly Lessons for Independent Writers. The next monthly lesson, “Make a Marketing Plan for Your Book,” begins July 5, 2022. Click this link to find out more and enroll. I teach Branding and Marketing Monthly Lessons for Creative and Solo Professionals. The next monthly lesson, “Develop Your Brand Values,” begins July 5, 2022. Click this link to find out more and enroll .Join the conversation |
| Know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Share it with them. |
| Why Your Brand Story is So ImportantPhoto Credit: 123rf.com Issue #56: Branding We discuss “branding” a lot in this space. We’ve decided that your brand is NOT just your logo. Your logo is the visual representation of your brand, and that is important, but it’s not your brand. Your full brand tells the full story of your company. Yes, the story of your company. If you’ve been following me here, you probably know my story, and how my brand consistent even while my companies have changed and evolved over the years. Through all of my companies, I help clients to tell their own stories. My original tagline was: “It Matters How You Say It!” Your brand unites everything about your company: the name, the logo, the online and offline presence, and the products and services you offer. Your brand is what you present to the public and what you promise your prospects and clients. This is why your story needs to be authentic, engaging, and truthful. Your brand helps you to build trust with your clients and in turn for your clients to stay loyal to you. Think about the loyalty you have to the brands and companies you love. What is it about those brands that make you stick with them? Your brand story helps you relate to your prospects and clients. You’ve probably heard the maxim: People like to do business with people they like! That is especially important if you are a solopreneur. Your brand story helps you to design the image for your company and gives prospects a reason to choose your product or service over all the others available. Your brand and developing your brand’s story are the most important investments you can make in your business. Your brand is more than a design, a logo, or a tagline. Your brand is also what your clients and customers experience, what your promises are, and the story that you are able to tell. Your brand and your brand story make your company different and unique and set you and your business apart. We’ll discuss further how to develop your brand story, because if you don’t know your own brand story, no one else will either. I teach Branding and Marketing Monthly Lessons for Independent Writers. The next monthly lesson, “Make a Marketing Plan for Your Book,” begins July 5, 2022. Click this link to find out more and enroll. I teach Branding and Marketing Monthly Lessons for Creative and Solo Professionals. The next monthly lesson, “Develop Your Brand Values,” begins July 5, 2022. Click this link to find out more and enroll .Join the conversation |
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Michigan Literary News & Events
Founder’s Posts & Notes Michigan Lit Radio Show (Listen Live (646) 915-9177) MichLiterary Monthly Events (Contact us to add yrs)
Agents, Editors and You: The Insider's Guide to Getting Your Book Published (Writers Market Library)
Alan M. Schlein: Find it Online: The Complete Guide to Online Research, Third Edition
Jack Neff: Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript (Writer's Market Library Series)
Kathy, Henderson: Market Guide for Young Writers: Where and How to Sell What You Write
Novel & Short Story Writer's Market 2007 (Novel and Short Story Writer's Market)
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Motown Writers Network . . . Michigan Literary Network 
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