New #michiganwriters join our #Motownwriters Facebook group #michlit | bring your literary challenges and success, announcements, news and network with members

Facebook.com/motownwriters

and then also join us offline at Motown Writers Network meetup

http://meetup.com/michiganliterarynetwork

#MotownWriters Author of the month: Christian Sandra-Elise Cook with her new book: Growing in the Gray! 📖💜👍 #bookrecommendation #authorinterview #newreads

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

New #michiganwriters join our #Motownwriters Facebook group #michlit | bring your literary challenges and success, announcements, news and network with members

Facebook.com/motownwriters

and then also join us offline at Motown Writers Network meetup

http://meetup.com/michiganliterarynetwork

Mid Michigan Gospel Fest – August 12th-14th 2022 – Call for vendors

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!

Download form & More Info

#MotownWriters #FridayFeature: Get to know New ✍🏾author: Christian Cook #bookrecommendation with her New release 📚: Growing in the Gray ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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

Fiction Writer’s Block Kit to help boost creativity and help you to get to writing

Three books I would recommend to help you fight writers block and get you to start writing are as followed

get the link for each book below

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.

Article: The Book Sheperd #motownwriters

https://t.co/vKfPy7ZZkU

Article: How and When to Clean Up Your Newsletter’s Subscriber List #motownwriters

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.

https://t.co/Vk7DdXin1u

Mid Michigan Gospel Fest – August 12th-14th 2022 – Call for vendors

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!

Download form & More Info

Have you tried Story Origin? Promotion tool to increase readership, create collaborations with other authors & content creation goals

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

https://storyoriginapp.com/

Looking for new readers? Trying to create reader magnets? Collaborate with authors, stay on your campaign creation goals?

Try @StoryOriginApp today

New #michiganwriters join our #Motownwriters Facebook group #michlit | bring your literary challenges and success, announcements, news and network with members

Facebook.com/motownwriters

and then also join us offline at Motown Writers Network meetup

http://meetup.com/michiganliterarynetwork

Article: How to Get Discovered When Nobody Knows Who The Heck You Are #motownwriters

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.”

https://t.co/t5N4RtKdwp

Why Your Brand Story is So Important

Why Your Brand Story is So Important Photo 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 Important Photo 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 Important Photo 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.

New #michiganwriters join our #Motownwriters Facebook group #michlit | bring your literary challenges and success, announcements, news and network with members

Facebook.com/motownwriters

and then also join us offline at Motown Writers Network meetup

http://meetup.com/michiganliterarynetwork

Mid Michigan Gospel Fest – August 12th-14th 2022 – Call for vendors

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!

Download form & More Info