The Christmas Hideaways

Here at the Alley we're sharing our Christmas stories. I've chosen an extract from my novel, Black Pearl, set in the 70's in Australia, where Christmas falls in the summertime. 

For my young characters, Jed and Maya, Christmas highlights a growing tension between them. They're girlfriend and boyfriend who've run away together from their small town following an explosive incident in Maya's home. Maya is in hiding from her mother - both because she fears her, and because, unbenownst to Jed, Maya herself has something to hide.

Summer descended over Sydney. The humidity rose and the breezes quit. A fine sheen of sweat covered everything. The air shimmered with it. At work, Maya’s boss became even more irritable. Maya found herself lingering in the cold-room, engulfed by its Arctic chill for whole blissful minutes as she arranged and re-arranged produce on the shelves.

Christmas music played in the shops. Lights appeared, strung like embers along the iron-lace balconies of Dawson Street. Plastic reindeer swooped across rooftops, a glowing anomaly in the sultry, eucalypt-scented dark. Maya glimpsed Mrs McDonald through an upstairs window, spraying fake snow across the pane and pausing to wipe the sweat from her forehead with a hanky. Maya wondered if she recognized the irony.

At home, the arguments began.

Jed wanted to go home for Christmas. Maya refused. “There’s no way I’m going back there. You can, if you want.”

“And leave you here by yourself?”

“I don’t care. I’m not going back.”

Jed sulked for a few days, then came up with an alternative. “I’ll invite them here. Christmas in the city. They’d love it.”

Maya shook her head. “Not here.”

“Why on earth not?”

“You know why. We can’t give out our address. I don’t want anyone knowing where we are.”

“We’re talking about my parents.”

“Kirramundi is a small place, Jed. You think Mum won’t find out? I can’t run that risk.”

He didn’t understand; she could see that. He’d shaken his head when she rented a post-office box for their mail; humored her when she insisted they use that anonymous address for all of their paperwork. But this was too much.

“It’s my parents,” he repeated. “I’d trust them with my life.”

“It’s not your parents I’m worried about. You’ve met my mother. She knows how to manipulate. How to get what she wants out of people. She’ll make them feel sorry for her, have them thinking we’ve overreacted about everything, that we’re the ones at fault.”

“What are you so afraid of? That your Mum’s going to come marching in here and haul you back home? You’re legally an adult. She can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. She’d have to get past me first, anyway. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

For a moment she considered telling him the truth. Confessing to her theft – the little black lie that lay between them, tucked away inside her nightstand. But the thought of such vulnerability washed through her like cold water. What if she couldn’t make him understand? He might take the moral high ground with her. Lecture her about honesty and virtue. She remembered the story Bonnie had told her, the first time they met. How she’d stolen a record for Jed’s birthday and Jed had marched her straight back to the shop to return it. Bonnie, you need to ask yourself, what’s the right thing to do. 

How much was a record worth? $2.99? 

She felt herself shrinking beneath Jed’s scathing gaze. Life was so black and white to Jed. So straight-forward. He’d never had any reason not to trust. Her fingers went to the small white scar at her jaw. “I’m scared of her,” she said. A truth wrapped around a lie. “I feel safe here. I don’t want to lie awake at night wondering if she’s found out where we are. Please, Jed. Try to understand.”

Shirley cried down the phone when Jed told her. Maya could hear him comforting her. Forcing a note of cheer. “We’re broke students now, Mum. Uni starts soon and we won’t be able to work as much. Have to count those pennies, you know.” A short silence. “No, no, we’re fine. Really.” Another pause, and he caught Maya’s eye; managed a grin. “I doubt we'll manage anything up to your standards for the Christmas Day spread. I'm predicting rotisserie chicken and plum pudding from a can.”  

A delivery arrived at the post office the week before Christmas. A big, heavy box addressed from Kirramundi. Jed opened it and sat back on his heels.

“Well, now I feel like a real mongrel.”

The electric typewriter sported a glossy red bow and a card hand-signed by each of them: Mum, Dad and Bonnie. Jed set it up on the kitchen table and fed a sheet of paper into the machine. He struck a few experimental keys; ran his hands over the cartridge. 

For the rest of the day, Maya kept catching him touching that typewriter and shaking his head.

***

It's me again. I hope you enjoyed that extract and that it raised some questions for you! Us novelists like to tease, don't we?

I'd like to take this opportunity to say a temporary goodbye, and to thank you all for your conversation and support in 2014. I'm not leaving the Alley, but I'll be taking a step sideways next year. If you followed along with my series on How to Grow your Blog Platform, you'll know I've become quite passionate about marketing, and so I'm stepping into a new role at the Alley with some goals of things I'd like to improve, refine and tweak behind the scenes to help our blog grow even better and brighter than ever before. 

Because I won't be posting anymore for now, I'm destined to become the Invisible Cat. I'll still be here, so if you see any shiny new bells and whistles on the blog, think of me, and I hope I won't quickly be forgotten. :)

On that note... are there any ideas or suggestions you would like to share for how we can improve things at The Writer's Alley in 2015? Now's your chance to give some feedback - let me know in the comments!

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 150,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. 

Find her on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Pinterest.

How to Grow your Blog Platform: Supercharge your Stats

I still remember the first time I saw the numbers. It was an article entitled "How Big Should a Writer's Platform Be?" by agent and social media expert Amanda Luedeke. She wrote:

"The cold, hard truth is that solid author platforms come in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
If you have a website or blog, your monthly unique visitor count should be at least 30,000.
If you have a Twitter account, your followers should be pushing 5,000.
If you have a Facebook page, your followers should be pushing 5,000."

In his post, "7 ways agents measure social media", Thomas Umstattd ups the ante even further with the statement, "Agents and editors really want to see Facebook pages with 10,000+ fans." 

Wow. I remember looking up from my computer screen, equally intimidated and stirred with an odd kind of excitement. I had no social media following whatsoever at the time, but having those numbers in front of me felt strangely motivating.

Up until then, social media had been a mystery to me, something I had little interest in. But suddenly I felt a new clarity. Those numbers looked near impossible from my vantage point, but they were a goal. Something to shoot for. No more stumbling around blindly, frittering away time on social media and wondering in an abstract sort of way if an editor would give my paltry efforts the nod of approval.

Now I knew. I knew the actual stats that an editor or agent would find impressive in a proposal.

I also knew it must be possible, because those figures came from real people.

Today I'll be giving you a list of actionable tips you can use to supercharge your stats.


1. Incent people to follow you
One of the quickest ways I saw growth in my stats is by using Rafflecopter giveaways - you know the ones where you can get extra entries by following your host on Twitter, Facebook, etcetera? Well, they work. Supercharge your growth by partnering with other bloggers to run a giveaway. Not only are you able to offer a more enticing prize when you pool your resources, but the giveaway gets promoted across a series of other blogs, thus multiplying the total number of entrants and followers. Which leads me to my next point...

2. Partner up
Partnerships are the quickest way to grow. Partner with other bloggers to run link parties and blog hops. If you host a link party with a small group of other bloggers, whoever links up at the party is required to follow each of the hosts. It's a great way of cross-sharing your followers and gaining new ones. You could also agree to feature each other on your blogs, with links to follow on social media - it helps each of you to grow your numbers together.

3. Grow your Twitter following
The most organic way to grow your following is to consistently share great tweets that people retweet. This, however, can take a long time before you get anywhere. If you want to give yourself a starting boost, here's the method I used: follow a set number of people each week (I went for 100) and then use the app JustUnfollow to unfollow those who don't follow you back.

Why should you unfollow? Your ratio of how many people you follow to how many are following you says something to anyone checking out your profile. Like it or not, it gives them an impression of whether you're worth following. If you're following 600 people but only 180 follow you back, most people will assume there's a reason for that, and they'll pass you over too. Of course, there'll be some people you want to follow regardless of whether they return the favour, such as "big-name" authors, celebrities or anyone whose content you take a particular interest in. The app allows you to "whitelist" those people so they don't constantly show up on your non-followers list.

A great place to start is to find a blogger in your niche and then follow their followers. You can just work your way through their list. Although a percentage will never follow you back, many will, and if you're consistent you'll begin to see your numbers rise steadily over time.

3. Pinterest Power
Using Pinterest effectively is a whole blog series in itself. 90% of my blog traffic comes via Pinterest - its power as a traffic driver can't be overestimated. For today, I'll share my top tip: get yourself on some group boards, and start sharing your content on them. I have 3,000+ followers on Pinterest, which is respectable but nothing earth-shattering, but the combined following on all my group boards exceeds 500,000. That means even with my modest personal following, I can get my content in front of potentially half a million people each time I write a new post. Powerful, huh?

Try looking up the Pinterest profiles of some bloggers in your niche, and if they are on any group boards (distinguished by the little people icon in the top corner), click on the board and take a look at the header blurb. If they're accepting new contributors, they will usually have guidelines here on how you can apply to join - often it's as simple as leaving a comment on a pin or sending the board owner an email.

I hope these tips give you some practical ideas for increasing your follower numbers. I feel like I'm just skimming the surface of many of these, so any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.

This wraps up my series on How to Grow your Blog Platform. 

If you missed any of it, you can find the rest of the posts here:

How to Grow your Blog Platform
Essentials for your Success
Guerilla Facebook Marketing

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 150,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. Find her on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Pinterest.

How to Grow your Blog Platform: Essentials for your success

Note: This is Part Three in my series on growing your blog platform. You can catch up here on Part One: How to Grow Your blog platform and Part Two: Guerilla Facebook marketing tips.

You're setting up for a big concert, and your task is to erect the platform. You're impatient to get this show happening, so you get straight to work, stacking up bricks and building debris in random piles to create the supports. Some of your piles are lopsided, so you shore them up with a few old planks of wood you found lying around. A bit of gaff tape wound around the teetering supports, and your work is done. The skirt will cover all the ugly bits anyway, so who cares - right?

It seems ludicrous, doesn't it? And yet... when it comes to your blogging presence, have you ever been an impatient platform-builder? It's human nature to want the big pay-off for very little effort. We're too impatient to build a proper foundation, and then wonder why others seem to have more success than us.

Today, we're getting back to the basics of platform building. These are the essential tools you'll need to set your blog up for success and begin building a following.

Set your blog up for success

1. Create an opt-in incentive.
From day one, you should have a free product on offer when someone subscribes to your blog. Without an "email magnet" such as this, your blog is like a leaky boat - the traffic comes, and the traffic goes. Your product should be tailored to meet the felt need of your target demographic. It could be a resource list, a cheat sheet, a free printable, an e-book, a special report, or any number of other products. After a year of blogging, I'd amassed just 150 email subscribers. I offered a book to my followers and gained 1000 new subscribers in the space of three days. Incentives work!

2. Create a landing page.
This is the page on your blog that showcases your opt-in incentive. You can see mine here. You'll see why you need one soon.

3. Own your list.
Don't rely on Feedburner - your email list is your most valuable asset as a blogger, and you need to own it in case you ever need to migrate. Rumours have been floating around for a couple of years now that Google is going to shut down Feedburner altogether. I don't know about you, but I don't want my number one asset at the mercy of the capricious Google gods. I recommend Mailchimp, which is free until you reach 2000 subscribers. With this program you can set up an RSS feed to email campaign, so your blog posts will be delivered automatically to your followers. Once you have a solid list, your need to "hustle" in order to promote your blog will markedly decrease!

So you have the ground work in place... now how do you get the subscribers?

Get your name out there

1. Comment on blogs.
Find blogs that speak to your demographic and become a part of the community. When you comment regularly and contribute something valuable to the conversation, bloggers get to know who you are, and so do other readers. Quick tips:

• If the comment form includes a place to add your blog link, link back to your opt-in incentive landing page, rather than your home page.
• Create a system for commenting. You could bookmark a list of all the blogs you wish to hit in priority order, or try using a blog reader such as Bloglovin' or Feedly. Consistency is key.
• Comment on both big and small blogs. It could take a long time for a "big" blogger who gets lots of comments to notice your presence, but the traffic payoff could potentially be bigger. It's also worthwhile to connect with smaller bloggers and those at around your level. They'll appreciate the comments, and networking can lead to genuine friendships as well as opportunities to help each other grow.

2. Post in subject-specific forums.
I started out frequenting the online forum of a popular blog, and to this day have followers who "found" me there and still loyally read my blog. Once again, the golden rule is to contribute something worthwhile, and don't be a "me monster." Take the time to interact with and promote others, too.

3. Guest post.
It's the number one way to increase your exposure online. You're essentially leveraging your online presence by tapping into someone else's hard-earned audience. Find blogs that target your ideal demographic, and become an active commenter first. Once you've established yourself as a community member of substance, write a killer query offering to guest post on a topic of value, and follow through with a post that delivers the goods. Lastly, in the bio of your published piece, you guessed it - link back to your landing page.

4. Become a contributor.
The longer you network in blogging communities, the more opportunities will come across your path. Bloggers will sometimes put out an open call for new contributors (that's how I landed my first contributor spot for my DIY blog), or you could try pitching yourself as a possible contributor to a blog you've regularly interacted with or guest-posted for in the past.

5. Join up with linky parties.
I have a bookmarked folder of link parties for every day of the week. If I publish a post on a Monday, I jump into Monday's folder and link up at all the parties that go live that day. Link parties are a big thing for DIY and home bloggers such as myself, and can lead to special features and lots of click-back traffic. Whatever field you write in, there are likely linky parties relevant to you. If you can't find any, why not join forces with a group of like-minded bloggers and start your own? InLinkz is a great tool for this.


The task of building your blog platform can sometimes feel like filling a swimming pool with a drinking cup. For the longest time, it's going to seem like you're not getting anywhere at all. Just keep at it. Those drops of water all add up, as long as you stick to your strategy and don't give up.

Let's chat: Which of these ideas do you already use? How do you think you could you do them better? Are any of these strategies new to you?

Find the rest of the series here:

How to Grow your Blog Platform
Guerilla Facebook Marketing
Supercharge your Stats

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 150,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. Find her on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Pinterest.

How to Grow your Blog Platform: Guerrilla Facebook marketing

I kicked off this series by sharing the story of how I started my personal blog from scratch one year ago and have since grown it to 150,000 page views a month. In my previous post, I shared some key fundamentals that you will need to put in place FIRST, before you do anything else:

• Identify your readership
• Invest time to study blogging
• Create shareable content

Those things are huge and can't be overstated. Why? Because:

• Until you know who you are writing for, your efforts will lack focus and clarity. 
• Until you're willing to invest time into studying a new area, you can't expect the same results as people who've put in the hard yards. It takes four years of study to get a university degree, and years of practice to master an instrument, but most people seem to think they can succeed at blogging without any applied learning whatsoever. The truth is, you can't expect a return in any area of life without an investment. And believe me - there is a LOT to learn. 
• Until you are consistently creating WOW content with a clear takeaway for the reader, your marketing efforts will fall flat. I've heard it said that good marketing only makes a bad product fail faster. Quality content is the cornerstone of everything else you do.

Need to get caught up on those points? You can read the first post here.

For the rest of this blogging series, I'll be focussing on the fourth point: 

Become your own best marketer.

You'll need to start by setting up social media accounts and linking them to your blog. If you're not promoting your blog for free on social media, you need to be. You should have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Pinterest account, and a Google+ account. There are others, but these are the ones I consider essential to your success.

Each of these areas is a whole study in itself, so I'm going to break it down for you step by step.

Keep this in mind: in the early days, you're going to have to hustle. You'll spend a lot of time working strategically to grow your following and promote your posts to that following. This is what I think of as Phase One of blogging: the guerrilla tactics that anyone can use, if you have the patience and determination to apply them. It's a hard slog, and there are no quick pay-offs here. You have to do your time to see the results. 

Let's start by talking about Facebook.

So you have a brand new page to promote your blog. How do you get people to "like" it so they see what you post?

1. Put out the welcome mat.

Create an inviting cover banner that echoes the theme of your blog, and a bio that clearly states what the page is about. Get a couple of quality posts up there so people know what to expect from your page.

2. Invite your friends. Sounds obvious, but some people skip this step because they're too shy to ask. People get a LOT of requests to "like" a new page now, so also consider sending a personal message to all your friends explaining what you're doing and asking for their support.

3. Have a Facebook posting schedule, and stick to it. You need to consistently share quality content to grow your following - the sort of content that people "like", comment on, and share.

4. Join groups. 
To find groups in your interest area, type a descriptor into the search bar at the top of your personal Facebook profile. In the example below, I typed "Writers". A list will pop up. Click down the bottom where it says "See more results for 'Writers'".

When the next page pops up, select "Groups". From here, you can scroll through to find any groups marked as "Public", and if they seem relevant, you can join them. Ensure you read the guidelines carefully and adhere to them. If it's okay to share your blog posts, make sure you also take the time to "Like" and comment on others' posts as well. 

Some groups are also okay with you pasting your page URL into a status update, which will cause a "Like box" to pop up in the stream. If the group is relevant to what you're posting about, this is a great way to get some more likes for your page. 

5. Link prominently to your Facebook page from your blog. Display your social media icons at the top of your sidebar and at the bottom of every post. Install a Facebook "like" box widget in your sidebar so a casual visitor can easily like your page without leaving your site. Consider installing a Facebook like box pop-up to maximise conversions.

Increase your reach

Facebook has a complex algorithm that it uses to filter the content in your news feed. With all the friends you have and all the hundreds of pages you've liked, statistics indicate there are about 1500 status updates vying for a place in your news feed at any one time. No one has time to read that far, so in the interests of supplying the content users are most interested in, Facebook gives greater reach to pages that you have previously liked or commented on, and restricts the reach of those you don't interact with - because they are considered less relevant to you.

What does this mean for you? You could get frustrated that Facebook is cramping your reach so significantly. (Believe me, I have been there!) Or, you can work smarter to conquer that algorithm.

Some steps:

1.  Encourage interaction. 
Likes and comments on your post will significantly increase your reach. Ask questions and make sure you respond to anyone who comments. Let your friends know how helpful it is when they comment on your post - many times, they just don't know. Often the most basic rule of marketing is to simply ask for the result you want.

2. Tag your friends in your post. This massively increases your post's visibility, as it will then show up in your friends' feed as well. Of course, don't be obnoxious about it - only tag people if they've previously indicated an interest in a particular subject, or it's something you're genuinely excited to share with certain friends, or if you've asked their permission in advance. Many of the biggest Facebook pages such as Ann Voskamp (author of "One thousand gifts"; 215,000+ page likes) have a circle of friends who she tags by turn in almost all her posts. She most likely asked those friends if they'd be willing to help her out in this manner.

It's not as simple tagging people from a Facebook page as it is on your personal profile, so if you're not sure how to do it, here's the steps:

Go to Settings -> Post attribution. Here, select "Post as yourself" instead of your page name. You're now in your personal profile mode and so have access to your friends' list. Go to the post -> Click on the image you shared to enlarge it -> Select "Tag Photo" -> Click on the image and type a friend's name to tag them.

3. Pay for Facebook ads

I won't go into this in detail, because it's not something I've personally used yet. My preference so far has been to grow my page organically, but I do plan to experiment with paid ads at some point. The biggest benefit of ads is that you can hone your target audience very accurately, in order to reach your ideal demographic. For instance, you can choose to target your ads toward people who've already liked a page similar to yours.

If you want in-depth training on this method, I'd recommend Amy Porterfield. I've done a couple of her webinars and found them detailed and helpful.

4. Network in blogging communities
As you get to know other bloggers and really work to develop relationships with them, chances are more opportunities to network will present themselves. You'll find all sorts of helpful blogging groups on Facebook - re-pinning groups, post sharing groups, round-up groups and more, all designed for bloggers to help each other grow. Many are private and you will only be able to find out about them if someone invites you. The more you put yourself out there and focus on developing relationships, the more opportunities will come your way.

If an opportunity doesn't present itself, why not start your own Facebook group? Gather a bunch of like-minded bloggers and start a daily thread where you all share a recent post. Then you can each comment on each others' posts and share them on social media.

That's it for today for your Guerrilla Facebook marketing tactics. 

I hope you've learned something new and helpful. Stay tuned - I have heaps more actionable tips to come in the weeks ahead.

Find the rest of the series here:
How to Grow your Blog Platform
Essentials for your Success
Supercharge your Stats

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 150,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. Find her on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Pinterest.

How to Grow your Blog Platform

One year ago, I had no platform whatsoever. No blog, no social media following, nothing.

Tonight, I sat down to check the stats on my personal blog, A house full of sunshine, which is just shy of its one-year anniversary. The page-views are hitting 150,000 a month. I have 1500 subscribers, and 7000 followers on social media.

I'm not yet a published author (apart from a sparse handful of short stories.) I have no previous marketing experience.  I'm not a speaker or a columnist or a public personality.

I'm a stay-home Mum. I'm no more brilliant or talented than anyone else out there with an internet connection and a heartbeat.

So how the heck did this happen?

The answer is that very few things in life just happen. This is no exception.

I truly believe that success is something that can be taught, and it can be learned. I may not be the best out there in my field, but I do love to learn from people who are far better than I will ever be. And believe me, there are a lot of them. So please understand, when I share my success - it's not to brag. The grace of God has played a major role in getting me this far. And I'm no blogging or marketing genius, trust me... I'm just a good learner. 

The thing is, I'm pretty sure you are, too.

The writer's platform
"If you want to be a writer, you need a platform."

You've heard the line a thousand times.

We all know how important it is. We're told repeatedly how much harder it's becoming to land a book deal without a platform. Even if we do snag that contract, a lacklustre sales record could well ensure we don't get the same chance again. The author is in charge of her/ his own marketing like never before. The conventional advice? Get active on social media, and start a blog.

Up until a year ago, I resisted blogging. I'd seen too many authors jump onto the blog bandwagon, and pour hours into writing posts that would only be read by their mother and a handful of loyal friends. With three small kids at home, I didn't have time to blog. More specifically... I didn't have time to write a blog that would not be read. Time is our most valuable commodity, and if I was investing it, there had to be a ROI.

Also, I didn't have a clue what to blog about. I'm a novelist, for goodness' sake. I'm also a stay-home Mum, and the deepest thought in my head most days is how I'll manage to cook dinner, help with homework and distract a toddler from a tantrum simultaneously. What on earth could I talk about on a regular basis that strangers would actually want to read?

Fast-forward one year, and I have a thriving blog which continues to grow daily. The investment has been a massive amount of time, energy and late nights... but I'm seeing a return on that investment.

So, how did I get from Blog Zero to that sort of result in under a year?

Find the recipe on A house full of sunshine

1. Identify your readership, and write for them
How many writers do you know who blog about... writing? Writing blogs are wonderful (hello, Writer's Alley - how we love you!) but they reach a very defined niche: other writers.

What are you doing to reach your readers?

The turning point for me was when I took the time to identify my readership. I write inspirational women's fiction, so my readership is women... in particular, Christian women.

The question for me became, what do these women want? And what do I have to offer them?

See, your sweet spot as a blogger is the place where your interests and passions intersect with the felt needs of your reader. (Click to tweet this)

I'm an interior decorator, and before I had kids, I taught Creative Arts for elementary and high-school. You could say that creativity is my passion. I decided to blog about those interest areas. Decorating/ DIY/ kids is a thriving blogging sector. And it's an audience right in line with my target demographic.

Is that to say you need to start a DIY blog to see any sort of success? Absolutely not. If you blog about something you have no passion for, your lack of enthusiasm will show, and others won't get excited about it either. Besides, passion is the fuel that will keep you going through those lonely first months where you're seeing no progress and you feel like you're talking to yourself. (And believe me, I have been there.)

The good news is, whatever your passion, there is an audience out there who wants to read what you have to say. You just need to learn how to reach them.

See the tutorial on A house full of sunshine

2. Learn, learn, learn
Once I decided to start a blog, I committed myself to its success. I didn't want to waste my time on anything less. I became a sponge, absorbing as much information as I could from a range of sources. I read e-books on blogging, attended webinars, listened to podcasts, and subscribed to marketing blogs.

Here are some sources I've found helpful:

Platform by Michael Hyatt
How to Blog for Profit without Selling your Soul by Ruth Soukamp
Building a Framework by Abby Lawson


3. Create shareable content
The most widespread mistake I see people make with blogging is to treat it as an online journal of random thoughts and ramblings. If you're writing for yourself and your family, wonderful. But if you want to see growth, you have to broaden your perspective.

Ask yourself - why should someone share this post? What is the takeaway for the reader?

Until you learn how to create viral content - content that demands to be shared - you'll never break into the next level of blogging. And to do that, you have to meet a felt need of your reader, whether it be for entertainment, instruction, a new idea, inspiration, or something else altogether.

4. Become your own best marketer
Sid Kemp of Firepole Marketing suggests that at least 60% of your time in any creative industry should be spent marketing. I have certainly found this to be true of my blogging experience.

I know the whole idea of marketing rubs some people up the wrong way. It feels uncomfortable, even

See the project on A house full of sunshine

wrong. We're taught from childhood to be modest and not toot our own horn, so it's counterintuitive to us to self-promote.

I can honestly say now that I love marketing. I've developed a passion for it. And yet, it wasn't always that way. An example? I went for my first job at age 15. The store owner asked if I was good at maths. I was top of my class at the time, actually, but I'd been raised to never boast about my accomplishments, and I was sure it would sound like bragging if I mentioned it. So I ducked my head shyly and mumbled, "Ah, well. Not really..."

Needless to say, I didn't get the job, but I did learn a valuable lesson. The store owner needed to know that information, and I didn't give it to her. That was false modesty.

In the same way, there is an audience out there who wants and needs to connect with your words, and often, you are the biggest obstacle to that connection - because you are hiding behind a false idea of what modesty really is.

Hear this: your job is not to promote yourself. It's to find your audience. (Click to Tweet this)

Your job is to connect with the people who want to hear what you have to say. They're out there - you just need to put in the effort to find them. And unless you have a marketing department behind you, let's be absolutely clear - this job falls to you.

The thing that truly excites me? It's easier to make those connections than ever before in history. We live in a world where anyone with an internet connection and a bit of gumption can create a truly influential blog platform from absolutely nothing.

I'm living proof of that.

Want to learn more? I'm kicking off a series for the next few weeks on How to Grow your Blogging Platform. Follow along every second Wednesday for some concrete tips and strategies I've used to grow my blog from zero to 150K page-views a month.

Let's chat: Do you blog? Why or why not? How do you feel about marketing?

Find the rest of the series here:

Essentials for your Success
Guerilla Facebook Marketing
Supercharge your Stats

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 150,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. Find her on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Pinterest.

A conference prayer

It’s here! ACFW conference 2014 begins tomorrow! Follow The Writers Alley on Facebook to see updates from our Alleycats at conference!

So many hopes and expectations converge over these next few days. Let’s pray that God will be at the center of it all.

For those who are travelling… Lord, keep them safe. We ask for itineraries to run smoothly, for timely flight connections, for safety on the road, for time to reflect and relax and mentally prepare.

For those who are anxious… Lord, give them peace. In all the hurry and busyness, let them turn their minds to you and find a place of calm. Take away all anxiety and worry, pressure and expectation, and fear of the unknown. Replace these things with your perfect peace. May they rest in you.

For those attending conference for the first time… Lord, may they have the time of their lives. We pray for new friendships to be formed, for eyes and ears wide open to soak everything in, for hearts willing to learn and the confidence to go after their dreams.

For those who’ve been before… We thank you for friends old and new, for fun and laughter, for morning coffee-runs and conversations that last late into the night. We ask for eyes to see those who are lonely or in need of encouragement, and the generosity of spirit to reach out beyond themselves and help someone else along the way.

For writers who are feeling burnt out… Lord, give them fresh inspiration. Fresh ideas. Fresh joy in the craft and a renewed passion for their calling. You know those who need a little extra something this year. Those who’ve pursued their dreams for so long they’ve grown tired and discouraged along the way. Please bless them with a song in Praise and Worship, a light-bulb moment in a workshop, a word of encouragement from a respected mentor, the divine connection they so desperately need, the open door they’ve been longing for.

For writers who are pitching… Lord, please gift them with peace and clarity. Help them articulate the essence of their story with passion and heart. Give them the confidence to believe in their ideas and the grace to understand that not every editor or agent will be a perfect fit for them. We pray for a spirit of calm over the appointment tables, for great conversations between writers and industry professionals, for writers to leave their appointments feeling satisfied that they represented themselves well.

For the editors and agents… This is such a busy time for them. Amid the clamor of voices, pitches and ideas, please give them the discernment to recognize the people and projects that would be a great fit for them. Keep them sharp and alert to what your Spirit is saying. Give them the ability to filter through distraction – a noisy lunch table, an imperfect pitch from a nervous writer – and catch the heart of each idea that is offered. May they consider each project with open-mindedness, honesty and grace. When they are tired, please refresh their spirits. We pray for blessed times with colleagues, valuable professional connections, and exciting new projects to acquire.

For those who can’t go to conference… Lord, help us to trust in your good plans for our writing journey. Renew our spirits. As we hear good news and exciting stories filtering back from our writer friends at conference, may we rejoice with them whole-heartedly. We thank you for how far you’ve brought us and give you praise that the best is yet to come.

Amen.

How can we pray for you this week? Please share your prayer requests in the comments section so we can lift each other up in faith!

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 50,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. Find her on Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.

Creating story flow: the secret power of cause and effect

I call the law of cause and effect a “secret power” because many writers have never stopped to think about it.

But I guarantee that each time you pick up a book, your reading experience is dramatically influenced by this one natural law.

We’ve all read books where the writing doesn’t seem to flow. Often you can’t put your finger on why. All you know is, the writing feels choppy, the phrasing awkward. You struggle to maintain your focus. Your mind continually wanders away from the page.

When you pick up a different book, however, the author engages your attention from the first page. The words flow so naturally and smoothly that you cease to think about the author’s voice at all. The story becomes an unstoppable current and you let yourself be swept along for the ride, fully immersed in the fictional world.

As authors, we all desire this second experience for our readers. And so we study diligently about how to hook our readers from the first line, how to escalate conflict, how to deepen characterization.

All of which are good, and immensely important.

But the whole shebang falls apart – and the reader will be wrenched from your storyworld without even knowing why – if you ignore the law of cause and effect.

You may have heard this concept discussed in different terms. Dwight Swain, in his classic craft book “Techniques of the Selling Writer”, coined the term “Motivation Reaction Units”, or MRU’s.

We’re both talking about the same thing. And the concept is simpler than you might think.

In short, cause must always precede effect.

Every event in your story must be caused by the motivation or action that preceded it.

If that statement made you knot your forehead and chew your nails, take a look at some examples with me, and you’ll quickly see how simple and essential this concept really is.

Example One

Kate hit the door lock and slumped down in the passenger seat, her heart thumping in her chest. She was sure she’d seen a black-masked face in the shadows of the parking lot.

Okay. Hold it right there, and let’s have a think about what goes through a reader’s mind as they read this sequence. First, we see the character doing something – hitting the door lock and slumping down in the seat. (Effect). As a reader, we pause for a split second to wonder – why on earth is she doing that? The result is that we’re pulled from the story, however briefly. In the next breath, the author answers our question. (Cause). But it’s too late – the flow has already been interrupted.

All of this occurs on a subconscious level, but it’s enough to disengage the reader.

Do this enough times and you’ll destroy narrative flow, and the reader will find it harder and harder to re-engage with the story.

Let’s try that segment again, this time paying attention to the secret power of cause and effect.

Something moved in the shadows at the edge of the parking lot. Kate squinted through the windshield, and the darkness resolved into a solid form.

A black-masked face.

Kate hit the door lock and slumped down in the passenger seat, her heart thumping in her chest.

Cause? Kate saw the face. Effect? An instant physical and physiological reaction.

Structuring the sentences so cause precedes effect creates a natural, logical flow. An astute observer will note that in this improved version, the writer shows what happens as it occurs. When cause and effect become muddled, as in the first example, the writer is reduced to telling – giving an after-the-fact explanation for an effect that has already taken place.

Example Two

Brenda jumped from the edge of the roof after taking one last look at the open-mouthed stares of the people beneath.

Instead of building to a climax and ending on a strong note, this sentence fizzles. Why? Because it’s written in reverse chronological order. The strength of the action (“She jumped from the edge of the roof”) is diminished by the author’s immediate backtracking to what happened a split-second before the action. A story should flow continuously forward, never backward.

The sentence should read:

Brenda took one last look at the open-mouthed stares of the people beneath. Then she jumped.

Continuous forward motion creates momentum. That’s what you want. The momentum for a reader to keep flipping the pages. When an author unconsciously uses reversals like this one, the effect is like repeatedly tapping the brakes. It makes for a jerky ride. Enough of that, and the reader is going to bail out of the vehicle.

An exception

Of course, there’s always an exception to the rule. In this case, your opening hook is that exception. It’s fine to launch a book, chapter or scene with an event (effect) for which we’ve not yet been given a cause. This creates curiosity in the reader. The term for this literary device is in medias res, or “in the middle of the action.”

When you do this in the middle of a scene, on the other hand, your writing seems clumsy, and the natural flow of your book is interrupted.

Let’s talk nuts and bolts. Have you ever considered cause and effect in your own writing? Do you have any further questions in order to clarify what’s been discussed here? Why not take a look at your rough draft and see if you can find some instances where you’ve muddled cause and effect? Feel free to throw in a sentence or two for us to critique together.

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 50,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. Find her on Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.

How your personality type affects your writing

Image by Mr Lightman, freedigitalphotos.net

Before we got married, my hubby and I did a relationship course written by Gary Smalley, in which we learned about the four different personality types. A lot has been written about the four basic temperaments, but of all the explanations I’ve heard, Smalley’s is the clearest.

He compares the four personality types to animals: the lion, otter, golden retriever and beaver.

The lion is a natural leader: bold, confident and assertive.

The otter is the socialite: playful and optimistic.

The golden retriever is a loyal companion: calm and gentle-natured.

The beaver is the details-person: organized and analytical.

For us as a young couple, this knowledge was an eye-opener, and something we’ve carried with us for over a decade of marriage. I learned that I’m a golden retriever/ beaver, while my husband is a lion/ otter. What do they say about how opposites attract?

Each personality type has its particular set of strengths and weaknesses, and knowing these has helped us better understand and appreciate each other, instead of rubbing each other up the wrong way.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how else my personality type influences my behaviour – in particular my writing.

It’s become obvious to me that each temperament has strengths that will benefit our writing, and weaknesses that will make our journey more difficult.

Each person usually has one or two dominant temperaments. Reading over what I’ve just shared, you may instantly recognise yourself in some of these descriptors. If, however, you’re still unsure of where you fit, you can take a quick personality test here (you’ll need to scroll to the bottom of the page). We’ll wait until you get back. 

Got it figured out? Good. That’s the first step. Knowledge is power. If you’re better aware of your writing strengths and weaknesses, and understand that they flow from the core of who you are as a person, you’ll be able to stop fighting them and start working with them.

That means maximizing your strengths and developing strategies  - in line with how you think, what makes you tick - to compensate for, or overcome, your weaknesses. Remember, no one personality type is “better” than another. They’re just different.

Let’s take a look at how this works for each personality type.

Image by John Barker, freedigitalphotos.net

Lion

Writing strengths:

Lions are confident and determined. They love a good challenge, are goal-oriented, and have a “just do it” mentality. While a dozen other writers are still nervously plotting, talking about writing, writing about writing, and doing everything BUT write, Lions have already finished their first book and are onto the second.

Writing weaknesses:

Lions have an arrogant streak, which means they can be unwilling to accept feedback. Their boredom with details can be a hindrance when it comes to painstaking work such as research or line editing.

Self-help strategies:

• Focus, in your quiet times with God, on developing humility. Even the Lion of Judah, the greatest leader this world has ever known, served others by washing their feet.

• When you receive critique, instead of becoming angry or dismissing the criticism, give yourself an exercise. Tell yourself, “She’s probably wrong in what she’s said, but I’ll just humor her a little. I’ll back up my original version, then try implementing the suggestion, just as a theoretical exercise. If it stinks, I haven’t lost anything. If it turns out great, well, there ya go.” Approaching critique with such a mindset can help a Lion to embrace change without fighting against their own personality type.

• Those pesky details: Lions are great problem-solvers and incredible leaders. Why not harness these traits to enlist the help of others? Ted Dekker pays college students to research his books for him. Many published authors corral support from others when it comes to tasks of administration and marketing. If your Great Aunt Mildred was an English teacher for fifty years, and would love nothing better than to pore over your manuscript weeding out punctuation errors – turn her loose with a blood-red pen. Show your appreciation in a way that truly honors your helpers. Then do what Lions do best, and turn your attention to the next project.

Image by Bernie Condon, freedigitalphotos.net

Otter

Writing strengths:

Otters have the ability to splash words onto the page with a carefree zest that many stodgier writers envy. They have vim and flair. They take joy in their craft. Otters also make the best social networkers. They have no trouble building a tribe of fans, because they love people, and people in turn are naturally drawn to them.

Writing weaknesses:

When the task becomes hard, otters quickly lose momentum. Their computer files are littered with the corpses of unfinished manuscripts that started strong and then fizzled. Otters can be disorganized, and have no patience for “boring” but essential tasks such as editing. If it ain’t fun, it don’t get done.

Self-help strategies:

• Keep it fun. Set goals that have rewards attached. Social rewards work well for otters. For example, fifteen minutes play on Facebook after writing for an hour. A Skype chat with your writing buddies once you reach chapter ten. A chick flick and coffee with a friend for pushing through that sagging middle. A girls’ weekend away once you finish editing your MS.

• Harness peer power to keep you motivated. Ever heard of #1k1hr? Next time you sit down for an hour-long writing stint, jump on Twitter first and announce your plans to the world. Use the hashtag #1k1hr, and you’ll soon rally a group of eager writers who can cheer you on and celebrate with you when you reach your 1000 word milestone.

• Give editing a social, interactive element by joining forces with a critique partner or group.

• Beware of distraction. Social networking is your strength, but spending hours on Facebook each day won’t get that manuscript written. If you’re all play and no work, consider using an app to limit the time you spend on social media sites.

Image by puttsk, freedigitalphotos.net

Beaver

Writing strengths:

The writing world is full of beavers. Highly creative, organised and meticulous, beavers like to have every detail mapped out before they begin writing: each twist and turn of the plot, the intricate backstory of their MC going back two generations, and the height/ eye colour/ favorite ice-cream flavor of each supporting character.  Beavers thrive on research. They set high standards for themselves, and consistently produce quality work.

Writing weaknesses:

Beavers may become so bogged down in their systems and plotting that they struggle to begin. Beavers are perfectionists, and highly self-critical. For a writer, this can be crippling. A beaver can become paralysed by an empty computer screen, a harsh critique, or a sense that their book is not where it should be. Writer’s block is a common malady for the beaver, who often takes an all-or-nothing attitude – if they can’t make it perfect, they can’t bring themselves to try. Beavers may produce very slowly, because they cannot help but edit ruthlessly as they write. When it comes time to submit, a beaver may fret and worry over perfecting every final detail of a manuscript, and struggle to ever hit send.

Self-help strategies:

• Don’t forget to play. When you feel yourself floundering beneath self-criticism or getting bogged down in details, find ways to recapture the joy of writing. If you usually hole up at home to write, shake up your routine by taking your laptop to a crowded café and doing some people-watching.

• Try taking frequent short breaks in which you do something else creative to engage the right side of your brain – painting, scrapbooking, pottery, playing music. 

• Sometimes the best thing a beaver can do is to step away from their project for a time to regain some perspective. Immerse yourself in reading for pleasure alone. Do something that inspires you, like wandering through an antique bookstore or taking a fun research trip. But don’t let yourself stay in limbo. Give yourself a deadline, and get back into it.

• Loosen up before a big session with the technique of free writing – perfect for shutting down that picky, left-brained internal editor beavers struggle with so much.

• Don’t isolate yourself. Engage in community with other writers.

Image by Photokanok, freedigitalphotos.net

Golden Retriever

Writing strengths:

Relaxed and easy to work with, the Golden Retriever is every editor’s dream. A Golden Retriever is calm, dependable, and doesn’t stress out under deadline.

Writing weaknesses:

Laziness can be a real problem for the laid-back temperament of a Golden Retriever, who may lack motivation to initiate tasks or carry them through to completion. The Golden Retriever can also be very stubborn, and dislikes change in any form – both of which are bad news when large-scale edits are required.

Self-help strategies:

• Get an accountability partner who will be tough about holding you to your goals. Golden Retrievers are people-pleasers and dislike confrontation, so if the accountability is genuine, they’ll rise to the challenge.

• Appeal to your easy-going nature by making it easy to write. Rather than setting a lofty word-count goal, which all sounds like far too much work – especially when your favorite show is on TV – give yourself a goal of 500 words, and try to hit it twice a day.

• Because you struggle with change, approach edits as an open experiment. Save the whole document with the file name “Original” and the title, and make a new copy entitled “Experiment.” In this new document, take any suggestions you’ve been given and simply give them a go. If you need to reassure yourself that nothing has really changed, click back on over to your original document, still safe and sound and untouched right where you left it. In this way, you’ll give yourself the freedom to play, knowing that any changes you make don’t have to be permanent. Chances are, you’ll find once you’ve actually made the changes that you like it better that way anyway.

So, that’s it from me – the four personality types as they pertain to the writer’s life.

I’m interested to hear your take on this. What is your dominant personality type, or types? Do you have any tips to add that have helped you in your writing journey?

GIVEAWAY!

Don't forget to enter for our huge giveaway at our Facebook Party, Saturday, August 30! For the big giveaway, we are giving away The Writer's Alley New Design Launch Basket containing the following:

• $20 Amazon gift card
• Here to Stay by Melissa Tagg (paperback book)
• Sandwich, with a Side of Romance by Krista Phillips (paperback book)
• A Side of Faith by Krista Phillips (paperback book)
• Duchess by Susan May Warren (autographed paperback book)
• Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Squares
• A Writer's Conference Jamberry PediPack 

Throughout the day of our Facebook party August 30, we will be giving away the following:

• A Side of Faith by Krista Phillips (ebook)
• A Home At Trail's End by Melody Carlson (paperback book)
• $10 Amazon gift card
• Captured by Love by Jody Hedlund (paperback book)
• The Writer's Toolbox
• Showdown by Ted Dekker (paperback book)
• Love's Reckoning by Laura Frantz (paperback book)
• Vanished by Irene Hannon (paperback book)

You can enter for a chance to win HERE. Just scroll to the end of the post and enter through our Rafflecopter giveaway widget!

Have a great day!

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 50,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. Find her on Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.