Wednesday, January 14, 2015

* A BLOG TOUR STOP FOR MY FRIEND, CAMILLE FAYE *

Hello Everyone! Please welcome a writer friend of mine whom I've known for quite a few years: Camille Faye! (Although at this point, she may have lost interest in being my friend anymore since I've been very forgetful at posting this for her. Please forgive me, again, Camille!)

Without further ado, I present Camille and her views on writing and blogging.
 
 
How Blogging can Boost your Writing Career

One of my greatest accomplishments was earning a Journalism degree from the University of Missouri, but my professors made it very clear that journalists have a high burnout rate in their careers and an even higher divorce rate. So when I began dating the man who is now my husband a few months before graduation, I shifted my plans toward a more family-friendly career.

In our first year of marriage, I pursued freelance writing for print. I'd spend hours and hours researching different periodicals, then scanning several installments of each magazine or newspaper I wanted to submit to because that's what they tell you to do. Then I spent more hours churning out query letters, gearing them toward the specific readership, and submitting them to those magazines and newspapers, each with their own unique submission guidelines. And then after I'd put in tons and tons of work...

Rejection. And lots of it.

After a few months of trying, I don't think I got one paid gig. It made me feel like my degree was worthless, I'd wasted my time pursuing freelance writing, and I pushed my writing goals to the back burner.

A few years later, when I was teaching, a colleague told me about blogging. She'd been writing about her life with Type I diabetes and it led to paid work with some well-known publications on health and diabetes. I'd tried freelance writing sporadically without many publication credits under my belt, and I really wanted to give writing another shot.

Since beginning my blogging journey, I can tell you with certainty that blogging has benefits for writers.

1) Blogging helps you establish a writing routine.

"A Day in the Life," my first blog, centered around my life as a mom, teacher, and writer. Now that I've released a novel, I've shut down that blog in order to focus on my fiction writing, but the impetus behind my blog was to get me into a daily writing habit. Over the years, I've studied what successful writers say about writing in books like On Writing by Stephen King or Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. All successful writers do the same thing: commit to a daily writing practice. So I decided to dedicate myself to writing fifteen minutes per day. It doesn't sound like much, but many days it would extend to an hour or so. Once I had established that practice, I decided to undertake a huge bucket list item: writing a novel. By committing to those fifteen hallowed minutes, I was able to produce a version of Voodoo Butterfly that New York agents and editors actually requested to read, and I attribute my success to my initial dedication to writing through blogging.

2) Blogging provides you with immediate gratification.

Writers want to know how their work affects their readers, otherwise we would stick to private journals. All those hours that I'd committed to churning out query letters, which ended up in piles of rejection letters, made me hate writing. I couldn't even get an idea off the ground, before it got shot down. With blogging, you get to enter a community of people who are interested in what you're saying. In my personal blog, I mainly received comments from other bloggers whom I had met through local writing groups. With my new group blog, The LitLadies, and with my blog tour for Voodoo Butterfly, I've received comments from people all over the world and get to work with best-selling authors, like Claire Cook and Susan McBride. My readership is responding to what I "say" through my writing and that is truly gratifying.

3) Blogging can grow your readership.

 
"Platform" is THE buzzword for writers these days. New authors have to market themselves because publishers either don't have a marketing budget or only focus their marketing budget on the big guys like Charlaine Harris and John Grisham. I use The Lit Ladies blog to show people who I am and what I write about (which is love, purpose, and the paranormal in New Orleans). My group blog and these stops on my blog tour, allow people across the world, in countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, to get to know me and my work. Unless I had the time and the budget to personally visit all those places, I wouldn't have been able to reach all those people. The entire world of readers is at my feet through the magic of blogging.
 
About Voodoo Butterfly:

When twenty-five-year old Sophie Nouveau inherits her grandmother's voodoo shop she knows nothing about voodoo. Or her family's history of Mind Changers who have the power to change evil people good. To complicate matters, someone doesn't want Sophie in New Orleans and sends a series of death threats to scare her away from her new enchanted life. 

 
Tipped off by her grandmother's ghost, Sophie realizes her mind changing spell's been missing one magic ingredient: true love. If Sophie cannot experience transformative love, she cannot make her spell work, and she will be powerless to fight back when confronted by the one who wants her dead.

About the Author:

Camille Faye lives in Missouri, loves on her family, and writes during the baby’s nap time. She grew up in a haunted house, which sparked her fascination with the paranormal. Before becoming a writer, she reported for an NBC affiliate and taught writing at universities in Missouri and Illinois. She found the muse for her debut novel, Voodoo Butterfly, during a family trip to New Orleans where she dreamt of a woman who had the power to change evil people good. The Northwest Houston RWA named her novel, Voodoo Butterfly, a 2013 Lone Star Contest finalist. Camille's stories are inspired by her travels to 27 countries and counting! Follow her journey at Camillefaye.com


Voodoo Butterfly is available on Amazon.com for $2.99. It's free for some people, so check your Amazon membership perks (Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime).

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Camille Faye | Author


Experience love, purpose, and the paranormal in New Orleans.




Photo courtesy: Kristina B.

Thank you Camille, for allowing me to be part of your Voodoo Butterfly blog tour. I've really enjoyed reading your viewpoints and I have learned a few things, too!