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.
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).
-------------------------------------
Camille
Faye | Author
Experience love, purpose, and the paranormal in New Orleans.
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!
