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How to Convert Your Followers into 1000 True Fans

If you’ve been reading blogs for a while, you have probably come across the term “1000 true fans.” Kevin Kelly first wrote about this idea on his blog Technium. The number 1000 is an estimate, of course, but the rationale goes that all you need to succeed in your field are 1000 true fans, […]

Tips for Making Video Blog Posts

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend! This week, I’m switching things around a bit and posting my YouTube video today and my regularly scheduled blog post on Thursday. Here are a few tips to help you make your own video blog posts, including links to all my equipment. (To be sure you […]

The Literary Canon—What Books Should Be Required Reading?

Last week, a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto presented this dilemma: She had a Latino American high school student in one of her classes who didn’t feel he was prepared for college because he felt that his high school reading list was dominated by Latino and African American writers and that he […]

Should All Authors Blog?

This week, I’m introducing a series of YouTube videos that I am creating to give readers who don’t have a lot of time to read long blog posts quick access to information about writing, editing, publishing, and social media. To be sure you don’t miss any, click on the red “Subscribe to my videos on […]

Stress Reduction for Writers

I’ve had insomnia for the past couple of years. Sometimes I’m up from 2-4 or 5 a.m., reading until I fall back to sleep. Other times I sleep through the night but wake up at 5 or 5:30. For a while I took Tylenol PM, then melatonin, but I hate taking sleeping pills. I […]

Paris On Less Than $10,000 A Day

Many of you know that I have written a memoir titled Paris On Less Than $10,000 a Day about the six years I spent working as a fashion model in Europe and Japan in the late 80s and early 90s. Here is one story from that book, told at the Porchlight storytelling series in San […]

Contently: Building Your Brand the Fortune 500 Way

If you’re a journalist looking for a way to display your clips on your website, look no further. Contently.com offers a “build-your-own portfolio” site tool that is quick and easy to use and that you can embed into your own website.

“We realized a lot of journalists are not great web designers, so […]

Translating Trauma into Memoir

Some of you may remember that in July 2003, an 86-year-old man drove his car through the crowded Santa Monica Farmers’ Market outside of LA, killing ten people and injuring dozens more, many of them critically. That story struck a chord with me because I used to shop at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market when […]

How to Avoid Becoming a Self-Publishing Failure

An essay that ran in Salon two weeks ago titled “I’m a self-publishing failure” recounts how one writer, John Winters, spent countless hours and dollars promoting his book online only to sell a handful of copies. Where did John go wrong? How can you avoid becoming a self-publishing failure?

1. First of all, start […]

Author Interview: Caroline Paul and Wendy MacNaughton

Today I’d like to welcome my friends and colleagues here at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto Caroline Paul, author, and Wendy MacNaughton, illustrator, whose book, Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology hit bookstores yesterday. The talented Caroline Paul has two previously published books, Fighting Fire, a memoir about the 13 […]