It’s been a long year for me. Not in time, which flew by, but in learning, growing and discovery. During my journey, some experts, writers and lessons really stood out to me. My Christmas gifts to you are these – the best experts, best writers, best advice and best lessons I have learned in the last twelve months. They have become my ‘best of 2017’ and I am delighted to share them with you.
Best Blogging Advice
This one crept in right at the end of the year. Jane Friedman, in her recent weekly digest from JaneFriedman.com, snuck in her link to a blog post titled How to Start Blogging: A Definitive Guide for Authors . I have read numerous posts on the subject, but none better than this. Jane shares the pros and cons for an author to blog at all, her own personal experience trying to grow her audience, and a straightforward list of tasks to complete to succeed.
If you are looking for a more detailed education for blogging, Sarah Morgan’s Dare to Blog course, available from her xosarah.com website contains everything you need to know, including technology assistance. Her lessons are short but thorough, plain spoken, and easy to understand.
Best Writing Advice
Hands down the best writing advice comes from Kathy Steinemann at her website www.kathysteinemann.com. Sign up for her email to receive one or two emails per month with sage advice on the proper use of common phrases or to learn dozens of new – and frankly much better – replacements for crutch words. Her writing and grammar lessons are a joy to behold.
Best Planning Advice
For me, 2017 was a tough year in terms of making a plans and sticking to them. Two wise women could have saved me a lot of heartache and mistakes, if I had discovered them earlier in in the year.
The first is Meera Kothand, author of Create: A One Year Blog and Editorial Calendar. Had I acquired it sooner, Meera’s workbook, and advice via email, would have kept me focused on what really mattered to my writing. With simple, but focused suggestions, and lots of whitespace to work through ideas, Meera helped me get a better handle on my output.
[bctt tweet=”Meera did me one more favor. She introduced me to Emily McGee of My Adaptable Career, whose ‘Master Time Management’ class, was a short and sweet lesson in improving my productivity.” username=”madisonmichael_”]
Meera did me one more favor. She introduced me to Emily McGee of My Adaptable Career, whose ‘Master Time Management’ class, was a short and sweet lesson in improving my productivityI bought the planner she suggested and I am already ahead of the game for 2018 in ways I would never have imagined possible.
Best Growth Advice
Despite the face that I discovered him in 2016, not 2017, I have to give kudos to Nick Stephenson and his “First 10K Readers” program. I fought myself over investing in this program until this year, but the comprehensive advice, delivered in a huge package of helpful videos has been the masterpiece he promised. Start with the three free advice packed videos and he will be make your best of list in 2018.
Best Promotion Advice
I clipped a lot of blog posts about launches this year, but I believe my favorite, my best of 2017 was the Organized Book Launch by Katie Mazzocco. Katie has thought of everything – and I mean everything – you need to consider when launching a book, organized it into a meaningful and useful checklist so that an author can pick and choose from her extensive list. Check out all of Katie’s tips at Full Spectrum Productivity.
[bctt tweet=”Jim Edwards and Jeff Herring created their Automatic Marketing Wizard that drips campaign advice on a daily, weekly or monthly basis in activity segments that are manageable, and therefore doable. ” username=”madisonmichael_”]
Also, I discovered a great technology product to help me make sure I cover all my promotion bases. Jim Edwards and Jeff Herring created their Automatic Marketing Wizard that drips campaign advice on a daily, weekly or monthly basis in activity segments that are manageable, and therefore doable. Even better, their advice is designed to break the boredom factor of doing the same online and social media promoting over and over. Watch for me to get more adventurous, thanks to their tool.
Best Tools and Tech
I have been using Mailchimp to send my emails and bonus materials since the day I set up my website, but this year they added functionality that boosted them to my ‘Best of 2017’ list. Mailchimp is free until you are emailing 1000 people making it a terrific bargain for a struggling author. Despite the no-cost factor, this year they added automation for free that they previously charged $10 month to access. Making this functionality free saved me a bundle and I was thrilled.
Then in December, they added landing pages too, allowing me to drop other costly landing page options. For you novices, a landing page is a page with nothing but a signup option on it – no distractions to keep you from downloading my free book for example. And automation? That is a sequence of emails that are sent automatically when you sign up for my email list for example – thank you, confirmation of your signup, here’s your bonus. Those three might be a sequence of emails that would be automated. This is a big deal!
Best overall Discovery
I am not sure how I stumbled upon One Woman Shop and their extraordinary bundle of goodies, but it was a godsend. First of all, because this talented group of women each sent me sage advice that will last me a lifetime, but mostly because I felt surrounded by women entrepreneurs – solopreneurs – who had survived the test of fire I was still navigating. Here was a group of strangers telling me ‘you can do it’ and we are here to help. I am still learning from their emails and revisiting their bundle to learn more from their “Solopreneur Sanity Handbook”. Are you a one-person business? If so, check them out at http://www.onewomanshop.com
Best Advice learned the Hard Way
This one’s from me, learned the hard and expensive way. Don’t buy technology until you completely understand what it does.
I spent so much money in 2017 on duplicate software products and apps. I have two that deliver my bonus content, three that create landing pages, multiple apps to manage Twitter, Facebook and now Pinterest. I even have two that put those social share buttons on my website! Some are free, but many were not and now I am paying through 2018 for products I don’t want or need.
I have often repeated here in my blog that I have shiny object syndrome. This year it caught up with me and I have the bills to prove it. Just as I am getting a handle on the writing, the marketing is torturing me.
OOH, I think I just figured out my New Year’s Resolution. Don’t buy technology you don’t need. Sounds obvious, but I did it repeatedly in 2017 and I resolve not to do that again in 2018.
Do you have a productivity, sanity or savings resolution to share?