Community Spotlight #8

Come in. Come in! Whether you are escaping from the downpour of heat and humidity or from the rising thunderheads on the horizon, come in. As one forecaster says, "We're in the season for active weather."

Our coffee shop is a haven against the elements – and no newspapers allowed. Like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, I'll think about all those horrible headlines tomorrow. Unless your writing assignment requires the latest news be part of your focus, put that aside and join us for a few minutes. Pour your favorite beverage and relax. Take this time to meet some new members of our community.

Let me introduce Jennifer Perry. Jennifer doesn't seem to write a blog. I understand the reason for that. Jennifer loves to read blogs about dogs. She follows at least twenty! I would be totally unsurprised to discover that she is writing a book about dogs. So tell us, Jennifer, do you blog about your own dogs?

Newcomer Richard Grayling adds another adjective to our writer descriptive lexicon: struggling – as in Struggling Author, the title of the community blog he co-hosts. (Richard lives in the U.K.) Drop by his site. He just announced a new youTube channel for authors. Welcome, Richard.

Now meet Bobbi Linkemer, book writing coach, ghostwriter, editor, and the author of 14 books. She is also the nonfiction editor for Scribe & Quill, award-winning Internet e-zine. Her blog is The Writing Life where you must go immediately and read her two of her latest articles. The June 3^rd article is on self-publishing lessons learned. The May 18^th subject is a marketing outline that is the best list I've seen. Awesome.

New member, Galen Schroeder, calls himself Dakota Indexing, which is also the name of his web site and business. Having Mr. Schroeder join the community emphasizes another unique facet of this blog. Indexing is not something with which most writers of fiction books need concern themselves. Nonfiction writers, on the other hand, usually write books that gain by having a well-developed index. Welcome to the community, Galen. You'll notice if you look in the column on the right that I have added Dakota Indexing to our recommended sites list.

Here is Mike10613, a young man from England that has an explosion of interests – including all computer related and Internet related technologies - and writing a book. You can find Mike at his Home Page.


Now that we've met the newest members of our community, I have one more item I want to spotlight: Sharlene Martin is presenting a new webinar on 10 Secrets to a Winning Book Proposal. (Remember that I will draw one name at the end of the month for a free copy of Sharlene's new book, PUBLISH YOUR NONFICTION BOOK: Strategies for Learning the Industry, Selling Your Work and Building a Successful Career.) Writers' Digest is hosting this webinar on June 17, 2010. Link here to see the details.

That's all for now. Keep writing…