“I Saw Your Post on Instagram”

 

Photo Credit: Atlantic Ambience via Pexels

If a writer wanted to know just what it takes to spread the word about their work and/or their books, there is one common piece of advice that would be given: “Put yourself everywhere.”

 

Yes, it’s exhausting.

 

Yes, it takes a lot of time.

 

And, yes, sometimes it feels like shouting into the void.

 

But it works. Seriously.

 

I know, there are A LOT of people who will see that advice and respond with, “Not everywhere; just in the right places.” In other words, put yourself where your audience is. But what if your audience is spread out on different social media sites? What if your audience is too young for Facebook but on the TikTok bandwagon? Then get on the TikTok bandwagon too – but don’t neglect other social media sites!

 

That’s my opinion, anyway. As a freelance writer, author, and book reviewer, I try to be on as many social media websites as possible. The same goes for the work I do for Twisted Dreams Press.

 

And as much as it makes me cringe to use X, I use X (when I remember to!). But I only use X for Twisted Dreams Press.

 

So imagine my delight when I got an email from a prospecting author who started his inquiry with “I saw your post on Instagram.” If ever there was a form of validation that all those promotional efforts I do on social media sites is not a waste, this is it.

 

Sure, I don’t get these kinds of messages very often, but it is nice to receive them. It lets me know that I did NOT waste my time posting THAT particular thing on THAT particular site. (And, of course, this also means that my targeted audience is indeed on that particular site.)

 

I may not be doing much promotion on my personal Instagram, but for the promotional posts on Instagram that happen to catch someone’s notice, those are the golden moments that tell me that, hey, maybe I did something right!

 

But it’s not just receiving a message that I pay attention to when it comes to gauging whether or not I am on the right path promoting on a site. I also pay attention to likes, reactions, and comments. I notice if a post goes viral (oh, I had FUN thanking over 100 people for sharing one post in particular after it got lots of reposts on Bluesky), as well as the posts that don’t do very well at all.

 

I used to wonder why businesses pay attention to such things and why it even mattered at all. Now I know that looking at how posts do on certain social media sites and if they go viral is just as important to the writer as it is for a business. We writers are trying to promote our work/ We’re trying to get the word out about something that was published. We also want to show that we are taking this writing thing seriously, because, guess what? Editors, agents and publishers notice these things. They are on social media too. It’s important for us to position ourselves as serious writers worth their time and attention.

 

Some people may feel that we should only focus our energy on the platforms that work, whether it’s Substack, Instagram, TikTok or YouTube. As for me, I’ll keep spreading myself out on various social media sites. I don't use all of them every single day (I'm usually on Bluesky and Facebook every day), but I'm there. Sometimes, I'll make an appearance on the other ones too. 

 

I don’t use all of my social media sites for my writing, but at least I’m still there. And I’m willing to share a post so that my voice among the hundreds of others on the site is not a silent one.

The SPARREW Newsletter Now Has Its Own Site!

 

 

When I started the SPARREW Newsletter in 2022, I had no idea or expectation that it would grow as large as it has today. I thought it would just be a simple little monthly newsletter that would exist only in a subscriber’s inbox.

 

But now, almost four years later, the SPARREW Newsletter has grown so big that not only did I need to set up an archive of past issues somewhere (which you can read here), but I realized that this mighty newsletter needed its own website.

 

In fact, I have known this for several months.

 

Lots of other newsletters have their own website. FundsforWriters. WritersWeekly. Authors Publish.

 

I realized the SPARREW Newsletter needed one too. But how was I going to make that happen?

 

I spent those months mulling over my options. I also reached out to the Tricky Edits contributor, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, to see if she had any ideas.

 

I thought about using Substack, because of the ease of organization, but I didn’t like the idea of my newsletter being posted on a site that I didn’t own.

 

No, I had to put it on a site that I owned. So I just stuck to the “dmcwriter” site I already had set up.

 

But even on there, the newsletter was growing too! It became part newsletter site, part writing portfolio site.

 

Meanwhile, I wasn’t sure how everyone I interviewed on there felt about that. Mostly, how they felt about the domain name not matching the newsletter’s name.

 

And ever since someone turned down being interviewed for the newsletter after I showed him the site the newsletter is posted on, I have always wondered if it’s because of that. (Or because my little newsletter is not so popular.)

 

That idea lingered in my brain. While I understood that the newsletter should be on a site with a matching domain name, I couldn’t figure out how to separate the newsletter from the writer.

 

Well, Life figured that out for me! It’s like Life said, “For goodness sake, if you can’t figure out how to do it, I’ll show you!”

 

So, recently, something messed up the DNS connection I had between the dmcwriter domain name and the site I had set up on another hosting platform. I am not very tech savvy, so I had a hard time figuring out what was going on AND how to fix it. And because I was using two different sites for the domain name and the hosting, I kept going back and forth between Customer Support for both sites, as well as the help guide links they sent to me, as I attempted to fix this problem and get the site I created back online. It went on for several days and I was increasingly frustrated that I kept running into dead ends, that I decided, screw it, I’ll just purchase a domain name on the hosting site and connect it with the site I created on there.

 

Plus, it was getting confusing going back and forth between two different websites just to fix ONE website!

 

So I purchased a domain name that I felt was a good fit for not only the SPARREW Newsletter but all things SPARREW, since there’s going to be some merch as well: SPARREW Site.

 

And at first, I was thinking of removing ALL of my credits as both a freelance writer and as a book reviewer, but then I realized something: What if visitors to the site want to know just who this Dawn Colclasure person is? I say on the About page that I started the newsletter in 2022. Okay, who am I to be publishing such a newsletter? I talk the talk, but do I walk the walk?

 

I certainly do!

 

I took a break from self-publishing books for a while there, but now I self-publish a title every once in a while.

 

I am an author, and the link to my books is on the About page.

 

I am certainly a reader (booklover), as my friends and followers on Facebook and BlueSky have seen when I have shared pages from my reading log.

 

I am a book reviewer, and the link to my book reviews can be found on that site, in the navigation bar.

 

I have experience working as an editor, and I share this information on the About page.

 

And, of course, I’m a writer. Proof is on the portfolio page that is also included on the navigation bar.

 

So, if people want to know if I’m the right person to be publishing a newsletter for self-published authors, authors, readers, reviewers, editors and writers, the proof is all there.

 

And you know what? I am going to leave it all there, too.

 

I don’t know what I’ll do with the dmcwriter domain name in the meantime. As it stands, while I own it, I can’t do anything with it. I tried, but so far, no luck. And that’s the next problem that I have to fix! At least I can work on it in my free time.

 

UPDATE:

New dmcwriter site just dropped! 

Read Submission Guidelines Carefully

There’s nothing quite like finding a market which you think you could write for. Or perhaps you have already written an article, and you think you have found just the right place to submit it.

 

But are you sure this is the right market for your work?

 

One way to find out is to read the submission guidelines – and read them carefully.

 

Most markets do post their submission guidelines online. These places understand that, nowadays, everybody is using the internet, especially writers. So they have created websites about their publications or special pages for their websites. Take some time to explore their site and look for their guidelines. They usually appear as “submission guidelines” or “writer’s guidelines.” Some sites even say “Write for us!” and you can usually find the guidelines here. Another way to find submission guidelines for markets is to check out the most recent edition of Writer's Market.

 

The submission guidelines will usually tell you everything you need to know about what exactly that market wants, and how you can submit to them. With one market I queried, I had to fill out a form. With another, they use Submittable for all submissions. So make sure you pay attention to the instructions on just HOW you submit to the market.

 

Another thing to pay attention to is their formatting guidelines. Some markets want to receive all submissions in 12-point Times New Roman (TNR) font, with double spaces. Others are a little more flexible with the formatting. Make sure you follow these formatting guidelines. Never expect a market to make an exception for you if you decide to submit something using 14-point Verdana font with single spacing. If you can’t respect them enough to follow their formatting guidelines, they won’t respect you enough to read your work. Most submissions that don’t follow the guidelines will be deleted unread.

 

Additionally, follow the word count limit. Don’t expect the editor to cut or edit the work to fit the word count limit; that is YOUR job. But if you can’t do this, ask a writer friend for help. Never ask the editor to edit your work so that it will fit their guidelines.

 

The other way to find out if a market is a good place to submit your work is to read what they have already published. Study the work they want and see if your work is a good match. If they only publish work on a specific topic, you’ll notice this by reading what they have already published. This is not only the kind of work they like but the kind of work they want. Most markets will post samples of what they have published online. Others may ask you to buy the most recent copy of their publication. Do what you can to read their most recently published work. This will help you decide if your work is a good fit there.

 

Many writers think that there’s a lot of wiggle room with submission guidelines. That if they send something via email when the editor prefers submissions through Submittable, that if their work is “just a little more” than the desired word count or that the editor will be so struck by the genius of their writing that they don’t care that it’s a health and beauty article when they publish articles about electronics, they still have a chance of getting published there. This is NOT true. Editors do not make such exceptions, especially for writers they are not familiar with.

 

Read the submission guidelines carefully. Follow the submission guidelines to a T. By being professional and putting your best effort forward with your queries, you just might make a great first impression and have a chance of getting an acceptance.

Hey, Writers! Want Some Freebies? Check Out This New Ebook!

 

Freebies for writers are all over the Internet. I always thought it would be nice to have a good chunk of them all in one place.

 

That’s when I realized, why not do that?

 

Not only did this idea strike, but it developed into an idea for a new free ebook for the month of August.

 

And I ran with it! I sort of needed a new idea for a free ebook, and since my audience for my newsletter, where I provide the link to my monthly free ebooks, are mostly writers (if not all of them), I realized this particular idea MUST happen!

 

And that’s how my idea for such a book was turned into Free Stuff For Writers. I tried to include all the essentials: Word processing tools, blogging tools, vocabulary tools, writing tools as well as free newsletters for writers. But as I did research for this book and explored the MANY free tools for writers that are out there on the World Wide Web, I discovered there was so much more freebies for writers this book could offer!

 

Some of the tools included in this ebook were also sent directly to me from app developers, staff at schools and universities, as well as students who found such tools to be useful. Mostly they hoped I would include them on my old dmcwriter site, but that site is no longer active. I cannot add anything to it anymore. I felt terrible having to break this news to them, but after I got the idea for this book, I was delighted by the prospect of sharing this wonderful creation of theirs with the world in this ebook. And when I informed one such person of this option, she replied with excitement as well. So I guess it's a good thing!

 

That said, I will likely get more emails from people sharing their favorite writing or research tools. And I welcome them! In fact, there’s an invitation at the end of the book requesting such emails. So, if you happen to have your own favorite writing or research tool, send it along! Or post it in the comments. It can be something with a limited free trial period, but I prefer mostly something that is completely free. It must be something which writers, all kinds of writers, can find helpful.

 

I will update the manuscript as needed, when I have more tools to add, and submit the updated version of the manuscript to replace the old one.

 

Meanwhile, please check out Free Stuff For Writers! Hopefully, you will find something helpful for you.

 

Here is the book’s blurb:

 

Free tools and resources for writers are all over the Internet. If you have been hoping to find them all in one place, then look no further! From editing to formatting, grammar and spelling, character names and world building, Free Stuff For Writers is a new ebook that will help writers find the free tools and resources they need. This ebook is full of lists of where to find free courses and workshops, where to score free word processing apps and how you can get your manuscript edited using a free online tool. You’ll also discover free newsletters for writers as well as where to find jobs. Free Stuff For Writers is your answer to “where can I find a GOOD free writing tool on the Internet?” and can help you make sure your work looks professional, edited, and just the way you want it to be!

 

Available free on Amazon through Kindle Unlimited! Go here