Start a book club
I’m pleased to say that week one was no fluke and just as many of you fine folk opened, clicked and goodness knows what else you did with issue two of my rebooted newsletter.
It’s just turned midnight here, which means I have narrowly missed my ‘sent on Tuesdays’ deadline for this issue. But there is good reason, as I have spent the last two hours writing about how to start a book group, which is both exciting and linked to again below.
Thank you again to those of you who emailed me or left kind comments about my 'This is the year’ blog post last week. I really appreciate it. Don’t forget, you are welcome to hit reply and email ideas, links and anything else that’s legal any time you want.
Go find something useful.
I’ve been part of a book group for the last 14 months and it’s been great. Ever thought about starting your own book group? Then you should read my post about what we do and some of the decisions we made.
Ten tips on how to start writing a novel
Have to say, this is some of the most sensible writing advice I’ve read for a long time. Plenty of actionable ideas and all applicable to most writers, not just those with a load of time on their hands.
Buy Me A Coffee – a platform for getting support and sharing premium content
This is the alternative model to Patreon. Instead of asking for monthly support, people can make a one-off payment for whatever it is that you do. It’s a nice idea, though I’ve never been convinced by the coffee analogy.
Ethical Advice for Writing About Friends and Family
This post outlines your options if you have concerns about writing something that features your in-real-life friends and family. I wrote a post about the very same subject – on my god – 10 years ago.
How to Sound Pretty Good on a Podcast
I’ve recorded, edited and published more than 200 podcast episodes now and I agree with lots in this article. But I’d stress that sounding good or finding your voice takes time, especially for new shows.
Storyboard – a service for starting a private podcast
I really like this idea. Years ago, I was looking for a way to set up a private podcast feed, but it always seemed too complicated. Storyboard looks great for companies, membership schemes and other stuff too.
The Worst Piece of Writing Advice
I quite enjoyed this argument against the ‘write every day or else’ brigade. Despite saying the same myself many years ago, it’s something I feel guilty about constantly, even though I know daily writing is near impossible.