Lorna Faith

Clean Fiction Author

3 Tips on How To Grow Meaningful Online Relationships As A Writer

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There are people waiting to read what you have to say. You might doubt that, but it’s true.

With over 7 billion people in the world, there will be a segment of the population who will really connect with your words and your worldview.

But, before you can offer them anything, you must find them. And before you can do that, you must create a place where they can gather around you. If you never build that place, they’ll never even know you exist.

So how do you grow meaningful online relationships as a writer?

3 Tips On How to

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Building Connections That Last

As a writer, you have a personal brand. And because it’s a personal brand, it’s based on connection and relationships with people on a personal level.

Social media urges us to grow the largest followings, but building a writing business that lasts, isn’t about rounding up the most people. It’s about connecting and building relationships.

As you find and start to connect with contacts, it takes your acquaintance to a new level. You go from simply being a name on a friends social media following or email list, to a real relationship. It’s when you grow that relationship that makes things really happen. When you have a good relationship with someone, it means you help them and when you need help, they help you too. They’ll even do favors for you and who knows, you might even develop a partnership or collaboration on some writing projects.

For authors, it also means that you can help each other as your promote new books or other products.

For content producers – bloggers, freelance writers, podcasters, vloggers, etc. – these relationships can help you grow your business. It means your efforts are boosted because it means you can ask for the support of others who also want you to succeed.

3 Tips On How to Grow Meaningful Online Relationships

1. Be You. It sounds really simple, but I’ve learned that somedays its hard to do. I think most of us have days when we’d rather hide who we really are; maybe to blend in or so we don’t make anyone around us mad. But staying hidden in our own invisible cave, won’t help your message and the value you bring to others to stand out.

So It’s important you are real. Show your true colors. Be your wonderful self in blog posts, social media updates and other places where you hang out. It doesn’t mean you have to tell all the embarrassing things you’ve done in your lifetime, but it does mean you speak from your authentic voice in whatever way you communicate.

As you begin to speak from your heart and let people see the real you, your voice will resonate with your connections and they will start to remember you. The people who really identify with what you’re saying, your story and the way you tell it, will connect deeper with you. They’ll begin to do stuff like retweet and like your posts, visit your blog and reply to your emails.

They will start to look for you wherever you are, because your voice resonates with something inside of them.

2. Share Your Story.  Take a deeper look at your own story and see how it can connect you to your readers – and to your bigger audience. Did you decide to start writing because of a past experience? Do you write certain types of books because of something that happened to you in the past? What have you learned about what you went through that can help others?

When you share you authentic self and your story with others, it’s really about sharing your heart – your hopes and dreams – in relation to you as a writer and your message. There’s many different ways and mediums to get this message across. You can share your story through blog posts, speaking on podcasts, videos, periscope or even through quote graphics you create(one of my favourite things:).

When you share your compelling story, there will be people who identify with your words. Its those shared experiences that is where your relationship with people begins. Sometimes, people who read your blogposts or listen to your podcasts can connect with you in such a powerful way that they will start to promote you and your message because they believe so strongly in your work and message. That’s pretty powerful.

3. Start By Being Helpful to Others First.  If you see someone on Facebook or Twitter or wherever else you hangout that has a question you can answer, respond.  If authors around you on social media are working hard to promote their books, offer to help out. Retweet the link to your followers and share in your other social media feeds.

I’ve made a lot of friends this way, and it’s kind of cool because they offer to help me out too, when I have something new going on. I love that as writers, we can help each other out.

Sometimes, one writer might connect with another and they might decide to write a book together. It’s great when you turn a person from a contact into a connection and develop a relationship as you grow to trust each other more.

I hope these tips help you as you grow your audience and turn connections into meaningful online relationships.

What has helped you the most to grow meaningful relationships with others online? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

The World Needs Your Art

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“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” Henry Ward Beecher

I really admire great artists.

Great singers like Andre Bocelli, painters like the talented, young Akiane, or writers like Maya Angelou or Veronica Roth are only a few of the people that inspire me.

When I hear, see or read their works or art, I realize there is still a place in the world for art that stirs the soul.

There’s still a place for people like me, who don’t really fit into the normal one size fits all. And I’m glad.

Because I know we need mort art in the world.

The world

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Doing Work You Love

These artists mentioned above, are doing their passion. They are working hard to create something that is full of meaning and purpose. They pour their blood, sweat, tears and time into what they do. Giving out much more than they will ever be rewarded for.

To let themselves bleed for what they love is okay… because they are creating art. Artists make something that matters.

They leave a legacy.

Art Changes Us

Great art somehow changes us. It changes the world, making it better. Art speaks to something deep inside of us that we can’t even name. It nurtures our hope and gives us perspective.

Great art lightens our path and restores the broken places inside each of us.

For your art to be really meaningful, it needs to first be a labour of love.

I believe that somehow God sees what you are creating everyday and will reward you in sometimes unexpected ways. It may not be as soon as you would like, but it will happen.

Your job is to do the work, not expect the reward. Then as you work with your passion, it turns into conviction.

You spend hours each day, working tirelessly to improve your craft. Because your art requires it of you.

But all this hard work doesn’t matter if you don’t make it available to the world.

Only the artist knows when their work is ready to be sent out there. And true artists have the courage enough to create change.

Good Enough

There are quite a few people who think their work is good enough. The problem is that good enough is still mediocre. If you work doesn’t make you proud to tell your friends and neighbours about it … then it needs more tweaking.

But do get your work out there into the world. Make your art shareable.

Work on your music album, painting or book until it’s the best you can possibly make it. Then it’s ready to ship.

That’s what I did, when I finished my 1st Historical Romantic Suspense book. After five years of working on Answering Annaveta (Russia to Canada Trilogy Book 1), working with an editor and going over and over the manuscript, I finally said, with tons of fear… “I’m shipping.”

Turns out, much to my surprise, there were people waiting to read it. I believe the same will be true when I publish my first non-fiction book, Write and Publish Your First Book and also when Book #2 in the Historical Romantic Suspense series is shipped.

People are waiting for your art. Yes, yours. There will be many people who will be so excited that you did share your work with them. I really believe that.

It’s time to begin. The world needs to see, feel, hear, touch or taste your art. Don’t worry about failing. Worry instead about not starting. What you create will get better each time you practice.

Then do it again, and again, and again.

The world needs your art. Each creation you share with others will make a change, one piece of art at a time. [Tweet this]

So what are you creating? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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How To Set Up Your First Podcast

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Podcasting is an awesome way to reach people with your brand. Whether you are interviewing people, telling a short monologue of inspiration or if you decide to podcast your novel, you are reaching people in a more personal way.

This is a great way for people to get to know, like and trust you, because they start to hear your voice and get to know you even better through audio. When people get to know the real you, they start to connect with you even better. Of course, you can also find a way to be more personal on your blog, which will definitely help you as an author, to draw even more readers to buy your books.

Since there are not many authors doing podcasts, if you choose to do some sort of audio, it can be a great way for you to really stand out and start to build some amazing relationships inside your genre or niche.

Since I’m in the process of starting a new podcast, it feels like I’m doing this again for the first time. So, I thought I’d share my steps. I hope this helps you too.

How to

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My Learning Curve…

When I got started with my 1st podcast almost 2 years ago now, I didn’t really know what a podcast was. Even though I ended up with a little less than 20 episodes with the old podcast, I found chatting with all those amazing people very rewarding. And I learned so much from each and every one of them.

I can honestly say I truly love podcasting.

That’s why I want to keep interviewing people, but this time I’m more focussed. It took me awhile to realize it, but what I love talking and writing about most is, to help and inspire people to write amazing stories. That’s why the Podcast will have the same title as this blog, Create A Story You Love. I’ve already had the privilege of recording a few interviews with a fiction author, a indie non-fiction author and a writer/blogger, so it’s just a matter of setting the podcasts up and putting them onto iTunes.

So what is a podcast?

A podcast is an audio file that you can stream and distribute online. Podcasts can be a radio show, talk show, university lectures, interviews, novels/audiobooks or pretty much anything you can think of.

The beauty of a podcast, is that you can download the audio anytime instead of a radio show, which is only broadcast at a certain time each day. You can also subscribe and have the episodes downloaded automatically to your player.

I often listen to podcasts when I’m busy making supper or driving the kids to school. The wonderful thing is that there are tons of free podcasts out there in cyberspace, many of them with loads of great information and inspiration. Just go to the Podcast section on iTunes and look in the category you want and you can start listening right away.

So what are the steps to set-up your first Podcast?

Step 1: Plan Your Podcast Ahead of Time

This is what I should have done better with my first podcast. I didn’t plan too much ahead, and just jumped in because I was excited about podcasting. I’m learning how to do that better this time around.

I plan my interviews a couple months in advance by either emailing or sending a FB/Twitter text. I discover people all the time with interesting stories they’ve written in fiction or non-fiction and I ask if they would consider being interviewed. Many times I’ve already created a relationship with them first on Facebook or Twitter and I’ve read their blog or I’ve found them on someone else’s blog.

After I’ve figured out a time and date to call(I use www.scheduleonce.com), I email the a week before the interview with the questions I have for them based around the topic of the interview. I do let people know that I might talk about other topics, depending on their answers to questions – because something they say might spark another question – but it allows them to time to prepare.

Podcasting is sort of an indirect form of marketing. But, it’s really more about creating awareness on a topic and I do try to focus on helping give answers to specific questions people might have around a topic.

It’s also a way to help those you interview to promote their books or website, so I always give time for the interviewee to share more about their products at the end of the podcast.

Step 2: How To Create the Audio

Since I started doing podcast interviews, I’ve used Skype. It’s free for anybody to use, so in that way it works for almost all the people I interview. I discovered you need to add on software to record the audio. If you use a PC: Pamela.biz. If you use a Mac: eCamm Recorder.

I also do a video recording of the interview at the same time that I’m recording the audio. It’s really easy to do. I used to use my iphone earplugs to record, and that worked ok. But I learned from other podcasters like Cliff Ravenscraft, Jonathan Milligan or Joanna Penn that there’s other tools I could use. So I ordered the Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone – Silver and I’ve been quite happy with it’s clear sound.

Normally with podcasts, you need to create an intro and an outro and have some music in the background. You need to use royalty free music. But there’s a few places where you can get some music for quite cheap like freeplaymusic.com or musicbakery.com. All you need to do is create a short ‘loop’ of the music and then record the audio and save these short files to add into each podcast at the beginning and the end.

Step 3: How to Edit the Audio/Video

In a podcast, it’s good to leave your natural human voice for the most part. I leave in a few little mistakes, but I do edit out stuff like loud dogs barking, loud trucks, etc. Also sometimes there are technical problems which I try to edit out too. For the most part, people understand that podcasts are done by people who are amateur, so listeners are forgiving of the little mistakes.

Free editing software for Mac or PC: Audacity.

For Mac: I use GarageBand and it works good. I’ve also started using Screenflow to edit the videos and that seems to work well too.

These took me a little time to figure out, but now they are quite easy to use. All you need to do is highlight and then cut segments, drag and drop files. Then save the files as .wav or .mp3.

I used ID3 editor to tag my .mp3 files and upload graphic for the podcast, and then it’s ready  as a finished .mp3 file.

Step 4: How to Publish the Podcast

I have been using Libsyn.com to host the audio files for $5/month. It’s worked for me so far. I have considered using Amazon S3(with Bucket Explorer) to host finished audio files, which is incredibly cheap to use too.

This is when you upload your finished files to Libsyn.com or Amazon S3. The reason for having an outside source to host your audio files, is so that the download speed for your listeners is still quite fast even as your number of podcast listeners grows.

An easy way to put your audio file up onto your wordpress blog, is to use the Blubrry plugin for WordPress blogs(this is free) to create the play button and the download link. All you need to do is put the URL link from Amazon S3(or Lisbyn) and it does the rest. It’s quite easy. Blubrry has it’s own feed to iTunes and you can easily follow the steps in Blubrry or you can listen to Pat Flynn’s series of podcasting videos to help you learn how to set that up.

Then all you need to do is listen to the final file and create the show notes for your blog post. I usually create a summary of the podcast, but at some point, I’d like to be able to have a transcription done of each podcast. Having a summary or transcription of the podcast also helps to give your website extra SEO.

Once that’s done, you should be ready to go.

Podcasting takes a little bit of time of course, but it goes faster the more you do it. It takes me around 1 hour to prepare, 1 hour to do the interview and about 2 hours to edit and write the summary. This is quite a bit of work, but for me it’s only every other week and because podcasting has been so helpful and inspiring to writers, I consider it a good investment of time.

If you have any questions about podcasting, please let me know in the comments below.

 

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Stop Killing Your Ideas

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Have you ever had an impulse to act on an idea, that your mind pulled the emergency brake on a few seconds later?

I know I’ve had a ton of ideas that I’ve just thrown out because either they seemed to difficult, it took too much time… or sadly because there were areas in my life where I was convinced things were never going to change, so I gave up trying.

I believed the lie that I was fine and it killed my ideas.

instead of

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You Have Life Changing Ideas for a Reason

You are totally and completely incomparable.

In fact, scientists have calculated the odds of you being born. They took into account all the wars, natural disasters and the odds of you being born at the moment in time you were born – to the parents withe the DNA structures you have – is 1:4 hundred trillion.

You’re not fine. You’re fantastic!

You have life changing ideas for a reason.

Yet, if you’re like me, all day long we have ideas that could change our life – and the world – that would change how we feel.

These amazing ideas bubble up inside of us, sort of like ping pong balls going back and forth across the table. But almost every time we have an idea we turn it off.

It’s sort of like hitting the snooze alarm on our lives.

Here’s the truth. In any area of your life that you want to change, there’s one fact you need to know. You are never going to feel like it.

A great example is losing weight. No one who wants to lose weight ever feels like going on a diet, but if they want the results they’ll force themselves to eat healthier and go on those walks.

It’s simple to get what you want… but it’s not easy.

You have to force yourself.

Listening for signals…

When you feel stuck or dissatisfied in your life there’s a signal. It’s not a signal that your life is broken, instead it’s a signal that one of your basic needs is not being met.

Your need for exploration and growth. Everything about your body grows throughout your life. Your mind and soul also need to grow. The only way you’ll get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve realized I need to force myself to get out of my own head, because most of the time my feelings are lying to me.

A big change means rethinking how we feel about ourselves and our work…

Any real big change in our lives requires a change in how we think. We need an about-face in how we think about ourselves and our work. Shaping what we believe about ourselves equips us to move toward what we hope to achieve.

To change how we think, we must begin by giving ourselves permission to explore and make mistakes. Overnight successes aren’t real. It takes work and time to pursue what you love to do.

If you love to write, pursuing your calling, is not an easy process.

In fact, it can be one of the hardest, and most frustrating things you’ll ever do. When I first began writing a few years ago, I struggled a lot. I made a lot of mistakes(still do) and was often lonely and discouraged. I’m still affected by discouragement and the sting of failure.

The bad news? Writing is hard work. In the middle of the sometimes troublesome act of writing, there’s something rewarding  to hold on to. Despite how hard it is to take steps toward your writing dream, the good news is that it’s worth it.

The process can be hard and downright scary, yet I don’t regret starting this journey of writing. Because I would rather write words that matter – even though it’s scary – than do anything else that would be easier.

Writing the words you love, is about pushing yourself everyday to get better.

Choose to grow and explore

You can keep saying some day I’ll write this book someday or you can choose to grow. You can choose to find ways to explore new ideas and write everyday.

The only way you’ll grow is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable. Don’t tell yourself not writing your book, blog or your short story is fine. It’s not.

In Mel Robbin’s book Stop Saying You’re Fine: Discover a More Powerful You, she says to stop telling yourself you are fine. Your feelings are messing with you. If you listen to how you feel when it comes to what you want you will not get it because you’ll never feel like it.

It’s the first five seconds, when you first have the impulse, that you need to act on your ideas. If you wait, your brain pulls the emergency break and you won’t do it.

I’m guilty of doing that way too often. I’ve stopped ideas I’ve had an impulse to write, because of fear or because I felt overwhelmed. I’ve regretted that.

I’ve decided to start to act faster on ideas that pop into my head.

You see, the problem with most of us isn’t a lack of ideas, the problem is that the ideas are being killed before you can act on them.

So begin the practice of acting on your ideas today. If you’ve had a blog, short story or book idea, start it now. Even if all you write is 500 words, that’s a win.

Stop telling yourself you’re fine. Rather tell yourself, you are fantastic.

See the ideas that bubble up inside you as possibilities. Don’t pull the emergency brake any longer… instead act on your impulse.

Have you ever stopped an idea in its tracks before you could explore it? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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