Training in the craft of writing is not easier than training for the Olympics. While learning to write well involves less sweat, it may require more tears, as any successful author will tell you.

• Read Books on Craft
• Submit Your Writing to Expert Feedback
• Read Good Books
• Keep writing!

How do you find your way through the marketing advice smog?

• Track thy time.
• Track thy money.
• Track thine efforts.

• Pace Yourself
• Create a Budget
• Get a Job

Build your platform on land you own. You you own your digital land when you can move without consequences.

• Own Your Website
• Own Your Email List

• Determine Your Options
• Count the Cost

So, why is it so hard to make author friends?

• Reason #1 Artifice
• Reason #2 Pride
• Reason #3 Envy

Do yourself a favor, and don’t publish your first book first. Let that first book be the learning experience it was meant to be, and then write the next book. You are a writer! Writing is what you do. So write the next book.

Your brand is not a photo, logo, genre, or collection of fonts. It is the story you tell about yourself. More importantly, it is the story others tell about you.

You can grow your brand, but it grows where it is planted. Plant your brand in a place you are willing to live for the rest of your career.