Until this conference, I felt that twitter only frittered time that could be better spent writing; that a blog would bog me down from penning the next great literary masterpiece of our age; and Pinterest was of no interest. Surely these had little impact on book sales?
My views have changed in the last 48 hours and although I’m still struggling with the concept of my next self-help or business book having a cute cat on cover to boost sales, I realise that if I want to land on my feet and have another 9 lives in today’s world of publishing, I best put my paws on the electronic platforms of the future. I recognize there’s much to learn and early attempts will be far from purr-fect. Apart from all the techo stuff, my key takeaways from excellent authors were:
-Ensure your book has a powerful first sentence or paragraph-to create curiosity. It won’t kill the cat
-Write in American English for the global audience
-Blog weekly and share
So as someone who wants to make the transition from a speaker who writes-to a writer who speaks, here’s my first writer’s blog post. I enjoyed meeting some pretty cool cats-mainly fiction authors from about ten countries. Of course, I maintain my theory that Dublin has produced great writers because the weather is so damn miserable…nearly froze swimming in the Irish Sea with a water temperature of 13 degree Celsius but that’s another story; and one I won’t be telling here. Maybe the cat has my tongue, but gotta say that www.booksgosocial was the cat’s meow- and I thank them from the bottom of my clichéd feline heart.