.. And welcome to the first post of this new blog!
Some of you may remember my previous blog, which I wrote dutifully for six years. When I quit that, about a year and a half ago, I did not want to look at another WordPress dashboard ever again. (For those of you who don’t know, that’s the “backstage” portion of the blog, where the actual writing and designing of the blog happens.) Indeed, the very sight of a WordPress dashboard was enough to give me instant hives and send me bolting for the hills. Yep. It was that bad. I had overdosed on blogging.
And yet … less than two years later, here I am.
The thing was, I kinda missed blogging. Social media like Facebook and Twitter are great, but it’s a lot harder to have a voice. As in, a proper writing voice. The muse doesn’t often come over you when you’re writing a status or a tweet. It does so much more frequently when you’re writing a blog post. (And FAR MORE frequently when you’re writing a book. But that’s another story.)
So, for a while now, my fingers have been itching to start blogging again. And it’s not a modest, manageable kind of itching. My head is literally exploding with ideas. Far more ideas than my limited time space will allow me to indulge in, probably. But this is a start.
My previous blog was about Iceland, one of my passions. This blog will be about a different passion, one that I’m becoming increasingly enamored with: social media and e-publishing. At the moment, I am completely fascinated with the shifting paradigm in publishing in general, most notably through the rise and rise of Amazon and the vast, new opportunities opening up in e-publishing. And social media as a tool for marketing and publicity continues to astonish and amaze – though it must be done right. That is something I would also like to explore on this blog.
In my quest for manageability, I plan to commit to weekly updates, at least at the outset. I may update more frequently, if the spirit moves me (and it WILL, although whether I will allow that to translate into a post is a different matter), but basically, once a week will be my rule of thumb. Please sign up below if you would like to receive updates via email. Thanks for coming along on this journey with me!
I look forward to this with great interest. The writing world, at least in England, has been suspicious of the ebook revolution, worrying about how it will hurt physical book sales, but I think we are now beginning to realise that it is an opportunity. So I am sure you will find plenty to write about.
But do squeeze some stuff in about Iceland. Please!
Good luck,
Michael
Welcome back Alda, looks great. Good topic as well. As a photographer, I’ve been immersed in questions of e-/indie publishing for the past year or two, bringing to final form a ten-year photo project on Belarus (finally got it out there in January). IMHO, indie publishing is tremendously exciting terrain right now. As you might say ‘not for sissies’ ;), but in my case I saved a ton of money, kept total creative control (for better or worse I suppose), and brought the book into the world far faster than through a normal publisher.
For me the focus was on indie/print, not so much e-version, though I did do a PDF edition. The beauty of the PDF is how it plays on any device or computer, and looks great in iBooks. So far I’ve given it away as promo for the print version – I wanted to make the content available in Belarus, despite the tight state control of bookstores AND lack of online purchasing ability for most people there. So the free PDF becomes sort of a modern samizdat. It was a great solution.
Ahh.
Welcome back. I’m looking forward to reading this with great interest.
Hooray! I’m so glad you’re back, and am very interested in the new topics. Like Michael Ridpath, I hope you’ll give us some Icelandic news and perspective now and then. It’s what brought us all together in the first place. Good luck, Alda, and thanks for re-creating yourself (again).
Welcome back!
I missed your writing so bad that I had to start my own blog. How pathetic is that? I have also restarted photography as a more serious pursuit which also may have been rekindled to some degree because of your former blog. Enough gushing, I’ll just read now.
Aw, shucks everyone! What a delightful welcome … and how lovely to connect with all of you again. 🙂
Oh happy day!
Welcome back, I already subscribed!