I have continued my writing on various projects. I am excited to be working on a young adult series with my daughter Amanda. I am also working on doing a few ebooklets for my husband’s cleaning business. And my own novel. Writing, writing and more writing.

Since I have started the Fab Five Fridays (formerly the Weekly Roundup), each week there are such wonderful places on the internet I am happy to share with you.

Here are my finds for this week:

1) Book Tour.com - I found this site by reading a tweet regarding the discussion
blog post with Seth Godin about Chris Anderson’s new book, Free and how free is a part of our society. Book Tour.com allows authors to list their book tour events. You can also search to see the authors “touring” in your area.

2) Author Central on Amazon -If you are an author and sell your book on Amazon be sure to have your profile up on Author Central. I believe you can have your Book Tour.com event information linked to this author page.

3) The next resource for Fab Five Friday is an author whose book, Get Known Before the Book Deal, Christina Katz. I also found out this week (since I now follow her @thewritermama) she hosts a chat on Twitter called #platformchat. When you go to her site, you will find more neat things and resources…including her email classes and workshops.

4) Interesting article (tweet from @RebeccaWoodhead) from The Boston Globedescribes how The Northshire Bookstore in Vermont has decided to add a Espresso Book Machine (or as they call it “The Lurch” to their decor to allow customers to receive print on demand books in the store. Could this be the future of publishing?

5) I found an agent. Well, at least on twitter I did anyway. @RachelleGardner answered questions in her blog post, If you have written more than one book, who do you query first? She replied with an interesting question, why are you writing more than one book at the same time? Well, I have to say, I am guilty of this same thing at the moment. I am in the middle of writing a few things, however, they are in different genres. So I don’t believe I would be seeking out one agent for all of them anyway. However, I do see how if you are writing more than one romance novel, you may wish to pitch them to a agent in the genre.
(Also, please read the submission guidelines are Rachelle’s site before you just submit to her- thank you.)

I do hope you enjoy this Fab Five Friday. Have a wonderful memorable and celebratory weekend~Happy 4th of July!

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Have you accomplished some the goals you have set for yourself for 2009? Or at least on the road to completing them?

Sometimes you may have problems getting those things done by this time in the year.

Here are a few ideas to help you get back on track with the things you wish to complete by year end.

First, take a deep breath. Or perhaps take a few deep breathes. If you haven’t been able to finish or at least start of your 2009 goals, it isn’t the end of the world.

Many times when your goals get put off, there are other reasons and it isn’t laziness. You could be putting them off due to fear or self sabotage. Or you just need to find a better process in order to get those things done.

Next, review your goals list for 2009.

While reviewing the list, take the time to sit and give yourself credit for the things you have completed. You deserve it. Many times it is easier to knock yourself down for the things you don’t complete and don’t give any credit for accomplishments.

For those goals you haven’t completed yet, take stock again and access for each how important each goal is to get done.

Create a fresh goals list—in fact, create 2 lists.
One list for the goals you have accomplished. One list of goals you wish to accomplish by the end of the year. Place the completed list in front of you so you can see your accomplishments so you can focus on positive things.

With the “Goals to complete” remember to set realistic goals. This is not the time to beat yourself up for those things you haven’t completed. Today is a new start. You will start today toward these goals.

Enlist some help if needed. With the age of social media it is easier than ever to get other people to support you in your goals. Ask for help. Ask for an accountability partner where you each support the other in accomplishing your goals.

To show you about goals, I would like to share with you a few of mine:

Write a book by the end of 2009.
Still in process. I have started on this goal. In fact, I am in the middle of writing a few things. One is a book with my daughter for young adults. The other is a ebooklet for my husband’s business. When I initially wrote this goal, it was to write a business book or novel. This may or may not get fully completed by the end of 2009. But for me, the real goal here was to start writing and I am writing. I am proud of myself for starting and continuing on my writing journey.

Cook more from recipes.
At the beginning of the year, I was still buying a lot of fast and easy things from the grocery store. It was “easier” to do this even though, I really wanted to take the time to explore new recipes and make things myself.
In the spring I decided I wanted to make a real commitment to start taking a more active role in cooking. Take the time to research new recipes, get the ingredients and create new dishes. Cooking has been a great way to spend more time with my daughter and she is learning too. She has taken a liking more to baking but it is still in kitchen so it is great.

Get more involved in local networking.
Before getting out of the corporate world, I knew more of what was going on in my local area. Even then I wasn’t in any local networking groups. When I began my career shift to online mostly, I have stayed away from local and did all of my networking online. For 2009, I thought I would find at least one local group to join. In late 2008, a friend of mine introduced me to eWomen Network. I have been a member ever since. Also, in 2009, I have become a member of Florida Writers Association, a community which supports writers throughout Florida with many city chapters. Both groups have provided me with support, encouragement and inspiration.

It is interesting because when I sat down to write this post, I had thought to myself, “You can write this Teresa but then you are going to have to admit you haven’t accomplished anything you wanted to for 2009.” And in actuality by writing these down, I have shown myself, I have done pretty good. I am on the right track to accomplishing my goals for 2009.

Perhaps you too have accomplished more of your goals for 2009 than you thought, hmmm?

Please share with me your experience with goals for 2009.

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People do get drawn in by free—why not, right? Of course, however, is the balance still there within the free policy?

Apparently, the talk of the word free is very big right now with Chris Anderson new book called Free: The Future of a Radical Price coming out on July 7th. Seth Godin discusses his ideas on the subject. .

I think the method of how we deal with the aspect of freein our businesses and with our relationships with each other matters over just the offer of free itself.

Free doesn’t have to mean there is no value assigned to something…it is how free is used to benefit allof the parties involved.

I think things get dicey when there is no longer a win-win relationship.

And with the topsy-turvy future of the publishing and journalism industry, discussions about free or very low paid jobs are the top stories on social media such as Twitter.

Freelance writers are upset because they fell they aren’t being respected. People looking for writers to help them complain their are not enough good writers out there to pay OR writing just isn’t worth a lot of money to get paid for.

Yes, some newspapers are closing or going only printed online editions. This does seem to be the future. I did read that the Wall Street Journal started having subscribers pay to get the WSJ online and the subscribers were more than happy to oblige to get the latest WSJ news.

I believe it goes back to value. For myself, I don’t currently read the Wall Street Journal, however, I am aware it is one of the top news resources. So I won’t mind just like everyone else, paying for a subscription.

Just like the music industry…with the iPod, musicians were so afraid of not making money and I think it has become even a better deal for them because they make money directly from the popularity of each song.

Well, for writers (whether freelance, journalists, columnists) I believe it will be the same thing. For those people who wish to receive your work, you will still remain to find those who will pay for your writing.

And there will be those who won’t. However, I believe strongly (and I don’t think I am the only one) — “Those who won’t pay for your work, were not your ideal client anyway. Do not waste your time on those who aren’t willing to pay for your work.”

Like Seth mentioned in his post, he wasn’t sure why people purchased his books because the information (even though less organized and more scattered) was on his blog for free in some way shape or form. Well, to Seth and other writers I say, “That is exactly why we purchase your books. Because in the book form, it is all wrapped up and contained in one place.”

This is why people will subscribe to online magazines and newspapers just as they did for offline…because it will be contained in organized, manageable and singular place (website). Or they will download it onto their Kindle.

The future of newspapers and magazines just may be shifting formats but not how important they are to us as consumers.

So what do you say about free in the writing community?

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When do you start writing?

I never even suspected that I had any interest or skill for writing. I hated high school english! In 1991 I wrote an article for my company newsletter about a medical device. The feedback was tremendous. I received compliments and requests for reprints of the article from several organizations around the US. That lead to numerous writing projects and articles in the trade journals and I’ve been writing off and on since.

Do you have a method or system to your writing? (ie, you write 2 hrs each day or Mon, Wed, and Friday for an hr)

Yikes. I wish I could say I had a sure-fire locked down method for writing, but I really don’t. I try to write something every day. I’m usually successful but sometimes life gets in the way – which is really no excuse at all.

What is your favorite time to write?

It’s kind of funny, actually. I’m one of those disgusting morning people who like to get up at 5 or 6 every morning. I’ve always been the most productive during that time. When I went full time with my writing last year, that is how I started out, but these days, I do most of my writing in the late evening.

Can you share your top picks of books on writing?

Absolutely, positively the very best book out there is On Writing by Stephen King. Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue with his success or methods. That book was my inspiration to start writing on a full time basis.

I also like Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies by June Casagrande. Oh my gosh, how could you NOT like a book with a title like that? She takes a fun poke at modern day grammar and it’s very refreshing and enlightening.

How long did it take you to write your ebook?

The book I have for sale at Smashwords is called The Writing Experience. I wrote it to inspire folks that have been thinking about writing to stop thinking about it and to start doing it. All in all, it took about two weeks to write and collate the material.

You chose to use Smashwords to publish your book, why?

I learned about Smashwords from a post by Maria Schneider over at Editor Unleashed. I went over to Smashwords and read everything I could on the site about how the site worked. I was sold. In my mind, it is the best place out there to publish an e-book. It’s free, my e-book is published in multiple formats, I keep 85% of the sale and give up no rights. There are a lot of features that make it easy to help market the book and thus far I’ve had what I consider to be great success using Smashwords.

What has been your experience with working with Smashwords?

My experience with Smashwords has been great. I’ve had no issues with downloads or with the use of the system. I have one e-book for sale, one that is “set your own price” and three e-books for free. All told, since April 1 I’ve had more than 500 copies of these e-books downloaded. Even the free ones that are downloaded are valuable to me because it is exposure I otherwise would not have received.

Do you have plans to write more e-books and/or books?

Without a doubt. I can’t imagine putting my e-books anywhere but Smashwords and I’ve got a couple in the works right now.

Please share with us about your company Tumblemoose Writing Services.

I started Tumblemoose Writing Services in August of 2008 to provide freelance writing services to folks. The blogging format was a logical choice and since then the blogging has been a primary driver of business. The contacts that I have made through Tumblemoose have ended up providing me with the most writing projects so far.

What are some of your favorite authors?

I tend to stick with mainstream fiction – Patterson, King and the like. With that said, most would consider my bookshelves to have an eclectic collection. If I’m intrigued by a title or book jacket, I’m likely to buy the book. I’m also pretty fond of classic literature.

Where can people pick up your ebook or book(s) for purchase?

At this point I don’t have any books in print. I know that will change for me one day and I’m anxious to see it happen. Until that time, all of my works will appear at Smashwords in ebook format. You can purchase your own copy of The Writing Experience here.

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