The Art and Business of Writing by Chris Jones

Loved this book (The Art & Business of Writing) by the man who is also the editor at Fredericksburg Parent & Family Magazine. Here's the piece I wrote for them on how to raise a resilient child.

There is so much helpful advice in this book, and it's the perfect size ... not too long and not too short. It even went beyond where I am in my career right now and took it to business cards and web hosting (I just use free Blogger and have since 2008) advice.

I have been writing for publication since about 2006 and ebooks since 2009. I also self-published The Tater Tot Casserole Cookbook back in 2013, and it's a fun little cookbook that makes a great gift! I know you'll get something great out of this book no matter how long you've been in the business! Here are some takeaways for me:

• Check out the Pomodoro timer in your phone's app store. Interesting to see how much work I was actually getting done versus how much time I THOUGHT I was spending working. It was much less, actually. Here's my post about discovering this helpful app!

• This book made me realize that it would be doable for me to write 500 words per day if I made room in my life for that and did it first, BEFORE sitting down to my proofreading jobs. It's all about priorities.

• The book is about the Art + Business of writing. To me that's like being good at English + Math, you know? You can't be all about the art of it ... because you also have to worry about record keeping, collections, getting clients, marketing and so much more!

• Who is my reader? What do I hope they will learn and how will I help them? Like with my cookbooks, that's easy. And the same for my book about making money to write for magazines. But my parenting Christmas and Halloweens? Kinda general and might need to be reworked into a more general holidays-with-kids book that's more focused on solutions.

• Am I writing for them or for me? You have to somewhat write for yourself. Most of my parenting articles were written for myself and the same for the tater tot cookbook. Even the magazine writer's markets book I self-published was so I could compile all my markets in one spot, but then I wrote all the tips at the front for the reader, then more helpful things at the end! I put all the tater tot recipes in one place so I would have them for myself, but then I spiced them up and created more and added desserts!

What are some helpful things that work for you in your life as a writer?

Did you know that you can write one article and sell it again for money to dozens of different magazines all over the world? And yes, the editors know we are doing this. It’s not a secret, just something that's not very well known. Check out my resource with 600 markets! (use promo code PPBLOG20 for 20% off) You can order "TheMother of All Writing Market Books" here.

Check out the Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards here!