Writers Supporting Writers ~ Group Blogs

By Narelle Atkins

I’m a big fan of group blogs, and blogging in general. Blogs provide a platform for writers to share and interact with readers. Blogging platforms are public and accessible to everyone who has a web browser. Unlike other social media platforms, the blog reader has full control over the blog post content they can access online. They can also choose how they want to read and interact with different blog posts.

Writing group blogs are a fun way to network and meet other writers and readers. They provide an opportunity for writers to hone their article writing skills. They also provide an opportunity to create an online community that’s inspiring, supportive, and encouraging. A community that is welcoming, inclusive, and works together to achieve a common goal.

How can you support your group blogs? 

1) Participation 

Being an active member of group blog is a great first step. This may involve joining a group blog as regular member of the blog posting team, guest blogging, commenting on blog posts, and sharing blog posts on social media. 

Australasian Christian Writers (ACW) has an active Facebook Group that’s linked to the blog. The Monday-Friday blog posts are shared in the ACW Facebook Group. We welcome guest bloggers and we also invite writers who have guest blogged to join our blogging team if a regular posting spot becomes available.

2) Commenting on blog posts

Last year Paula Vince shared an excellent post on her personal blog titled Why don’t we leave comments on blogs? Ironically, her blog post has 70 comments. I encourage you to read her post and comments if you haven’t seen it. Paula tackles the elephant in the room and covers this topic in-depth.

Blog post comments are one way you can support other writers. Sometimes we can over think what to write in a comment. A simple thank you or a few words of encouragement can mean a lot to the author of the post who has invested time and effort in writing the post.

I believe it’s important for all of us to consider taking a step outside our comfort zone by reaching out and commenting on blog posts written by Bloggers who we don’t know. This is how we can create a welcoming, inclusive, and supportive blog community. If we only comment on group blog posts written by our friends, the group blog could look like a clique to readers who follow the blog posts and notice the pattern in the comments.

Blog comments provide a chance to give feedback to the author of the post. If there are no blog post comments, the author may assume their post isn’t engaging or reaching their target audience. Writers may quit blogging if they think no one is reading their posts.

3) Sharing blog posts

Many of us have busy lives and find it hard to schedule time to read blog posts. This can be more difficult if the blog post content is outside our area of interest.

We can support the authors of blog posts by sharing their posts on social media. Wordpress offers an option for blog readers to like blog posts. Liking a blog post is a fast and easy way to show an author that you value their blog post. Carolyn Miller recently wrote an excellent blog post titled Please Like Me! that explores the question of why people don’t press like on Facebook posts.

Blogger and Wordpress have made it easy to share blog posts on social media. For the examples below I’ve taken screenshots from Iola’s ACW blog post on Monday.

• M symbol – Email the blog post link to a friend via Blogger. You need to have a Blogger profile to access this option. 

• B symbol – Blog This. You need a Blogger blog to reblog the content. 

• T symbol – Share to Twitter. A fast and easy way to tweet the blog post to your Twitter followers. The blog post text is automatically created, and all you need to do is sign into Twitter and press share. 

• F symbol – Share to Facebook. You can share the blog post to your Facebook profile timeline, a Facebook group, or a Facebook page you manage. 

• P symbol – Post to Pinterest. You have the option to select the boards where you want to pin the post. 

• G symbol – Share to Google+. Pressing the G symbol creates a ‘plus one’ (which is the equivalent of a like) and the option to share the post to your Google+ profile. Last year I wrote a blog post for ACW on Google+ ~ Is it relevant and useful for writers?

I share group blog posts via Buffer and Social Jukebox. Please see Iola Goulton’s ACW post How to be on Twitter 24/7 Without Being on Twitter 24/7 to learn more about sharing blog posts using social media tools. 

My daily routine for social media group blog post sharing

I use the paid version of Buffer and share group blog posts to 1) Twitter 2) Google+ profile and 3) Facebook Author Page (if the content is relevant to my target audience). 

I may not have the time to read the daily posts from my list of group blogs, but I can find five or ten minutes each day to support the writers by sharing their blog posts on social media. 

Is there something new you can try to encourage and support the writers of group blog posts? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

A fun loving Aussie girl at heart, NARELLE ATKINS was born and raised on the beautiful northern beaches in Sydney, Australia. She has settled in Canberra with her husband and children. A lifelong romance reader, she found the perfect genre to write when she discovered inspirational romance. Narelle's contemporary stories of faith and romance are set in Australia.

Website: http://www.narelleatkins.com

Blog: http://narelleatkins.wordpress.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NarelleAtkinsAuthor

Twitter: @NarelleAtkins https://twitter.com/NarelleAtkins

Promoting Your Book on Facebook: Three Tips

By Iola Goulton

What do people use Facebook for?

Yesterday I looked at the three types of Facebook pages: Profiles, Pages, and Groups, and the three types of Groups: Public, Closed, and Secret. I also gave some examples of each. Today I’m going to look at how you should—and shouldn’t—use Facebook for self-promotion. First, let’s look at what users want from Facebook.

What do people like on Facebook?

The American Christian Fiction Writers Facebook course I’m currently taking assigned us a task: to survey our target readers and ask them five questions:

1. How often do you check your Facebook newsfeed?
2. What do you most like to see in your newsfeed?
3. What do you least like to see in your newsfeed?
4. Why do you "like" a page?
5. What is your favorite "fan" page? Why is that?

I have two groups of target readers, one for my fiction and one for my non-fiction. I posted these five questions on my personal author page and in the Australasian Christian Writers group, and got sixteen responses. I know these aren’t statistically valid samples: the respondents are biased towards people who use Facebook a lot, and there is self-selection bias as well.

But my results are consistent both with what I would have expected, and with the results my ACFW classmates posted (what I found unexpected was how many of my classmates were surprised by the results. This could explain the content of some of their Facebook feeds …).

How often do you check your Facebook newsfeed?

Responses ranged from “daily” to “several times an hour” (to the person who blushed at admitting to ten times a day: you have nothing to be embarrassed about). This sample is probably biased in that people who aren’t on Facebook at least daily probably wouldn’t have seen the post.

What do you most like to see in your newsfeed?

There were a lot of similarities in the answers to this question:

• News from family and friends
• Inspirational posts (e.g. memes and videos)
• Book or reading jokes (I also like grammar jokes)
• Prayer requests (well, I did ask Christians)
• Updates from favourite pages
• Information and articles about writing and publishing (from the writers)
• Information about personal interests (which vary by individual but include jewelry making, TV shows, science, craft ideas, and recipes).

Oddly enough, no one said “advertisements for books”, although people did mention links to free books or links to great books they could share.

What do you least like to see in your newsfeed?

There were also a lot of similarities in the answers to this question:

• Political posts and rants
• Whining
• Advertisements and excessive self-promotion (although a post or two to announce a new book appears to be fine)
• Swearing
• Selfies, especially duck-face selfies (I do like classy selfies. But I agree about duck-face selfies)
• Disrespectful posts or vitriol or posts that attack individuals (which is different from respectful disagreement over real issues)
• Disturbing pictures (e.g. smut, cruelty to animals)
• Scam posts (click this to win or share this if you want a blessing or repost this to show you care)

Why do you "like" a page?

Most people like pages either because they’re interested in the product or service or information provided, or because they want to support the page owner. This is good to know: your friends and fans want to support you.

What is your favorite "fan" page? Why is that?

One person asked “what is a fan page?”. I hope I answered that yesterday! The most common response was that they don’t have a favourite page.

Many writers said they like to visit writing groups (such as ACW). Others named specific pages, either author pages or the pages of other relevant communities. One person commented that they like the pages where the author interacts with fans and shows something of their personality, but don’t like the pages which are “into shameless self-promotion”.

Overall . . .

The results were consistent between the ACW members, and the people who answered via my personal page, suggesting that writers aren’t too different from non-writers in the way they use Facebook as individuals . . . which raises questions about the writer I mentioned yesterday, who posts to 100 groups each day.

How not to self-promote

As an aside, while I was procrastinating over writing this blog post, I checked out the 100+ groups this author is a member of (thanks to the fact the author doesn’t seem to avail herself of Facebook’s privacy settings). I’m a member of a few of the same groups, which are all promo-free or restrict self-promotion to once a week. One group had only two likes—one from the author herself, and another from her author page.

1. Focus on Engagement

Most of the groups were nothing but self-promo and the posts had little or no engagement, suggesting all the posters follow the same spam-and-run model of self-promotion, and no one is looking for books to buy (which reflects the results of my highly unscientific survey).

Facebook rewards people who post engaging content (i.e. content which people react to, comment on, or share). By continually posting content which gets no engagement, this author might unintentionally be pushing herself further down the Facebook algorithm to the point where Facebook doesn’t show her posts to anyone. Instead, she should:

2. Focus on Original Content

It was also evident that she—and others—are posting the same content over and over, something Facebook doesn’t like. Better to post less often, but to focus on posting original content her audience will engage with.

3. Target the Right Users

Most of the groups she posts in aren’t genre-specific groups: the author writes contemporary Christian women’s fiction, but her promotional posts were sandwiched between book covers featuring half-naked men and topless women, all in those shades of black and white so beloved of erotica authors. If this is the demographic these groups target, I’m not surprised members aren’t interested in down-home Christian women’s fiction.

If anyone would like a list of almost 100 groups that allow endless self-promotion and show little reader engagement, leave a comment! (Almost 100, because I’ve taken out the groups that don’t permit self-promotion, and the group she’s the only member of.)

There are ways of effectively self-promoting on Facebook. This is not one of them.

So how should we promote on Facebook?

Remember, it’s a social network. Be social:

• Have a personal profile and an author page, and don’t post the same content on both.
• Focus on engagement with posts over quantity of posts. Look for ways to connect with your target reader.
• Focus your content on your followers want: inspirational quotes, book sales and recommendations (not just your own books), personal news, and articles on relevant topics. You can use your Page Insights tool to see what specific posts get the most engagement.
• Self-promote only when you have something new to say: a new cover reveal, a new book available on pre-order, a new release, an older book on sale for a limited time.
• If you choose to pay for advertising, make sure you do it properly: aim for email list signups or book sales not page Likes, do some training first, learn how to target your ads, use targeting pixels, and calculate ROI on each campaign (if you don’t know what pixels are or why they are important . . . well, that’s why you need to get some training first).

(If you want information on Facebook advertising, check out this brilliant blog post—well, essay—from author Jeff Posey: Facebook Advertisements)


Overall, remember that spam is in the eye of the beholder (you might think you’re not spamming, but it’s not your view that counts. It’s the view of your current and potential readers). Focus on connecting with readers, ensure every post is something they will want to Like, Comment on, or Share.

Are you a Facebook fan? If not, which social network do you prefer, and why?

About Iola Goulton

I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz),  subscribe to my monthly newsletter at CES Newsletter or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

Introducing Facebook: Profiles, Pages and Groups

By Iola Goulton

Facebook is a social network founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and a team of classmates at Harvard University. The site has around 1.6 billion users worldwide, with around half accessing the site through mobile devices such as smartphones. In the US, 62% of adults have a Facebook account, and 91% of them visit the site at least weekly: more than any other social network. This level of engagement means it’s a great platform for marketers.

Users can post updates themselves (either directly or through third-party apps such as Hootsuite and Buffer), and they can Like (or react using other emoticons), Comment or Share update posted by others. Facebook also has direct messaging and video applications.

If you read my post last week then looked at Twitter, you may have found the number of self-promotional posts close to overwhelming—although that might depend on who you follow. I follow a lot of authors, and many of them do nothing on Twitter except self-promote. Guess who I ignore or unfollow or both?

Unfortunately, a lot of authors use Facebook in the same way, as a way to endlessly self-promote.

For example, American Christian Fiction Writers are currently offering a free one-month course for members on using Facebook. In the introduction, the teacher asked the class what questions they have around Facebook. One self-published author replied that she wanted to know how to get better sales results from Facebook, as she was currently promoting her books in 100 groups each day and not seeing much return.

Yes, you read that right. She’s spamming one hundred Facebook groups each day.

I’ll attempt to answer the question of why endless spamming doesn’t work tomorrow—and what works better. For today, I’ll take a step back and cover some of the Facebook basics (for the non-addicts out there).

First, Facebook is a social network, an online network of social interactions and personal relationships:

Facebook is also described as social media, an application that allows people to participate in social networking:

In both cases, the key word is “social”.

Some people liken Facebook and other social media platforms as being like a party, and says the “rules” are similar: you wouldn’t walk into a party and start trying to sell your product or service to friends and strangers, so you shouldn’t do this on Facebook either (Facebook is not a Tupperware party, where the sales pitch is implied from the invitation).

The party analogy ignores two important facts: some people would walk into a party and try and sell their product or service. And Facebook is not a party. It’s a business. A profit-making venture. In this respect, Facebook is more like a free newspaper—it has enough useful content to ensure people open and read it, but its purpose is to distribute paid advertising.

Facebook is the same.

It is are a business who has taken the long-term view. They invested years into building and marketing a free social networking platform that would make it easy for people to connect with friends old and new, near and far. And they’ve succeeded. But now they are seeking to capitalize on that investment by selling advertising space.

From what’s I’ve observed as a regular (*cough* heavy-bordering-on-addicted *cough*) user, Facebook has two main tactics to achieve their goals:

1. Instead of showing users every post from every profile, page and group, Facebook are showing the posts they are most likely to engage with (by liking, reacting, commenting or sharing).
2. Facebook are getting tougher on unpaid advertising—they penalize spammers, and encourage users to pay to boost posts, or to purchase pay per view (PPV) or pay per click advertising (PPC).

This makes perfect sense if you think back to my analogy of the free weekly newspaper: Facebook have to have enough genuine content to keep us interested and visiting the site on a regular basis, but enough paid advertising to fund the free platform. But not everyone can advertise on Facebook: that’s a privilege (?) reserved for Pages, not pages.

Types of Facebook pages

Not all Facebook pages are created equal. There are actually three kinds, and the easiest way to remember the difference is to look at how you connect with people:

Profile

Your personal profile (which was originally referred to as an individual page).
You FRIEND or FOLLOW a profile, and you are limited to 5,000 friends (which should be more than enough for most of us). Officially, people can only set up personal profiles using their actual name, but it is possible to use a pen name. Users have the option of making their profiles Public or Private (in theory, only Friends can see Private profiles).

Note that “internet privacy” is possibly an oxymoron: while I can’t see a direct message, or a post on a Private page or in a Secret group (below), I’m sure any halfway competent hacker can. The usual internet rules apply: don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to be public information. Even in a private Direct Message (because while people can’t Share, they can still cut and paste).

Regardless of what you do on Facebook, you need a personal Profile because you can’t set up a Page or a Group without one. Unless, of course, you decide you’re not going to be on Facebook at all.

Page

You LIKE a page. 
Pages were originally called fan pages, and can be set up by public figures, organisations and businesses. Pages have some marketing advantages over a personal profile:

• You can have multiple pages (Facebook frowns on people having more than one personal profile)
• You can choose what kind of page to have: I have an Author page (Iola Goulton Author), a personal blog page (Iola's Christian Reads) and a Professional Services page (Christian Editing Services).
• You can have an unlimited number of followers (LIKES), while you are limited to 5,000 Friends
• Pages are indexed, which is a fancy way of saying they will come up in Google searches
• You can sell from a Page (selling from your personal profile is against Facebook’s Terms of Service)

Group

A group is just that: a group, and you JOIN a group.
A group is set up by one person, but may be managed and maintained by a team of administrators. Anyone can post to a Group, but (usually) only administrators can post using third-party tools (e.g. Buffer), and only administrators can delete posts.

Most groups have user guidelines, often displayed in a pinned post at the top of the group. These guidelines cover whether a group permits self-promotion, and under what circumstances. Some are no self-promotion ever, while others allow one self-promotional post per week or per month, or on a specific day of the week. Break the rules at your own risk: most groups have little patience for hit-and-run spammers (i.e. people who self-promote and never return to the group).

Types of Groups

There are three type of groups: Public, Closed, and Secret.

Public

Anyone can join a public group, anyone member can post to the group, and any member can add other Facebook users to the group. Personally, I steer clear of most public groups as they are often full of advertising . . . as if I don’t see enough already.

Closed

Closed groups have a degree of privacy, in that while anyone can search for a Closed group and request to join, only members can see posts, can post to the group and only administrators (usually) can add people to a group. Posts made to a Closed group usually can’t be shared beyond the group.

Some Closed groups are formal membership groups. For example, I’m a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Omega Writers, and Romance Writers of New Zealand, groups which only paid-up members can join. I find them to be a useful networking tool, and an easier way of keeping up with news than long email loops.

I’m also part of several groups where all members have taken the same training course (e.g. Shannon Mattern’s WP BFF group, for those who have taken her Five-Day Website Challenge). These groups allow members to work together to offer technical support, with the group owner chiming in where necessary. I think these groups are excellent—everyone in the group has a similar level of knowledge on the topic and is working on a similar project, so it’s an easy way to get advice.

Other Closed groups are informal membership groups, and this includes a lot of reading, writing and editing groups. Australasian Christian Writers has a Closed Facebook group—because we want our group to be Australasians (wherever they live) who are Christians (of any denomination) who write (anything—book reviews, books, blog posts, articles, poetry). Without wishing to sound exclusive, we don’t want our group filled with non-writers who want to sell us coastal properties in landlocked countries, or any of the other strange ‘offers’ we see on the internet.

Secret

Yes, Facebook also has secret groups. You have to be invited to join a secret group, as they don’t come up in searches (well, it wouldn’t be a secret if everyone knew about it, would it?). The Secret groups I’m part of tend to be highly specialised. One is an editing group which chose to become Secret so posts wouldn’t show up in searches (editors need to be able to ask advice or vent without worrying that the author in question might come across the post). Another is an author’s street team.

The Facebook News Feed

Most users access Facebook through their News Feed, which shows what Facebook believes to be the most relevant posts based on previous user interactions (Like, React, Comment or Share). For example, I’ve heard people claim they don’t want to join Facebook because they don’t want to be inundated with pictures of what everyone else had for dinner. That’s easy: don’t interact, and Facebook will gradually learn not to show you these posts.

The News Feed doesn’t show you every post made by every friend or on every page or in every group. You can select to always see posts from particular people, pages or groups, but otherwise you will only see what Facebook thinks you want to see. One way it works this out is to show a post to a small percentage of personal or page followers. If enough people interact with the post (by Liking, Reacting, Commenting or Sharing), then Facebook will show the post to more people—effectively rewarding people for posting interesting content. Facebook also “rewards” users for posting unique and engaging content by showing these posts to more people.

This ‘curating’ of the News annoys some long-time Facebook users. 

There was a time when they saw everything in their News Feed, while now they only see what Facebook thinks they want to see (which makes sense. The average Facebook user receives 1500 messages a day even with a filtered feed. I don't know about you, but I don’t need that much information).

Facebook now take action against people who routinely promote themselves without paying by restricting them from posting for up to two weeks. I often see authors complaining about these sanctions, about being sent to “Facebook Jail”, and I’m sorry but I have little sympathy. Facebook is not a place to self-promote, advertise, or spam. If I wanted wall-to-wall advertising, I’d watch the Shopping Channel.

Facebook is a social network: the key word is “social” not “self-promote”. 

Facebook is a venue to be social, a place to connect with family and friends, with readers and writers, with other people with similar hobbies and interests.

So how do people use Facebook, and how should authors use Facebook to promote themselves and their books? I’ll be back tomorrow to consider the answers to those questions.

Do you use Facebook? What are your favourite features?

About Iola Goulton

I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz),  subscribe to my monthly newsletter at CES Newsletter or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

Australasian Christian Writers Contemporary Christian Romance Contest

By Iola Goulton

Last year, I judged a short story competition for Romance Writers of New Zealand, and I talked about my experience in this post.

This year, I'm one of three judges for a brand new competition, the Australasian Christian Writers Contemporary Christian Romance Contest (ACW CCR Contest for short). This opportunity has advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage: getting to read some cool entries (that's a statement of faith. The competition doesn't close until 31 October, so I won't actually see any entries until after that).

Disadvantage: not being allowed to enter.

The ACW CCR Contest is a first five pages contest, which will make the judging different from the short story contest. For one thing, we've agreed as judges that we will give feedback, but we won't be scoring entries (and I'm hoping that will make things easier!).

But the most obvious difference between a short story contest and our ACW contest is, well, obvious.

An 1800-word short story has to be complete: beginning, middle, end. First Act, Second Act, Third Act. The guy has just 1800 words to get the girl.

A first five pages contest is about the opening hook. There's a lot more going to happen before the guy gets the girl … so the first five pages are all about engaging your reader so they'll want to take that journey.

Here are my tips to make your entry sing:

Opening

• Introduce your viewpoint character by name in the first sentence
• Answer the essential questions: who, where, and when
• Ensure you are showing, not telling
• Avoid backstory

For more advice on the opening, check out Anne Hamilton's series of posts:

• Are you a Fisherman? 
• Bait and Switch
• Reeling in Your Reader

Characterisation

Limit the number of viewpoint characters. Five pages is probably your first scene, so there should be only one viewpoint character. For a romance, this should be the heroine or hero. Give us some insight into the characters—hero and heroine. And ensure we meet both characters—or give a good reason why we can't.

Dialogue

• Ensure dialogue is natural and pertinent to the story (not idle chit-chat).
• Use dialogue to show us the character of the hero, provide backstory, and move the plot forward.
• Avoid creative dialogue tags (which are often telling).
• Pare the dialogue down to the essentials.

For more advice on dialogue, check out my recent posts:

• Writing and Editing Dialogue
• Writing and Editing Dialogue Tags
• Action Beats and Dialogue Cues

If you're unconvinced about whether you should enter, then I suggest you review these recent posts by Carolyn Miller and Lucy Morgan-Jones, both of whom agree entering writing contests is a great way to get unbiased feedback on your writing.

Entries close on 31 October. 

Will you be entering the ACW CCR Contest? Why? Or why not?

About Iola Goulton

I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website, or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest  or Tsu.

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog. I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2500.

Overview of Writing Conferences and Events for Australian and New Zealand writers

By Narelle Atkins

Last week I discussed the benefits for writers from attending writing conferences. This week we're going to hear from the Australasian Christian Writers (ACW) Facebook Group. In the last year I've attended four writing conferences.

2013 ACFW Conference in Indianapolis, USA.
http://www.acfw.com/conference

2013 CALEB Conference in Brisbane, Australia, sponsored by Omega Writers Inc.

2014 Romance Writers of America Conference in San Antonio, USA.
http://www.rwa.org/conference

2014 Romance Writers of Australia Conference in Sydney, Australia.
http://www.romanceaustralia.com/p/1/Home 

I asked the ACW Facebook Group to briefly share the benefits they received, or hope to receive, from attending a specific writing conference or event. 

2014 Romance Writers of New Zealand Conference
http://www.romancewriters.co.nz/

Iola Goulton: I can't wait to hear James Scott Bell at the Romance Writers of New Zealand conference because, well, he's James Scott Bell. And because I'll be going with Catherine Hudson and Andrea Grigg.

Andrea Grigg: I'm going to the RWNZ conference and I can't wait to hear James Scott Bell. Even better, I get to attend with Iola Goulton and Catherine Hudson!

2014 Christian Writer's Conference
http://www.christianwritersconference.dx.am/

Iola Goulton: I'm also going to the Christian Writers Conference near Melbourne in October, and I'm looking forward to meeting lots of ACW writers there, and especially looking forward to hearing Adele Jones tell me what's wrong with my writing posture.

Susan Barnes: I'm looking forward to the Christian Writers Conference (near Melbourne) in October with Australian & NZ authors encouraging, supporting and helping one another get more Christian books into the marketplace.

Brisbane Writers Festival
http://bwf.org.au/

Nola Passmore: I'm going to the Brisbane Writers Festival in September because they offer helpful workshops in a wide variety of genres.

The Australian Society of Authors' (ASA) National Writers Congress
https://www.asauthors.org/news/national-writers-congress-attracts-200-authors

Penny Reeve: Last year I attended the ASA National Congress which gave me a great insight into the wider Australian book industry, current trends and issues for writers and a greater respect for the work of the ASA.

2012 ACFW Conference
http://www.acfw.com/conference

Ian Acheson: ACFW in 2012 (hopefully another one in '15 or '16). What I received most was affirmation from like-minded souls and meeting many, a few of whom have become dear friends in the 2 years since.

If you've benefited from a writing conference or event, please let us know in the comments and provide a link to their site. I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences. 

NARELLE ATKINS writes contemporary inspirational romance and lives in Canberra, Australia. She sold her debut novel, set in Australia, to Harlequin's Love Inspired Heartsong Presents line in a 6-book contract. Her debut book, Falling for the Farmer, was a February 2014 release, followed by The Nurse's Perfect Match in May 2014, The Doctor's Return in August 2014, Her Tycoon Hero in November 2014, and Winning Over the Heiress in February 2015.

Narelle blogs regularly with International Christian fiction Writers and Inspy Romance. http://internationalchristianfictionwriters.blogspot.com/ 
http://www.inspyromance.com/ 

She is also a co-founder of the Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance (ACRBA).
http://acrba.blogspot.com/ 

Website: http://www.narelleatkins.com
Blog: http://narelleatkins.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NarelleAtkinsAuthor
Twitter: @NarelleAtkins https://twitter.com/NarelleAtkins