Where is your growth potential?

Yesterday I talked a bit about the research I'm doing for the new Writing Career Coach product. One thing I've had to ask myself is, as a writer, where is my greatest growth potential.

Like many of you I have a variety of legs to my platform. I write articles for E-zines and magazines. I write/contribute to 3 blogs as well as writing articles for online journals. I speak to writer's groups and business groups regularly and teach webinars. I also have newsletters that I distribute. This is in addition to my business which is coaching aspiring writers, writing fiction and writing non-fiction.

When you are a writer, especially one working to breakout in book length writing, you must always balance your need to write with your need to pay your bills. For most people that means you work, work, work for pay until you have something paid for, then you start working on your writing until you find you need money again...then the cycle repeats. Many people don't advance because they are not looking at where their real growth potential is. Furthermore, they aren't willing to invest the time to build up the weaker areas to reach their dreams. By that I mean people who want to write novels may not be strong at that YET but what are they doing to make that their strength?

Admittedly, this is quite a bit to juggle. Most of us have responsibilities beyond simply writing our stories. It can, at times, seem overwhelming. That is why it is so important to find where your current growth potential is, then build on your strength. Once you feel confident in that area you can work on the next. My writing career has been built almost entirely in 30 minute increments. I never had the time to sit down for hours and write. Therefore, I had to take advantage of 30 minutes of quiet, 30 minutes where I could read, 30 minute lessons.

Find where your growth potential is and build on it.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group's next event.
Learn more about Tiffany's Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website. [www.TheBalancedLife.com]
Read Tiffany's award winning manuscript "A Face in the Shadow" on her fiction blog. [http://tiffanycolter.blogspot.com]
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer's Rest.[http://writersrest.blogspot.com]

When have you 'arrived'?

In my pursuit to be excellent in my field I spend a great deal of time studying the lives and careers of excellent people. I enjoy pioneers and famous people. By that I don't mean the latest "tabloid tartlette" but rather great performers who have stood the test of time.

One of those is Billy Joel.

I was watching part of a documentary put out the summer of 2008 where he recounted his breakout album 'The Stranger'.

I have been a huge Billy Joel fan since...well, since Piano Man came out [the song] which I think was some time around Kindergarten or first grade for me. I've always been intrigued by the swing and flow of Billy Joel's songs [and I really enjoyed the show "Bosom Buddies" which had a Billy Joel song during the opening credits].

He had a great way of creating a story out of a song. His songs Lenningrad, Noreastern Alexa, Piano Man, Don't forget your second wind, Goodnight Saigon...well, a good number of his songs, drew us in to the lives of people we knew. We felt we experienced these songs. We lived these songs.

So I was surprised to learn that "The Stranger" was a surprise hit, and Joel's 5th album.

I wondered how he had felt when he signed with his label in the years leading up to that career changing work. I imagine it had to be the same way most writers feel with their first book deal. But what separates an amazing career like Billy Joel from many writers is they see that first deal as a sign that they're there. They've arrived. They no longer need to learn, nor do they need to grow.

If you look at great writers and performers you'll see that the voice always stays recognizable, but the craft grows. They realize that there is no such thing as "Arriving". Former Press Secretary Tony Snow said as much after he was named Press Secretary to President Bush.

So what does it actually mean to arrive?

I think that arriving is when you come to the place where you're so comfortable with your own unique writer's voice that you're able to begin to let it mature without fear that you'll lose it totally. I think it is when you stop sounding like a conglomeration of your favorite authors and you begin to sound like yourself.

I think it is when you become fully teachable.

Have you arrived?

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany's Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany's award winning manuscript "A Face in the Shadow" on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer's Rest.

More ideas to reach people

Hello everyone,

Thank you for the questions you've already sent in about ways to make money in this economy. Keep them coming. I'm very excited about the product and want to make sure I'm giving information you can use immediately.

First, a little 'housekeeping'.
Since this week is Thanksgiving in the US I am only posting on Monday and Tuesday of this week on my main blog. I will still be posting Tuesday on Writer's Rest and I'll post Tuesday and Friday on my fiction blog. [To my Canadian readers: I'm sorry I forgot to wish happy thanksgiving to you last month. I try to keep on top of those things.]

Today I'd like to present more ideas on ways to network to build your platform and to learn from others. You will notice I now have my "Tweets" [which are twitter postings] running down the side of my blog. I'm finding that my initial assessment of using Twitter as an accountability tool didn't work as well as I had hoped HOWEVER it serves an even better purpose for me. I am able to immediately tell all of you when I read something that will immediately help your business. It would be like me calling you on your cell when I just learned a new nugget of information or something useful for your business. Think of the potential.

In the last few days I've read two really interesting articles about using Twitter to get jobs. Here are links to the articles.

http://www.twitip.com/leverage-twitter-for-your-job-search/

http://www.webinknow.com/2008/11/how-david-murray-found-a-new-job-via-twitter.html

By following me on twitter you would have learned about this the moment I read this awesome article [11:48am Friday, November 21, 2008] instead of now. How would this article have changed your learning last week? If this article wasn't particularly helpful there could be others. Imagine learning great tips moments after I find them.

And then by following other leaders in the industry you could draw on their wisdom as well. So while it may not always work the way you initially expect [accountability] learning about the benefits of new technology and marketing idea can keep you ahead of the rest.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany's Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany's award winning manuscript "A Face in the Shadow" on her fiction blog.
Read her postings specifically targeted to Christian Writers at Writer's Rest.

Measuring your reach

As a writer it is important that you are able to assess the reach of your marketing. Hit counters on blogs may be able to give you a snapshot but it is only a partial picture of your actual level of influence. Today I'd like to suggest to you a few different resources that you can use to help determine your reach. These are only three of the things I am currently doing to determine my reach. Start by using these and see your level of influence.

Google Alerts
This service alerts you when word you specify are accessed. I have mine programmed to alert me for Tiffany Colter, Tiffany Coulter or Writing Career Coach.

How this helps: I have found a number of blogs that have mentioned me. I am able to go and personally thank them [which is simply polite] as well as find out the kinds of blogs/bloggers who find things helpful on my blog. Also, I am able to see whether it is an individual blog or my website in general that is most helpful. This allows me to adjust my blogs to be more helpful to my readers.

Google Analytics
We've looked at this a number of times but this bears repeating for those of you who have not heard of it yet. This free service offers many useful things to the owner of a blog or website. It is VERY user friendly and tells you what pages are most popular, daily hit count, source of those hits and a variety of other useful information.

How this helps: I am able to determine where my traffic is coming from [whether a link on someone's website or marketing I've personally done]. I am also able to assess the strength of blog tours and online e-zines by tracking hits following the release of those blogs/articles.

Search Engines
I go in to Yahoo, google, askjeeves and others to see where I am coming up. I also google things like "Writing Coach" or "Writing Career Coach" to check my ranking.

How this helps: I am able to see what people are first learning about me when they do a search. This varies by search engine so checking a few different places is helpful. You need to know what others are learning about you. You also need to know if your blog is ranking well in search engines on your topic. If not, what can you do to improve?

So, for Monday you have some work to do. Go out and determine your reach. [And write blogs with my name in them so I will come. Laugh. You know I'll be watching!]

Tomorrow we will talk about how to use the information you've learned at all of those writer's conferences, articles, blogs and coaches.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany's Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany's award winning manuscript "A Face in the Shadow" on her fiction blog.