I spent the last week camping and thinking about stuff I learned at the Willamette Writers’ Conference. Turns out I’m doing a lot of things right, and a bunch of stuff wrong.

Take this blog, f’rinstance. I do good topics, or so I’m told. Writers find it useful. Some non-writers find it interesting. But my SEO is terrible, and I’m using last year’s formatting. I also do too little to build up a following and reader participation.

In my writing, I make good money working on a variety of topics. But I’ll be grinding away like a well-paid, happy cog unless I start building a personal brand based on a specialty.

I enjoy my fiction, but need to get more serious about it if I ever want to be published. Which means looking harder at self-publishing, e-publishing, and other options for getting that first book out there.

Lots of work to do, and I want to make y’all a part of it. Seems like, as I research new topics and begin new projects, I can walk you through my process and we can all learn together. Be on the lookout for series on:

• Launching a niche blog
• Proposing a non-fiction book
• Learning post-Penguin SEO
• E-publishing fiction
• Submitting a finished young adult novel
• Changing how this portfolio works

And whatever you guys want to learn about. What topics would be most useful to y’all? Comment below with your thoughts.