Thursday, September 3, 2015

Featured Author Faith Blum

We're pleased to feature author Faith Blum from Wisconsin. She's written and published multiple books including A Mighty Fortress.

Most people by age 24 are ahead of the game if they've published one book. You have 6 titles selling on Amazon and likely more coming out soon. How do you stay so productive?
Three of those titles are novellas, so they are shorter and faster to publish. But what also helps is that I do not work outside the home. My writing is my work. I am blessed to have a supportive family whom I still live with and who allow me to contribute my time rather than my money to the family.

Modest of you to say that, Faith, but it's still impressive and you blog too. Why did you start blogging?
I started blogging to create more awareness of my books as I published them. Since then, my blog has also been a good place to help other authors.

What kind of help?
I am willing to help authors with almost anything I can. I offer proofreading services, beta-reading services, and general help questions. In June 2015, I also did a series of blog posts on Self-publishing that has some great resources I have found.

How does your blog assist with your writing goals?
It helps me connect with readers and potential readers and also to have a public place to set goals. Setting goals that I make public help me to stay motivated to meet the goals.

Do you use Blogger, Wordpress.com or Wordpress.org?
I currently only use Wordpress.com, but may switch my website over to Wordpress.org at some point in the next year or so. http://www.faithblum.wordpress.com

Wordpress.org does have more features. How did you decide on the domain name?
One of the few things that will not change with my writing is my author name, so I thought this would be the easiest way to make sure my fans could find me online if they wanted to.

How often do you post?
That really depends. I try to do at least one post per week, but sometimes I don't have anything to post and other times, I have three or four posts in a week. I don't post regularly like some people, but I do try to keep it active.

That's a smart approach. What's one piece of advice you have for new authors?

Just keep writing. If you get stuck in your story, keep writing anyway. One thing that's helped me when I get stuck is to skip ahead and write a scene I know I can do later on in the story. Then, when I finally get an idea how to finish off the previous scene, I'll write that and connect them. There was one time, I got stuck, wrote ahead, got stuck again and wrote ahead again, so I had to connect in two places. It eventually worked out and you can't tell at all.

What do you like about your blog?
How versatile it is. So far I have been able to put almost anything on my blog.

Ah yes, reminds me of my "anything in the universe" blog where no topic is off limit. What bugs you about your blog?
Rafflecopter and Mailchimp forms don't show up on Wordpress unless you pay big bucks for it.

How do you engage comments or attempt to, which can be extremely challenging?
I don't get a lot of comments, so it isn't that hard. I do try to reply to each comment even if it's just a "Thank you for stopping by!"

Might you create a book from your blog posts?
I doubt it.

What's one good link for readers to find your books?

Here are ways to connect with Faith Blum:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Keep up the amazing work!