It’s been a busy week. I’m finalising my structural edit on No Quarter before it goes to my editor, plus there’s the usual client work and house work, which hasn’t left me a lot of time to post. So today is a very quick post about the wonderful blog community I’m pleased to be part of. I think we are enormously fortunate as writers to have such a wide community of support available online. There are many blogs offering free information, reviews and feature spots invaluable to the starting out writer, plus plenty of friendly conversation. The other thing about being part of a community is that we can stand together against book piracy, trolling and the other negative aspects of being online. Kristen Lamb wrote an excellent recent post about bullies here. Since starting to blog I’ve made some wonderful connections and am looking forward to actually meeting some of my fellow bloggers at the First Annual Bloggers Bash, hosted by the intrepid Sacha Black.

Here are some blogs I’ve found incredibly helpful as I’ve navigated the self publishing process – big thank yous to each of them!

Nicholas Rossis

Nicholas is an award winning author who posts thoughtful articles on every aspect of publishing, from statistics to advertising to social media. He’s also a really nice guy who takes the time to respond to comments and offer generous encouragement 🙂

The Writer’s Path

Ryan offers a huge range of services for writers on his blog including The Writer’s Toolbox, his critique posts called Under the Microscope and also a growing list of bloggers who will review books, separated into genres – something I’ve found incredibly useful.

Chris The Story Reading Ape

What can I say about Chris? He regularly features independently published authors (including yours truly) as well as collating links from across the blogosphere to useful articles on every aspect of publishing. He’s also a published author, yet still finds the time to respond to comments – I don’t know how he does it.

Connie Flanagan

Connie is a self-professed bibliophile and passionate supporter of independent authors. Her site offers reviews, links and lots of helpful tips.

Chris McMullen

Chris’s blog is a goldmine of information covering just about every aspect of publishing. Well worth a visit.

Of course, these are just a few of the many wonderful people I’ve connected with in blogland – I hope to feature some more links soon.

And finally, I sent Oak and Mist to a reviewer, the lovely Meredith at Mezzalilys Teen Book Reviews. I would like to make it very clear that I sent her the book with the expectation only that a review would be written – the content and evaluation were entirely at Meredith’s discretion, as I believe in honest feedback. So, fingers crossed and a little nervous I posted her the book. A little while later she wrote her review – if you’re interested, please check it out here

Right, back to editing! 🙂