Writers live in a different world today then even ten years ago. The internet and electronic publishing has altered the opportunities for writers. In some ways it has actually made writing more difficult.
Once the hurdle was that you had to find a publisher, who would help you disseminate your work. Today, the reality is that most publishers don't want to look at the work of someone who hasn't been published yet, and deal only with established writers.
Now of course, writers can epublish their work without a publisher. That can be an opportunity, but it means that now a writer can't only worry about their craft. To get their own work out their, there are a lot of things they need to know that will not be handled for them.
I would like to invite any writers on Daily Kos who would like to write professionally, or have written professionally, to join in or follow this group. Whether or not anyone else would like to contribute, I have a series of articles about what I've found out about promoting your creative projects in this digital age.
I myself am disabled and apparently unable to find any sort of work at all. I'm not able to live on my small payment alone so I want to make at least enough money to help out a little.
If you would like to bounce your ideas off of me about your own book, feel free to come talk with me. I am somewhat physically isolated, in a conservative town with bad public transprotation and no car. I'm willing to help others a bit with their projects. I find that talking with other people about ideas can frequently help develop those ideas better.
I plan on sharing with others what I've learned about publishing and different publishing methods, and I know how to write webpages. If others are interested, I can create a private forum so a small group of people can share parts fo what they've written and get it critiqued. Its necessary to keep it private, because if it can be read by a general search on the web, it becomes less valuable to a potential publisher.
Social networking is one of the main tools we have now to help us promote our books that we didn't have before, and it can help us beat the odds if we choose to use it. I've been looking into how to do that quite a bit, and I think this would be a good place to talk about it.
I have noticed that fiction in general has become increasingly escapist. This is true of both books and the movies. When I read forums elsewhere, people react negatively to the idea of including any meaning in what is written at all. The feeling seems to be that ever communicating any progressive idea is a bad thing.
For that reason, I think that a writers group which is specifically progressive is a good thing. One of the most powerful ways to effect the way people think is with works of fiction. You don't have to clearly tell someone to do something in a novel. You can do something better than that. You can put them in the place of a person who is experiencing a problem. Once people see the world through the eyes of your protagonist, that will effect how they react to things they see in the future.
In that way, writing is probably one of the most powerful ways to shape our culture that any single person has.
Whether you agree with that or not, you are welcome to join. Feel free to join and post something about what you are working on.
I didn't simply make this group to promote a book. I check my emails here every day, and I'm not leaving. I would be glad to hear about your work. My physical isolation bothers me, and it would be good to talk with other people about what they are doing.
The first book I'm working on is about a bunch of people who experience civilization falling apart. They pull themselves up out of the wreckage, and together try to rebuild their way of life as best they can. While they do this, a lot of progressive ideas about what works in a culture are put to the test, and they get as much civilization as they can back. It is quite dramatic, but I think it might get a few ideas out there as well. I have a number of sequels planned, and eventually pretty much every progressive idea you can think of will be referenced.