The name is Wayne Marinovich and I am an Author and Wildlife photographer, raised on a farm in Southern Africa and currently residing in the leafy countryside of Surrey, UK. Although I have had a blog for my wildlife photography for several years now (www.wmarinovich.com), blogging for my writing and reading, is a new journey for me.
In the early days of writing, I didn’t really see the benefit of having a blog for my writing as I was naively convinced that it would lend itself to a stream of self-promotion, and I didn't only want to do that. I wanted something different to the many "Buy my books" blog posts, and I guess that quest continues for all the bloggers out there.
Maintaining the blog about photography is far easier, as each post can be multi-dimensional. You upload a good wildlife photo, and then you can blog about both the technical side of photography and the story behind the image.
I always knew that creating fresh writing content would be tough but after reading - Write, Publish, Repeat by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant, I came to my senses and realised that producing a blog, was something that I would have to take seriously, to take my writing career forward.
So I set about creating the Marinovich Books blog (www.wmarinovichbooks.com), using the same WordPress theme that I use for the photography one. The goal is to keep a similar feel for both avenues of my creative work and it seems to work well with readers, some of whom have both read my work and also bought wildlife prints.
The plus side of that was, when I started the writing blog, I had the basic skill-set required to change and manipulate the layout and feel of the blog. All I needed was the content, which was easy, right. Not really, that is the real challenge - fresh content.
On the blog, you can find the menu's to the webpages of the novels and short stories I have published. I am currently working on a series called "The Journey of Kyle Gibbs" and have just shipped off book 2 titled, Phoenix, to some beta-readers for a pre-publication read through. The series is an action thriller about a man as he experiences the massive changes to his world, set against the background of a major Climate Change event. The novels will chronicle his life and challenges from 2013, to a dystopian world in 2043.
Along with posting the usual cover reveals, book release dates and promotional bits and pieces, I have tried to add some variation by including book reviews, author interview (one to date) and the odd 800 word short story.
I don't do book review requests as I believe that as an author, it can lead to issues when you leave a bad review, even if it is warranted. There are a host of bad stories out there about authors getting into trouble with some of the comments they have made. I read books, usually from Goodreads recommendations and friend's reviews, and then if I really liked it, I leave a star rating and a sentence or two. I will always consider myself a reader and author, not, a reviewer or critic. I either like the story or I don't. It's just my opinion.
New additions to the blog are some Writers Tips and lessons learnt as a writer to date. These should all be up during the next few months. As a blogging convert, I believe that the eBook market is in a robust state of flux at the moment and that the blog is an indispensable tool for the independent author, something that you need to understand and master
Where this journey takes me, is something that I cannot wait to find out. Blogging is after all just another great form of writing.
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