Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

Three quick things.

1. Poll results

As you may have seen, last week I ran a poll to complement some advice I’d offered one of my book-publicity clients about starting a mailing list. The purpose of the poll was to gauge interest in an assortment of subscription incentives:

Screenshot of Twitter poll.

First things first. THANK YOU all who voted and/or shared the poll with your networks.

As you can tell, 55 participants responded. Of them, 44 percent chose “mini-collection of poems” as their preferred sign-up gift. Twenty-two percent chose “recommended revision tips”; 29 percent chose “favorite writing prompts”; and 5 percent chose “other.” (“Other” preferences included a primer on poetry forms; some behind-the-scenes info on poetry construction; and a poem based on the winner’s prompt (with poet’s authority to veto the topic).

I had shared the poll in a closed Facebook group, too, where I thought one respondent’s comment about the need to think carefully about the intended audience—does my client want to attract more “readers” or more fellow poets?—was important.

2. I’ve gone back to Hebrew School! (Again!)

Pin distributed at the inaugural meeting of my Beginner Bet class. Translation: “I [love] to speak Hebrew.”
You may recall that last summer I embarked on a re-education in the Hebrew language, starting with the very first-level course (“Beginner Aleph”—”aleph” is the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet). In fact, I published an essay about the experience not all that long ago. It took me this past week to continue with the next-level class (“Beginner Bet”). But it has happened!

I am so happy to be back at work with this endeavor.

3. Q2 contribution based on book sales

Over the weekend I tallied the latest quarterly information for sales of my short-story collection Quiet Americans. And then I made my latest quarterly donation to The Blue Card.

What’s new with your writing practice?

2 thoughts on “Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

  1. Sandy Soli says:

    Greetings, Erika, with thanks for your continuing efforts on behalf of fellow writers.

    For those interested in forms, I recommend Lewis Turco’s classics The Book of Forms and The New Book of Forms. There are others available, but his are poet-friendly and inexpensive. Lew has a new book out, Sonnetarium, all sonnets, and some are hilarious. As it turns out, he enjoys Facebook and offers every day some wordplay. He adores outrageous puns and anagrams. He and his wife Jean live in Maine and he is coming up on 84 now, I believee. I have written some amusing clerihews from inspiration gleaned from another of his books (written by his pseudonym Wesli Court).

    Regards to you and all your followers.
    Sandy

    1. Erika Dreifus says:

      Sandy, thank you so much for the kind words AND for the excellent suggestions/info.

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