Greetings,
Part of me is ashamed that I don't have a personal relationship with many who will read this. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Tim Ward. I podcast on my website, and on the Holy Worlds Podcast. I am the head of the Holy Worlds Mentorship Program, a council member, and one of the leaders in the council regarding a desire to publish your work.
As you probably know, our forum admin, Jay (Sir Emeth Mimetes), is currently unavailable. The circumstances surrounding his unavailability were sudden, and as a result, the Council is either scrambling to keep things running smoothly, or unsure of whatever problems are not being addressed.
I'm writing today in the hopes that this letter will reach as many forum members as possible so we can gather around and discuss the state of Holy Worlds, how you'd like it improved, what you can do to help, and what we can do to help.
What are your dreams for this organization? I say "organization" instead of "forum" because I have dreams that go beyond just the forum.
We have a fantastic setting here for brainstorming, meeting and developing friendships with other like-minded authors and readers, and hopefully preparing you for a career writing for God's glory.
"The next step" is an email one of our council sent out today regarding our vision for turning Holy Worlds into a publishing entity. On the surface, that sounds incredibly exciting. Anyone else picture a HW logo on a building and cool offices decorated with Fantasy characters and Bible verses? Well, we have quite a ways to go from that happening, and that's partly why I'm writing this letter.
We're not sure how long Jay will be unavailable, but we certainly don't need to wait for him to get started with a few key areas that will prepare us for when he gets back.
1. Guard your hearts. Satan and his minions are an enemy who hate anyone on fire for God. Don't let your sin make you ineffective (Read the first eleven versus of 2nd Peter replacing the intro with "Timotheus, a bondservant and writer for Jesus Christ...).
2. Hone your craft. We are all guilty of letting time slip with all the info available on the internet. Don't let time on the forums keep you from what you are called to do. God gave us gifts to use for His glory; use them well and be an example of dedication.
3. Share your thoughts on how to improve. Feel free to speak your mind in a respectful, righteous way. The best way for us to grow is if we do it together. Everyone's opinion is valid.
Along these lines, I'm curious what you think is the best way to address the whole forum. Some of us don't do Facebook, don't check the blog, don't check "View new posts," etc. Is there a need for a new subforum "State, Future and Inbetween of Holy Worlds" or something like that for people to ask general questions, make observations, share dreams, point to problems, etc?
Now, to the concrete of how we can take Holy Worlds from a forum to a public enterprise. We need to do this in order to build the type of platform necessary to help sell your work and spread the glory of Christ through a wider reach of our people's products.
1. Make use of what we already have, make it known, and join the team.
What I mean by this is to look around at the projects we have going, either in the development stage or are out and running. We have lots of tools already in place to help us reach out: the blog, the podcast, the fact that we have three forums to help writers in these genres, our poetry book, all of our artists, our Herald's Hall forum for publishing advice... (feel free to add pieces you'd place in this sentence and I'll edit accordingly).
So, do you see these tools? Are you telling people about them? Are you helping them? If you have questions, you can reach me at [email protected] easier than by pm. I can help point you to people in charge of these areas and place you according to your skill and desire.
Do you like to read? Would you please help us by posting a blog about your thoughts on the book you just read? The best way to learn is by trying and watching others. It's really not that hard and it's NOT school. Blogging, while it requires professionalism, is also intended for leisurely readers. Make it fun, make it personal, but make it worth their time.
Also, there are ways to get free books, either from the library, or through book blogging services that give them away in return for a review. CSFF Blog Tour gives out a book a month from the top in Christian Spec Fic (click here for details). Booksneeze offers books as well, and being a Thomas Nelson outreach, those are good books too. If you have an ereader or don't mind reading on your computer, the opportunities are out there to get free books or for a few dollars.
The thing is, we need to attract readers, and one way to do it is to blog about the books they want to read. It helps our rankings on Google so that more people will find Holy Worlds, and it brings people who might want to join our group... or buy your stuff once we get it up to snuff and sell it.
Regarding the Holy Worlds Podcast:
We've been podcasting for over a year and I'm not sure how many of our members even know we have it. The more comments we have on our podcast page, the more attention it will get from search engines, and the better it will look to publishers and potential guests when they see that listeners respond. You can subscribe on iTunes, on the podcast page, or to the thread on our forum where we announce new episodes (though that is not the best way because it requires us to make that extra step of posting here, and I sometimes forget).
Using Skype is free, and easy to find a quiet place and chat about writing. I'm sure there are plenty of people on here who could come on for even a one time visit and share a book review, their thoughts on a recent movie, a topic among Christians related to fiction, how you worldbuild, etc. Do you have something to promote? Let me know.
Getting a team of audio editors could help get more content, and the programs we use are free and easy to train. Essentially, it's cutting and pasting and knowledge of a few commands. I have videos online teaching how to use Audacity (our editing software).
Do you have someone you want interviewed? Let us know. No one is too big. If we can get Terri Blackstock, we can get anyone, Lord willing.
Re: Publishing Short Fiction
We've got a mentorship program wrapping up the first half of it's six month trial period, in which I get to see eight stories that have been workshopped in the hopes of getting published, maybe by us.
There are other critiquing groups spread throughout Holy Worlds. What we want are people interested in publishing with us, in helping us read through, narrowing down the field and then seeing what we have to see if we can publish in the near future.
We've have three forums with various genres, so we need to decide if we want to throw them all together or make anthologies that are specific to a genre. I'm excited about the potential here to get your work out there, but we need to find a way to collect all interested parties into a communication thread to move this project forward.
Re: Publishing Long Fiction
We're not ready for this yet. Let's cut our teeth on the Poetry Book we already have published and anthologies or ezines before embarking on a novel. If you have a novel ready to publish, let us know over at Herald's Hall. We can help direct you to the proper resources.
Re: Art
I'm not the one to talk to about this, but we have resources for sharing and developing your artistic skills. These skills are more valuable than you may think. A great cover for an anthology or website is invaluable towards gaining people's interest.
Did I miss anything? Whew.
As you can probably tell, I have more of the shotgun approach to life. I don't get a lot done, but the things I put my mind to get a nice big shot of "attention"
This is part of the reason why I'm not on here as much as I'd like, because I can't just come on and focus on one area. If you email me, that works a lot better for keeping me focused. I'm a writer too, and have a novel in an editor's hands, so I'm pretty busy...Sincerely, and with love for your souls,
Tim
May I repost it on the other forums?
