Blog by Robin Sullivan, Fairfax, VA                          

Highly recommended.

Artists notoriously ignore business and marketing arenas. As Ms. Sullivan says, “I've learned a lot about promotion and business: the two things writers feel the least comfortable with, and yet very important aspects of their writing careers.

I discovered this new blog (about two months old) through Goodreads.com, and it’s filled with such insight into the back end of the art world that I would venture to suggest, “you must subscribe.”

Ms. Sullivan’s Write to Publish blog is directed toward writers, but as a photographer who publishes and markets my work, I find her information very helpful. Most photographers seeking to earn money at their craft must learn marketing skills. We usually end up e-publishing some of our work/knowledge, creating tutorials, etc. All these media have to be promoted.

The two fields intersect at many points. Robin starts us off with the basics, and like an online university, builds the depth of her posts until we emerge educated on the issue. Robin’s background prepared her well.

Vermont Creative Software - a leader in GUI tools used by programmers to create applications in the 1980's.

Spectrum Design - an advertising agency specializing in marketing communication materials (websites, brochures, direct mail pieces) for high technology companies.

Ridan Publishing - a small press always looking for high quality writers.

When her husband, Michael Sullivan began a six-book series, The Riyria Revelations, Aspirations Media Inc., she quickly obtained a wealth of hands-on experience about the business/promotion side of writing.

“It was my job to take his written word and get it out to people,” Ms. Sullivan explains.  “Along the way I've, made some mistakes (and learned from them) and met a lot of authors struggling with the same issues. My goal is to get things I've learned out of my head and into the hand of other writers so they can avoid mistakes.”

If you live in the Washington, DC area you’ll be happy to note Ms. Sullivan leads a 340 member group where she lectures regularly. “I never charge for these seminars, I think authors have too many people trying to steal their money to make their dreams come true. I just spent a lot of time doing research for my husband and don't want the knowledge to die with me - I'd rather share it with others.”

Subscription Note: Robin offers an RSS Feed subscription, but I always forget to check my feeds. I prefer having new posts arrive in my email. This isn’t offered by her blog. But if you want to subscribe via email, you can go to FeedBlitz http://www.feedblitz.com/. Scroll down along the left hand side and look for the "Subscribe to Anything" button. Enter this URL: http://www.write2publish.blogspot.com/  Hit subscribe, then enter your email address.