A few changes ahead for WordMothers

Hello, readers.

If you’re a recent follower, welcome!

If you’ve been here a while, thank you! I appreciate your ongoing support.

I started WordMothers in 2015 because I was fed up with how little I was hearing about women writers and their work in mainstream media. I went full steam ahead, interviewing hundreds of authors, but then I became ill and pretty much fell off the face of the earth for an entire year.

Since my return, I’ve had a great time re-connecting with both bloggers and writers, and I’ve had a chance to think about where I want to take WordMothers next. Part of this means I’ve been religiously looking at my stats, not just for time periods but for individual posts as well. I’ve been experimenting with different strategies in terms of how I use social media. And I’ve been paying close attention to where my traffic is coming from and what readers are looking for when they arrive.

One of the things I’m seeing is that authors are wearing more hats than ever before and there’s a real need for advice that is both practical and specific. Writers want to know which platform they should use for blogging, how much it costs to build a website, whether or not they should respond to reviews, where to find beta readers etc.

To that end, I’ve started restructuring WordMothers to look more like a website and less like a blog with a view to building up the resources sections here. I want women writers to have quick access to extensive databases of places eager to see their work. And I’ve made lists of all my book reviews and interviews, so visitors can easily catch up on whatever they’ve missed to date.

My interviewing and reviewing will continue, and I plan to keep adding resources pages, but I’m also excited to start including guest posts with a How-To flavor. Have you found a fail-proof way to increase attendance at readings? Did you hire a sensitivity reader for your latest manuscript? Have you ever totally disagreed with your editor? Hit my Contact page and pitch me!

My goal is to make this site as user-friendly and community-serving as possible, so if there’s anything else you’re dying to see here, please let me know.

Thanks!

Nicole