Revamping My Website!
So, this month I've been looking into writing as a business a little bit more
As you probably now know, we are expecting our second baby in December! I’m still looking for a way for writing to help with the bills, and so far this year, I’ve made a grand total of $83.05 through a few different ways. We were kinda counting on my poetry tour to help a little, but that’s been pushed back to next spring.
Which gives me some time to plan out a few more tour dates, and maybe spend a little more time on the marketing side of things. Maybe. It definitely will be interesting going on tour with a four month old, which is what Sprout will be in March/April. I breastfed Nettie until she was around 20 months? Something like that. So I’m assuming Sprout will still be nursing then, and in that case will have to come with me.
So, I’ve been looking into redoing my website to help drive a little more traffic to my projects. I’m not quite ready to unveil it yet, but I do have some sneak peak screenshots for you!
I’m hoping it looks cleaner and more professional, and honestly I’m glad to be getting this done before my book tour.
I’ve added a page for our homestead, as I’ll be doing an extensive blog series on it and Seth and I are toying around with the idea of starting a you tube channel for Hartsfield Homestead.
I’ve made my “about” page my homepage, and am still editing my bio. I’m hoping this website and blog can incorporate more than just writing, by blogging about mama-hood, RV living, and homesteading as well. But, I think all of that can still fit under the website alexandriamaxwellwrites.com
There is an excerpt of THE ONE, in an attempt to draw some interest to my email list! I’m actually really bad about marketing as a writer, using calls to action and all, so this was a stretch for me to feel like I was blatantly marketing my work. But, 1) it’s pointless to write and let no one read it (even if it is really bad. Especially if it is really bad!) and 2)I did say I wanted to make this a career, didn’t I?
So here’s my snazzy little call to action email signup form!
And WIP #2, my mystery trilogy. I am going to send this in to a traditional publisher in April of 2020, so I’m limiting the excerpts that come out. You can read the first chapter here, but I think that might be the only chapter I release. So, when I’ve run out of THE ONE and need to serialize a new novel for this winter/spring, I have a new project in the works! I’ll be letting you know more about that in September. But I’m planning on having it be a substack/email exclusive! So stay tuned.
And WIP #3, my YA/middle school adventure series. I’m finding that I really enjoy outlining and writing series, and if you had asked me about it in college I would have told you no way I was writing a series. But now I have three of them in the works. Who knew?
And, my blog is slowly but surely being transferred over! I can back-date my posts from my old site, and I kept the same name. I’ve decided not to bring all my old posts back, and am editing these very thoroughly. But, this is one of my favorite posts and I’m hoping Hugh Cook uses it again as his bio for the Festival of Faith and Writing because that made me so happy back in 2018.
And last but not least, my store! I’m toying with the idea of moving my etsy store here, as well as self-publishing my eBooks here instead of Amazon, but I still need to look into that a little more. The idea was to do as much in house with this website as possible, to make it easier for me and my readers. We’ll see what I end up doing.
There’s (most of) my new website! I’m hoping to have it done by August, but I just realized it’s the last week of July so being twenty weeks pregnant and chasing a toddler might prove to be more of a challenge to my writing this week than I anticipate.
Thank you for reading!
Alexandria