Writers and Technology

I am going to show my age here, and tell you that when I typed high school papers, I was doing so on a typewriter. I did have correction tape at least. I did that through most of college too, then near the end, a small computer lab with maybe 5 computers was available. At that point we could type our stuff in a word processing program, save to a disk the size of a big coaster (remember those?) and print it out to hand in.

No need to tell you that things have come a long way since then. Now the problem is not learning "the" new technology, it's picking which one to learn first and trying to learn it fast enough to keep up with the latest recommendation.

As a writer who wants to write, publish and sell, the choices are almost never ending now. There are programs to help you write, that will read your work back to you so you can edit, and multiple ways to produce a book. There are blogs, social network sites, and bookmark sites to help with publicity just to name a few. Where oh, where to begin?

My suggestion-pick one or two at a time that can help you with the level you're at now. For example, if you're writing and want help, find those tools. You can learn about publicity and networking later. Get to know those tools, if you like them, get to know how to use them well, then move on in your own time. You may not be on top of the latest and greatest at the first moment, but you will be on top of what matters to you, and that's what matters most.

Cheryl Pickett
http://www.publishinganswers.com/