Writer's Cafe - a Cool Writer's Hangout

How did I not know about this before? Was I living under a rock? I recently discovered a great site from a teacher friend (gotta love those teachers) called Writer's Cafe. It is a free writing community where writers can post their work, get reviews, make connections, etc.

I am just getting familiar with it as it is a recent discovery for me. It has the option of connecting with Facebook (another way to promote your books, etc with out the BUY MY BOOK post we occasionally come up with). At times, it is difficult to get reliable critique partners, so this can be a nice alternative. 

However, as a published children's author, I want to remind my readers to be careful what you put up there. If you're looking for critiques on work you will send to a publisher, do not put it online as it could be viewed as "already published" or seen in its entirety publicly, which greatly reduces the ability to sell your work. If you are honing your craft or are writing a piece just to write, this is a great place to start. Other experienced authors will give you positive and constructive feedback. 

When the time comes you want to write something to submit to a publisher, pick a few of your most trusted critiquers either from your Writer's Cafe friends or your own private critique group and privately send your work to be critiqued. 

For authors of books, you can use this as another way to promote your books. Just go in to the Add Writing section and from the drop down menu select "book". This is meant for people to write a book there, but you can do what I did and just add your book's blurb. If you connected your account to Facebook, it will show on your  Facebook newsfeed. 

My blurb on A Star in the Night at Writer's Cafe

There's plenty to do there at Writer's Cafe. If you're there, look me up at   http://www.writerscafe.org/jengladen

See ya there!