http://www.oncewritten.com/index.php

You know the funny thing about OnceWritten.com is that all my friends still call it Monica’s little “porn” site.   Obviously, it is NOT a pornography site, but in the beginning my best friend and I were  brainstorming get-rich-quick schemes, and he told me we’d either have to do something in porn or religion. “Porn it is,” I declared, and to this day, the site continues to be linked to its shady beginning !

The idea for OnceWritten.com seriously got its start shortly after I’d come home from a writer’s conference. The overlying message at the conference was that you WILL NOT get rich from writing, and you WILL have to market your books a LOT. Even if you get a huge publishing contract, writers have to put in a whole lot of elbow grease.

You could feel the disbelief in the room, as published author after published author said the same thing, and hopeful writers just didn’t believe what they were being told. My own background being in marketing, I did a ton of research on what authors needed to do, and I thought, hey I know how to write a press release, I know how to market big projects on a small budget, and thought maybe my advice might come in handy. At the very least I can write a press release and interview industry professionals, so why not give this a try? Since I posted the first page in 2003, the site has veered off in weird and wonderful directions. It pretty much has taken on it’s own life now, and my readers direct what they want, as much as I do.

Generally, I’ve tried very hard to make it an enjoyable community, one where hopeful authors can come to share their dreams and learn about others that have made them happen. By last year the site had grown so large it was no longer an easily-managed project, and I had to convert EVERYTHING into a database-driven site. It was a royal pain at the time, but now the services offered for users are bigger and better than ever.

Loosely, it’s broken down into three categories. The first is for people who love to read. The First Chapters page is an eclectic mix of authors who have paid to advertise at the site. It’s this totally wild mix of books, from NBC Correspondent Mike Leonard’s new book to mysteries, romances and books with an international setting. We also have a Recommended Reads page which features book reviews by editors at OnceWritten.com. All the reviewed books are written by new and emerging authors, and there’s such a great mix of funky, weird and great books. Naturally, the MOST popular section on the site is the free book giveaways.

Then the bread and the butter of the site is the section for writers. For example, there’s a very strong Writing Contests page over there. It was one of the site’s very first pages, and it is now more popular than ever. In fact that’s the basis for the free writing contest graph, listed below. This graph is very popular, and more than 100 websites around the world are using it to add content to their own writing sites. The writing section also features Writing Prompts and advice for new writers.      

Thirdly there’s a section for authors, for which I’m now trying to develop new content. Get back to my marketing roots, if you will. It has taken a lot of elbow grease over the years, and there are times when I’m super active in promoting the site, and other times when it languishes, but I’ve been on a pretty good roll right now. Periodically, I’ll pull out my original business plan, and amaze myself by how many of my initial goals I’ve actually accomplished. The only goals I haven’t hit were some of the financial ones, which admittedly were pretty unreasonable. J (Guess I was basing those goals on the porn paradigm.) Now I have pages and page of to do lists, mostly that I never seem to be able to accomplish.

I’m really focusing on trying to upgrade the Meet the Author page, which is also hugely popular. People just love reading about authors that have forged the path. Other than that, I love the emails I get from my readers. From huge kudos, to suggestions on what they like to see, I love that the readers of the site are vocal enough and comfortable enough to ask for what they want.  - Monica.

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There are all kinds of writing websites on the web which leave a lot to be desired, and this is one of the reasons for us setting up Writing in the Margins. In practice these sites can leave you asking more questions than answering them, which can become very frustrating.  Having said that, there are some really good ones when you go looking and a jewel amongst them is this particular gem -  it really deserves a visit and to be bookmarked !! 

Monica has very kindly given Writing in the Margins an exclusive interview and insight in the problems attached with starting up a site, along with explaining the ethos of her project - thank you Monica for your time, effort and inspiration....     Shani

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