Guest Blogger: Jaime McDougall, Author of So You Want to Write A Guest Post

Today's special guest is none other than one of my partners in crime. Jaime McDougall and I both work for Pump Up Your Book. I can't tell you how excited I was to learn of the release of So You Want to Write a Guest Post: An Author's Guide to Promoting with Guest Blogging. Here's the official blurb:

The publishing world keeps on changing and, now more than ever, it is important for authors to have a presence on the internet.


But where do you start?


So You Want to Write a Guest Post is an easy to follow guide that will help you connect to bloggers and to write guest posts that get potential readers interested in your book.

Since we work in online book promotion and are bloggers, we've seen it all. Guest posts that need to be heavily edited; posts that are so short you can read them aloud without taking a breath; and ones that are so long you know readers will fall asleep before they're done.

I'm thrilled to be one of the final stops of Jaime's month-long virtual book tour. I didn't know she was going to write such a lovely post (honest, I didn't pay her to say any of it), but I can tell you I am honored to call her my friend.

Holding Out for a Hero by Jaime McDougall

I didn't have heroes when I was a child. I didn't understand idolizing people I had never met, and my female family members weren't exactly the best examples to follow. I began to admire authors in the way you admire people who are successful at the thing you want to do when you grow up, but they still weren't quite my heroes. After all, I didn't know for sure what I wanted in a hero. Someone simply successful at what they do or someone with something more?

I grew to accept that I would never have a hero and dismissed it as a childhood wish. After all, most people didn't go around eagerly gushing about their heroes. At least, not that much. I figured that having a hero meant having someone you could identify with on multiple levels, and if I couldn't do that as a child I simply never would.

Then I met Cheryl Malandrinos.

Cheryl and I met through working with Pump Up Your Book. She'd been with the group for a long time and seemed to me to be an intimidating figure, yet someone I could learn a lot from at the same time. I was completely right in my initial impression.

Over the years, Cheryl has always believed in me not only as a writer or only as a tour coordinator, but as a still fairly young woman trying to find her way in the world. She encouraged me; didn't hesitate to be honest with me even when it might hurt, and assured me every time I doubted. She did the one thing that I have come to see a hero needs to do: she never let me feel sorry for myself.

I knew before I even had a book out that I wanted to guest post at this site - and not just because it's a great place to be. I wanted to pay her back for all the encouragement and honesty she has always given me. When So You Want to Write a Guest Post came out, she was the least surprised that I had written an ebook.

Cheryl is the first person to buy a print copy of my paranormal romance Echo Falls, and I couldn't be happier that my first sale came from her. An author herself, she taught me to understand the importance of connecting with fellow authors who not only believe in you, but do so enough to be honest when you're not hitting the mark. She's not at all what I thought my hero would be, but she is everything I knew my hero should be.

Now pardon me just in case she starts throwing virtual tomatoes…

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Jaime McDougall is a citizen of the world, currently loving life in beautiful country Victoria in Australia. She loves eating sushi, kidnapping her husband and naming her pets in honour of science fiction authors. She has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: High School: The Real Deal and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Campus Chronicles. She has also enjoyed writing a column called ‘The New Australian’ in local newspapers as well as various articles online.

So You Want to Write a Guest Post is her first ebook and is available on Kindle and at Smashwords. You can visit her website at InkyBlots.com.