Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Smith
Hi Laura, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, and I began filling notebooks and notepads with stories, ideas, and journal entries since I was five years old. My formal training came when I studied creative writing at Carlow University in Pittsburgh. I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in 2007.
Since then, I’ve written freelance articles and reviews for several websites and blogs. I also self-published three middle grade books and am in the process of finding a publisher for a middle grade trilogy that I’m working on.
In December 2018, after completing a few internships which taught me SEO skills, I started Laura’s Books and Blogs. It’s a site dedicated to promoting indie books and their authors as well as my own freelance writing and novels.
The blog features reviews, interviews, guest posts, list posts, book giveaways, writing advice, travel blogs, and basically anything having to do with entertainment and storytelling. As it nears its sixth anniversary, the blog is now growing at a rapid pace. Its traffic increases significantly every month, and it has helped promote over 200 indie books and will continue to provide a free platform for indie authors who are trying to get their stories, whether real or imagined, out into the world.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t think any creative pursuit is a smooth road. The average person tends to think that, not only is writing easy, but it also makes the author rich, and you’re successful right out the gate, but not only does it take years to hone your craft, it also takes years to get noticed with a ton of rejection along the way.
My biggest struggle has been with getting traditionally published. The process is as much a lottery as it is the product of hard work. I’ve been lucky enough to get a few poems, stories, and articles published in literary journals, magazines, and newspapers out of the hundreds that I’ve submitted.
However, as I was entering the professional publishing world, print media was fading away, and what little training I received about submitting and querying had all changed. No longer did you have to trot to the post office with your stack of manilla envelopes and shell out money for postage, with an added stamp for your self-addressed stamped envelope so that they could send you back a rejection letter. But now that it was all online and free, the competition increased greatly.
I spent a long time submitting mediocre work to a number of sites before I pivoted toward my originally intended goal, writing children’s novels. Over the next few years, I wrote, queried, rewrote, and queried some more before self-publishing. Once I hit submit, I realized that all of the promotion was on me.
Had I wanted to become a marketing expert, I would have gone to school for marketing and advertising. But now, writers have to be a salesperson while most of us basically just want to hide out behind our notebooks and computer screens and leave the selling to someone else.
Despite my reservations with selling myself, the desire to write and to share my writing with the world caused me to battle through my hatred of self-promotion. Still, many of the resources that I pursued either weren’t very helpful, or they were unreliable. That’s when I decided to start my blog in order for others to have a resource like the one I was looking for.
In return, I would build a platform of followers, or at least casual viewers, that would look good on a query letter and give me a base on which to build my marketing plan for my next book. Unfortunately, the blog takes up a lot of my time. So, the novel writing, editing, and querying process is slow moving. But having the blog keeps me writing regularly and puts that writing out into the world without having to go through a submissions process to be deemed worthy of publication.
So, to answer the question, the road has been bumpy, but I’ve been able to make it work by jumping from one project to the next. So, I feel like I’m always moving forward, even if the progress is slow.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My day job for the past three years has been spent writing reports for a private investigations company. So, it has been nice to put my writing degree to work in a professional sense.
On the side, I write books, blog posts, and movie and book reviews for various sites aside from my own. I’m mostly known as an indie book reviewer. As an indie author myself, I know how hard it is to get traditionally published (I’ve gotten close a few times now). So, if an author has written a good book that they have self-published, I want to help spread the word about that book.
In reviewing hundreds of indie books over the years, I’ve come to find that I’m more likely to finish a self-published book than a traditionally published one. These authors are just as good, if not better, than the traditionally published authors. There’s just so little space in the traditional publishing world that a lot of good books and good writers fall through the cracks. I try to scoop up as many that have fallen through the cracks as possible and point readers in their direction so that they can discover some great titles and make the entire writing and publishing process worth it for the author.
I think reviewing indie books sets me apart from other book bloggers who are more likely to request ARCs from famous authors, or at least bestselling books from up and coming authors. The times I have published reviews of bestsellers, those posts have really taken off, and I feel like my blog could have grown a lot larger and a lot faster if that was all that I posted. However, that’s not the point of my blog.
I also take a hipster attitude toward everything I do and pride myself on being unique. I don’t read popular genres such as fantasy, sci-fi, or sappy romance. So, I’m very choosy as to what titles I take on and only agree to read a book after I’ve heard a pitch and read the first few pages to make sure I like the writing style.
Aside from reviewing on my blog, I also publish mini reviews of the titles I feature on Amazon, Goodreads, BookBub, and LibraryThing. I also only publish a review if I can rate it 3 stars or higher on Amazon. I feel like a bad review helps nobody, but a good review not only helps the author but gets a reader excited to read a title. Plus, they might not agree with my bad review, and I wouldn’t want to scare a potential reader away just because of my singular negative opinion.
What’s next?
In terms of my blog, I have no major plans. My views are growing every month. So, I must be doing something right. Each year, I do mix up my interview questions for the authors to keep things fresh. I’m also always trying to get better at photography and design. So, my goal is to create better quality, eye-catching images to draw in readers further.
The authors I feature are very generous about giving away free copies of their books to my readers. I used to host gift card giveaways and other incentives to try to increase readership. So, I’m brainstorming some future giveaways that I will host in 2025.
Other than that, I’m always looking for other writers to guest post on my site. I like to bring in multiple perspectives and skill sets to help shell out advice or just entertain my readers. I’m surprised by how few people reach out to ask to guest post or decline the offer as consolation for declining to review their book. So, I might start offering a monetary incentive so that other writers can build their portfolio and receive compensation for their work. I know that I always appreciated being paid for my time and effort, and I would like to extend that feeling to other writers as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://laurasbooksandblogs.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurasbooksandblogs/
- Twitter: https://x.com/lsmith335
