{"id":4390,"date":"2018-04-06T14:14:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T18:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/?p=4390"},"modified":"2018-04-07T01:59:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-07T05:59:53","slug":"4390","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/?p=4390","title":{"rendered":"GWU Journalism alum signs two-book deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sthefany Flores | Friday, April 6, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erin Odom began writing\u00a0her blog,\u00a0The Humbled Homemaker<\/em><\/a>, to share all the lessons she learned\u00a0about being a mother.<\/p>\n

The 2003 Gardner-Webb alumnus signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins Publisher that\u00a0resulted from her success in her online blog. Odom said, \u201cI never dreamed that my hobby blog would turn into\u00a0a two book deal with such a big publisher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her first book More Than Just Making It<\/em>\u00a0was released in September 2017. This book covers\u00a0her journey as she and her family went from having to foreclose on their home to living\u00a0comfortably and being able to send her children to the private school she dreamed of.\u00a0Her second book will have some of the same themes. Odom said, \u201cIt\u2019s a little gift book\u00a0that is supposed to be an encouragement to all that who staying home with their kids\u00a0and are having a hard time with trying to make their finances stretch on a single\u00a0income.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much like her blog, her goal in these books is to help families who are struggling\u00a0financially and give comfort to stay at home parents. \u201cI want to give them some bite\u00a0sized tips that they can apply to their homes and to their families and their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Odom\u2019s love for writing started at a very young age. In first grade she wrote a story\u00a0about a giraffe who ate \u201cluscious leaves\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Gardner-Webb University alumnus and blogger Erin Odom has a two book deal with HarperCollins Publishers. \u00a9Anne Zirkle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In her time at GWU Odom double majored in Journalism and Spanish and minored in\u00a0English.\u00a0She explained, \u201cI ended up majoring in journalism because at that time in Gardner-Webb I could take every single writing class GWU offered if I was Journalism major and\u00a0an English minor.\u201d After graduating as valedictorian however, she took a break from\u00a0writing.<\/p>\n

She began to write again as she worked with Carolina Weekly Newspapers and\u00a0became interested in writing a blog. She started writing in 2011 and now her blog and\u00a0her books have become her family\u2019s primary source of income.<\/p>\n

Odom advises students to write online about what they are passionate about. \u201cIf you are\u00a0passionate about something, blog and market yourself with social media.\u201d She also\u00a0advises that if you can you should invest a little in your blogs to make them look\u00a0professional and marketable.<\/p>\n

In terms of careers, her advice is to, \u201ctry to do something that allows you to work at\u00a0home.\u201d She explained that by doing this people can spend more time with their families\u00a0and become entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sthefany Flores | Friday, April 6, 2018 Erin Odom began writing\u00a0her blog,\u00a0The Humbled Homemaker, to share all the lessons she learned\u00a0about being a mother. The 2003 Gardner-Webb alumnus signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[981,8,2,914],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni","category-feature-friday","category-news","category-profile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}