Hey! I’m Marius Berg and I’m a writer (among other things).
I definitely don’t live in a snowy winter wonderland called Norway… (I grew up there, then I lived in Australia for ages, and now I’m back in Norway again.)
Every summer in Australia – when the mercury hit 30 degrees C and the humidity made walking outside feel more like swimming – I wished I was back in said winter wonderland.
So if that sort of comes through in my books (or the imagery I’m using on my website) that’s why.
Enough about the snow, at least for now. I should probably tell you a bit about who I am and what I do.
Me, me, me!
So, hiya! Like I said, I’m Marius, and I live in Norway. I didn’t spend the past 20 years here though… Those decades were spent in Australia.
In the early ’00s I left Norway and headed south to Australia. And just very recently, I moved back north to Norway again.
Writing for The Man
When people ask me what I do, I don’t usually tell them I’m a writer.
Instead, I go down this rabbit hole of talking about the intersection of corporate communication and IT and how I work with digital communication and yada blah ermm… Make sense?
Truth is, I’m first and foremost a writer.
I’ve written stuff my whole life, and I’m probably closing in on having earned a seven-figure amount of dollarinos from it so far in my career.
I’m not saying I’m this whizz-awesome writer who puts words on a page, sells the page many times over, and then swims in hundred-dollar notes while sipping gin and tonic.
So far, probably 99% of the dollarinos I’ve earned (and spent – seriously, there is no pool of hundred-dollar notes for me to swim in) have been in the form of salary from The Man.
The big Man with the capital M.
While working for The Man, I’ve produced press releases, business strategies, marketing copy, internal staff magazines, client magazines, web content, intranet content, business cases…
Ever so much writing. But always writing for someone else.
Someone else who was not you or me.
Time for me to write for you
The time has come for me to write for you. As long as you’re not Mr Man. (He’s getting enough of my time already!)
My first book is in the works. It’s an upper-middle-grade book (although the characters are rebelling and trying to act more like young adults, so I’m torn between telling them to behave or just letting them run with it and see how it turns out)…
Anyway, it’s going to be awesome!
(At least if you’re into monsters and nightmares, action heroes, evil villains, shapeshifters, warrior princesses and that sort of thing – I mean, who isn’t?)!
Aside from being my first book, it’s also the first in a series of 3+ books I’m planning in that universe.
I’m plotting and outlining other books too. More on that later!
Building my digital author platform
Coming from a corporate communication and digital background, I have a bit of a thing for creating digital platforms.
Ever since the mid ’90s… (Yes, I am sporting a few grey hairs. Maybe a few more – it’s hard to tell… I go for the 1-millimetre hairdo these days.)
Anyways, as I was going to say…
Ever since late last millenium – apart from all that writing – I have also developed websites, digital newsletters, blogs and social media channels as part of my work and freelancing.
Now, that I’m trying to join the hallowed ranks of underpaid authors (as opposed to reasonably well paid writers and communicators working for The Man) I feel I have a few tips and skills to share with other newbie authors.
So, look forward to regular blog posts on this site covering all aspects of setting up digital marketing platforms for budding, independent authors.
(It’ll be totally meta… I’ll be building my digital marketing platform by producing content about building a digital marketing platform. What could possibly go wrong?)
Let’s stay in touch
If you’re still reading this, why don’t we stay in touch?
Sign up to my mailing list below and I promise to only spam you with really useful stuff like author platform building tips, free short stories, book previews and the occasional personal update.
To be clear, I promise to not actually spam you!
Just so that’s said…
I’m not really on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter [I’m so sick of reading that now]) @MariusWrites anymore, because that’s turned into a sh*tshow… But I’ll be on other socials soon.
Cheerio!
– Marius