Demetria Lucas D’Oyley is an award-winning journalist and author who got her unofficial start in the world of journalism when she launched her first blog, ABelleinBrooklyn in 2007 which was all about the ‘misadventures of a single Southern woman living too far above the Mason Dixon.”
Demetria’s hilarious stories, straight-to-the-point advice and wit earned her fast fans and the attention of editors at both Honey and Essence magazines, the latter of which she would eventually serve as their Relationships Editor for four years.
With each byline and blog post, her popularity grew; especially on social media where she has amassed a digital community of more than 100,000 fans across platforms where she’s continued to dole out her advice on Ask.Fm or to anyone using the #AskDemetria hashtag. To date, she has answered more than 60,000 questions on everything from relationships to career advice.
She has written two books: A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-To Guide for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life and Don’t Waste Your Pretty: The Go-To Guide for Making Smarter Decisions in Life & Love. She is currently working on her third book which, you guessed it, will be another must-read guide, but this time it’ll be focused on making smart business and career decisions.
On this episode, I’ll be talking about the origins of her blog, her early career moves, why she left the job she loved at Essence, navigating entrepreneurship as a writer and how she’s been able to basically write her way to a life on her own terms.
[Tweet “”Leverage every relationship you have,” – @DLDoyley on #HashtagsandStilettos”]
Insights + Takeaways:
- Her bootcamp experience of editing romance novels before she started writing about dating and relationships.
- How she went from posting her relationship musings on Myspace to landing a dream job as the relationships editor at Essence.
- Pitching and landing her first book deal at 30 and what she learned from that experience.
- The importance of leveraging relationships and opportunities to move your career forward.
- The things she did to build her personal brand and the advice she’d give to others.
- Lessons learned from self-publishing her second book.
- Her best advice for anyone looking to follow in her footsteps.
Listen to Episode 38:
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