New book review: The Art of Social Media

Authors need to learn  how to promote their brand/books like never before. And frankly, this is the part where I wander aimlessly trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do. I bought this book for my daughter for Christmas as she plans to design websites and needs to understand social media. She kindly lent it to me, and all I can say is wow. So much has become clearer.


And there are actual steps to follow to achieve your ends. Amazing. There are even links to aggregators to find and post content. Ways to streamline your connection with readers and reflect your own interests.

So cool.

Now, the bad part is that the book has underlined bits that in the ebook link to actual pages for new information and enlightenment. I highly recommend purchasing the ebook and skipping the print copy. The print copy is extremely irritating without those links and they're not anywhere else in the book that I've been able to find.

Even though the book is a little pricey at 12.99, I think it's worth it.

Until next month.

Angela James Speaking in Phoenix on Branding

***********************PERMISSION TO FORWARD**************************

Don’t Miss This Month’s Valley of the Sun Romance Writer’s meeting on April 14^th!

Angela James, Editorial Director at Carina Press, will speak for two hours on Branding. Every writer needs this valuable information!

Angela James, Editorial Director of Carina Press, Harlequin's digital-first fiction imprint, is both an avid reader of digital books and a veteran of and advocate for the digital publishing industry. She has enjoyed over a decade of experience in her field, including successfully launching, building and serving as editorial lead for two digital-first presses, Samhain Publishing and, since 2009, Harlequin's Carina Press.

She has edited bestselling authors such as Shannon Stacey, Jaci Burton, Lauren Dane, Ilona Andrews, Lilith Saintcrow, Shelly Laurenston and more. She was profiled in Fast Company magazine as a digital pioneer in the romance publishing industry and is the creator of the popular self-editing online workshop for authors, Before You Hit Send. In 2013, Angela was named New York Romance Writers of America's Golden Apple Editor of the Year.

You can find Angela on Twitter at @angelajames.

VOS will keep the business portion of our meeting to a minimum to make time for the full two hours of Angela’s speeches.

5:30 – Dinner & Networking
6:30 – Business meeting
6:40 – Guest Speaker

Building Your Brand, Part I:  (The first hour.)

How many times has someone told you to build your brand, but not told you what that means? You think it might mean something about a tagline, or your website header, but in reality, building your brand is an important, and sometimes complex, endeavor. One that can start right before you ever publish a book and continue throughout your career. In this workshop, learn what constitutes author brand, how it can support your career plan, why it’s important, how you can get one, and some things you should avoid.

Building Your Brand, Part II:

As an author, you’re told you should have both a website and a brand. In this workshop, discuss how the two should work together, and how you can use your website to support your brand. Learn via actual visual examples things to avoid and things to consider when setting up and maintaining your website.

Valley of the Sun Meets the 2nd Tuesday of Every Month
December: holiday party, regular meeting date, different location

Location:

Ironworks Restaurant
17233 N. 45th Avenue – Phoenix, AZ 85308

Bellair Golf Course
Crossroads: Bell and 45th Ave, just North of Bell.

(A few miles south of the 101 and a few miles west of the I-17.)

Non-members may attend two meetings before joining

Upcoming Workshop:

October 13th

Linda Style and Connie Flynn from Bootcamp for Novelists will be presenting one of their workshops.

New Year's Resolutions

Every New Year's Eve the topic of resolutions comes up. I resist making them, but usually give in. This year I've decided to think of them as continued growth in areas that concern me.

1, Organizing my home. I've started cleaning out the old already. I finally gave up my VHS tapes. Well, most of them. They went to Good Will today along with old cups and glasses I rarely use. I still need to place old pictures into albums and scan paperwork I want to toss.

2.  Increase my writing time. I've decided to keep the laptop on my lap while watching TV if I haven't written that day. This will allow me to open the file and work at a leisurely pace. I think I procrastinate sometimes because writing is work even if it is my passion. I don't know anyone who writes a perfect draft every time.

3. Increase promotion. My new laptop is helping tremendously. The touchscreen has allowed me to place my social media on my start screen. The links are at my fingertips. This too can be accomplished during TV time. Right now, we are watching The Sopranos.

4. Diet. I already reduced my sugar intake which helped me drop ten pounds. Next, I am going to reduce snacking. Changing one area of my life at a time is the key for me.

I hope your new year is everything you want it to be whether you make a resolution or not.

Until next time,
happy reading and writing.
Tina Swayzee McCright

Make the Most of your business Cards

I had the good fortune to sit next to Sharon A Moore at the Chocolate Affaire this past weekend. She was a hoot and a half and had a unique idea on how to make the most of that white space on the back of business cards.

On her cooking themed murder mystery book, Mission Impastable, she posted a recipe. It was fun to watch her call folks over to her from across the crowd with the offer of a free and easy recipe for lasagne rolls.

And if they didn't like to cook, well, she had that covered too.

The talented Ms. Moore also writes naughty books and her character offered ten sex tips on the back of that card.

Folks came over in droves.

If you want to read Ms. Moore's other tips, here is the blog post: http://otpblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/make-that-business-card-work-for-you.html

Since her adventures extend from the pages of a book to the kitchen, she's also posting a month of appetizers on her personal blog: http://sharonarthurmoore.blogspot.com/

Some of them are downright yummy.

Promo or Write?

I had an interesting conversation with some writing friends this past week. They believe traditional publishing is on its way out and authors should publish digital books either by self-publishing or through ebook publishers. They also believe you need to promo several hours a day to get your name out there. We've all heard the stories of writers who spent all day promoting and landed deals with the big publishers. But are there too many writers saturating online promotion sites now because they heard those stories, too?

I have to admit, I felt tired just listening to them. Like many other writers, I work full time, write after work, and then take care of things at home before crashing in my bed for the night. If I promo for hours a day, I wouldn't have time to write, or I wouldn't get enough sleep and would burn out. Don't get me wrong, I do have my Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. I just don't live on those sites.

It was also interesting that we shared ideas on where they promote, but neither could be sure just how successful that promotion was. We have a friend who makes much more money self-publishing and she doesn't promote nearly as much as they do. We all agree that some sites for promotion are mainly writers promoting to other writers.

So what do you do? I think every writer needs to follow the path that is calling to them and see where it leads. I for one do not want to lose the love of writing by worrying over how many times I tweet each day.

Until next week,
keep reading and writing.
Tina Swayzee McCright

Promotion – a four, no I mean a nine letter word

When I think of promotion, I think of one word: Visibility.

Other than a great product with a good word-of-mouth, I really believe it’s all about visibility. There are a number of ways to do that. Some are listed below.

Offer your book for sale or free: For indie authors, there are a number of sites to help promote your book for a fee. A few of the sites are: Pixel of Ink, Book Bub, The Cheap and The Fugal Ereader.

Facebook: Be as active as you can but don’t bury people, and don’t hit people over the head with your book. They’ll get tired of it. Posting funny quotes and pictures that people share helps with name recognition.

Facebook has an option for advertising on their site by pay per click. You only pay if someone clicks on your ad. Some people have had success with this, but you have to do your research to narrow down your demographic, etc. Also you can create an event on Facebook and invite your Facebook friends.

Twitter: There are many groups out there where you can join, or you can create your own group where you can retweet your groups tweets. Make them fun and interesting. You have only a number of characters to catch a person’s attention. Hootsuite is a great site to schedule and keep track of your tweets. I highly recommend them and they’re free!

Goodreads giveaways: You can offer a book giveaway on Goodreads.  I’ve done this a number of times, and it does create more visibility. When I do this I've always managed to get my book on a number of friend's 'to-be-read' list.

Goodreads events: Create an event (book signing, sale day) and invite your Goodreads friends. Also limit the amount of events you create. Like anything else, they can become very much like spam and turn your friends off.

Book reviews: Reviews help boost your visibility. Goodreads is a great place for getting reviews. Many of the reviewers there have their own review sites. Also I have noticed a correlation with reviews and sales. If I receive a number of favorable reviews on Goodreads in a given week, I do see a jump in my sales.

Newsletter: I almost forgot one of the most important opportunities available: growing a list of people for your newsletter and actually sending that newsletter out. You can grow your list through a number of opportunities, one being contests. Have someone signup for your newsletter in order for them to be entered in a contest you are having. I seriously think this is the most important promotional tool you can use.

There are so many promotional opportunities available for writers, it's hard to decide and at times confusing. The key, I believe comes down to focusing your energy on one or two and following through with them.

Promotion

This month we are discussing promotion. It might as well be a four letter word for some writers. Trying to decide what works and doesn't work in promoting your books can be frustrating. Although we write because we enjoy creating stories, most of us would enjoy making more money selling our books. Many writers have grand dreams of quitting their day jobs, or retiring one day, to write full time. Some writers are fortunate, their book catches on by word-of-mouth and book sales take off. That is more the exception than the rule.

Writers are left searching for ways to promote their book without breaking the bank. Bookmarks are popular. Unfortunately, many writers give them out at conferences to other writers and they usually get tossed. I make beaded ones hoping they are less likely to be tossed. Pens with your logo are useful and less likely to be thrown away, but I don't know how many of them result in sales. I do remember seeing Linda Style's name on Emory boards year-after-year and I did buy a couple of her books. The idea is to get name recognition so when a reader sees your name on a book, she'll know she's hear of you.

Social media is another way to get your name out there. I have a Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and two blogs. Facebook and Twitter seems to be mainly writers friending writers. Pinterest allows access to a wide variety of people who may or may not be readers. Your best best may be blog tours and blog hops. You want to focus on blogs that attract readers and readers will come for the prizes on blog hops.

There are two things to remember when promoting your books:
1. You want to focus on reaching readers.
2. You don't want to use up all of your writing time to promote.


Until next week,
happy writing and reading!
Tina Swayzee McCright

Promotion Tips

PROMOTION TIPS

Yesterday, Kim Watters, Carol Webb, and I spoke about using social networks to promote your writing. I want to thank all of you who attended and added to our discussion. It’s amazing how each time we speak we worry we won’t have enough to say, but always run out of time because there really is so much to talk about on this topic.

Here are a few of the tips discussed at the Scottsdale Civic Center Library yesterday.


Do NOT let your promotion efforts take over your writing time. You can schedule promo for those moments you don’t usually write. You also don’t have to do everything in one day. Spread your efforts out over the week.

The four essential elements to promotion are having:
-a website
-a blog
-a Facebook profile
-a Twitter profile

If you read Kathryne Kennedy’s post on Tuesday Sept. 29th she tells you how to set your Facebook and Twitter to feed automatically from one to the other when you post. It also tells you how to feed your blogs into one another.

3. Blogging – Creating a group blog like Much Cheaper Than Therapy saves time. If
you only have a personal blog you should post at least once a week, two or three times will help generate traffic to your site. Offering a service like editor/agent interviews is a great way to encourage readers to come to your blog. I currently cross post from this one to my personal Blogger and my Myspace. If I set the feed correctly it will automatically go to my Twitter.

4. Blog tours are an effective form of promotion. If you read Kathryne’s post on
October 17th you can read where Kathryne went on her blog tour and what she discussed at each one.


To hear more tips, you can listen to our next speech on promotion at the Glendale, AZ Chocolate Affair on February 6th at 3:00. Hope to see you there!

Until next week,
Happy Writing!

Tina LaVon

PROMOTING YOURSELF BEFORE “THE CALL”

PROMOTING YOURSELF BEFORE “THE CALL”

By Marcia James

Think public relations (PR) is something you do after selling your book? Think again. Author promotion can be a daunting task when faced during the hectic days after “The Call”. Don’t make it more difficult on yourself by waiting until you sell to learn all you can about self-promotion.

Nuts and bolts

Prior to publication, there are many things you can do—free and easy things—to become PR savvy.

• Read those author promotion articles in the Romance Writers of America^® (RWA^®) Romance Writers Report and your chapter newsletters.
• Get a subscription to RT Book Reviews to check out author ads and the press releases in the “RT Clubhouse” section.
• Ask the published authors in your chapter what they do for promotion and take note of their e-mail posts about chats and blogs.
• Take an online promotion workshop to learn about the available PR options. (I’m presenting two such workshops in 2010. For more information, check my Web site: http://www.MarciaJames.net/Schedule.html)

The more you know about marketing yourself—especially the nuts and bolts of available PR options—the less intimidating it will be. For example, well before I was a featured author-guest in a chat room, I participated in several online chats with other authors to learn the process, the lingo (GA, BTY, TTYL, etc.), and my server’s ability to work with different chat hosts’ software. And before my first guest-blogging opportunity, I set up my blogger profile and figured out how to post comments on blogs.

Brand identity

The most important thing aspiring authors can do to get a jump on PR is to choose a pen name, lock in the corresponding domain name, and design—on paper, at least—a Web site. However, I recommend learning about author branding before spending a lot of time and money on your Web site. Golden Heart winner Jenn Stark has very helpful branding tips on her site (http://www.JennStark.com/). And when picking a pen name and slogan or tag line, remember to Google it to make sure it’s unique.

Modern technology

Exploring PR opportunities on the Internet is another pro-active move. Kensington author Dianne Castell believes in building your name recognition by networking online. “Get on loops and message boards you like and make contacts there,” Castell said. That way, “they care when you sell, and it’s a big deal to them as well because you’re friends. They will spread the word for you.” However, she warns that being friendly and helpful on loops is the key; not just pushing your books.

Social media sites, such as MySpace, offer a chance to start building your brand and your pen name before selling. I’m technically challenged, so I’ve resisted taking the MySpace plunge. But I was able to test the waters by joining a MySpace page for Ohio romance authors (http://MySpace.com/RomanceAuthors), which New York Times bestselling author Lori Foster designed and maintains. By being one of many, I learned to navigate, blog, friend people, etc., before committing to my own site (http://www.MySpace.com/MarciaJames). This co-promotion concept is true for blogs, as well. There are aspiring author group blogs, started by friends, critique groups, and award finalists.

If you’re technically handy, you can experiment with making book videos, which can cost less than $50 if you use stock photos, paid instrumental music, and free software such as Movie Maker. Several authors have become so good at creating these video promos, they’ve started their own companies.

Another helpful skill is podcasting. You don’t have to be published to have your own Internet radio show, although most podcasting is not inexpensive.

Writing and workshops

Penning press releases and articles also provides name recognition. It’s never too early to learn to write a press release, and there are books at your library offering samples of this promotional writing. You can volunteer to write press releases about your local RWA chapter’s conference or contest as a way to hone your skills and make contacts within your local media. And remember, a press release is not just a recitation of facts. It’s important to point out in your cover letter or e-mail why the media person’s audience will care about your press release.

KODer Jacqui Jacoby writes for the RWA Kiss of Death newsletter and other publications. “The first goal I set for myself back in 2002 was to start submitting at least two articles a year,” Jacoby explained. “You can pack a lot of info into that little bio at the end of an article, though I tend to steer clear of the laundry list of awards and accomplishments.” Jacoby’s articles are available on her Web site (http://www.JacquiJacoby.com/), which she considers her “virtual resume.”

In addition, Jacoby teaches both online and onsite workshops, which has the added benefit of getting her name known within the industry. Aspiring author Kellie Finley (http://www.kelliefinley.com/) also presents online workshops, as well as writing articles, volunteering, and using the Internet to promote herself. Since studies show that fear of public speaking is more prevalent than fear of death, presenting workshops isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But aspiring authors can give it a try by participating in (less scary) panel discussions, such as joining with critique partners to do a creative writing presentation at your local library.

Fiction writing requires a great deal of craft and business knowledge, and there are only so many hours in the day. But learning about self-promotion now will save a lot of stress later in your career. As Jacoby said, “We need to be seen and make a little noise. But most important, we have to have fun doing it.”

Marcia James writes hot, humorous romances and finaled in eleven RWA chapter contests before selling her first comic romantic suspense, At Her Command, to Cerridwen Press. In June 2009, her short story, "Rescue Me", appeared in Tails of Love, a Berkley benefit anthology, along with stories by nine other authors. Marcia is an advertising copywriter and marketing consultant, and she presents author promotion workshops. In her eclectic career, she has shot submarine training videos, organized celebrity-filled nonprofit events and had her wedding covered by People Magazine. After years of dealing with such sexy topics as how to safely install traffic lights, Marcia is enjoying “researching” her novels' steamy love scenes with her husband and hero of many years. She offers her 245+ page file of author promotion options to any writer who requests it. Just email her through the “Contact Me” page on her Web site: http://www.marciajames.net/

FOR WRITERS: Affordable Bookplates

Bookplates are basically self-adhesive stickers that an author can autograph and send to their readers to affix into their books. I've wanted to provide these for my readers (who are unable to attend my booksignings) for quite a while, but I knew it would be a time investment. After I began researching prices, I was horrified to discover that it would be such a costly dollar investment as well. One very reputable site that I've heard of from several author loops offers 500 full-color stickers for $500...and it seemed like the prices didn't vary much from that (they did offer 500 for $80, but these are only single-color stickers.) So, after several hours of research, I finally found some affordable ones, and thought I'd share to save other authors some time:

http://www.psprint.com/stickers-labels

What's nice about PSPrint is that you can choose custom sizes, they charge $40 for 250 full-color stickers (I chose 3x2 inch stickers, which seemed a good size for paperback books--see picture above) and the more you order, the less expensive they are. You have to size and upload your own artwork, but if you have any problems, their customer service department is super helpful (based on my own personal experience).

If you're a reader, and would like some of my new bookplates, just go to my website: http://www.kathrynekennedy.com/

Until Next Time,
Kathryne

Oh, and if you've found an inexpensive resource for quality bookplates, please feel free to share as well. :}

FOR WRITERS: Publishers Weekly Blog

Thought I would share this email I rec'd for any of you who might be interested in participating. Barbara is a wonderful person and a huge promoter of the romance genre.
Best Wishes,
Kathryne

FORWARDED MESSAGE:

Hi Everyone,

Well, believe it or not, my 2nd anniversary is coming up. Some of you may remember last year's party where I ended up with 745 comments on the blog and over 100 author/publishers offered giveaways. (last year's anniversary post http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/880000288/post/210023021.html)

This year I plan on having a week long celebration, March 9-14 and I need your help. I've divided the days into genres and encourage you to get involved and have fun with this. You can do it as individuals or groups but I need people to decorate, bring food and supply the entertainment. (It's only pretend, so it won't cost you anything). Let you imaginations run wild. (Today's blog: http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/880000288/post/280041028.html)

You can send me snippets to include in the blog like: "I made the ham roll-ups with the pickles in the middle" or "The flaming baton twirlers was my idea and I'm really sorry about the small curtain fire" or "I really thought indoor fireworks were safe." Just send me your name (or group name) and what you'd like me to add to the blog for you (don't forget to include your website so I can link it to your name). Support your genre and make your day extra special. If you'd like to give something away, just let me know what specifically it is. You will be responsible for shipping it.Also, let me know what day you are interested in being on (you can be on more than one day). On Saturday I plan on doing a Romance Special so feel free to send me your ideas for that. Please pass this on to all your loops and let's show everyone who really rocks in publishing!

All my thanks,
Barbara-- Barbara VeyContributing EditorPublishers Weekly Beyond Her Book blogwww.publishersweekly.com/BeyondHerBook
MySpace - www.myspace.com/barbaravey
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1113386705
Twitter - http://twitter.com/barbaravey