The Week in Review

Tags

Amazon Publishing, Author Branding, author marketing, editing, Lit Chicks Editorial, publishing, Roberta Trahan, Writing, writing life, Writing tips

A return to some forgotten routines this week, including everyday writing. I might not have managed much in the way of word count, but I kept my pledge to myself and spent time with my work in progress each day. It was good to get reacquainted with the story and I even found some new inspiration.

I also completed my Marketing Monday task list, and put the finishing touches on an exciting new blog feature for readers that will launch next week.

You writers out there should also check out the FB page for my sister project, Lit Chicks Editorial. for resources, contest announcements, and calls for submissions. We also offer editorial services for fiction writers working toward publication.

That’s this week in review. See you all next week on Marketing Monday!

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Marketing Monday Revisited- How to Set Up an Author Blog (Step-by-Step with Author Rob Kroese)

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47North, Amazon Publishing, author marketing, Blogging, Build Your Own Author Website, Disenchanted, Fantasy, Mercury Falls, Mercury Rises, Rob Kroese, Schroedinger's Gat, Science Fiction

I’ve received repeated requests to re-publish this very helpful guest post by author Rob Kroese. Got questions? Leave them in the comments and I’ll make sure Rob stops by to answer! 

~

Recently I made the transition from web developer to full-time writer. I decided I didn’t want to spend my days writing code when I could be writing novels. So as part of that transition, I rebuilt my author website to make it as simple as possible to maintain. What I wanted was a site that I could set up once and then forget about, except for posting blog updates.

Here’s my list of requirements:

• Home page with basic information about me, including links to my books on Amazon and social networking links
• Integrated blog that automatically posts to Twitter and Facebook
• Links for sharing blog posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites
• Automatic posting to Twitter and Facebook
• Blog commenting system with spam filter
• No hand-coding and minimal maintenance

I’m going to walk through the basic process of setting this all up. Note that I’m going to be using the WordPress blogging platform for my example, because I think it’s the easiest to set up and manage.

You can see the final results of this process at http://robertkroese.com. I’m not saying it’s the most beautiful site in the world, but it does everything I need it to do – with minimal ongoing effort on my part.

Getting a Domain and Web Hosting

First, you’ll need to register a domain and get a basic hosting package. (You can skip this step if you don’t mind using a subdomain on someone else’s site, e.g. RobertKroese.wordpress.com or RobertKroese.blogspot.com. If you’re short on money, that might be the way to go.) I use a company called MyHosting.com, which has reasonable prices and has been fairly reliable for me. I recommend going with a hosting company that uses the Parallels Automation tools. Parallels provides a simple web interface that allows you to upload files, install applications, and change settings for your website.

The process of registering a domain and setting up a basic hosting package through a company like MyHosting.com is pretty straightforward, so I won’t go into detail about it here. Just be aware that it might take up to a day for the hosting company to get everything set up. Once it’s set up, you’ll be able to log into your site control panel. You’ll see something like this:

(This is the Parallels web interface. If your hosting company is using a different service, it will look different.)

If you don’t have an email address set up for your domain (e.g. Stephen@stephenking.com), I’d recommend clicking on Add New Mailbox and doing that first.

Setting Up WordPress

After that, click on Site Applications in the Websites section. You’re going to want to click on the big +Install button.

You’ll see a list of applications you can install. Click on WordPress.

Step through the installation. You can just accept the default values for most things. One thing I would recommend changing is the default URL path. It will want to put WordPress in a /wordpress directory, which means that to get to your blog, users will have to go to that directory. This is useful if you want your WordPress blog to be just one part of your website, but for simplicity we’re going to manage the whole site through WordPress. That means users who go to yourauthorsite.com will see the WordPress content without having to go to yourauthorsite.com/wordpress.

To accomplish that, change this…

…to this:

Step through the rest of the installation and you’re good to go.

Now if you click on the Site Applications link, you’ll see WordPress installed.

Configuring WordPress

To log into WordPress, click the Login => link. Unless you’re happy with the default WordPress theme, I’d recommend clicking the change your theme completely link. Spend some time browsing the various themes. Remember that you want something that captures the feel you want for your author site as well as having a place for all the links and widgets you’re going to want on the page. You can change this later, but plan on losing any customizations you made to the previous theme.

Once you’ve selected a theme you like, you can make simple customizations by clicking on the big Customize Your Site button.

Next, you’re going to want to add some plugins. The first one you’ll want to add is the Akismet anti-spam plug-in. You may already have this installed, so check under Installed Plugins on the left nav menu first.

If you see Akismet listed, just click Activate to activate it. If it’s not listed, click Add New on the menu and search for “Akismet”. Install and activate it. You can also click Settings to manage how Akismet handles suspected spam comments.

There are thousands of other plugins you might find useful, but for now let’s just add two others. These two plugins are needed for integrating your site with social media platforms. We need one plugin to display links to your Twitter/Facebook/etc. pages from your sidebar and another to let people easily share your posts on these sites.

Click Add New on the Plugins menu and search for “social media”. You’ll find a bunch of social media-related plug-ins. What we’re looking for is something that will allow readers to easily share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus, etc. I use Acurax Social Media Widget, which seems to work pretty well. Install and activate the plug-in.

After installing the Acurax plug-in, you’ll want to configure it. Click the Acx Social Media Widget Settings button on the left nav.

Select the button style you want and enter your social media account information. You can leave boxes blank if you want; the widget just won’t display those options to the reader.

Now click on the Dashboard link on the left nav and then click Manage widgets.

You’ll see a list of Available Widgets, including the Acurax Social Media Widget. To the right, you’ll see all the widgets currently installed on your site. Drag the Acurax Social Media Widget to where you want it to appear.

It will look something like this on your site:

Next, we need a plugin to allow users to easily share your posts on social networking sites. Click Add New on the Plugins menu and search for “social media” again. I use a plugin called “Social Share Buttons” by Loskutnikov Artem. Again, there are plenty of other widgets that do basically the same thing. Install and activate the plugin. When you’re done, you should see sharing options at the bottom of your posts. It will look something like this:

Setting up Twitter and Amazon widgets

There are special WordPress plugins for displaying data from Twitter and Amazon.com on your site, but I found it simplest just to use the code provided by Twitter and Amazon, respectively. (I’m assuming you already have a Twitter and Amazon Affiliate accounts set up.)

To get the code to display your recent tweets, go here: https://twitter.com/settings/widgets.

To get the Amazon widget code, go here: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/. You can easily use Amazon’s tools to create a widget displaying all or some of your books, with links to the Amazon page.

Copy the code for the widget. Then go to the WordPress dashboard again and click Manage widgets.

Drag a Text widget to where you want it to appear on the site.

Then click the widget header, give the widget an appropriate title and paste the code. Click Save when you’re done.

Make a separate text widget for Twitter, Amazon, and any other arbitrary text/code that you want to display.

Here’s a screenshot of my blog:

The sidebar below my bio/photo is comprised of:

• Amazon slideshow (Text widget with Amazon Affiliate code)
• Email list signup form (Text widget with code from from MailChimp)
• Ad for one of my books (Text widget with image and link url – this is the one bit of code I actually wrote)
• Social media icons (Acurax Social Media Widget)
• Twitter feed (Text widget with Twitter code)

Setting Up Your Blog to Auto-Post to Twitter and Facebook

OK, your site is all set up! You’ve got all your basic information on the site and made it easy for readers to connect with you on various social media platforms. There’s just one other step you should take to make life easier for yourself in the long run: set up your blog to automatically post to your favorite social media sites.

First you’ll need to find the URL for your blog’s RSS feed. A link to your feed URL will generally appear somewhere on your blog sidebar, depending on your theme and settings. If you right-click on the Entries RSS link, you can copy the link address.

The RSS feed is basically a version of your blog that’s easy for automated services to read.

The best service I’ve found for auto-posting to social media sites is TwitterFeed.com. Simply go to TwitterFeed, create an account and then click Create New Feed. Paste the URL for your RSS feed into the text box. You can click the test rss feed button to make sure you did it right.

Click Continue to Step 2. Select the service you want to publish your posts to. You’ll be prompted to connect your social media account(s) to TwitterFeed. When you’ve done that, click All Done! That’s all there is to it. (Using the default settings, it might take up to 30 minutes for new posts to show up on the selected social media sites.)

Note that for Facebook, you can choose to post either to your personal wall or to your author page (if you’ve set up a separate author page). If you want to post to both, simply repeat the process. You can post to as many pages as you want. Repeat the process again to post to a Twitter account or other service.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why you don’t see an option to post to Google Plus, it’s because the G+ API doesn’t currently allow write access. I couldn’t begin to speculate why. Hopefully that will change at some point.

There are all sorts of advanced settings I won’t get into here. You can also get really clever with Twitterfeed by using categories in WordPress. For example, I’ve set my blog up to post all blog entries to my personal Facebook page, but only book-related posts to show up on my author page. To do this, create a category in WordPress (for example, “Book Promotion”) and then create at least one blog post in that category. Go to that post in your blog and click the category to open the archive for that category.

Your browser will open to a page with an url like http://robertkroese.com/wordpress/?cat=6. In this case, “cat=6” means that 6 is WordPress’s identifier for the “Book Promotion” category.

Go to Twitterfeed and create a new feed, using this format: http://robertkroese.com/wordpress/?cat=6&feed=rss2 (replace my domain with yours and the number 6 with the appropriate category identifier for your site). Click Continue to Step 2 and select your author page as the destination. Now any posts in the category “Book Promotion” will appear on your Facebook author page. This is handy if you don’t want your readers to feel overwhelmed by posts about your cat, children, political rants, etc.

Done!

And you’re done! Now you’ve got a website that provides all the basic information potential readers need and makes it easy for them to share your posts and connect to you on social media sites. It even automatically posts all your new blog posts to those sites for you! All you have to do is write your posts. Have fun!

~

About the Author: Author Rob Kroese’s sense of irony was honed growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan – home of the Amway Corporation and the Gerald R. Ford Museum, and the first city in the United States to fluoridate its water supply. In second grade, he wrote his first novel, the saga of Captain Bill and his spaceship Thee Eagle. This turned out to be the high point of his academic career. After barely graduating from Calvin College in 1992 with a philosophy degree, he was fired from a variety of jobs before moving to California, where he stumbled into software development. As this job required neither punctuality nor a sense of direction, he excelled at it. In 2009, he called upon his extensive knowledge of useless information and love of explosions to write his first novel, Mercury Falls. Since then, he has written two sequels, Mercury Rises (2011) and Mercury Rests (2012), and a humorous epic fantasy, Disenchanted. He has just finished a new novel called Schrodinger’s Gat, which he calls a “quantum physics noir thriller.” 

Rob’s Website / Rob’s Latest Project: Schrodinger’s Gat Kickstarter

Marketing Monday – One Part Grit & One Part Gratitude

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47North, Amazon Publishing, author marketing, Author Rachel Abbott, Christine Kling, Marketing Monday, Marketing Plans, publishing, Rachel Abbott, Roberta Trahan, The Dream Stewards, The Well of Tears, Thomas & Mercer, Writing

Fortune favors the bold. An old idiom, ancient even, but nonetheless true. The past couple of weeks I found myself growing more and more annoyed with comments by wishful writers on the blogs of authors who have earned some measure of success about how lucky said authors are. As if publication and sales were random acts of kindness bestowed by the universe. Gah. Really?

What successful writers have that those who watch from the wings don’t is grit – sheer gumption, as my grandmother would have said. They have work ethic, a willingness to bear criticism and learn from it, to face rejection and come back for more, and most of all, the guts to take chances and ask for what they want.

Luck? Sure. There’s some of that – convergence of circumstances, random opportunity, being in the right place at the right time. But if you don’t have the grit to stay in the game, luck will never find you.

Though I wouldn’t yet list myself among the ranks of successful authors, I am published. How this happened for me is a perfect example of how grit matters. A year after my agent and I had abandoned hope of a publishing deal, the opportunity arrived as if it had been waiting to reveal itself all along. If you’re interested in the story of how I got here, read this post , or this one.

Hard work and stick-to-it-ed-ness has its pay-offs. This past weekend I had the opportunity to sneak into an event being hosted by my publisher for one of their other imprints (living in the same town as the headquarters has its perks). Amazon Publishing hosted a retreat / conference for the authors of Thomas & Mercer,  the mystery/thriller group.  Part of the event included a series of panel discussions for an open audience, which I was invited to attend. Wow.  I came away with a big ol’ bag of swag, new author friends, and a ton of great advice. But most of all, I came away with a renewed sense of gratitude. For my publisher, and for the people who encouraged me to hang in there when things got tough. Persist Until You Prevail.

I started to write a lengthy post about the event, but mystery author Christine Kling said it better than I ever could. I invite you to read the article on her blog “Write on the Water”, aptly entitled Gratitude.

Author Christine Kling – Write on the Water

Another important kernel of wisdom I heard on that day came from author Rachel Abbott, who repeatedly attested to the value of a marketing plan. I’ve been saying this for-ev-ah, and was so pleased to hear Rachel talk about how it helped her build sales for her books. So that’s my tip this Marketing Monday – make a plan. For some suggestions on how to do that, read my post Three Marketing Strategies Every Career Writer Can (& Should) Use.

Marketing Monday – I’ll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours

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47North, Amazon Publishing, Author Branding, author marketing, Marketing Advice, Marketing Monday, Roberta Trahan

Marketing Monday ideas, that is ;). It occurred to me that while I try to share suggestions and good practices for all of you to use in your own marketing efforts, I haven’t ever given you an example of what an actual regimen looks like. You may be wondering – what are the nuts and bolts of an author’s marketing plan?

Marketing is so much more than the obvious time-sensitive advertising and promotional activities authors do to support a book launch – like contests, giveaways, blog tours, and interviews. Marketing is a never-ending process that requires your ongoing attention.

Choose Your Battles

First of all, I really do spend every Monday on marketing. One of the most critical commandments of author promotion is consistency, and the best way for me to maintain consistency is to set aside a day of the week that I can devote entirely to the endeavor. Early on I learned something really important about myself. Marketing tasks drain the left brain while fiction writing is a right brain thought stream, and I am NOT one of those gifted folks who can switch hemispheres at will. I get really grumpy when forced to multi-task across that great divide – and the work that gets done is all crap. So, for me, the best approach is to spend a whole day in one mind set. Hence, Marketing Monday.

Make Every (Marketing) Minute Count

Managing Marketing Monday is harder than it sounds. There is a to-do list which never gets finished because something ALWAYS comes up. For example, today I was pressed to finish drafting course materials for a class I am co-teaching later this month (ironically a class on author marketing). As a result, this blog post almost didn’t happen.

But, it is a fact that effective marketing begins with a purposeful plan – even if you never get it all done. It’s all about catering to the crisis of the moment, and being okay with that. Take care of the critical issues first, and then proceed with the plan.

For me, a typical Monday Marketing looks like this:

Check on the Neighbors – every Monday I visit blogs, sites, communities and publications that are making significant contributions to my genre or are particularly popular. Over the last couple of years the list has grown so long I can’t do it in a single day, but I do as much as I can on Monday and then take a little time each day during the rest of the week to catch up.

Feed the Feed – sometimes it doesn’t happen, but at least once a week I post on the blog, and update the status on my FB fan page. I make an effort to tweet something clever or interesting every day, and during weeks when I have something new or exciting to share, I add a second update to the blog.

Keep up with the Joneses – in addition to staying in touch with my readers, it’s also important to stay in touch with the book world. I spend time every week talking to other authors and reading industry news.

Shop for New Shoes – a big chunk of a successful marketing plan is outreach, which means actively looking for ways to expand visibility for my books. This includes researching conferences, events, and publications to which I can contribute, and then pitching a presentation, class, appearance or article. It’s important not to get to comfortable with what it tried and true, because you never know what new and exciting opportunities you might be missing.

Take Care of Business – for a working writer, this encompasses everything from tracking sales and royalty payments to developing proposals for new ideas. It also includes tasks like reviewing edits, approving cover concepts, and producing marketing material like book blurbs. This particular to-do list item is most often the cause of Marketing Monday crises because it is usually deadline driven and always, always urgent.

So, that’s my Marketing Monday – more or less. Now you show me yours! Do you have a promotional plan that you try to follow? What’s on your to-do list?

Marketing Monday – Gone with the Wolf by Kristin Miller

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author marketing, Gone with the Wolf, Kristin Miller, Marketing Monday, Nalini Akolekar, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Roberta Trahan, Spencerhill Associates

This week the blog love goes to another of my Spencerhill Sisters, the talented Kristin Miller! If you’re a fan of steamy, seductive stories starring creatures of the night, you’ll love her paranormal romances. Today, I’m featuring her latest release:

 

Gone with the Wolf

By Kristin Miller

Entangled Publishing – April 2013

CEO and alpha werewolf Drake Wilder has given up the search for his one true love. When he discovers that she’s a secretary in his company, Drake’s primal instincts kick into overdrive.

What he wouldn’t give to have her fingers rake over his body instead of the keyboard…

Free-spirited bartender Emelia Hudson wants nothing more than to make her Seattle-based bar succeed. But when profits decline, she slips into a dress suit and secures a nine-to-five. After learning that her bar has become property of Wilder Financial, Emelia is determined to get some answers.

Two can play the ruthless business game. If only her attraction to the boss wasn’t so intense…

When Drake’s twin brother senses that Drake has found his match—and now inherits their father’s billion dollar estate—he hatches a plan to take Emelia out. Drake vows to protect her at all costs, but he might have to pay with his own life.

Can’t wait to read it? Get it here:

Amazon │Barnes & Noble

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kristin Miller has had a passion for language and literature her whole life. Born and raised in northern California, she often made up stories about faraway places and edge-of-your-seat adventures. After graduating from Humboldt State University, Kristin taught high school and middle school English, married her college sweetheart, and had two beautiful munchkins. In 2008, she took time off from teaching to raise her children, and started writing while they napped.

Her first novel was published in 2011, and since then she has had seven other novels published (mostly paranormal romances). She is the author of Gone with the Wolf with Entangled Publishing, the dark and gritty Vampires of Crimson Bay series with Avon, and the short-but-steamy Isle of Feralon novellas with Harlequin Nocturne Cravings.

To learn more about Kristin, visit her here:

Author Website │Facebook │Twitter│ GoodReads

Marketing Monday – Another HOT Author Profile: Elizabeth Otto

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47North, Amazon Publishing, Author Branding, author marketing, Blood of Isis, Elizabeth Otto, Entangled Publshing, Etopia Press, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Roberta Trahan, Spencerhill Associates

One of my favorite promotion strategies is giving a little love to other writers I know. Over that last several weeks I’ve highlighted the latest works of some of my Amazon Publishing cronies, and a handful of my “Spencerhill Sisters” – other authors represented by the same literary agency who represents me (Spencerhill Associates). This week we continue with another of the lovely ladies from Spencerhill –paranormal romance author Elizabeth Otto!

~~~

Now Available!

Passion isn’t the only thing that burns…

When a designer drug rocks the small town of New Brighton and makes junkies spontaneously combust, Paramedic Jayda Swenson suspects the super-methamphetamine her husband created before his death has resurfaced. She’s worked hard to create a safe, tidy life and put her meth-ravaged past behind her. Jayda has a secret to keep and her new life is the perfect cover. But when tourists start disappearing and charred body remains crop up, Jayda learns the hard way that this drug doesn’t just fry people’s minds—it also fuels demons.

Luckily, the sexy new medic, Ben Tierney, is a demon-hunter in disguise, except his demon-busting powers don’t work so well anymore. Until he realizes Jayda’s touch can refuel the energy he’s lost—a touch she’s not so willing to dish out. Now Jayda finds herself wedged between an ancient demon that knows her past and her secret, and Ben, who has plenty of secrets of his own. Fighting to hold onto her carefully controlled life, Jayda must decide if she’ll let Ben help her defeat the demons who threaten to infect the town by the 4th of July—even if it means exposing her true self and losing everything. Again.

~~~

About the Author: Elizabeth writes steamy contemporary and paranormal romance by day, and works as an Emergency Medical Technician-Intermediate by night, where the night shift provides never-ending fodder for plots, characters and story lines. When not creating characters or saving lives, she wrangles three rowdy children in the beautiful Midwest.

Watch for Elizabeth’s next release -the first book of her Paint River Ranch series – JUST TEMPTED ENOUGH, coming from Entangled Indulgence, October 2013.

Want to read Elizabeth’s book? Click here -> BLOOD OF ISIS
Follow Elizabeth on Twitter: @EAOtto
Learn more about Elizabeth here: www.elizabethottowrites.blogspot.com
Contace Elizabeth at: elizabethottoauthor@gmail.com

Marketing Monday – The Truth About the Roaring Twenties (Guest Post by author Stephanie Draven)

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47North, Author Branding, author marketing, Best-selling Author, Erotic Romance, Flappers, historical fiction, Marketing Monday, Novel Writing, Prohibiton, Roberta Trahan, Romance, Stephanie Draven, The Roaring Twenties

Myths and Misconceptions about the Roaring Twenties: It Wasn’t All One Big Party

by Stephanie Draven

Chances are that when you think of the 1920’s you think of wild liquor-soaked parties in speakeasies, incendiary Jazz music, and flappers wearing feather headbands dancing the Charleston. Consumers embraced new gadgets and inventions, the stock market was soaring and a Renaissance broke out in Harlem. All of these things are a true reflection of the time, but they’re only part of the picture. Underneath the glitz and glam, a turbulent culture war took place in the country–one we’re still fighting, in many ways, today.

The Roaring Twenties were a time of sexual liberation, experimentation and exploration. Having just won the vote, women were at the forefront of social causes and societal change. In spite of—or perhaps because of—Prohibition, the Twenties were boom times. Young women attended college, flocked to major cities to find work and lived on their own in numbers never before seen in the history of the nation. Homosexuality was more public and more tolerated. Rules for dating changed. Non-marital sex became common and women began to demand and use birth control.

Flappers changed the world of business, fashion, politics and popular entertainment. The Hays Code wouldn’t be adopted and enforced until 1930, which meant major Hollywood films pushed the boundaries of propriety and gave the country some of its sexiest stars, including Clara Bow.

In short, the Twenties were a period of social transition—one of those pivotal times in history when women took one step forward, before being shoved two steps back. People from all walks of life came together to agitate for progressive change in the Twenties and, in many instances, African Americans led the way.

At the same time, the era was marked by the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, inspired by D. W. Griffith’s race-baiting incendiary film of 1915, The Birth of a Nation. Immigration was suppressed and racial tensions rose. Even the nascent birth control movement was caught up in it, with Margaret Sanger arguing on behalf of eugenics. The suspicion of foreigners helped lead to the execution of two Italian immigrants, Sacco and Vanzetti, under suspicious circumstances. And the general fervor led to a red scare against suspected communists.

Much of the liberation of women in the twenties came about as a rebellion and reaction against the mores of previous generations. Whereas the women of the 1910s fought for the right to vote, the women in the 1920s had it–and didn’t do terribly much with it. The Equal Rights Amendment was introduced in 1923, but was never passed. And while women entered the workforce in great numbers, most of them left it upon marriage.

Another thing that harshed the buzz of the 1920s was the mob. Mob violence rose dramatically with Prohibition and organized crime used the ban on liquor sales to create criminal empires.

Of course, all this social turmoil makes the era not entirely unlike our own–and a perfect backdrop for fiction!

~~~

ON SALE NOW!

They vibrated with incendiary Jazz. They teemed with sexual abandon. The Twenties were roaring and the women–young, open, rebellious, and willing–set the pace and pushed the limits with every man they met…

In the aftermath of a wild, liquor-soaked party, three women from very different social classes are about to live out their forbidden desires.

Society girl, Nora Richardson’s passionate nature has always been a challenge to her ever-patient husband. Now he wants out of the marriage and she has just this one night to win him back. The catch? He wants to punish her for her bad behavior. Nora is offended by her husband’s increasingly depraved demands, but as the night unfolds, she discovers her own true nature and that the line between pain and pleasure is very thin indeed.

Meanwhile, Clara Cartwright, sultry siren of the silent screen, is introduced to a mysterious WWI Flying Ace. If Clara, darling of the scandal sheets, knows anything, it’s men. And she’s known plenty. But none of them push her boundaries like the aviator, who lures her into a ménage with a stranger in a darkened cinema then steals her jaded heart.

Working class girl Sophie O’Brien has more important things on her mind than pleasures of the flesh. But when her playboy boss, the wealthy heir to the Aster family fortune, confronts her with her diary of secret sex fantasies, she could die of shame. To her surprise, he doesn’t fire her; instead, he dares her to re-enact her boldest fantasies and Sophie is utterly seduced.

One party serves as a catalyst of sexual awakening. And in an age when anything goes, three women discover that anything is possible…

~~~

About the Author: Stephanie Draven
is a national bestselling and award-winning author of historical, paranormal, and contemporary romance. Her newest project, IT STINGS SO SWEET is a collection of 1920s historical erotic romances that celebrate sex, women, and the Jazz Age. Stephanie is currently a denizen of Baltimore, that city of ravens and purple night skies. She lives there with her favorite nocturnal creatures–three scheming cats and a deliciously wicked husband. And when she is not busy with dark domestic rituals, she writes her books.

Buy Stephanie’s Books

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Marketing Monday – How to Set Up an Author Blog (Step-by-Step with Author Rob Kroese)

Tags

47North, Amazon Publishing, author marketing, Blogging, Build Your Own Author Website, Disenchanted, Fantasy, Mercury Falls, Rob Kroese, Schroedinger's Gat, Science Fiction

By Rob Kroese

~

Recently I made the transition from web developer to full-time writer. I decided I didn’t want to spend my days writing code when I could be writing novels. So as part of that transition, I rebuilt my author website to make it as simple as possible to maintain. What I wanted was a site that I could set up once and then forget about, except for posting blog updates.

Here’s my list of requirements:

• Home page with basic information about me, including links to my books on Amazon and social networking links
• Integrated blog that automatically posts to Twitter and Facebook
• Links for sharing blog posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites
• Automatic posting to Twitter and Facebook
• Blog commenting system with spam filter
• No hand-coding and minimal maintenance

I’m going to walk through the basic process of setting this all up. Note that I’m going to be using the WordPress blogging platform for my example, because I think it’s the easiest to set up and manage.

You can see the final results of this process at http://robertkroese.com. I’m not saying it’s the most beautiful site in the world, but it does everything I need it to do – with minimal ongoing effort on my part.

Getting a Domain and Web Hosting

First, you’ll need to register a domain and get a basic hosting package. (You can skip this step if you don’t mind using a subdomain on someone else’s site, e.g. RobertKroese.wordpress.com or RobertKroese.blogspot.com. If you’re short on money, that might be the way to go.) I use a company called MyHosting.com, which has reasonable prices and has been fairly reliable for me. I recommend going with a hosting company that uses the Parallels Automation tools. Parallels provides a simple web interface that allows you to upload files, install applications, and change settings for your website.

The process of registering a domain and setting up a basic hosting package through a company like MyHosting.com is pretty straightforward, so I won’t go into detail about it here. Just be aware that it might take up to a day for the hosting company to get everything set up. Once it’s set up, you’ll be able to log into your site control panel. You’ll see something like this:

(This is the Parallels web interface. If your hosting company is using a different service, it will look different.)

If you don’t have an email address set up for your domain (e.g. Stephen@stephenking.com), I’d recommend clicking on Add New Mailbox and doing that first.

Setting Up WordPress

After that, click on Site Applications in the Websites section. You’re going to want to click on the big +Install button.

You’ll see a list of applications you can install. Click on WordPress.

Step through the installation. You can just accept the default values for most things. One thing I would recommend changing is the default URL path. It will want to put WordPress in a /wordpress directory, which means that to get to your blog, users will have to go to that directory. This is useful if you want your WordPress blog to be just one part of your website, but for simplicity we’re going to manage the whole site through WordPress. That means users who go to yourauthorsite.com will see the WordPress content without having to go to yourauthorsite.com/wordpress.

To accomplish that, change this…

…to this:

Step through the rest of the installation and you’re good to go.

Now if you click on the Site Applications link, you’ll see WordPress installed.

Configuring WordPress

To log into WordPress, click the Login => link. Unless you’re happy with the default WordPress theme, I’d recommend clicking the change your theme completely link. Spend some time browsing the various themes. Remember that you want something that captures the feel you want for your author site as well as having a place for all the links and widgets you’re going to want on the page. You can change this later, but plan on losing any customizations you made to the previous theme.

Once you’ve selected a theme you like, you can make simple customizations by clicking on the big Customize Your Site button.

Next, you’re going to want to add some plugins. The first one you’ll want to add is the Akismet anti-spam plug-in. You may already have this installed, so check under Installed Plugins on the left nav menu first.

If you see Akismet listed, just click Activate to activate it. If it’s not listed, click Add New on the menu and search for “Akismet”. Install and activate it. You can also click Settings to manage how Akismet handles suspected spam comments.

There are thousands of other plugins you might find useful, but for now let’s just add two others. These two plugins are needed for integrating your site with social media platforms. We need one plugin to display links to your Twitter/Facebook/etc. pages from your sidebar and another to let people easily share your posts on these sites.

Click Add New on the Plugins menu and search for “social media”. You’ll find a bunch of social media-related plug-ins. What we’re looking for is something that will allow readers to easily share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus, etc. I use Acurax Social Media Widget, which seems to work pretty well. Install and activate the plug-in.

After installing the Acurax plug-in, you’ll want to configure it. Click the Acx Social Media Widget Settings button on the left nav.

Select the button style you want and enter your social media account information. You can leave boxes blank if you want; the widget just won’t display those options to the reader.

Now click on the Dashboard link on the left nav and then click Manage widgets.

You’ll see a list of Available Widgets, including the Acurax Social Media Widget. To the right, you’ll see all the widgets currently installed on your site. Drag the Acurax Social Media Widget to where you want it to appear.

It will look something like this on your site:

Next, we need a plugin to allow users to easily share your posts on social networking sites. Click Add New on the Plugins menu and search for “social media” again. I use a plugin called “Social Share Buttons” by Loskutnikov Artem. Again, there are plenty of other widgets that do basically the same thing. Install and activate the plugin. When you’re done, you should see sharing options at the bottom of your posts. It will look something like this:

Setting up Twitter and Amazon widgets

There are special WordPress plugins for displaying data from Twitter and Amazon.com on your site, but I found it simplest just to use the code provided by Twitter and Amazon, respectively. (I’m assuming you already have a Twitter and Amazon Affiliate accounts set up.)

To get the code to display your recent tweets, go here: https://twitter.com/settings/widgets.

To get the Amazon widget code, go here: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/. You can easily use Amazon’s tools to create a widget displaying all or some of your books, with links to the Amazon page.

Copy the code for the widget. Then go to the WordPress dashboard again and click Manage widgets.

Drag a Text widget to where you want it to appear on the site.

Then click the widget header, give the widget an appropriate title and paste the code. Click Save when you’re done.

Make a separate text widget for Twitter, Amazon, and any other arbitrary text/code that you want to display.

Here’s a screenshot of my blog:

The sidebar below my bio/photo is comprised of:

• Amazon slideshow (Text widget with Amazon Affiliate code)
• Email list signup form (Text widget with code from from MailChimp)
• Ad for one of my books (Text widget with image and link url – this is the one bit of code I actually wrote)
• Social media icons (Acurax Social Media Widget)
• Twitter feed (Text widget with Twitter code)

Setting Up Your Blog to Auto-Post to Twitter and Facebook

OK, your site is all set up! You’ve got all your basic information on the site and made it easy for readers to connect with you on various social media platforms. There’s just one other step you should take to make life easier for yourself in the long run: set up your blog to automatically post to your favorite social media sites.

First you’ll need to find the URL for your blog’s RSS feed. A link to your feed URL will generally appear somewhere on your blog sidebar, depending on your theme and settings. If you right-click on the Entries RSS link, you can copy the link address.

The RSS feed is basically a version of your blog that’s easy for automated services to read.

The best service I’ve found for auto-posting to social media sites is TwitterFeed.com. Simply go to TwitterFeed, create an account and then click Create New Feed. Paste the URL for your RSS feed into the text box. You can click the test rss feed button to make sure you did it right.

Click Continue to Step 2. Select the service you want to publish your posts to. You’ll be prompted to connect your social media account(s) to TwitterFeed. When you’ve done that, click All Done! That’s all there is to it. (Using the default settings, it might take up to 30 minutes for new posts to show up on the selected social media sites.)

Note that for Facebook, you can choose to post either to your personal wall or to your author page (if you’ve set up a separate author page). If you want to post to both, simply repeat the process. You can post to as many pages as you want. Repeat the process again to post to a Twitter account or other service.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why you don’t see an option to post to Google Plus, it’s because the G+ API doesn’t currently allow write access. I couldn’t begin to speculate why. Hopefully that will change at some point.

There are all sorts of advanced settings I won’t get into here. You can also get really clever with Twitterfeed by using categories in WordPress. For example, I’ve set my blog up to post all blog entries to my personal Facebook page, but only book-related posts to show up on my author page. To do this, create a category in WordPress (for example, “Book Promotion”) and then create at least one blog post in that category. Go to that post in your blog and click the category to open the archive for that category.

Your browser will open to a page with an url like http://robertkroese.com/wordpress/?cat=6. In this case, “cat=6” means that 6 is WordPress’s identifier for the “Book Promotion” category.

Go to Twitterfeed and create a new feed, using this format: http://robertkroese.com/wordpress/?cat=6&feed=rss2 (replace my domain with yours and the number 6 with the appropriate category identifier for your site). Click Continue to Step 2 and select your author page as the destination. Now any posts in the category “Book Promotion” will appear on your Facebook author page. This is handy if you don’t want your readers to feel overwhelmed by posts about your cat, children, political rants, etc.

Done!

And you’re done! Now you’ve got a website that provides all the basic information potential readers need and makes it easy for them to share your posts and connect to you on social media sites. It even automatically posts all your new blog posts to those sites for you! All you have to do is write your posts. Have fun!

~

About the Author: Author Rob Kroese’s sense of irony was honed growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan – home of the Amway Corporation and the Gerald R. Ford Museum, and the first city in the United States to fluoridate its water supply. In second grade, he wrote his first novel, the saga of Captain Bill and his spaceship Thee Eagle. This turned out to be the high point of his academic career. After barely graduating from Calvin College in 1992 with a philosophy degree, he was fired from a variety of jobs before moving to California, where he stumbled into software development. As this job required neither punctuality nor a sense of direction, he excelled at it. In 2009, he called upon his extensive knowledge of useless information and love of explosions to write his first novel, Mercury Falls. Since then, he has written two sequels, Mercury Rises (2011) and Mercury Rests (2012), and a humorous epic fantasy, Disenchanted. He has just finished a new novel called Schrodinger’s Gat, which he calls a “quantum physics noir thriller.” 

Rob’s Website / Rob’s Latest Project: Schrodinger’s Gat Kickstarter

Marketing Monday – Ask the Author! Marketing Tips from Valerie Bowman

Tags

Amazon Publishing, Author Branding, author marketing, historical fiction, Marketing Tips, Roberta Trahan, Social Media, Valerie Bowman

So we authors all know we need to market ourselves and our work, but so many of us don’t know where to start. I recommend that writers build a marketing plan – a list of select tasks within a limited (and/or regular) time frame – for each book. Sounds easy enough, but before you can build a marketing plan you have to identify your audience, and then find marketing opportunities that will reach that audience. Sounds a lot easier than it is.

Well, today I’m going to help you out with that, at least a little. My internet author friend Valerie Bowman recently published a great how-to guide that has a lot of helpful tips. While Valerie’s experience is largely with the Romance genre, most of her advice is genre non-specific.

Valerie’s guide to “Painless Marketing for Busy Authors” is well worth the small investment and is a great place to start planning your marketing efforts. Valerie’s book includes the same savvy suggestions you’ve read on this blog (and others) like build a website, brand yourself (not your books), don’t bite off more than you can chew, and set a realistic budget and goals. All of this is sound advice and bears repeating.

Valerie also offers some resources and cost-saving ideas like:

• Author-Author.net – where you can buy copies of your books at cost. If you buy them here, you can resell them and keep 100% of the revenue. I’ll add that some publishers (like the Amazon Publishing imprints) often offer special pricing   to their authors for purchasing their own books.

• Worldcat.com – tells you which libraries ordered your book

• FreeBookFriday.com – a great website to get Twitter followers and Author Page likes for a minimal cost

• Novelrank.com – you have to sign up for this on release day but it tracks your sales

• Ninth Moon – great promotional products for authors

• AuthorCentral.com – Amazon sales tracking site. You can see your rank and sales but only for print books (unless you self-publish) as reported by Nielsen BookScan. Updated Friday mornings.

• Tweetchat.com/hashtag – site where you can see all tweets related to a certain hashtag.

• Hootsuite – an application that can analyze when your Twitter followers are online the most. You can then schedule your promo tweets accordingly. You want to tweet about promotion sparingly.

• Mailchimp.com – manages email subscriptions for newsletters. Free up to first 2,000 subscribers.

And that’s not all. If you’re looking for a basic how-to guide to help you get your marketing plan off the ground, you might give Valerie Bowman’s “Painless Marketing for Busy Authors” a try. Blurb and links to buy below.

Got questions? ASK VALERIE! Just include your question in your comment to this post. Valerie has graciously offered to stop by and respond!

***

“Painless Marketing for Busy Authors”

by Valerie Bowman

The A-Zs of book marketing covering the good, the bad, and the surprising!

• Why promotion really is your problem even if you have a publisher
• What is the goal of all marketing and promotion?
• Why negative reviews don’t matter and why you should welcome them!
• How to find your readers
• What is branding and why should you do it?
• Specific things you can do to promote your books…and more!

***

About the Author

Valerie Bowman is an award-winning author who writes Regency-set historical romance novels aka Racy Regency Romps!

Valerie’s debut novel, SECRETS OF A WEDDING NIGHT, is the first in the Secret Brides series. Book two, SECRETS OF A RUNAWAY BRIDE, was released March 26, 2013 and SECRETS OF A SCANDALOUS MARRIAGE will be released Oct 1, 2013. A SECRET PROPOSAL, a related novella, was released 1/1/13.

Valerie has a B.A. in English Language and Literature with a minor in history from Smith College. By day, she is a technical editor at a computer software company. By night, she combines her love of writing, history, and romance to craft stories about people falling in love.

Want to buy the book? Find links to Amazon, B&N, and Kobo at http://www.valeriegbowman.com/for-writers/

Want to learn more about Valerie? Visit her website for more info and links to her Twitter and FB accounts: www.valeriebowmanbooks.com

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Marketing Monday – It’s All About Me!

Tags

47North, Amazon, Arthurian Legend, author marketing, Celtic Folklore, celtic traditions, Cornwall, Ebook, Epic Fantasy series, historical fantasy, Kindle Daily Deal, Roberta Trahan, The Well of Tears, Wales

It’s true – book marketing requires shameless self-promotion on the part of the author. What that means, really, is that a person who spends the majority of any given day alone in the confines of her own mind must shout out her name at the top of her lungs while holding up a sign that says “LOOK AT ME!”.

Anyone who knows me in the real world will tell you that I am neither shy nor introverted – I enjoy talking to people and I love working a room. However, I am totally out of my comfort zone when it comes to stepping up onto a platform and drawing attention to myself – except when it comes to my book!!

So here it is, my Marketing Monday tip for this week: BUY MY BOOK – and do it today while you can get the Ebook for .99 – because THE WELL OF TEARS is the SciFi/Fantasy Kindle Daily Deal on Amazon!!