The Week in Review

Tags

47North, Amazon Publishing, Apub, Author, Blogging, Blogging Tips, Book Marketing, Fantasy, Roberta Trahan, Social Media Marketing, Week in Review, writing life

This week was exhilarating, and exhausting. BUT, I accomplished all of the goals I set for myself, AND was able to track some measurable results from my efforts. Here’s a brief recap:

• Got this week’s Marketing Monday post up – late, but better than never. Next week’s is already in the can and will be uploaded early!
• Consulted with a very successful author friend who gave me some solid, specific suggestions on my new project. This was hard, because it’s always hard to ask others for help, but she was very gracious and her guidance has already paid off!
• Asked three other successful author friends to help me with some promotion. I felt I could do this because a) I’ve been supportive of their careers and b) we’ve traded these kinds of favors in the past. A trusted writing community is essential, so if you don’t have one yet, start building.
• Launched a new project – my Writing in Real Time endeavor, a serial novel released in episodes, for free on my blog. This is a controversial thing to do, but my number one goal right now is to build an audience for my work. It’s been five years since my first book was published, and more than two years since the sequel. Since then, my career has stalled. I need to feel inspired again, and interacting with readers can do that for an author. But first, I need readers! Here’s the link to the first episode (read and share!): Blooded – Episode One: Leap of Faith
• In support of the serial novel project, I made a directed effort to raise my public profile – I spent some $ on boosting likes on my FB page, and invested a big chunk of time in social media. This is where I’m seeing those measurable results I mentioned. I’ll be talking about this in more depth on an upcoming Marketing Monday.
• Got some writing done, too!

Whew, right?!! I don’t know if I can keep up this kind of pace every week, but I’m going to try. For now, it’s wine o’clock somewhere…

See you on Marketing Monday!

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Setting – The Unsung Character

Tags

47North, Amazon Publishing, Blogging, Fiction Writing, Kendra Elliot, Murder She Writes, Novel Writing, Setting, Setting as Character, Writing, Writing tips

Today I am guest blogging and hanging out with the gang at Murder She Writes – a co-op blog by a group of supremely talented mystery & suspense authors. Special thanks to author pal Kendra Elliot for hosting me!

What makes setting come alive for you? What’s your favorite fictional world?

Come on over an join the conversation!

Setting: The Unsung Hero

Marketing Monday Revisited- 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, 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 – 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 – It Takes A Village and Other Thoughts on Mutual Marketing Efforts

Tags

47North, Amazon Publishing, author marketing, Blogging, Booksworn, fantasy fiction, Fringe, Grim Oak Press, historical fiction, Jacqueline Carey, Naomi Novik, New Wave Authors, Patrick Rothfuss, R.A. Salvatore, Rob Kroese, Roberta Trahan, Shawn Speakman, Tara Bennett, Teresa Frohock, Terry Brooks, Triberr, Writing

Right off, let me first acknowledge that this installment of Marketing Monday is two weeks and a day late. My apologies, especially to those of you who are following this blog. Occasionally other demands on my time get in the way of keeping on schedule, but please know that I do make every effort to post here every week.

I’ve been thinking a lot about creative community lately, and why I believe a commitment to it should be a core value for all artists, especially writers. We all need the support and encouragement of others who think and feel the way we do- for creative support, for business information, but also to experience a sense of  belonging.

Another benefit to seeking out and participating with groups of like-minded people are the opportunities this kind of networking creates for marketing. I’m thrilled to see grassroots projects popping up all over the place – from group blogs to indie-author information sharing sites, topical message boards, crowd-sourcing, and more. 

In my opinion co-op marketing is just plain smart and practical. It makes sense, it feels good, and when done right, it is powerful. The combined efforts of the group exponentially broaden each participating author’s reach while simultaneously lightening the burden on the individual. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, as they say.

I first noticed this happening in the world of romance writers and historical fiction authors, and now see it trending everywhere. Authors helping other authors and thereby helping themselves. And let us not overlook the charity drives, public awareness campaigns, fundraising, and the general spreading of good will. Love it. LOVE it.

I’m going to spend the rest of this post giving a shout out to a few of the SFF authors I support, cuz, like, you know, these are my peeps. But these particular folks are also committed to community building and shared marketing, and doing it particularly well.

But first, one recommendation for co-op marketing that you might not have heard about. If you aren’t familiar with or using Triberr, take a look. Awesome tool. Really.

Group Hugs

This week one of my favorite fantasy authors Teresa Frohock is touting the launch of a genre / publisher specific collective author site designed to promote and support its members and their books. The kick-off includes an innovative giveaway. SFF fans should check out Booksworn (click here) for some of the most interesting new voices in fantasy fiction from Nightshade Books. Also, if you haven’t read Teresa’s debut dark fantasy MISERERE, I highly suggest that you check that out too! Click on the book cover art to be taken to the Amazon book page.

Last week I had the privilege and the pleasure of attending a local signing by one of my literary heroes – Terry Brooks. Terry was sharing the spotlight with the well-known fantasy artist Todd Lockwood, and his web druid turned author / publisher Shawn Speakman. Shawn, who has been managing Terry’s website and other marketing for years, is a cancer survivor facing mountains of treatment related debt. In an effort to dig out from under, his imprint Grim Oak Press is releasing a fabulous short story anthology featuring the work of some of the best voices in fantasy fiction – including Terry Brooks, Patrick Rothfuss, Jacqueline Carey, R.A. Salvatore, Naomi Novik and many more. To pre-order UNFETTERED, click here.

NEW WAVE AUTHORS is a cooperative e-zine created and hosted by my fellow 47North author Rob Kroese. Rob publishes this site as both a promotional vehicle in support of all Amazon Publishing authors, and as an educational hub for  writers. Amazon Publishing authors contribute  content on a broad range of publishing related topics. Rob has also created a cross-roads at which many Amazon Publishing authors meet and go on to build friendly networks of mutual support across all the social media channels.

And last, a special shout out to colleague and friend, entertainment writer Tara Bennett, who is an A-lister when it comes to networking and mutual marketing. Her latest endeavor, FRINGE: September’s Notebook (the authorized companion guide to the TV series) was released last week. If you are a Fringe fan, you can get the book here .

Marketing Monday – It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint (or Why Slow & Steady Wins The Race)

Tags

47North, Author Branding, author marketing, Blogging, Library Thing, Pinterest, publishing, Roberta Trahan, Shelfari, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

The last couple of weeks I have focused on the downside of some social media tools, because it’s just as important to to understand the risks of your marketing efforts as it is the benefits. But the truth is that none of it works unless you are prepared to explore all your options and then commit time, and patience.

One of the biggest frustrations most folks have with marketing is their need to be able to connect their efforts to identifiable and measurable results (i.e. book sales). This seems to be especially true of authors who are self-publishing. Because these folks have often invested significant amounts of money in the publication of their book, they have tied their definition of success to sales. This makes perfect sense in a balance-sheet logic sort of way. The problem is that folks often misunderstand the subtle distinction between author marketing / book promotion and advertising – which then tends to create a set of expectations that are never quite satisfied. Success, as an author, is just as much about you as it is about your book.

I used to teach day-long workshops on this concept – but here’s the short version. Marketing is a very generic umbrella term that covers a multitude of concepts and tasks – including Promotion, and Advertising. Generally speaking, Authors promote and Publishers advertise. In the best case scenario everyone does a little bit of everything. If you are self-published, it’s all on you. all of the time. Which is tough, no doubt. But the important point to take away is this – no matter how you are published or who does what, you need both author promotion and book advertising.

If you are traditionally published, like me, you have little or no control over pricing and have very little to leverage in the way of the kind of offer that stimulates sales through advertising. Your efforts and time are best spent (building up to, and then after the release date) on author promotion. Author promotion (aka author marketing, aka author branding) consists of defined, sustained tasks which are designed to build and maintain awareness and visibility in The Long Run. These sustained tasks include blogging, tweeting, pinning, guest posting, newsletters and more – implemented and maintained consistently over time.

It is a marathon, not a sprint, and if you are a career author, there is no finish line. Even more, you may never be able to match your efforts to real dollar numbers. But, you should be able to measure your success in the short term by blog hits, FB fans, or Twitter / Pinterest followers. All of this contributes to sales, sooner or later. Truly.

Of course none of us can do it all, but we can all do some. It takes time, and persistence, and a willingness to give everything a try. Be creative and have fun, but most of all, be consistent. It’s important to maintain a presence of some kind everywhere you can, but I recommend targeting the bulk of your efforts on a few (say, three) favorite places. Here are some of mine:

Pinterest – This is just plain fun for everyone. I love Pinterest because it is so visual. It also gives me a way to creatively express my author identity and promote my book. By linking images I post on Pinterest back to my blog or website, I can create a larger community for myself and build interest in who I am and what I do without pimping my book all the time.

Shelfari  – This is a reader community powered by Amazon that is similar to (but better than,  in my opinion) GoodReads. It is definitely a more controlled place to play, and has lots of fun features for interacting with readers. It is worth checking out, if you haven’t already been there. I also recommend Library Thing as an alternative to GR, and finding at least one genre-specific site where you can interact with readers.

My Blog –  Next to my website, this blog is the only static presence I can realistically maintain. The keys to building a blog following are regularity and consistency, and providing meaningful content. This takes planning time in addition to writing time, but it really does pay off over time. Using post tags liberally but wisely also helps.

30 Days & Counting – My First Guest Blog & Other Book Launch News

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47North, Amazon Publishing, author marketing, Blogging, fantasy fiction, Inspiration, Library Journal, Novel Writing, Roberta Trahan, The Qwillery, The Well of Tears, Writing

Only one more month until the official release of THE WELL OF TEARS: Book One of The Dream Stewards (47North)! Have you reserved your copy yet?

I am proud to announce that today I am blogging over at The Qwillery – one of my favorite speculative fiction blogs. THE WELL OF TEARS is part of the 2012 Debut Author Challenge.

The discussion is centered on the debate over character vs. story driven novels – and there’s an exclusive excerpt from the book! Come on over and join the conversation, and sign up to take part in the DAC!

You also might spend some time checking out all the other amazing authors and books – you are sure to find some excellent additions for your TBR pile (after you finish my book, of course)…

 

 

Other big news this week was the release of Library Journal’s Genre Spotlight edition, in which THE WELL OF TEARS is named a “promising debut”. The article is a revealing overview of SFF trends, and includes some fabulous reading recommendations! You can read the article here:  Hungry for SF: Genre Crossovers Retain Fans and Attract New Readers 

More news to come soon, including contests (with prizes) and an invitation to my online book launch party. You can keep up with all the excitement right here, or join me on Facebook or Twitter (click on the icons in the sidebar –>).

I will also be updating my website with my calendar of upcoming events – conference appearances, book signing events, blog tour stops, and more.

Marketing Mondays — My Own Personal Purgatory

Tags

47North, Author Branding, author marketing, Beyond Novel, Blogging, Coffee & Writing, publishing, Roberta Trahan, Shorebird Media, The Well of Tears

I really shouldn’t complain. After all, I did it to myself. Months ago, when I was trying to figure out how I could possibly market the debut of one novel while writing the next, I devised “Marketing Mondays”.  I set aside an entire day to focus on things like blog posts, Facebook fan page and website updates, Triberr re-posts, and gathering the data my publicist needs for the book launch. Not to mention developing my own mailing list and brainstorming ideas for contests and other release-party related ideas.  Made perfect sense, really. In fact, I had been recommending the exact same strategy to clients for years.

What WAS I thinking?!! Gads, how I now fear Mondays. It all starts with a prickling sensation on the back of my neck every Sunday evening, as I glance at the planner to get a feel for the week ahead. Not even an extra cup of my favorite honey-vanilla chamomile tea can ward off the dark dreams that follow. And then dawn breaks and there is dread coiled in the pit of my stomach. By the time I’ve poured the first mug of coffee, my palms are already perspiring.

Who knew this would be so HARD? So many tasks and so few hours in the day. And as you all already know, I often fail to get to it all. But week after week I chip away at the monolithic ‘to do’ list with a toothpick and hope to do better than I did the week before. Because every little bit counts. It really does.

I’d like to share today’s coup de gras — a little design my friend and colleague Jeanie James at Shorebird Media designed for me. Remember our talk about author branding? Well, one idea is to create a personal logo –>

Awen a Bendithion is a Welsh phrase that I have adopted as my personal salutation, shared with me by a fellow writer years ago. I’ll tell you what it means one of these days :).

This lovely artwork speaks to my family heritage and embodies my personal totem creature, the hummingbird. It’s job is to uniquely represent me and my author identity. You’ll be seeing it a lot soon — on my blog, facebook fan page, and promotional materials. Have you thought about creating something that speaks for you?

As fugly as Marketing Monday is, it serves its purpose. Today I got more accomplished than I expected, but still not as much as I had hoped. Next week I’m going to try not to set myself up for disappointment – I just can’t take the constant feelings of failure and self-loathing. Here’s my plan for future Marketing Mondays — maybe it will help you, too:

Set Attainable Goals – one of my biggest stumbling blocks is the never ending ‘to do’ list. When I take it as a whole, it is insurmountable and since there are always things left to be done no matter how hard I try, I always end up feeling like I fell short. A better practice is to bite off small pieces — focus on a few selected tasks that can realistically be accomplished in the time you have available.

Mix it Up – of course the most time sensitive task is the one that ought to get done first, but it is stressful to constantly be managing your priorities by catering to chaos. A helpful time management tool is to keep yourself working ahead of the curve by adding at least one or two items to your list that isn’t hanging precariously on a deadline.

Delegate – many hands make light work, isn’t that what they say? Hire help, if you can. I use the lovely ladies at Beyond Novel because, frankly, this book is just too important to me to leave up to my own limited efforts. Knowing when to hand the work off is an important and powerful step toward achieving your marketing goals.

Well, that wraps up another Marketing Monday for me. I’m off in search of dark chocolate and caffeine — I earned it!

Author Branding — Just Who Are You, Anyway?

Tags

Anne R Allen, Author Branding, Author Identity, author marketing, Blogging, Blogging Tips, Frederick Levy, John Grisham, John Nance, Marketing, Platform Building, Roberta Trahan, Writing, writing advice, Writing tips

It occurred to me, after writing last week’s article on blogging and other marketing tools all authors should use, that in order to effectively use those strategies one must first have something to say that goes beyond the book itself.  I also realized that branding and platform building are just as challenging to talk about in meaningful terms as they are to do. I suspect this is because we are moving the focus beyond the subject matter of the work to a much more personal topic–you, the author.

What is an Author Identity?

I have to say that writing and talking about myself is still one of the most uncomfortable things I am ever asked to do–kind of like pulling my own teeth. It is hard to talk about yourself, even harder to decide what to say. But, in essence, this is what platform building or author branding or positioning is — creating a reputation for yourself as an authority in, or credible spokesperson for, your work.

To put it as simply as I can, an author identity is a composite of skills, achievements, expertise, and personal traits that you already posses that are somehow brought to bear on your writing life. Let me offer myself as an example.

Just who am I, Anyway?

In the beginning, I couldn’t bring myself to talk about myself as a writer. In those days, while I was quietly drafting my first novel,  I was earning my living as a marketing consultant and publicist for self-published authors, small press publishers, and some minor public personalities. It was much easier to talk about my clients and what they were doing than it was to talk about myself. But, I needed to build my business, and to do that, I had to find a way to position myself.

On a whim, I attended a workshop at a writers conference on professional networking by Frederick Levy, a film industry expert who had written a book on the business for screenwriters. Frederick talked a lot about the importance of relationship building, and having a clear and memorable way of talking about yourself. As an exercise, he asked everyone in the class to come up with a tag line–a one line modifier that someone might remember long after they had forgotten our name. Wow, that was hard. At the time, I was working as a publicist for a couple of actors. I lived in Seattle, and they were living and working in Los Angeles. I came up with the tag line “a Hollywood publicist in Seattle“. It seemed corny to me at the time, but it was the best I could do. Frederick though it was creative and original, and when I later contacted him on behalf of a client, he rememberd who I was–and took my call. As it turned out, that tag line worked magic for me for many years. But then I realized it was time to take myself seriously as a writer.

The Writer’s Resume

When I set out to define how I wanted to be perceived as an author, I did what I had been advising my clients to do–I began with my resume. A lot of what was on that resume had nothing to do with my writing credentials or my area of interest. I tossed all of that stuff aside and honed in on the back story of my life that had a direct impact on my creative process. It wasn‘t much, but it was a start:

*I have a degree in Journalism

*I minored in medieval history

*I have invested years to the extensive study of ancient civilizations, mythology, and folklore.

*I am a published poet and journalist

*I worked for over two decades in advertising, marketing & publicity — the last ten years as consultant, speaker and instructor in the book trade

This is an over-simplified list of line items from my background, but each of these experiences directly inform who I am as a novelist- as an authority in my genre (I write fantasy and alternative history), as a trained writer, and as a book marketing expert. My creative and professional background gave me a voice and something to say, beyond my book. After all, I wasn’t a published author yet. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have something of value to share.

With this information as a starting point, I eventually developed a way of thinking and talking about myself as a writer. I worked on a writer’s resume and a short bio. At first, I only ‘wore’ this persona at writers conferences and trade events. Eventually I realized it was time to practice what I preached to my clients, and bring that secret identity out of the closet. It’s a pretty comfortable fit now, but it took some time. I began as many of you have or will, blogging about what I know. Case in point, my posts on author marketing. I also write about mythology, history, writing craft, and the business of writing. It’s all relevant to my author identity. One day, hopefully very soon, I’ll have books to promote. But until then, I have plenty to talk about.

Taking Center Stage

So, just who are you? Have you tried to craft a writer resume yet? If you haven’t, I suggest you put it at the top of your to-do list. Start with an old resume, one you’ve used or are currently using in the world of your day job or profession. Does that day job or career relate to your writing? In what ways? What else have you done to further your creative dreams–classes, contests, degrees, certifications, conferences, areas of study? Are you an expert on something, or a collector? Don’t forget to personalize your public persona–do you have hobbies or interests that others would find interesting? Do you have a special charity you support? Once you start pulling together a list of pertinent and interesting factoids about yourself, your author identity will begin to emerge. Before you know it, you’ll be thinking and talking about yourself in a new way.

If you’re still not sure what an author identity is, I highly recommend looking at the websites and blogs of your favorite authors and/or bestsellers in your genre.  Think about writers like John Nance (a former pilot and aviation expert who writes about terrorism, air disasters and espionage), or John Grisham (lawyer who writes legal thrillers) and how who they were in their former lives helped define who they became in their writing careers.

Remember, it’s never too early to start. Begin by sorting out how you want the world to see you, and discovering what you have to say–and then say it. Start tweeting and blogging, and don’t forget to set up that Facebook Fan Page. And for help with blogging, which is the most effective of the three basic marketing tools every writer should be using, take a look at Anne R. Allen’s articles on blogging for beginners — How to Blog and How Not to Blog .

Does Blogging Sell Books? — 3 Marketing Strategies Every Author Can (and Should) Use

Tags

author marketing, Blogging, Marketing Tips, New Media, Roberta Trahan, Social Media, Social Networking

Turns out last week’s post on the New Media Melee resonated with a lot of folks. Apparently most of you are just like me, trying to do everything I can to kick start and sustain my writing career. The discussion that followed the post raised a really good question for which I have found no simple or definitive answer — How do we know what works?

Most of us need to budget our resources carefully — we have neither the money to spend on a multi-platform advertising campaign nor the time to invest in endless hours of social media marketing in the webiverse. Out of necessity, and also to preserve our sanity, we need to target our efforts. The good news is that focusing on a handful of well-selected strategies is much more likely to yield the results you want than the scattershot approach. This is not new thinking–targeted marketing is an age-old advertising principle, and it works.

Build a Marketing Map

No matter where you are in your writing career — whether you are already published, or yet to be published — every author should have some semblance of a marketing plan. I know, the forethought and research this requires can be daunting. But, if your goal is to sell your work, there’s really no choice but to suck it up and give it a go. It’s really not as hard as it sounds. Start by defining your readership,

Every book has a single core reader group–this is where you should start. First off, and although this sounds obvious many authors either can’t or won’t define their work this way — what genre are you writing? In the case of memoir and non-fiction, this can be fairly simple to discern. Topical non-fiction like self-help or cooking is self-defining. Genre fiction such as thriller, mystery, sci-fi, and so on, targets a fairly well-defined group of readers. However, current consumer research indicates that there is a certain amount of cross-over between these reader groups. Thus, you will want to include them in your marketing plan.

Deciding on what category your core reader group falls under is only the first step. Next , you will need to examine who those readers are. This is essentially the definition of the term ‘demographics‘. Are they male or female, young or old, highly educated, affluent? What are their interests? How are they likely to spend their time and money, and where?

Finding the answers to these questions requires two things — research, and a bit of armchair psychology. Start by analyzing your own buying habits, and those of people you know. Spend some time trawling the web, searching for like-minded individuals. You’ll be amazed at what you find. More than you want, most likely, so take note of the best of it. Look for common ground and behavior. But don’t limit yourself to Google searches. There are also some great books and blogs on author marketing out there–read them.

Once you’ve done your research and settled on two or three reader profiles, it’s time to choose your tactics. By this I mean, decide on how and where to reach your readers. There are likely to be a number of worthwhile choices, but no one can do it all. Use your best judgment and be selective about what options you add to your plan. My advice to you is to choose two or three marketing strategies that you can a) afford, b) manage on your own, and c) sustain for the long haul.

No matter what other marketing you decide to undertake, there are three basic tools I believe every author can, and should, employ.

Blogging

There are several reasons I advocate blogging. First, it is a proven way to bolster a public profile and credentials for an author’s expertise. I’m not going to get into a discussion of branding or platform building here, but the most oft overlooked aspect of author marketing is author identity. This is primarily because many people find it uncomfortable to draw attention to themselves. Authors, especially, prefer to focus the attention on the book. Understandable as this is, it is a HUGE mistake to avoid self-promotion. The success or failure of your work depends a great deal upon your merits–as a writing expert, as well as your expertise in your subject matter. An author blog is the single most effective forum for building a bridge between you and your audience. You have a soap box, and your readers have a way to interact with you.

It is essential to make yourself accessible, at least in some limited way. Readers, just as fans of all the entertainment arts, desire a relationship with the person behind the art. Being willing to engage directly with your readers is essential to creating a following.

Second, blogging does indeed sell books. The proof of this will show, in time. The more people who are interested in what you have to say on your blog, the more people there will be talking about you and what you do. It also serves as a way to keep your readership engaged with you between book releases. Ultimately, blogging ABSOLUTELY translates to increased individual book sales. It ‘s just plain common sense.

The one caveat I offer, however, is that blabbering through your blog is the quickest way to be dismissed by your readers, colleagues, and just about everyone else. Keep your blog posts specific to your books, your subject matter, and/or any specific areas of expertise you possess. Try to refrain from blogging about personal matters or your daily life–unless it pertains, in at least some loosely connected way, to your creative process. Your blog articles must be of interest to your audience, but you should avoid exposing too much of your personal life to the world at large. When you have nothing of your own to share, it is always considered good form (and good karma) to promote other authors whose works you respect.

For a fun ‘tutorial’ and some good advice on blogging, read Anne R Allen’s article “How to Blog –A Beginner’s Guide for Authors” .

Social Networking

There are two primary social networking utilities that every author should learn how to use — Facebook fan pages and Twitter. This post is intended to advocate these tools, not as a ‘how-to’ tutorial. I am still learning to use them myself, and despite all the reading and research I have done, it still boils down to a trial and error process.

What I can say is that Facebook and Twitter both create essential community for authors. These additional portals also create a relatively easy way to cross-market by giving you instant access to gigantic data bases–for free.

Let me just reiterate that when I say Facebook, I am referring to a Facebook Fan Page — this is NOT the same as the general Facebook friends page that most everyone has. A Facebook Fan Page is a linked but separate application utilized by businesses, organizations, celebrities, and artists like yourself–people who have something to sell or promote. Take the time to learn the difference and then get one set one up for yourself.

Admittedly, using Twitter can feel a bit like you’ve linked into the collective global consciousness of the human race. It takes some study and practice to find your niche and get comfortable being in the constant stream of conversation. I spent several weeks searching and observing the activity of others (publishers and successful authors in my genre) before I started tweeting myself. I began by ‘following’ the tweet streams of people I thought were using the utility well.

No matter what your personal feelings may be about social networking, it isn’t going away. It’s your choice, of course, but if you don’t join in, you run the risk of being left behind.

Author Websites

Makes me feel old when I hear this, but many internet marketing gurus are saying that the website is an outmoded platform. In point of fact, blogging utilities like WordPress and Blogspot have become so sophisticated that many folks (authors included) have started setting up their entire internet identities from their blog.

This single-source approach can make sense on a lot of levels — technologically and economically. However, no marketing expert I trust would ever tell a client to put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. Having multiple ‘homes’ on the internet gives your audience more than one way to find you. Hosting a web page at your own domain (your NAME, people, not your book title) is the very first thing you should do. Link your blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts to it and create your own multi-media marketing network.

Agents and publishers will expect you to have both your own website and a blog. Technologically speaking, it is completely desirable and possible to integrate the two. I recommend you hire a web designer to help you do this–by and large, do-it-yourself websites are not a good idea.

So there you have it, your own min-marketing map. By utilizing these three basic tools, you can effectively market yourself and your books to the audience you desire. It is a huge commitment, no doubt, but then, so was writing the damn book in the first place! You can do it, I know you can.

One last caveat–and this is a pet peeve of mine: NO AUTHOR NEEDS SEO services (aka Search Engine Optimization). It is an absolute waste of your money. Readers simply DO NOT do a search for ‘book’, or “spy novel” or “memoir” or “historical fiction”, and then shop the first 10 titles that show up. Don’t let anyone tell you they do-it’s an out and out lie. Readers shop for books in BOOKSTORES — whether they be brick-and-mortar shops or online retailers like Amazon. The one and only possible exception to this would be some non-fiction books, largely business or self-help titles. But that is not my area of expertise, so that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Alrighty then, fellow authors, go forth and market!!