Writers, I am sure you have noticed that the social media interaction on the Internet is getting briefer and briefer. In fact, to get attention on Facebook, the best thing often seems to be putting a short line or two on an image. In our social media marketing, we need to go with the flow. […]
Make each scene a little story
Here’s my writing advice for the day: make each scene a little story. What we want is a series of pearls that create a lovely necklace. A story, and therefore your scene, has a motivated protagonist (the point-of-view character), conflict, and some kind of resolution. Of course, it needs to have a hook at the […]
Do authors need author websites?
What’s an author website for? Do you really need one? Do you need one if you aren’t published yet? Here’s what an author website is for: engaging potential readers. Yes, you really need an author website, and you need it as soon as you can do it–that is, as soon as you can identify who […]
Facebook falls behind?
Many writers have been focusing marketing efforts on Facebook. That’s fine for reaching some people, especially other writers. But who is missing? Many smartphone users, especially younger ones, are staying away from Facebook, where they may have gotten burned. They’ve learned that it’s a permanent record, maybe not a great place to share their whereabouts […]
Ask your friends for marketing help
Marketing tip for today: Writers, today we’re going to ask you to consider who you may know, or who your family may know, who could help you market your book. Maybe there’s someone in your circle of friends and acquaintances who is in the media. A radio DJ? A regular blogger? An editor? What if […]
Marketing: SEO for novelists
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a topic most writers don’t want to touch. It’s bad enough that someone is making you put up a website. Now they’re talking about tweaking it so a computer can understand what it’s about. Who wants to bother? You do. That’s because the better the Google search bots can […]
NovelCrossing.com: what is it?
Book lovers can hang out together on Goodreads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, Amazon, and some other spots on the Web, advising each other about favorite books. As a writer, you want to engage readers, so you need to at least work with Goodreads and Amazon. Now there’s a new bibliophile hangout place, Novel Crossing. Waterbrook Multnomah created […]
Marketing: tag your blog posts
Beware of addressing your blog only to other writers. It’s easy to reach out to your writer peers on social media and write to them on your blog, but that kind of effort will only bring more writers to your site. Writers don’t typically spend a lot of money on others’ books. (Not totally true, I know!) […]
Writers, more tips for your first page
New writers are often tempted to explain everything at the beginning of a book. It seems to make sense. The reader will want to know where the protagonist comes from, what makes him tick, and so on. So why not just tell him, up front? The problem is that the reader doesn’t care yet about […]
Marketing: Why bother with an author website?
Writers, if you are thinking that an author website is an expense and a bother, you are right. Especially if you have to keep turning out blog posts. Yikes! Wouldn’t you rather spend the time writing your next book? It’s true that one of the best marketing tools for your work is having plenty of […]