When our carefully constructed world of work comes crashing down, follow these steps to reconstruct it Writers are often amazed at the amount of writing I do on a daily and weekly basis. They ask how I manage to consistently stay productive. Part of it is my stage of life, part of it is discipline, […]
Maintain an idea repository to jumpstart your creativity every time you sit down to write Each week I create several posts for my blogs. I also compose posts for others (content marketing). In addition, I need to produce columns for my various publications. At a minimum, I write five new pieces a week, sometimes upwards […]
When it comes to a writer’s social media following, how much is enough? Unless we’re a big name A-list author, publishers want us to have a humongous platform from which to sell books. They expect us to have a large following. Even though the publisher will make some effort to sell our books, this largely […]
Every writer needs avid supporters to help get the word out about his or her books When it comes to marketing our book we need a group of loyal followers. They are apt to buy our books and will be excited to tell others about them. We need a platform. Most writers cringe at the […]
Last month I added a new feature to my blog posts. I look for an interesting tweetable phrase relating to my topic and then place it in a box using a large font. It stands out and gets the reader’s attention. It looks like a callout in a magazine. (Magazine publishing is my day job.) […]
Social media and its wide reach on the Internet have given rise to word-of-mouth book recommendations. Given this trend, some book marketers wonder if there’s still a role for traditional advertising. Here are three reasons why traditional advertising is critical to promote books in a social media world: Advertising Influences Recommendations: We don’t form opinions […]
Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it happens each year in November. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel, or the first 50,000 words of a longer novel, in just one month. (Why they picked November, a 30-day month with a long holiday weekend, is beyond me.) […]
As writers we all want more people to see what we write, right? If we have a book, we want more people to buy it, and if we blog we want more people to read it and comment, right? Be careful. Last week I heard about two bloggers whose posts went viral. The first case […]
It seems many authors are putting all of their book marketing efforts into social media. This is often shortsighted and not cost-effective. Discover how to capitalize on social media. It seems many authors are putting all of their book marketing efforts into social media. This is often shortsighted and not cost-effective. Though I’m not dismissing […]
Nathan Jamail says that “social media is just another tool; it is not a sales plan.” Yes, social media is powerful, he says. There are many people who have used social media to achieve many things, including authors who have tapped it to push their book to bestseller lists. Social media can help an author […]