Six or seven years ago my advice to aspiring authors of nonfiction books was to build an audience platform by blogging. An example of how critical blogging could be to securing a publishing contract can be found in the case of Ann Marie Ackermann, author of Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee. After an initial assessment of her manuscript, I had recommended she start a historical true-crime blog, and she did. In fact, the editor of the ideal book series at Kent State University Press became a fan of her blog and invited her to submit a book proposal. Her book won a 2018 IPPY in the True Crime category, closed a 180-year-old cold case, and has also been translated into German where it received critical acclaim and was recognized for its scholarly contribution to the history of forensics. Today, blogging may or may not be something an author decides to invest time and energy in. If your authority as an author is based on your subject-area expertise, it remains an important goal to have a visible presence on the internet establishing your credibility. Whether blogging is the best means to achieve that goal depends on you and your project. It may be more important to be listed as an expert source available to journalists and appear as a credible source in news publications covering your subject area. HARO (Help A Reporter Out) may be a better fit to…
Swenson Book Development, LLC is pleased to announce that starting in September our blog will begin featuring three weekly articles or columns. Here’ what we have planned for our subscribers to receive on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. Tuesday: For the love of books Those who publish and sell books for more than the sake of a lousy buck are today’s unsung heroes. Ithaca… [Read More]
Filed Under: Authors, blogging, Books, Publishers, Readers
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Last week I explained the importance of using metadata to optimize your website or blog for search engines. Metadata, as you will remember, helps drive the right traffic to your page and makes your content more accessible. Brilliant! Your web traffic is growing and you are expanding your author platform. But now that visitors arrive on your homepage and take a first look, how do you… [Read More]
If you are recreational web surfer and gadget users like me, it’s unlikely you know what metadata, meta-tags and meta-descriptions are. You could get a SEO or web guru to explain it, using fancy tech jargon and complex, detailed explanations. Or you could opt for human speak and read this post, in which I will endeavor to guide you through the world of “meta” (no,… [Read More]
Retired teacher and native son of Homer, New York, Martin Sweeney has written a captivating account of three other native sons who played pivotal roles in Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and the United States’ history. Just released from McFarland & Company is Lincoln’s Gift from Homer, New York: A Painter, an Editor and a Detective. The painter, Francis Carpenter, brushed “The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation… [Read More]
Filed Under: assassination, Auburn, Civil War, Eli Devoe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emancipation Proclamation, Finger Lakes, Francis Carpenter, Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Homer, Lincoln, Lincoln's Gift from Homer New York, Martin Sweeney, New York, Underground Railroad, upstate New York, William Seward, William Stoddard
Until I picked up Eleanor Henderson’s Ten Thousand Saints, I had never heard the term “straight-edge,” much less anything about a movement of it. At first, I thought the world Henderson created was 100% fiction. I could not have been more wrong. This is understandable, as I was born at the tail-end of all the action and, to add salt to the wound, I grew… [Read More]