See what some of our authors tell us they are reading this summer. Cathryn Prince, author of American Daredevil: The Extraordinary Life of Richard Halliburton, the World’s First Celebrity Travel Writer (Chicago Review Press, June 1, 2016) Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs and Selected Letters by Ulysses S. Grant End of Watch  by Stephen King  A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny Ira Rabois, author of the forthcoming Compassionate Critical Thinking: How Mindfulness, Creativity, Empathy, and Socratic Questioning Can Transform Teaching (Rowman & Littlefield, September 30, 2016) Siddhartha’s Brain: Unlocking the Ancient Science of Enlightenment by James Kingsland. Who Rules the World by Noam Chomsky Elizabeth Rynecki, author of forthcoming Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy (Penguin Random House, September 6, 2016) Syrian Dust: Reporting From the Heart of the War by Francesca Borri The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North Carolyn Porter, author of forthcoming Marcel’s Letters (Skyhorse, Spring 2017) Angels of the Underground: The American Women Who Resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II by Theresa Kaminski Lighthouse Road: A Novel by Peter Geye    Elaine Mansfield, author of Leaning into Love: A Spiritual Journey Through Grief (Larson Publication, October 2014) Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer Crossing the Owl’s Bridge: A Guide for Grieving People Who Still Love by Kim Bateman On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image by Ann Baring and Jules Cashford Tina Peterson, author of Oscar and the Amazing Gravity Repellent (Capstone, September…

Elaine Mansfield is the author of Leaning Into Love: A Spiritual Journey Through Grief (Larson, 2014). Gold Medal Winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award 2015, her memoir captures your heart—from the extraordinary closeness of Elaine’s marriage to how she and Vic transformed their struggle with cancer and despair into a conscious relationship with mortality. After Vic’s death, Elaine leaned into her ongoing love as grief led her through overwhelming emotional and spiritual depths on a journey beyond their time together into her new life. Working closely with Elaine Mansfield during the past several years I observed her as a writer who pulled others to her words using social media. When I review her social media metrics over two years it tells a powerful story about how a book found its audience. More than a year after her book’s release, Elaine’s blogs continue to be routinely shared several hundred times on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. She has more than 1,000 Friends on Facebook, 4,000 followers on Twitter, and 500+ on LinkedIn. And she has engaged with most of them in conversations about the topic of death. When I hear from aspiring authors they have no interest or intention in building an audience platform online I want to introduce them to Elaine and let them hear her story of finding readers. Jill: You have a following and community of readers with whom you engage on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google + that is the envy of many aspiring authors. I know…

Does an author really need to blog? Not necessarily. If you are writing fiction or a children’s storybook, probably not. If you’re writing nonfiction or memoir, probably so. To answer the question, you must ask yourself whether you can reach the audience who will buy your book with a blog. Children rarely make consumer choices about books, but their parents do. Tina L. Peterson wrote a middle-grade novel, Oscar and the Amazing Gravity Repellent. She has a Ph.D. in mass media and communications and is an activist for media literacy. In Media Parentis is where she blogs about smartphones and sleep deprivation, Superbowl Advertising Bingo, and why we need diverse children’s literature. If you have a way to speak to those who buy books like yours, then a blog may be a tool to pull customers to your writing. If you are writing for wildlife naturalists who spend the majority of their time in the field in remote locations like Linda J. Spielman, then you likely don’t need to blog because your customers aren’t likely to be searching online for A Field Guide to Tracking Mammals in the Northeast. But if your book is about a nonfiction subject on which people use search engines to seek out new information, then blogging can be an important instrument in your author’s bag toolkit. Blogging serves two purposes. One, it helps search engines keep your site at the top of the list of hits when someone types in your keywords. Every time you post…