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…
Facebook is important to your marketing strategy, but don’t use Facebook to sell books. Facebook is an online site that extends your social networks beyond face-to-face interaction. Despite the IPO (initial public offering) of Facebook and many attempts to monetize the site, most users ignore commercial advertising on the site. Don’t think of Facebook as a megaphone to try to sell your books or you’ll… [Read More]
Once upon a time, you could make sweeping changes to your privacy settings with a single click of the mouse. Those times are now history – but by knowing all the different aspects of privacy on FB, you can better control who has access to your information on this platform. General Facebook Privacy Settings On the top right-hand corner, past the Open Graph search bar… [Read More]
There was no warning for the average writer when their WordPress Twitter widgets went silent on June 11th, 2013. Suddenly, all their posts and retweets disappeared from their website. Their engagement went haywire as tweets no longer seamlessly streamed into sidebars, and footers, and landing pages. The developers knew what was coming – Twitter was updating their API (Application Programming Interface) from v1 to v1.1…. [Read More]
Facebook is a social media tool that many authors find helpful for connecting with their readers. Having a strategy and an understanding of how Facebook can work for an author is important to seeing any return on your investment of time. Who should use Facebook? You need to consider using Facebook if your target audience uses Facebook. There are 1.11 billion users of Facebook, so… [Read More]
Ithaca, New York is more than just “Gorges.” Luminosity recently released a study deeming Ithaca the smartest city in America based on cognitive training exercises. A thriving, progressive college town, Ithaca is certainly a center for learning and growth. But what else makes it such a hotspot for brain power? Ithaca boasts a community of writers, readers, and researchers; one that makes our small city… [Read More]



