Are you on the start of your journey to publication? Authors’ names are their brands, and satisfied readers exercise brand loyalty. They shop for titles by author name, and when they come across a real find, they recommend it to friends. Those friends do the same, and the chain continues. But a book is more than a cover or jacket. It is the embodiment of a human voice to which the reader seeks connection. Thus, loyal readers attend book signings, subscribe to newsletters, and use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms to make contact with favorite authors. The deeper the social connection between reader and author, the more likely the reader will act as the author’s sales agent. There is nothing better than word-of-mouth advertising for a book. Cultivating an audience for your writing is something you are expected to bring to the table when you have a manuscript for them to consider for publication. In creating your author platform and establishing your name as your brand, you want to be consistent and constant. If your name is Amy Anderson, your professional contact email will be amy@amyanderson.com; your gmail will be amyanderson@gmail.com; your website will be www.amyanderson.com. Your Twitter account will be – drumroll please – @AmyAnderson. Do not use the title of your book. Do not use any catchy taglines or slogans. Use your name. But first check that your name is available. Since Amy Anderson is a common name, you may need to use a legal…
You’ve been told that as an author you can’t afford to ignore Facebook with its 3 million followers. So you created a Page and worked hard to gain those “Likes” with compelling content. You stopped complaining that you had to do double duty with both a personal profile and an Author Page to maintain. You even accepted the changes with the new timeline without much… [Read More]
Filed Under: Audience platform, Facebook, Pages, Personal Profile, Privacy Settings, social media strategy, Subscribers
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It’s easy to ignore those update pop-up windows on your computer, especially for web browser updates – after all, you can still get online. Why fix what ain’t broke?
The 29th Austin Jewish Book Fair was held October 28 through November 1 at the Dell Jewish Community Campus. It was a pleasure to sit with my “sistahs” again at the fair (Sisterhood members of Congregation Agudas Achim), but the contrast between last year and this was noticeable. Last year the fair opened with the book lover’s luncheon, and this year it closed with it,… [Read More]
Parvaneh Bahar will talk about her father, her life, and her passion for freedom and human rights in Iran this Thursday, Nov. 8, at 6:30 pm in the Community Foundation Theater at Cinemapolis on Green Street in Ithaca, NY. On Saturday, November 10, Buffalo Street Books will host the author of The Poet’s Daughter: Malek o’Shoara Bahar of Iran and the Immortal Song of Freedom… [Read More]
DRM is an acronym that readers may not associate with good experiences – you’ll encounter it a lot in articles about the woman who had her digital library remotely wiped from her Kindle by Amazon or ones about the poetic deletion of George Orwell’s 1984 from hundreds of e-reader devices. DRM is a topic that gets people in flames – and as a future author,… [Read More]
Filed Under: Copyright, DRM, e-readers, ebook, iPad, Kindle, libraries, Publishing, Readers, technology, US Copyright Law