Use branding to sell books and sustain your passion Many writers do not want to engage in social media because they fear their engagement online will detract from (either time spent on or quality of) their writing. It’s a valid concern. It’s also an unnecessary one – if modeling the right approach. You see, using social media is about writing. If you are a writer, in whatever form or shape it may take, your work is content. Your job is content production. Say you are writing a historical fiction book set during the American Revolution. Online, using social media, you need to produce content that is related to historical fiction and the American Revolution. These are the subjects that interest you, hence why you write about them. There you are, brain dumping onto any 8×11 page within your reach and talking to friends, family, pets, and anyone who will listen to you soliloquize about your WIP and its topic, and yet you refuse to go online and share a tidbit or two? Writers need to remove their creative caps and put on their sales caps. That’s the trick to social media. It requires a change of approach… and the trouble with social media is that it is constantly changing! Writers need to view the process of writing and book production as two separate events. The former is a personal process while the latter is public. To write a book is to create and produce one. Books are objects, commodities; they become…
Did you ever ask yourself, is there really a God? Is Heaven for Real? Is there life after death? Just ask 4-year-old Colton Burpo from Imperial, Nebraska, who emerged from life-threatening surgery with astounding details about his near death experience. This is a true story of Colton’s account as told by his father, Todd Burpo, to Lynn Vincent. Colton describes floating away, looking down on… [Read More]
Filed Under: best-selling book, Colton Burpo, Is Heaven For Real?, Lynn Vincent, Nelson Publishing, Todd Burpo
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Since my last blog post on Tuesday, I’ve had very limited access to the internet due to travel. The illusion of free wi-fi in public places is, well, illusory. In Wisconsin this past week, my search for internet access brought me back into the libraries of my youth. New buildings and outstanding collections have replaced what stood bolted down in the 1970s section of my… [Read More]
While some folks like to read about the lives of celebrities, athletes, and politicians, and how they put their pants on just like you and me. I don’t. Apparently I am not alone. The new trend in small farm memoirs began in earnest when Storey Publishing, known for its how-to guidebooks for small animal farmers, released its first memoir in 2008. Jenna Woginrich began as… [Read More]
Too often I hear an author say their social media efforts will come after the book is out. Too late. Authors, especially if they are working on their first book, need an audience platform built before they can interest an agent or an acquisition editor in their book concept. If you are a talk show host, national sports figure, political candidate, or star on stage or… [Read More]
Last month, I reviewed a graphic novel/interactive documentary called KENK: A Graphic Portrait. This journalistic comic was the first release for Toronto-based multimedia production and publishing company Pop Sandbox, and it was met with a hoard of accolades and reviews within its first three months of release. I was lucky enough to snag an interview with Alex Jansen, the owner and operator of Pop Sandbox,… [Read More]
Filed Under: apps, documentary, e-books, Eastgate, graphic novels and comic books, Home Entertainment and Distribution, hypertext fiction, interactive documentary, Kenk: A graphic portrait, Mongrel Media, narrative experience, National Film Board (CAN), Pop Sandbox Productions and Publishing, Sparrow Song, surviving suicide, The Next Day, Toronto Film Festival, visual storytelling