Top 10 Tools for Authors in the Digital Age
by,
October 10, 2017

What should be in your digital toolkit for the business of being an author? Google Suite for your email. Do you wonder why your emails don’t get a reply? It may be they were never delivered. If your account is with AOL, Hotmail, or Yahoo, there is a strong likelihood if you send someone you don’t already have a connection with they will never receive… [Read More]

Sockpuppet Armies Attack Authors
by,
November 22, 2016

When your writing is published, expect to go public. Positive engagement with your audience is critical to the success of your book. Readers want to connect with authors. And writers like to hear feedback from their readers. During the last decade publishers have come to expect authors to create and manage their online personas on various social media platforms to promote and market their books…. [Read More]

An Interview with Elaine Mansfield on using social media as an author.
by,
February 9, 2016

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… [Read More]

ARROWS author Melissa Gorzelanczyk’s unusual road to publication
by,
January 26, 2016

The launch of Green Bay author Melissa Gorzelanczyk’s debut Young Adult novel ARROWS (Delacorte Press, 2016) is one example of how social media can play an important role in author success. Melissa’s novel ARROWS is a modern cupid story set in present-day Wisconsin combining the fantastical elements of Greek mythology with the contemporary drama of MTV’s Teen Mom,” according to Melissa’s website. Her novel also has… [Read More]

Tips for Building Your Audience Platform
by,
March 24, 2015

How can you spend your time wisely with social media? Based on current research,  best practices for frequency of social media posts: Twitter – 3 times a day, or more. Facebook – 2 times per day, at most. LinkedIn – 1 time per business day. If you’re on Pinterest – 5 pins per day. Blog at least once a month, no more than once a… [Read More]

How to use Twitter for research and writing
by,
December 9, 2014

Nearly a billion people have registered accounts on Twitter and 100 million of them use it every day. Three quarters of them on a mobile device. As a writer, it’s easy to dismiss Twitter. If you’re an author, it’s a mistake to do so. If your readers are over 50 years old or under 10, you won’t find them on Twitter, right? Wrong question. If… [Read More]

Why Most Social Media Widgets Will Break Your Heart
by,
July 16, 2013
social media heartbreak twitter

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]

Twitter is a research tool for writers
by,
June 1, 2013

Many authors simply dismiss Twitter. They imagine Brooklynites and Los Angelinos strolling city streets while on their smartphones punching tiny keyboards. If the demographics of your book’s readers don’t match those who use Twitter, why bother? No one seems interested in tweeting what they ate for lunch, where they went shopping, or the funny thing their kid said. How can you say anything meaningful or… [Read More]

Time to update your bio. It’s January, Authors.
by,
January 8, 2013

Now is a good time to update your biographical profile. January starts a new year and every author needs a short (i.e., 250-500 words) description of themselves in addition to a good head shot. The Bio is a big part of an author’s brand. Your book is the product, but you are the brand. And to keep your brand fresh and current, it’s time to… [Read More]

Identify your readers, dear writer
by,
July 21, 2012

When you write a query letter and book proposal to an agent or acquisitions editor, there are certain things they want to know before considering your manuscript. They want to hear about you and your book, but what they really care about is the audience. What audience is your book intended for? Describe your readers in demographic detail. Where do your readers live? Work? Learn?… [Read More]