The most sincere and most articulate person who has the best story to tell will win.
The book deal. The job. The election.
Archive for the ‘public relations’ Category
The person with the best story
Sun, 9 Sep 2012Authors, are you using Goodreads?
Sat, 14 Jul 2012Goodreads isn’t the only social network devoted to library cataloging and discussions about books, but it’s the one I use and appreciate. I’d like to know why Goodreads and sites like it, including Shelfari, LibraryThing, Revish, and aNobii, aren’t very well utilized by authors and publishers. After all, the members of these communities are book buyers or borrowers. Not only that, they’re gathered in one place and identified by the books they’ve tagged as owned, already read, to read, in the process of being read, and favorites. On other types of social networks, not all of the users are book lovers.
Authors seem to discover and congregate in author communities online, which is fine, but relatively few authors seem to know much about Goodreads. For the moment, it’s an uncrowded platform. As an author seeking readers, you’d be wise to jump on the Goodreads stage in 2012, before your competitors discover it in 2013. And if you’re not thinking of other authors as friendly rivals, then you’re not reading this post anyway—and, heck, you might not even own a computer.
To assess the potential of Goodreads, explore the site until you’re comfortable with its features and navigation.
You can install apps that link Goodreads with your social networks. You can join a few Goodreads groups to see how they function and whether they’re active. You can add books to your Goodreads bookshelves, and then the site will recommend other books you might like based on what you’ve shelved. But that’s not all.
After you’re familiar with the Goodreads site, and you’ve seen how others are taking advantage of it, you’ll be better able to imagine how the Goodreads Author Program can be used to promote your own books. Best of all, it’s free.
Goodreads: How to Use the Goodreads Author Program
Jane Friedman: 2 Ways to Make the Most of Goodreads
Patrick Brown: Goodreads Stats Show Which Media Outlets Really Sell Books
Goodreads: Goodreads Author Feedback Group
Jason Boog: How to Add Goodreads to Your Facebook Timeline
Sarah Pinneo: An Author’s Guide to Surviving Goodreads
Perhaps Sarah Pinneo’s survival guide answers my question. Authors don’t use Goodreads if they fear they’ll make targets of themselves, or worse than being targeted, they’ll go unnoticed. Meanwhile, the authors who take risks get all the attention.
Writing a book is risky. Why stop there?
Are you engaging in conversations with the people who care about your writing?
Sun, 8 Jul 2012I don’t like the idea of lumping engagement together with self-promotion, because engagement entails caring about other people, while self-promotion involves concern for oneself and one’s work. However, authors who engage appreciatively with their readers and fans will benefit by cultivating goodwill. The act of engagement then becomes one aspect of self-promotion.
There’s no need to explain the benefits of engagement to most extroverts, who already understand cause and effect and use it to their advantage. Most authors, I imagine, are not extroverts, so it can be difficult for them to see the correlation between a particular author’s popularity with readers and the amount of effort that author puts into making and maintaining connections.
Today’s authors almost always promote themselves and their books four ways: online, in person, with video or audio recordings, and in print-on-paper media. Aside from personal appearances, online is where identifying readers who have an interest in a writer’s work is easiest.
Unfortunately, too many writers assume that attracting readers and fans, and their comments, will be a passive process online. They’ll write something, they’ll publish it, and fans will accumulate while the writer is occupied elsewhere. In reality, followers will gather where they find an author behaving graciously—or, failing that, at least brazenly—and with an awareness of the fans’ presence.
Authors who are not ‘net natives might have a difficult time discerning who is taking an interest in them online, unless they learn something about web analytics, which I encourage writers to do. In addition, there’s a simple way to locate people who are writing online about an author or a book. Authors who care about their readership should set up several Google Alerts in order to be notified via email when and where conversations in which they’re being mentioned are occurring. Then, they can engage with the people who care enough to write about them.
There will be occasions when it’s better for an author to avoid engagement. If a conversation is extremely critical of the writer, then joining the discussion can require more tact than most people possess. Consulting with a neutral third party who is an especially diplomatic communicator, before deciding what to do or say, can be helpful.
In many, if not most, instances the comments about the author will be neutral or favorable, in which case it’s a shame if the writer neglects the opportunity to express appreciation.
Learn more about this topic:
Chris Brogan advises authors how to find and join online discussions
Chris Brogan: An insider’s guide to social media etiquette
Mary Tod: How self-publishing changes the bond between readers and writers
Jane Friedman: How to meaningfully grow traffic to your site/blog
Best blogs for advice on book marketing and publicity
Sun, 11 Mar 2012Every author—this is an enormous blind spot for people—underestimates the amount of work involved in a book’s publicity campaign. Good publicity is the element of a book’s success that more writers overlook than any other aspect of publishing.
I’d go as far as saying that the lack of understanding about how to promote a book is the single most influential reason for the popularity of self-publishing. People simply don’t know what they don’t know about things they’ve never done before. Creating a book has become inexpensive enough that hundreds of thousands of people each year will learn firsthand, and often to their dismay, what it will take to sell a book.
Writers who are more strategic and methodical soon recognize the tactical advantage to be gained if they learn about self-promotion and put marketing and publicity strategies in place before their books are published. There are two steps: knowing and doing. Few authors will proceed to knowing, and an infinitely smaller group will take a crack at doing.
There you have it—the secret that most authors will never know, at least not until it’s too late.
Some writers work harder than others.
Authors can start knowing more about book marketing and publicity by studying the advice offered by the following bloggers. Serious writers will put the effort into doing what these bloggers recommend.
The Book Publicity Blog by Yen Cheong, enterprise community and collaboration specialist at Pearson
Chris Brogan, Human Business Works
Jane Friedman, asst. professor of e-media, University of Cincinnati
Paula Margulies, Paula Margulies Communications
A few years ago I posted A list of FREE ebooks about book marketing.
You know of bloggers who cover this topic with intelligence and humor. Please feel free to share your recommendations by leaving a comment.
Want publicity? Be discoverable.
Thu, 2 Feb 2012
The following tweet appeared in my LinkedIn updates today:
Bluestalking:
Authors (esp. Chicago area), if you don’t have website I can’t easily contact you for library program & will often just give up.
@Bluestalking is the Twitter ID for Lisa Guidarini. On LinkedIn, she lists the following as her current occupations:
- Book Reviewer/IPPY Award Judge at Independent Publisher
- Book Reviewer/Author Event Reporter at Patch.com – Algonquin, IL
- Book Reviewer at Bookbrowse.com
- Book Reviewer at Booklist
- Book Reviewer at Library Journal
- Book reviewer/critic at National Book Critics Circle
- Adult Program Coordinator at Algonquin Area Public Library
If you’re a new author, particularly one located in the Chicago area, Lisa Guidarini is someone you’d probably like to know. She can take you places. But if you’re stuck in the 20th century, perched behind a security wall on Facebook, or otherwise hiding out like a fugitive, then you are defeating yourself. Readers can’t find you, and neither can people who are willing to make the effort to connect you with readers.
Want publicity? Be discoverable.
- Have a website or blog that lists your books, your contact information, and your publicist’s name and contact information.
- Check your email and voicemail daily.
- Respond to professional inquiries within 24 hours. (That’s 24 hours from the time the inquiry was sent, not 24 hours from the time you received it.)
- Be prepared to send a press/media kit and a copy of your book without delay.
Part 2 of 3 from The Writer’s Workout
Thu, 8 Dec 2011Guest blogger: Christina Katz
Become memorable
Memorable means you are unforgettable. Memorable means you make an indelible impression on others. Memorable means there is something remarkable about you. Memorable means that you operate from excellence.
When we apply the concept of memorable to writers, what does it look like?
It looks like a writer who cares, not only about herself but about delivering value to others regardless of what kind of value we’re talking about.
It looks like a writer who is nimble, one who can juggle multiple tasks, like writing the next book and the demands of his personal life, with a rigorous appearance or promotion schedule.
It looks like a writer who took the time to write a great book.
In a Writer’s Digest article that I wrote about self-promotion for fiction writers, every single writer I polled said that quality writing was still the most important thing.
It looks like something about you that others want to share. Something makes you a standout. It can be anything, but it has to be something that gets others talking about you.
What do you think makes writers memorable? What makes a writer memorable to you? Think of a writer you admire. Then jot down ten reasons why that writer is so memorable for you. What is that special ingredient? Then ask what it’s going to be for you.
Christina Katz is the author of The Writer’s Workout (Writer’s Digest, 2011). She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago and a BA in English from Dartmouth College. A popular speaker on creative career growth, Christina presents for writing conferences, literary events, MFA writing programs, and libraries. She is the creator and host of the Northwest Author Series in Wilsonville, Oregon, where she lives with her husband, her daughter, and far too many pets.
