By Katina Solomon

Are you suffering from writer's block? Katina shared her article with us, which was featured on OnlineCollege.com

If you're interested in what makes authors tick, you'll love reading what they have to say in interviews. You can learn about how they got started writing, what they enjoy about books, and more. Here you'll find 50 interviews with famous authors that you just can't miss.

Bestsellers

Get a look into authors with celebrity status in these interviews.

1. Dan Brown: This interview with Dan Brown focuses on The Da Vinci Code.
2. JK Rowling: In this interview, JK Rowling sits down with Katie Couric to discuss saying goodbye to the Harry Potter saga.
3. John Grisham: You'll find 10 questions for John Grisham in this interview.
4. Stephen King: This Stephen King interview takes a look at Lisey's Story.
5. Mitch Albom: In this interview, Mitch Albom discusses his uncle Edward Beitchman.

Non Fiction

Cookbooks, social commentary, and more are discussed in these interviews.

1. Julie Powell: Check out this interview from Julie Powell, author of Julie and Julia.
2. Raj Patel: Raj Patel's interview discusses accurately viewing the world.
3. Eric Schlosser: Eric Schlosser is interviewed about the fast food industry here.
4. Lauren Weisberger: Lauren Weisberger covers her experience writing The Devil Wears Prada.
5. Anthony Bourdain: See what it's like to travel around the world for food in Anthony Bourdain's interview about A Cook's Tour.
6. Annie Leibovitz: Annie Leibovitz takes you behind her work in this interview.

Novelists

These interviews cover romance, mystery, and beyond.

1. Kevin Sampsell: Kevin Sampsell's interview is about a big fish in a small-press pond.
2. James Frey: This interview rings in James Frey's return to the spotlight.
3. Fern Michaels: Fern Michaels claims she's a scribbler in this journal.
4. John Irving: John Irving's lecture looks into the author's list of recommended books.
5. Laurie Notaro: Check out Laurie Notaro's interview about her rise from humor columnist to novelist.
6. Orson Scott Card: Orson Scott Card's interview discusses Lost Boys and beyond.
7. Clive Barker: This interview discusses Clive Barker's return to writing with Galilee.
8. Nora Roberts: Nora Roberts covers her start as a romance novelist in this interview.
9. Jodi Picoult: Learn about the household name Jodi Picoult in this interview.
10. Jackie Collins: You'll learn about Jackie Collins' examination of sex, drugs, and Hollywood in this interview.
11. Amy Tan: Amy Tan's interview focuses on the spirit within.
12. Philippa Gregory: Philippa Gregory's interview crowns her the queen of historical fiction.
13. Hallie Ephron: Hallie Ephron's interview discusses finally giving in to becoming a famous writer.
14. Audrey Niffenegger: Audrey Niffenegger's interview discusses art, writing, and more.
15. Eoin Colfer: Sci-Fi author Eoin Colfer discusses Artemis Fowl, Hitchhiker's Guide, and more.
16. Neil Gaiman: Graphic novelist and writer Neil Gaiman discusses his diverse repertoire.
17. Janet Evanovich: Janet Evanovich opens up about Stephanie Plum and more in this interview.
18. Mark Haddon: Check out this interview about the literary debut of Mark Haddon.
19. Sue Grafton: Sue Grafton's interview covers a long career of successful mysteries.
20. Chelsea Cain: Learn about Chelsea Cain's infectious laugh and more in this interview.
21. Chuck Palahniuk: This author interview with Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, explains how he never pulls punches.
22. Eric Klinenberg: This interview with author Eric Klinenberg takes you into July of 1995 in the city of Chicago.
23. Malcolm Gladwell: Find a few thin slices of Malcolm Gladwell in this interview.
24. Mary Higgins Clark: Mary Higgins Clark discusses her Irish heritage's influence on her writing.
25. Isabel Allende: You'll learn about Chilean author Isabel Allende in this interview.
26. Jung Chang: Check out this interview about Jung Chang, the Chinese author.

Children's Books

Get a look into children's authors through these interviews.

1. Laurie Halse-Anderson: Check out this lecture from the author of Chains, Fight For Life, and more.
2. Joanna Cole: Joanna Cole's interview shares a look into the creator of Ms. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus.
3. John J. Muth: John J. Muth opens up about Stone Soup, Zen Shorts, and more.
4. Katherine Paterson: Watch this interview to learn about Newbery Medal award winning author Katherine Paterson.
5. Judy Blume: In this video interview, you'll learn about the classic children's book author, Judy Blume.
6. Tomie de Paola: This interview from Tomie de Paola covers a reflection on his career and encouragement of young readers.
7. Eric Carle: This interview shows you how Eric Carle goes beyond The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
8. Kate DiCamillo: Check out this interview from super-successful children's book author Kate DiCamillo.
9. Norman Bridwell: This interview offers a look into Norman Bridwell, author of Clifford the Big Red Dog.
10. Jon Scieszka: John Scieszka's interview is about his weird style and concern about boys and reading.
11. Beverly Cleary: In this interview, Beverly Cleary talks about teddy bears, the pleasures of writing, and beyond.
12. R.L. Stine: This interview covers young adult horror author RL Stine's life and career.
13. Chris Van Allsburg: Watch Chris Van Allsburg for insight into the author of The Polar Express and Jumanji.

By Carol White

Get your book really ready by following these steps:

1) You need a distribution strategy (whether POD or off-set - just the logistics are different) - how sad is it to create great buzz - and you don’t have your book anyplace where the trade and consumers can get it for your anxious buyers. Big lost sales and a waste of $$ on the publicist.

2) To engage a trade distributor (assuming you are doing print runs) you must have a written marketing plan for them.

3) You have to make sure that your product is top notch - or a publicist won’t take it - their reputation is on the line with every book they recommend to their media contacts. that is what you are really paying for - who they know.

4) You have to make sure that your price is competitive with other books in your genre or no amount of publicity will create the sales that you expect.

5) You need a good media kit for the publicist to use as a basis for the publicity she/he will create for you - or you can pay the publicist to do that work for you.

When I can "have it my way" - which isn’t often (<: - I prefer to work on the book at least 6 months ahead of the pub date - you really need that much time to get the marketing/distribution/pricing plans together, apply to distributors, get their paperwork done, get their sales team representing your book to the chains, the chains place their advance orders, you know how many to print and ship to them, they have to get them in stores - all prior to your pub date.

A website is another activity that should be done as early as possible - you can use it to begin creating advance buzz for your book, have a media room where the media can learn about your book (cover art, pictures from the book, pub date, etc.) and a place to post your media coverage as it comes in. You can post your Table of contents, a sample chapter, do a blog, and so on - lots you can do to start building that platform waaayyy ahead of the book.

You also need your publicist in place with your media kit to do pre-pub reviewers 3-4 months minimum before pub date (required time), get early copies out to large magazines with long lead times, and then when the time gets closer, do newspapers, blogs, websites, and short cycle magazines.

WHEW!!! See why it takes 6 months? Oh - and YOU have to follow-up on all this to maximize the impact.

My motto: No follow-up = no results

Of course all of this is predicated on your goals for your project, the amount of resources (time & money) you can devote to your book and any constraints that your life situation imposes on you (don’t want to do live appearances or maybe radio terrifies you, etc.).

So give your book a chance – start early and plan your marketing just as carefully as you planned your words on the page.

Carol White is an author, speaker, writer, and book marketing coach.  In addition to co-authoring the best selling, award-winning book, Live Your Road Trip Dream, Carol is a frequent guest speaker at conventions such as the national AARP Life @ 50+ and The Great North American RV Rally.  She is also a published writer for magazines and websites and has spoken about publishing to groups including IBPA’s Publishing University, the Northwest Association of Book Publishers and the Bay Area Independent Publisher’s Assn. She has an active book marketing consulting practice that includes both domestic and international clients. www.carolwhitemarketing.com

A big Thank You to Yen Cheong, Natasha Maw, and Ron Hogan for your participation in our discussion! You were wonderful panelists and we thank you kindly for your words.

And to those of you who tuned in, and/ or participated in our discussion via the chat room, you’re great and we appreciate you stopping by!

We took some notes, just in case anyone missed it:

A quality review is one that makes you think and makes you want to go pick up the book from the store. It needs to be well written, and includes a brief description, discuss style of writing, and compare it to similar books that perhaps the reader would also be interested in. Reviews should never include spoilers. There is no strict formula for a review to follow, but it should be more of the readers’ reaction and gut feeling towards the book.

An author should never pay for a public endorsement, only private critique.

Online reviews are one part of the promotions process. They work to spread the word about the book, and create “buzz”. They call attention to the book, and get it in front of those who are genuinely interested. The great thing about the internet is that it makes up for the shortage of space in which there is to do that kind of writing in traditional media outlets these days. Many people are finding that with the decline of newspapers and magazines, the prevalence of reviews online are becoming much more important. An author’s web presence can be vital to their marketability.

For those who are professional authors, or career writers, and say they do not have time for social media, take note: it is important to treat yourself and your writing as a small business, and you must pay attention to marketing and publicity, as much as the writing itself. Social marketing is effective and affordable, if not free! A few tweets a day, or a mention on Facebook should take no more than 15 minutes out of your day. Also, take a few minutes to search for sites that was relevant to your book, that would be willing let you market your work on their site. “Put the time in, get results… Blind luck won’t get you far”.

Social media outlets, such as Facebook or Twitter, can increase the level of visibility an author has on the web. Authors can engage in direct dialogue with their reviewers and fans, and cultivate relationships with readers. It is important to determine what kind of web presence is appropriate for the author, depending on their fan base, as well as their own level of skill on the Internet. How much of your online perception are you in control of? How much of the message is what you are saying versus what others are saying about you? It is important that an author be able to maintain his or her own online profile. Readers want to hear from them, not the publicist.

If you are an author or publicist seeking out bloggers to write reviews, do your research. Find out what kind of books they are willing to review. When you contact them, make it personal. Show that you have made the effort to look into their site.  Be strategic. Don’t “carpet bomb the blogs”.

In regards to interviews it is important for the interviewee to keep the answers fresh. Pull difference sections of the book to discuss with different interviewers or media outlets. Most publicists do not give media coaching, however they can point to good (or bad) interviews as examples and learning tools for the author. The interviewer is also a key role in how well an author is perceived by the public. Do your research and ask questions that are relevant to not only the book, but the author as well. Find an angle that is targeted towards the passion the author has for their book, and get them to express that.

Again we would like to thank our panelists, as well as our listeners for your participation!

Next month’s WriteOn! Roundtable will be on April 14. We will be discussing how to get the most out of book conferences and expos.

By Suzanne Lieurance

If you've written a book, the real challenge begins when you start to market that book. Marketing can be expensive, and most authors don't have loads of money to use for promoting or marketing their book(s). Here are a few no-cost or low-cost ways to get the word out about your book:

1. If you don't already belong to a local writer's group that includes at least a few authors who are published in the same genre as you, then join or start such a group. Then, when your book comes out, and other authors in your group who publish similar books also have a new or recent title, offer to do group signings together at your local bookstores. Often, just one unknown author has a hard time generating much enthusiasm from a local bookstore for a signing. But, if several local authors band together, a book signing can be more of an "event." A big table at the front, or even at the back, of the store, with 3 or 4 authors seated there, along with copies of their books, is bound to attract shoppers' attention, and bookstore owners or managers LOVE this.

2. Bookstores and libraries are not the only places where you can sell your books. Many authors have a lot of fun, and sell quite a few copies of their books, at restaurants--yeah, restaurants! All you need to do is ask the restaurant owner or manager if you can set up at one of the tables at the front of the restaurant. Then, people can drop by to look at your book and purchase a copy and get it signed by you, if they like. Again, do this with a friend who is also an author and you'll have more fun and generate more interest in your book(s). Plus, if no one stops by to purchase your book(s) at least you and your friend can have a nice time having coffee or a meal together.

3. Sell your book(s) at holiday fairs and crafts fairs. People look for all sorts of gifts, for all sorts of people, at holiday and craft fairs. And, generally, a booth or table at these types of local events doesn't cost much. Have a poster made up of the cover of your book. Put it on an inexpensive easel you can get at a local art store, then stack copies of your book on the table, and you're ready for business.

4. Start your own talk show on Internet Radio. Center your show around the topic you cover in your book. Having your own show will increase your visibility as an author, which will increase your credibility. It will help you become known as THE leading expert in your field. And, it doesn't cost a thing to start your own Internet radio show through sites such as Blog Talk Radio. Plus, you can have your show "on the air" immediately.

5. Present a free teleseminar as a way for people to preview your book. A teleseminar is nothing more than a conference call, where dozens, even hundreds or thousands, of people can call in to hear you speak. Generate interest in your teleseminar by letting everyone know you'll be making a special offer or having a giveaway drawing at the end of the teleseminar.

6. Create an in-person workshop based on your book. Offer the workshop at no-cost or low-cost, but sell your book at the back of the room during the workshop. Another way to sell more books through a workshop is to charge a fee for the workshop and make sure the fee includes the price of the book. Then, everyone who registers for your workshop will also get a copy of your book. People love it when their registration includes something they can take home with them from the workshop.

There are so many ways to market books these days. And you don't necessarily need a LOT of cash. Get creative! And have fun.

For more tips to market your books or to create your own freelance writing career, subscribe to The Morning Nudge or visit the Working Writer's Coach.

Suzanne Lieurance is a freelance writer, the author of 22 (at last count) published books, and the Working Writer's Coach.

By Judith Marshall

When I’d finished the first draft of my novel, Husbands May Come and Go But Friends are Forever, I knew I needed feedback.  I also knew it was too early to hire a professional editor; so instead, I joined the California Writers Club in search for a critique group.  As luck would have it, at the first meeting a woman stood up and announced the formation of such a group.  I immediately raised my hand.  Over the next five years, three other women writers and myself met every two weeks to critique each other’s work.  As a result of this collaboration, my novel was published in September of 2009 and has received seventeen 5-star reviews on Amazon so far.

Here are the elements that made our group successful:

1. Compatibility – It’s important that members of the group have the same goal.  In our case, that goal was to be published. 
2. Commitment – At our first meeting, we came to agreement on how often we would meet, what notification procedures would be used if one of us couldn’t make it, and when cancellation would be warranted.  We took out our calendars and filled in the dates of our meetings for the next three months to illustrate our commitment to the process.
3. Structure - We decided that each person would bring a maximum of fifteen pages to each meeting, to be read and critiqued for the following meeting.  Each person would have thirty minutes to receive feedback.  We also agreed to how feedback would be presented; i.e. start with an overall positive comment, followed by opportunities for revision and/or questions, and ending with reassurance and support.

As a result of my positive experience, I am an advocate of in-person critique groups whenever possible. However, there are a number of virtual critique groups also available.  Whatever option you choose, receiving feedback from fellow writers can be invaluable. 

Keep Writing, 

Judith Marshall

www.judithmarshall.net

By Eric Gruber

Although, Mark Hyman, M.D, the New York Times Best Selling author, and practicing physician, had a strong, multi-faceted marketing and sales plan in place, the addition of an article marketing strategy helped him in his successful quest to push his book, UltraMetabolism – The Simple Plan For Automatic Weight Loss to the #2 spot of the NY Times Best Seller List. Dr. Hyman’s article marketing campaign was only one piece of the puzzle, but an important piece that helped him establish key relationships with website publishers that will result in increased, targeted traffic and stronger sales for many months and years to come.

By including a targeted article marketing program into your marketing and sales plan, you too could achieve book-marketing success. Doing this effectively requires planning and perfect execution from beginning to end:

Step 1: Create An Article That Grabs Readers Interest

One of the most important parts of the article is the title. Remember, the first 3-4 words of your article title have the most weight with Google and other search engines. The point of the title is to intrigue your audience to actually sit down and read the article. You may even want to offer an outrageous proposition that you can fulfill within your article body as we have with the title of this article.

The articles that get the best results are the ones that provide unique, high quality content that solve at least one piece of a problem puzzle. However, to convert readers to buyers, you must not give the reader all of the answers to the “HOW” to solve a particular problem. Instead you want to tease them with some of the how and top it off with the why it’s important.

Step 2: Turn Readers Into Prospects With A Strong Call For Action And An Offer They Can’t Refuse

You want to encapsulate the essence of what makes you and your offering unique. This is your Unique Selling Proposition. Do this by chiseling away the information that no one cares about from your golden nuggets. Refine them into gleaming insights. Hammer them into logical sequence. Fasten them to reader benefits. Then polish and polish it until your fingers ache, to create a glittering necklace of persuasion that seduces the eye, charms the imagination, and dazzles the reader with so much human interest that it is indeed much easier to click and go to your website than skip.

If you add a free bonus offer, you will make it even easier for readers to click to your website. You can offer a sneak preview of your book, a free ezine subscription, or a free special bonus report that further enhances your credibility as the expert.

Step 3: Maintain Reader Interest & Create a Squeeze Page

Think of your article as a sales funnel. Your article title, content, bio box and the link you send your readers to should all flow right into each other. Including a link to the main page only distract and frustrate readers. You will lose that sale forever.

When you promote your book in your bio box, then take them to a squeeze page within your site that convinces people why they should either buy the book or why they should subscribe.

Step 4: Target Your Audience With Ezines & Websites That Make a Difference

You need to find websites that are highly visited and ezines that are the most read, but more importantly, you want to focus on websites and ezine publishers within your specific niche that have strong emotional connections to their audiences. Through our research for Mark Hyman MD, we found information for a popular About.com editor. About.com is among the top 50 sites on the net today. This submission resulted in a substantial number of opt-ins and book sales in one day, not counting the successes from other credible websites."

Step 5: Submit Your Article & Build Your Links and Traffic

Now is the time to perform the tiring, boring and tedious task of submitting your articles. But, as you completing this process, know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. By using these article marketing strategies, you can build a steady stream of warm ready-to-buy visitors and substantially increase your book sales.

By including article marketing into your multi-faceted marketing and sales plan, you too can achieve success in marketing your book. You will then only be limited by your imagination and your time. The question is "What is your destination?"

About the Author:

Article marketing expert Eric Gruber has helped hundreds of authors, speakers and Internet marketers promote their books, products and services online with articles. To discover how you can get more targeted website traffic and sell more books – faster, check out Eric’s new article marketing coaching program. Try it risk-free at http://www.GetArticleMarketingCoaching.com

By Alice J. Wisler

When my novel, Rain Song, made its debut, I was eager to promote it with the typical book signings at local stores. I arranged three events and enjoyed each one; people came and bought books. However, I wanted more, something unique, something to stand out. As one friend said, with a wry smile, "You want a following." I grimaced; that sounded lofty.

Rain Song is set in Mount Olive, NC and has quirky southern relatives who believe in tradition and unity. They don Mount Olive Pickle Company aprons and make pineapple chutney while discussing the next family reunion. I wanted my novel to expand off the pages and generate some fun in the lives of others today. So, after the book signings, I hosted a Holiday Reunion Open House Event. I sent out printed invitations to neighbors, those in my writers group, friends, church folk, and relatives. I announced the event on social networking sites.

I'd never done this before, but with the help of my children and boyfriend, I knew the event couldn't go wrong. We planned the menu to reflect the food in the novel--hot ginger tea, egg salad and cucumber sandwiches, shortbread, and of course, homemade pineapple chutney. About an hour into the open hous

e, I gathered everyone into the living room and read portions, primarily the food-related ones, from my southern novel. Books were for sale in the kitchen, and after the reading, many were ready to purchase with cash and checks.

I posted pictures on my Facebook page and, days after the event, I heard from two friends planning a canning party. Their delicacy of choice? Pineapple chutney, using the recipe at the back of my novel. They bought twelve ripe pineapples and enjoyed a day of chopping and cooking. Centering a copy of Rain Song in the twelve pineapple line-up, they took photos. The 48 jars of chutney they made were for Christmas gifts. (These friends also purchased twelve books between them to give as presents.)

You, too, can think about themes and topics that are evident in your books. Have fun! Fun creates a bright audience, an audience waiting and ready to talk about your novel, and anticipate your next.

I guess you could call it a following, and there would be nothing wrong with that.

[Copyright 2009]

~ Alice J. Wisler, author of Rain Song, How Sweet It Is and (coming in October) Hatteras Girl, enjoys having food-related events centered around her novels. She teaches online grief-writing classes, designs and sells remembrance cards, and speaks on writing through pain and building your self-esteem.

Click on her blog link to enter in a novel giveaway this month: http://www.alicewisler.com

by Charles Salzberg 

              When I finished writing my novel, Swann’s Last Song, I thought the hard work was behind me.  I should have known better.  In fact, it was just beginning.

              I wrote Swann’s Last Song, which is what I like to describe as a quirky, literary detective novel, almost twenty-five years ago.  At the time, I was making a living as a magazine writer here in New York City.  Always a novelist at heart, I had reluctantly made the leap into journalism, selling my first few articles to some major publications.  But writing was writing and, as it turned out, being forced to write to length, having the opportunity to interview all kinds of people and research a variety of subjects, only stoked the creative juices.  In fact, the idea for my protagonist, Henry Swann, came from an interview I did with a skip tracer.

              But Swann was a different kind of detective novel, because he follows all the clues but, in the end, finds that the murder he’s investigating was completely random.  And so, he does not solve the crime. I thought it was a great, fun, genre-bending idea.  Editors didn’t.  And so, I tucked the manuscript away and forgot about it.

              Almost. 

              A few years ago, I picked it up again and, now willing to change the ending, sold it first to M. Evans, an independent publisher which, only months before the book was due to be published, was swallowed up by another publisher which didn’t publish fiction.  The book was returned to me and my agent re-sold it to Five-Star Mystery, a small imprint of a much larger company, Cengage.

              By this time, I was experienced enough--I’d had over 25 non-fiction books published--to know it was going to fall upon me to actually sell the book, if not door-to-door (and believe me, I considered that,) at least using any other means short of that.  But, unlike many other writers, I was prepared. Kind of.

              First, I called on many of the contacts I’d amassed over the years--through teaching, hanging out with other writers, and meeting a few people with recognizable names--to get blurbs for the novel.  Best-selling author, Andrew Klavan is the brother of one of my best friends, Ross Klavan, a screenwriter who wrote Tigerland; I gave a little advice to Robert Hicks, author of Widow of the South, I worked with and taught comedienne, Joy Behar, from The View. I worked with Brian Kilmeade, of Fox and Friends. I asked these and others for quotes, and they obliged. 

              One of my students was Lauren Weisberger--she began The Devil Wears Prada, in my class--and she generously wrote about Swann on her blog.  I joined Facebook and created a separate page for Swann.  And Twitter.  I booked readings.  I sent copies to whomever I knew who might have any connection to the media. I taught magazine writing at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and one of my students is now an editor at the New York Post, and she gave Swann to the book editor and he gave me a nice mention in the weekend edition.

              I also joined the Mystery Writers Association and, through their invaluable help, was asked to appear on a number of library panels.  Every time something interesting caught my attention, like the first Empire State Book Fair, in Albany, New York, I made contact, finding that these venues are always looking for authors who’ll appear on panels and sign books.

              Sometimes, opportunities come out of the blue.  A few weeks ago, I received an email meant for an editor, who happens to be a friend of mine.  It was from a woman representing the Kansas Writers Association and she was asking the editor to appear as a speaker at the convention.  I contacted her and informed her of her mistake. I gave her the proper email address, as well as a number of other possible editors for her event.  Several days later, she contacted me again.  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this, since it was right under my nose, but would you like to speak at our conference?”  It didn’t matter to me that she probably couldn’t come up with an editor.  What did matter is that nearly 100 people are scheduled to attend and I’ll be allowed to sell my books.  And even though the only thing they were paying for was expenses, I leaped at the opportunity.

              I also asked friends to recommend the book to their book clubs, offering to appear at the book club meeting, if they chose to read it.  This impulsive offer wound up costing me money when a friend in L. A. convinced her group to read the book.  There were only six readers, but a promise is a promise, and so I wound up spending several hundred dollars to sell half a dozen books.  But it was fun.  And besides, it was never about the money.  It’s about numbers. 

              The dirty little secret of publishing is that your next book isn’t dependent on reviews, it’s on the number of books sold.  Low numbers, no contract.  It doesn’t even matter if you’ve been nominated or won awards.  In fact, when Swann’s Last Song was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel, I excitedly called my agent and asked, “will this help with selling the sequel?”  His terse answer was, “it can’t hurt.”

              This was hammered home when I’d spoken to my agent not long after the book was released. “I just ordered 25 books from the publisher to sell at an event,” I announced, thinking he’d be thrilled.

              “Haven’t we had the talk?” he asked.

              That I rarely spoke to him at all, didn’t seem to cross his mind, so the answer was, no. 

              “Always buy your books from a bookstore or Amazon or BN.com.”

              “Why?”

              “Because books sold from your publisher don’t appear on BookScan and if they don’t appear there, they don’t count.  And when I’m looking to sell your next book, you can bet that while I’m on the phone with an editor, she’s punching up BookScan on her computer to check your numbers.”

              That it would cost me significantly more buying the books the way he wanted me to, didn’t matter to him.  And the truth is, it didn’t matter to me, either. 

              And so, I’ve probably spent way more promoting my book, than I’ll ever make from it, despite the fact that it went to a second printing in hardcover and is now available in paperback.

              Is it all worthwhile?  I’ll answer that if I find a publisher for my Swann sequel, Bad Reception.

To Lisa Graziano from Leapfrog Press and Peggy Keefe from BookPros, thank you for participating in our show! You had such wonderful things to say, and we love you for it!

To those who tuned in, thanks!

We took some notes while the ladies chatted, and wanted to give you a brief overview of the helpful tips they gave writers:

It is important that the story you are telling be a good one, but it is also important that it has marketability. Publishers want to know that their authors will go out and market their books and garner attention for it.

Publicity training is invaluable. It helps authors prepare their book pitch, as well as allows them to practice interviewing techniques.

Authors should have a marketing plan.

Online media is becoming vital to authors and their marketing campaigns. Bloggers help spread the word. Author facebook pages make them more accessible to their readers. Getting mentioned on twitter allows for more global recognition. In other words, the online community is becoming very important!

Thanks to the internet, authors are becoming “people”- they are more relatable to their readers, who in return are happy to support them on a more personal level. It is allowing authors to get out there, in front of their readers instead of just being a face on a book jacket.

They also shared an incredibly helpful tip (one we have never thought of before) for editors: use an e-reader. It is easier to hear the typos and editorial errors, and much harder to get “into” the story!

The ladies had plenty to say on their publishing companies, and taught us a lot we did not know about the process of publishing books. Did you know that most books have a typesetters note that tells the history of the font used in the printing of the books? They also shared their thoughts on the future of publishing, and the impact of e-readers. 

It was a pleasure to spend our afternoon talking with these ladies. We look forward to another lively roundtable discussion on WriteOn! next month.

WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER? 

By Paul West

So after years of planning, writing, fretting, emailing, scrounging for extra money, event planning and brainstorming, I finally did it—I self-published my novel, my baby so to speak, First Cause. On one hand, I can’t believe I really pulled it off; I wrote a NOVEL, a full length novel, almost a hundred thousand words, with characters and dialogue and a beginning and ending and some ‘action’ and relationships and scenery and all that good stuff. On the other hand, sometimes I wonder why I bothered in the first place; there are SO many books written in any given stretch of time, so many of them good, so many of them bad, and if you spend much time at bookstores or chatting with ‘creative’ people (don’t get me started on whatever the heck that means), you might realize that the quality, passion, integrity or even marketability of a work doesn’t necessarily correlate with whether it gets published, ‘goes viral’, becomes successful, or even makes more than a little bit of money. So part of me asks: why bother? 

Well, there really are a few different reasons—some more interesting than others—but really, what I first said some years ago and what still holds true today, is because I wrote First Cause because I felt like I had to. It’s as simple as that, really, but then again, what does that MEAN? For argument’s sake, I didn’t HAVE to do anything; nobody held a literal or proverbial gun to my head, I’m not religious so I wasn’t compelled by ‘god’, so to speak, I’m not really driven by a desire to ‘be a writer’ in some lofty, pretentious sort of way, and in fact, for much of the time it felt as much like a job as anything else just to finish the dang thing in a manner that was to my liking. For much of the time during which I wrote First Cause, I didn’t have a personal computer; this meant that my edits & developments were largely manual, and as such, I had to find ways to get computer time so I could add them to my manuscript. All of this involved staying late at work to squeeze in a few minutes of typing; carrying around a floppy disk practically everywhere; carrying around a big frakin’ stack of papers everywhere as well, because in order to edit or add/drop words or ideas, I needed to have my manuscript handy as a reference point; saving, borrowing, or scraping together money so I could afford to purchase computer time at a copy center or buy paper at 10c a sheet at the local library to print when I needed to (not to mention the fact that it was sometimes hard to get sufficient computer time at the library in the first place)…suffice to say, there were times when the whole thing was flat-out tiring, and occasionally even a bit discouraging. So back to the original question, why did I bother? Why did I feel like I ‘had’ to? 

The first answer is that I happen to believe, and have been told, that I’m genuinely a good writer. As such, I like the idea of being able to live off my craft, so to speak, to sustain myself doing something that I’m not only good at—but enjoy doing. This relates to the second major reason, which is that while I believe I’m a good writer, I don’t write (or speak, even, despite the fact that I can be quite a chatterbox when prompted) just for the sake of doing so—in other words, I can’t manufacture it (so to speak). So when First Cause came to me as an idea, and I bounced it around and developed it and began to feel strongly about it, it began to strike me as a huge opportunity—to live off my craft, without having to manufacture my writing in a disingenuous or forced manner. And this leads me to the last element, which is one of the main purposes of the novel: I wanted to inspire people to think more, and to care more, and to become more interested in, the human condition. For a long time, my favorite books, movies, and songs have generally been in some way concerned with trying to consider the human condition in general, or more specifically matters of social justice or interpersonal relationships or internal struggle or personal or societal evolution; reading, watching, and listening to these kinds of expression always inspired me differently than most other things, and I have long wanted to come up with a way to make a similar contribution to the world or art, thought and discussion. The thing is, once again, I didn’t want to manufacture it—do it just for the sake of doing it—without it being in a way that felt natural, that I didn’t have to force, that I wouldn’t feel was dishonest or pretentious…and I didn’t want to give the impression that I was overtly copying the style, methods, or even structure of any of the creative or intelligent people whose work I so admired. So again, imagine the feeling of having all these concerns, but wanting to find a way to contribute to the greater creative and intellectual and spiritual good, and then coming up with something that—while certainly flawed and limited in some ways—I could really channel my talent and insights towards, and write in such a way as to hopefully be happy with, even proud of, the outcome, AND moreover to have a chance at making a living based on the strength of this work. And furthermore, drafting it and planning it and beginning to write it and feeling pretty good about it and getting some encouraging feedback about what I’d done thus far. 

You see what I mean? After all of the above, once I’d gotten myself to a certain point, there was just no way I could let myself give up on it. I HAD to finish it; I HAD to do my best; I HAD to pursue it. Fortunately, I received a ton of support from a ton of people along the way—moral support, financial support, creative support, and plain old love and genuine respect. Every hug, every pat on the back, every encouraging email, every email or phone call that said ‘hey, I love it!’ or ‘hey, I love it but maybe you should think about this/change this/add this/answer this’, every bit of help editing…every bit of all of it helped keep me afloat when I doubted my odds, my stamina, my resolve, even at some brief intervals my talent. In the end, I couldn’t give up on all of that any more than I could give up on the story, or myself, or my ambitions, or my desire to find a way to provoke even a small bit of extra critical or empathetic thought in my friends, readers, or anyone else. 

So then, once again, I HAD to write it. 

As for anyone else who’s considering writing as a pursuit, I offer this modest bit of advice: first of all, ask yourself, seriously, why you want to do it. Then consider your resources, your reference points, what you want to say, and whom you can rely on for support (again, that support can come in the form of a few lent dollars, a friend in the publishing industry, a patient set of eyes and ears, or a well timed set of arms around the waist; they all might factor in at some point). Consider what you want to say, why you want to say it, how you ant to say it, and I think it’s imperative that you really be thorough in questioning and challenging yourself in this regard (and most others, but I digress—somewhat). And remember one thing: there are no guarantees, the publishing business is not any more fair or just than the world at large is, and you must be prepared—emotionally, psychologically, financially, and circumstantially—for the possibility that your dream of ‘being a writer’ might not come to fruition. But at the same time, if you’ve done all of the above, and can honestly say that you’ve approached the matter with a clear mind, a good heart, a sound gameplan, a fair amount of patience, and some sense of integrity and sincerity and conscientiousness—then if only for all of those reasons, you should never feel silly or foolish or misguided for putting all of that good and potentially extraordinary energy toward creativity and trying to inspire people. You just might take off, and be a bright shining star on many others’ horizons. And if not, at least you can take solace in the fact that you gave it a good shot—and if you’ve done so, in good conscience, you’ll always have something to be proud of. You never know who might be inspired by just your effort, desire and conscientiousness—even if your words only reach a few. 

The only shot that never goes in is the one you don’t take, and if you honestly commit yourself to your best effort and intentions, then it works or it doesn’t, but you’ll at least have something in which to take pride. 

So that’s why I bother, and that’s why, maybe, so should you

The New World of the Independent Author

by Debra Leigh Scott

The publishing world has been changing so quickly that even professionals with decades of experience are scratching their heads about where things are going.  One thing is for sure, the old model of publishing is dying, if not already dead, and new models are becoming more and more important to those of us trying to continue our lives as writers.   

For many years, the independent artist in music, theatre and film has been applauded and heralded as visionary, brave, innovative.  The independent writer, however, struggled under the stigma of phrases like “vanity publishing” and felt paralyzed by the condescending attitudes towards the independent model in the literary world.  That has finally changed, and there are many respected options now, both for small and independent presses and for the independent author him or herself. One of the most popular is the Publish On Demand (P.O.D.) model, which has changed the industry forever.   It’s no longer necessary to purchase large print runs and then pay to warehouse and ship books.  In addition to the cost-saving qualities, independent authors have discovered that P.O.D. saves years of their time.   In a world where everything is moving faster and faster, it simply makes no sense to spend years searching for an agent, who then searches for a publisher, who then takes at least another year before the book is released.   
 

Be aware, however, that those who choose the road of the independent author are also choosing to become an entrepreneur.  Your book is now your business.  To use a music industry analogy, you are now creating your own music label rather than signing with Sony.  That means you take on more responsibility with every aspect of the book’s creation and promotion.  It also means you retain more of the power.   If you publish independently, you keep the rights and a much higher portion of the money for the sale of each book.  You also get more to say about things like the book size, the cover art, eBook format, audiobooks, and what kind of promotion and marketing feels right.  If you publish through a small press, you have a smaller take from the sale of each book, but you often still have a greater say about the details of the book itself, and the ways you might best promote your work.  You will  also have a partnership with the miracle workers of the small press community, who have been keeping literature alive against such incredible odds.   

So, for our purposes here, let’s say that you’ve decided to go the independent route.  You have a manuscript that you’ve polished and shaped and worked and worked some more.  You believe in it.  Maybe you’ve even workshopped it at Breadloaf or Yaddo, or won some awards.  What is next?  You must find a good editor.  S/he will be a brand new reader, combing through your manuscript with a professional eye to make sure that the structure, the grammar and the mechanics are perfect.  One of the biggest mistakes made by independent authors is their assumption that, if they can write well, they can edit their own work.  Don’t make this mistake.  Nothing screams “amateur” more loudly than a book whose text is riddled with errors.   

Once edited, the book can be sent to a good book packager who is the liaison between you and the publisher.  This is where proofreading, design, print management, working with graphic artists, and cover design are done before the manuscript is handed over to the publisher.  Some book packagers even work with you to bring the book to the attention of booksellers, libraries, bookclubs.   

If you have decided on the P.O.D. model, you will have several choices in publishers, the most popular of which are Lightning Source and the Amazon-owned Create Space (which now includes the merged former Create Space and Booksurge).   

Finally, you have to work out a marketing plan in order to promote and sell your book.  There are some great books on the market which offer advice about this.  There are also websites devoted to information about book promotion. While it can feel overwhelming, the good news is that there are a lot of options available.   Authors who understand that they are also running a business will be the best prepared for the amount of energy required to promote their books.  Take a look at the independent filmmakers, and the independent musicians, and you’ll get the idea: they are out there in as many ways possible, creating a buzz for their project.   

You will have to begin building what is called “a platform”.  That is an identity, a “brand”, and a following.  That requires a website; it also requires that you use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Begin searching for the book fairs and conferences most suited for your book, and get yourself scheduled on panels and for presentations.  You will want to call bookstores and arrange readings and signings.  Lots of online sites are now available for “virtual book tours”, where you and your book will be featured, interviews posted, author articles presented, book reviews offered.  The latest, and one of the most exciting and fun ways to promote your book is with a “book trailer”, which is a short (30-second to 3-minute) video.  This can be something as brief as a “teaser” or something as substantial as an author interview.  These trailers can be posted on YouTube, on your own website, or used in your digital publicity package when sending out information about yourself and your book.  There are even movie theatres which will show book trailers before their feature films.   

You might ask:  How do I do all this?  You might feel that to take on so much responsibility for the business side of things will leave no time to actually write.  Don’t despair.  You aren’t alone.  The growth of the independent model in publishing has created a need for independent publishing professionals who can assist you in all these areas.  There are affordable editors, book packagers, and publicists who are happy to work with independent authors.  There are companies which offer a menu of these services in one place.  With a little legwork, you can find wonderful, experienced people to help you along this journey.  And remember:  the joy is in the journey, so never let go of those feelings of excitement and accomplishment that come with the hard work. You are a trailblazer, creating new paths for yourself and others.  You are one of the pioneers, venturing into unknown territory in the new world of publishing.

Debra Leigh Scott (www.debraleighscott.com) is an award-winning writer, living in Philadelphia, PA.  A collection of her stories, Other Likely Stories, and her novel, Piety Street, are both scheduled for publication in 2010.  Debra Leigh also runs DLS Professional (www.dlsprofessional.com), which offers a variety of publishing services especially for the small press and independent author community. She welcomes comments and questions!

The Business of Writing                                                       

by Robin Cain   

I am a writer. That doesn’t necessarily mean I am any good at it or that I am successful. It simply means I spend hours and hours a day converting taps on my computer keys into words I hope someone else will enjoy reading.


I willingly choose to spend my days creating imaginary characters and injecting them into the veins of scenes of my own creation. Some are based on experience. Others are based on either divine inspiration, research or a combination of the two. It’s an imaginary world I inhabit day after day and it’s not one many others who don’t participate in the craft can even begin to understand.  I’m okay with that.


To be a writer is to have a thick skin and an abiding belief that someone out there (hopefully lots of someones) will enjoy reading what I write. To own the words a reader anxiously absorbs brings a sense of joy beyond description. The hours spent scratching my head, writing and rewriting my words, and crafting my story to perfect the rhythm in each sentence is validated by my reader’s emotions and support of my craft.


There are millions of others like me, but, I dare say, only hundreds of best-selling authors and an even smaller couple handfuls of big, BIG names. With the current upheaval in the publishing industry doing battle with deep discounting by major retailers, the increasing numbers of seemingly-more-selective-than-ever agents reviewing submissions and the dramatic increases in e-books and piracy, it appears the road ahead is becoming much steeper for many of us.


What keeps me, or any other writer for that matter, going day after day? How do we stay encouraged and inspired to become part of that sacred list of successful sought-after writers? Here are my thoughts.


There are more options available today for writers than at any other time in the history of publishing. The shrinking routes of yesterday are rapidly being enhanced and supplemented with new and exciting highways to reach a vast number of readers. Where big traditional publishing houses are seemingly failing both authors and readers alike, Indie publishers, the Internet and industrious fed-up writers are forging new inroads.

 

Yet none of what’s transpiring in today’s publishing industry changes the simple basic facts all writers must acknowledge. Writing is a craft with rules. Poor writing is still poor writing and lack of knowledge is still a fatal mistake.


Today’s writer must be willing to research, market and network while still devoting a fair share of time to their craft. Many writers are not equipped or skilled in the business side of writing and that must change if they desire success. Whether one sells a book to a big name publisher or decides to go the way of self-publishing, the tasks involved are all the same.


As with most things in life, one cannot and should not rely on others for their success. It is up to the author to sell his product. Our words are our vehicle and we must stay in the driver’s seat to get where we want to go. An author can hire all the expensive publicists, marketers and errand-runners they can afford, but it still comes down to having knowledge of the industry, the market and the trends. A writer with a dream of “just writing” will wind up doing just that – writing and never selling. If one doesn’t take a hands-on approach to getting their product out there, no one will ever buy it.


At the end of the day it is the quality of the product that matters most. A writer, no matter how good they believe their work to be, must learn to welcome a different perspective. That means having early readers (not just biased friends or family members) and being ready to accept their criticism and changes. If hiring the appropriate experts to gain insight on how to improve one’s craft is necessary, well, so be it. Making the efforts required to get to a place that satisfies one’s needs is just that – work – and there are no shortcuts to success. To write is to be a student; constantly open to learning, experimentation and, most of all, failure. Show me a writer who has never been rejected and I’ll show you a writer who has never submitted.


What does it take to be a student? If another writer is open to helping you, accept it willingly and gratefully. Join writer’s groups. Read as much as is available in your genre and study what those authors did right. Research agents and their clients before you go blindly submitting your work. Study market trends and recent deals in your genre. Spend time every day getting your name and writing out to the public in some form or fashion, even if it’s only to comment on another writer’s blog. Network with other authors and take the time to read their work (Karma is a powerful thing). In other words, engage in the business of writing. And when you’ve done all that, engage some more.

 
After reading all this, some may wonder why do we writers continue to do battle? It is because creating the perfect sentence, crafting the perfect scene and watching our characters inhabit a world made entirely from our own imagination is our calling. Whether it’s a million readers or just our old Aunt Mabel and her five ex-husbands who enjoy what we write, it’s all the same in the end to many of us. We write day after day and night after night – willingly, gratefully and, in many cases, blindly - just to bring our thoughts to life. When it comes down to the beauty of the craft, a million readers would be fabulous, but old Aunt Mabel will do.

Robin Cain, a contributing writer for The Examiner, lives in Scottsdale, AZ. Her novel, WHEN DREAMS BLEED, is scheduled for publication in early 2010. Her musings on relationships and all things related can be found at http://www.examiner.com/X-16469-Scottsdale-Relationships-Examiner. More information on can be found at www.robincain.com

“Never give up. Get the knack of getting people to help you and also pitch in yourself.”

~~Ruth Gordon

The Passion of the Choice

by Betty Dobson

When I was a little girl, my mother would limit the number of activities I could try and groups I could join…mostly because each one cost money and my five siblings each needed a shot at an extracurricular pastime. My problem was that I had many interests but little talent. Figure skating and gymnastics brought me nothing but bruises. And the Girl Guides were just too squeaky clean for someone with my developing sense of sarcasm.

 As an adult, I’ve done my best to overcome those childhood restrictions and experiment with a variety of career options. I excelled in the secretarial arts and demonstrated an early aptitude for data processing. My reward? A data entry job that produced muscle spasms in my right arm within the first year. With the passing of my thirtieth birthday, the time had come to decide what I wanted to be now that I had grown up.

I went back to university with the idea of studying English and writing. Despite a short-lived but successful detour into the world of psychology—I had visions of my parents referring to me as “our daughter, the doctor”—I returned to my original plan and declared myself a writer. After all, I could only do justice to one passion at a time. Right?

If only life were that simple. Before long, I found myself on another detour through somewhat familiar terrain, editing two cookbooks for two different fundraisers. “That’s it,” one of my co-workers pronounced. “You’ve found your calling. You’re an editor.”

In the “Year of the Cookbooks” (1998), I started my own company based on the premise of being an editor and publisher. But what to call the business? I knew “InkSpotter” (one of my online aliases) would be part of the mix, but I played around with several descriptive elements. I settled on “Publishing & Print Media Services” in the beginning, although it seemed too wordy—practically heretical in the publishing world.

The business languished in a state of paralysis for many years. By 2002, influenced in no small part by well-intentioned friends and associates, I veered into business writing and editing (and changed the name to “InkSpotter Writing & Editing” to better represent my new identity). The change worked, and I started landing occasional contract jobs. The money was certainly better, but I didn’t get much satisfaction out of the work.

The following year, I took a chance and created my first monthly newsletter, InkSpotter News. Then, with the support of my late friend and mentor, Bill Rieser, I fully rediscovered my passion for publishing in 2004. He gently yet firmly drafted me to be the “in-house” publisher for his Writers’ Association’s series of print anthologies. From there, I gradually tapped into a niche doing edits and layouts on book-length manuscripts for a variety of satisfied clients.

Along the way, I formally redubbed myself “InkSpotter Publishing” (short, sweet, and oh-so where I wanted to be from the start). In 2005, I added the monthly newsletter Heritage Writer to the publishing schedule. My company’s first two books—Paper Wings and Holiday Writes—will be published by the end of 2006, and several more books are planned for next year.

I could never discount the value of each detour on the route to my current career. Secretarial and data processing training gave me many of the skills needed for desktop publishing. Psychology gave me insight into human nature that often helps with client and supplier relations. And every other experience—good or bad—simply added to my store of knowledge.

Viveca A. Stone, founder of GetReadyForLove.com, describes the path to success as “Trial/Error then surrendering to inspiration.” In her case, more than one passion inspired her efforts, and not necessarily in terms of the work involved. “My first passion was proving myself,” she says. “I did that with my software publishing business—produced numerous ‘best sellers’ and ‘award winners.’”

Her business efforts over the years met with varied success. Viveca learned early that success required networking and teambuilding. By trying to do everything on her own, she experienced extreme fatigue. Here, too, she discovered a cause worth pursuing. “My current passions are helping others and myself recover from fatigue and build teams.”

Tracy Repchuk’s

Three-Point Guide to Measuring Success:

1 – Money – Am I financially where I wanted to be? – YES

2 – Recognition – Have I been recognized by my peers or the industry with respect to my contributions? – YES

3 – Happiness – Am I happy? – YOU BET

Given that, though, I am always striving to do better, do more, and contribute where I can.

Tracy Lynn Repchuk—President of the Canadian Federation of Poets and the author of The Poetry of Business—understands that finding your passion is often a lifelong pursuit of a single goal. She uses poetry to encourage people “to explore their inner child, or review their original purpose to see if they are on track. We often go in a different path for many reasons, but at some point it is time to say enough, and do what you really want to be doing.

“I personally have gone the direction I wanted,” Tracy adds, “but I have counseled hundreds of people that haven't, and they seem to hit two barriers—at some point they have what they thought they wanted: money, cars, travel, houses, family—yet still are unhappy; or they know this isn't what they wanted—and are looking to get back on track. When you aren't fulfilling what you set off to do in this lifetime, no matter what you achieve, it won't be enough.”

Each person’s definition of success is different, of course. Tracy follows a basic three-point guide that involves money, recognition, and happiness (see sidebar). By contrast, BoomerWomenSpeak.com founder Dotsie Bregel says, “I feel successful because every day I connect, encourage, support, educate, and empower baby boomer women by simply having the number one site on all search engines for ‘baby boomer women.’”

For some, the secret to success seems to be sticking with your original goal rather than following the easier money regardless of the type of work involved. For others, passion comes in many forms, shifting and evolving over time. Either way, as the saying goes, “Do what you love, and the money will follow.” And you just might be happier—getting there, being there, and staying there.

I just want to share some of the pictures from Writer's BarCamp on Saturday.  Enjoy!

Entry Table

The Writer's Lounge

Gift Bags

Doodle Table

Downtown Bryan, TX

Session 1

Session with Naomi Giroux

Happy Humpday!

Resources for Social Media

All of my recent blog posts have been cool information I have gotten from class presentations and class speakers.  So, to go along with that trend, I want to share some info from my Aggie Advertising Club meeting last night. 

It is important when you are trying to get into social media for business use that you understand its differences as compared to social media for personal use.  Here is a list of books that have gotten great reviews and would be beneficial for those picking up social media for business:

1.  The Social Media Bible - Tactics, Tools, & Strategies for Business Success

2. Twitterville - How Businesses Can Thrive In The New Global Neighborhoods

3. Groundswell - Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

4. Social Media is a Cocktail Party - Why You Already Know The Rules of Social Media Marketing

Since one of my main roles here at Stimulating-Conversation is social media, I found this really important and interesting.  I am definitely picking these books up as I transition into a larger marketing role for the business. 

Happy Humpday!

After 40 years in journalism, worrying constantly about getting every fact exactly right, I thought it would be liberating to make stuff up.  So last summer I retired as writing coach of The Associated Press to become a full-time novelist.  My first book, a crime story titled “Rogue Island,” will be published in hardcover by Tor/Forge next year, and I’ve made a start on a second.  

Fiction writing has been less work than play for me, especially once I started believing in something that I’d often heard novelists say, but that had always sounded like hooey to me.   I’m sure you’ve heard it too, or maybe even said it:  The characters came to life and took over the story.

I had a good laugh several years ago when I heard the great Elmore Leonard talk about this.  Once, he said, he called his publisher in a panic because he was only half-way through a novel when his main character got shot dead.

To the rational journalist in me, that seemed like mystical nonsense.  Only one person touches the keys – the writer.  The characters are the writer’s puppets, saying and doing what he or she tells them to and nothing more.  The idea of characters developing wills of their own, I thought, was artsy-fartsy nonsense, just like all that prattle about muse and inspiration.  Journalists have daily deadlines; they write whether they are in the mood or not.  Getting the job done, I knew, had nothing to do with inspiration.  It was about putting your butt in the seat and pounding the keyboard.

But when I started writing “Rogue Island,” something unexpected happened.  The characters took over the story.  The protagonist’s ex-wife, who started out as a minor irritant, turned into a vengeful bitch.  A big, dangerous hit man shrank to five-foot five and developed a bad case of psoriasis.  A fire chief who began as a minor character decided to become a major one.  And then he decided he was a she.

It happened gradually, the characters stealthy, the changes they sought sneaking up on me.  Perhaps that was because my plot was loosely based on two short stories I’d written.  From the start, I thought I knew how the story would unfold, how it would end, and who the characters would be.  Zerilli, a bookmaker, would be based loosely on an elderly mobster I’d heard about when I worked in Hartford.  Lomax, a newspaper editor, would be a composite of several bosses I’d worked for years ago.  Mulligan, the protagonist and first-person narrator of the tale, would be a lot like me, except six inches taller, 22 years younger, and with a quicker wit.  Ok, I admit it.  He’d be closer to who I want to be than who I really am.

But the short stories totaled 4,000 words, and the book would be 75,000 words, so I had a lot of typing to do.

When I began, I started each scene with a clear idea of its purpose and how it would unfold.  But as soon as I set the characters in motion, they started doing or saying things I hadn’t planned on.  In one early scene, for example, a mobster named Giordano met Mulligan in a hotel bar to give him a cryptic tip about some wrongdoing.  As I typed, Giordano surprised me by slipping a Partagas from his jacket pocket and snipping the end with a silver cigar cutter.  That led my narrator to say this:

The ban on smoking in public accommodations was still hung up in committee, cheating him out of the opportunity to flout it.

I liked the line – the way it enriched the characterization of both Mulligan and Giordano.  It made me want more such surprises.  I quickly discovered how to make that happen.

I wrote each scene rapidly, letting the characters say or do whatever popped into my head.  As a result, scenes diverged wildly from their original purposes, and dialogue meandered all over the place.  Once a scene was drafted, I’d go back to the beginning and read it through.  Inevitably, a lot of it was crap that I immediately discarded.  But there were always a few delightful surprises that would never have happened if I’d written according to my original plan.

I also learned that there was nothing mystical about this.

In real life, encounters and conversations never unfold according to plan – not even when you carefully rehearse what you want to say.  One thought leads to another, and the conversation veers off in unpredictable directions.   

When you loosen up and let it happen, fictional characters do the same thing, and the writing is richer for it.

Of course, I was right about one thing all along.  Writing is not about muse.  It’s about putting your butt in the seat and pounding the keyboard.

Bruce DeSilva began his journalism career in Rhode Island, where “Rogue Island” is set.  Marcus Sakey, bestselling author of “The Amateurs,” says this about the book: “DeSilva writes with a master’s understanding of the genre.  The dialogue is spot on, the humor is wry, and the world is gritty enough that I still have dirt under my fingernails.  I can’t believe this is a debut.  ‘Rogue Island’ is a winner.”  DeSilva also worked as an editor and writing coach at The Hartford Courant and The Associated Press.  Stories he edited have won nearly every major journalism award including the Polk (twice), the Livingston (twice), the Batten Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Two More People Added To The Team

We are proud to introduce the newest team members of Stimulating Conversation, Monica and Sarah.

Monica is one of our best reviewers for Ijustfinished.com, and is now going to be handling all things to do with our book review system.  In the process of updating our site, we are going to make book reviewing a better experience for those who are members of our site.  We are gathering our information and ideas, and with the help of Monica (from an insider perspective) the rejuvenated site will be a lot more functional!

Sarah started with us on Monday, and she is handling a lot of data-entry and bookkeeping.  She is also going to help in the process of streamlining our reviewing system.  Sarah has been working hard, and we are thankful that our backlog of information is starting to end up in more organized outlets.

We are glad to have both of them, and be looking out for changes to Ijustfinished.com and Stimulating Conversation.

Happy Humpday!

I am finally back after days and days of non-stop schoolwork and group project meetings.  I am in the Aggie Advertising Club at A&M and we did an exercise at our meeting last night to get us going.  Just look at the numbers and letters, and try to figure out what the sentence is saying.  The capital letters are the first letters of the words you are trying to find. (see answers at bottom)

1. 16 O in a P

2. 36 I in a Y

3. MJ is the KOP

4. 5 S on a P

5. 6 P for a T D in F B

6. 18 H on a G C

7. 30 D H S A J and N

8. 1 W on a U

9. 52 C in a D W T J

10. W F at 32 D F

11. 8 L on an O

12. 9 M to C A C

13. 5 F on a H

14. 2 W on a B

15. 7 W of the W

I am going to start posting activities like these in the future, so if you are needing a break from work, or need to get your mind going, follow along! 

Happy Humpday!

1. 16 ounces in a pound

2. 36 inches in a yard

3. Michael Jackson is the King of Pop

4. 5 sides on a pentagon

5. 6 points for a touchdown in football

6. 18 holes on a golf course

7. 30 days hath September April, June and November

8. 1 wheel on a unicycle

9. 52 cards in a deck without the jokers

10. water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit

11. 8 legs on an octopus

12. 9 months to carry a child

13. 5 fingers on a hand

14. 2 wheels on a bicycle

15. 7 wonders of the world

Today I was being amazingly productive when the time to leave. One hour a day is free swim at the pool, and I had committed (to myself) that it was time to get back to doing one good thing for me. The problem was I was being productive!

So I broke away and had a lovely swim. Now it was time to pick-up the two little girls from Mother's Day Out. I planned to pick them up, and dash them back to the office for Josh to watch while I got back in the groove.

The best laid plans. . . On the way out of the building the girls collided. The two and a half year-old took a hard fall, head first on the edge of the sidewalk. She was out cold for a few seconds then pale and listless. No lump for the loud crashing sound produced when she fell.

Off to the ER for a CT Scan, no bleeding, no break in the skin, but a concussion; so now the watching to be sure she doesn't have any problems. She is more herself, but does claim her head hurts.

As you may have guessed, I lost my focus and didn't get back to the other projects. But here is my blog of today's adventure.

See you soon on the computer.

Naomi

Marketing Help: To Pay Or Not To Pay?

Author: Tony Eldridge

Many authors who visit my blog do so because of the free marketing help and resources that I offer. In fact, I like to tell people that I give low cost/no cost marketing tips for authors on a shoestring budget. Prior to publishing my first novel, The Samson Effect, I was the sales and marketing director for a successful company that created and sold tech video training on the net. It was natural for me to put those skills to work when it came to market my own book.


As I started to meet more and more authors—many very talented at their craft—I soon realized that marketing was not a skill many had an inkling about. As time went by, authors began to seek me out and ask for my marketing advice, which I gladly provide. I even spoke at writing groups and conducted book marketing seminars on the subject.


In February of 2009, I launched a blog dedicated to bring my skills and those of other book marketing experts to authors trying to self marketing their book. I did this for a couple of reasons:


1. Many authors just do not have the cash resources to find good marketing help.
 
2. I was finding book marketing “experts” who were charging what I considered exorbitant prices for little to no real marketing help for authors.

Adopting the platform of helping authors find no cost/low cost methods to market their books has led some to believe that I am against hiring a book marketing expert, that all authors should do the marketing themselves or they are getting ripped off.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is that economic reality may force authors to hold on to dollars they may rather use to hire good marketing help. I understand that reality as do most book marketers.

To evaluate a book marketer, you need to see their work. You need to get recommendations. You need to find out what their reputation is. On my blog, for instance, I have turned away people who wanted to guest blog for me because I do not agree with their business model. I think they charge too much and give authors too little in return. I understand that my experience as a marketing expert may help me sniff out these  people easier than most, but before an authors spends money, they need to make an attempt at assessing the reputation of the marketing expert. That squarely falls on the shoulders of the authors.

 
Here are valid reasons authors may want to hire a book marketer:

1. They don’t have the time to do the marketing themselves- We often hire people to help us with things we know how to do ourselves. It’s a part of time management. Authors write. If they want to spend their time writing and hire someone to help them with the marketing, that is a legitimate option. My platform in no way faults authors for making this decision.

2. They don’t want to learn how to market their book- Marketing your own book takes the desire to learn a new skill set. For some people, this just doesn’t appeal to them. If an author feels this way, then hiring an expert to help them is the right thing to do.

3. They don’t have the aptitude to effectively market their own book-  I hate to say it, but there are some people who probably shouldn’t be trying to market their book. Part of marketing is about making relationships and learning new technologies. If someone struggles in these areas, then they can do more damage than good when trying to market their book themselves.

4. They just don’t want to market their own book- period- You know what? An author really doesn’t need a reason as to why they want to hire a book marketer. Sometimes they meet a marketing expert and something just clicks and they want to work with that person. Sometimes they read an article about someone and they want to work with that person. Whatever the reason, if an author wants to hire someone to help them market their book, for whatever reason, that’s ok. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to paying for book marketing help.

Other Marketing Help Options

Getting help marketing your book does not come in two flavors only: Free or Hire someone. There are other options as well. Here are a few:

1. Buy how-to books on book marketing.

2. Join membership sites that offer ongoing book marketing help.

3. Enroll in an e-class to learn how to market your book better.

4. Sign up for webinars to get guidance from experts.

 
As to the question, “To Pay Or Not To Pay?”, the definitive answer is, “That depends on what you want; on what you are looking for.” It depends on the time, the money, or the inclination you have. It depends on who you find and what they offer you.

I have a lot of free tools and resources for authors to use when it comes to marketing their books. However, one of the greatest resources I offer are expert marketers who guest blog for me. This is my way to introduce you to some of the best book marketers who may be the perfect fit for you if you choose to hire a book marketing expert or purchase their products.

Am I against authors spending money on marketing their books? Absolutely not. Do I think that that there are a lot of low cost/no cost ways for authors to use in marketing their books themselves? Just visit my blog and see.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tony Eldridge is the author of the action/adventure book, The Samson Effect, that NY Times bestselling author Clive Cussler calls a “first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure.” He is also an experienced marketing professional and has started his Marketing Tips For Authors blog to help authors find low cost/no cost ways to market their books. He also offers a free weekly video tips for authors subscription where subscribers are given access to videos that teach them some of the more technical aspects of marketing their books.

This week it's a TGIF, Friday, too many "irons in the fire." But I did get several of my assignment completed. One assignment wasn't completed as needed so I can't count that one as complete. It can be frustrating when difficulties in communications get in the way.

Ways to improve communication is a good focus topic for this Friday Blog. So here is my list. Feel free to add to it.

1. Define the topic carefully and fully
2. Besure the components of the project are understood by all
3. Allow some flexability or creativity to participants or just use a cookie cutter
4. When critiqueing the project, identify all concerns or problems that need correction, not just a couple at a time.
5. There maybe a point when the vision isn't communicating and the requester will need to do the task.

So much for my two cents on communicating requests.

see you on the computer.

Naomi

"How to Keep on Message"

by Chris Kuban, CEO & owner of ChemistryMultimedia.com

Publicity molds public opinion more effectively than a paid advertisement.  And, your message, as it appears in the context of the 'news, ' or being interviewed as an 'expert,'  carries additional weight in the court of public opinion.   Therefore, keeping on message is the most important part of your job.

With the intervention of online sources and the explosion of social media opportunities, the value of being in the media is transcended to infinite abilities to reuse those digital clips in promoting your message.  This fact needs to be reemphasized: if you're on TV, Radio or in Print, those same files are now placed in online digital format 99% of the time thereby giving you the opportunity to reuse those files in marketing, promotion or public relations efforts of your organization.

However, the message starts with your initial pitch to media.  You should always remember that in order to make news, your challenge is to tell a compelling story and always remember your audience.  When you start with your pitch, always consider the reasons why an editor, reporter or producer should listen to, and, give you credibility by telling your story?  Is your 'pitch' or 'hook' formulated to fit the "C's" of news?  Editors look for: Catastrophe, Chaos, Conflict, Confusion, Competition, Contradiction, Corruption, Crime, Crisis and Color (Human Interest) - And, you can't forget the "S's" of news: Secrets, Sensationalism and Sex.

Obviously, media outlets look for news that provides information, news that is timely, news that relates to a specific and unique action, as well as news that has local impact and involves people.   Creating the compelling story is up to you, but explaining it is where most stray off message.

With major cut-backs in most media outlets, reporters, editors and producers are scrambling to do more work in less time while producing a better quality of coverage.  Simply put, your job is to hand them everything they need for a story on a silver platter... and quickly.   

One point that should be made crystal clear: "NO COMMENT" is NEVER an acceptable option when talking with the media.  Always tell your story and don't exaggerate or lie. If you ever need additional time to compose your message, always ask for it. Most media are on deadline so understanding that time is of the essences is key to your message being told in a positive manor.

For the purpose of this article, we'll focus on the content of your message when responding to media inquiries.  With that said, your message development or content should focus on Brevity, Emotion, Positive Points and Preparation.

Brevity: Your complete thoughts and statements in answer to a posed question should be 12 to 20 seconds long for television,  8 to 20 seconds for radio and 40 seconds for print interviews.

Emotion: What you say is as important as how you say it.  Your energy, enthusiasm, excitement and entertainment factors will portray and instill a strong connection with your audience.

Positive Points: To stay on message, you must develop positive points, themes and messages that should be used frequently throughout an interview.

Preparation: Being well rehearsed with facts, figures, statements, taglines and your key messages truly makes a difference in the outcome of your interview.

Always keep in mind that when being interviewed (with the few exceptions of doing live segments), you will most likely be edited.  You must be resolute to get your message across effectively.  Even in hour-long live radio talk show segments, repeating your message is vitally important to the success of your message getting across.

In baseball, getting to 'Home Base' is the one of the most important parts of winning a game. You might hit a home run, you might hit a single and a double or a triple and another single.  Your entire goal is to get to home base.  Therefore, in communicating your message, you may be asked numerous questions but need to have a cohesive statement that will tie every question to your 'Home Base' message.

In relating your message to the 'Home Base' principal, your main message needs to be a simple, easy to understand phrase that can be used multiple times throughout your interview.  Remember the limited amount of time you have to get a good sound bite. You may be interviewed for 30 minutes, but your edited version may be 30 seconds or 3 minutes.  What would you like your message to be?   Consistently answering questions with a derivative of your 'home base' message will more likely ensure that the main message  your conveying will be heard clearly as the outcome of the produced segment.

For example, when doing an interview for a book, you might want to answer each question by telling your message in a short story but your goal is to sell books.  So, your communicated message should always end in, "as stated in the book," "you can buy the book," "if you get the book," or "you can order the book today at Amazon, etc."   Emphasizing a clear message with a direct call to action or a direct statement, such as 'Buy the Book' as your home base, should prove positive results. But, you must stick to having a 'Home Base' message strategy.

Do you think that social media is just a fad? Do you think that in a few years Twitter will even be around? Before you make that decision check out this awesome video.

We are very excited to be partners for the First Writers BarCamp here is Central Texas. Mark your calendar:  Saturday, October 24th 2009. The camp is the weekend prior to Texas Book Festival, and leading into Novemeber, aka:  NaNoWriMo. 

What is a Writers BarCamp you ask?

The Writers Bar Camp is an Info-Conference, an informal, informational gathering. Bar Camps are organized and presented by the participants. That means you and me. This is a Networking Extravaganza!

BarCamps really are a unique conference, or un-conference experience that cannot be missed. This is your chance to meet tons of authors, as well as speak about what you know, and listen to what you'd like to know. 

Did I mention this is a free conference? Yep, free!

Check out the website for more info:  WritersBarCamp.org

Friday got away again. That day is a slippery one! But I'll still add my two cents even if it's a few days late.

I have been learning how to make the neat video mini-trailers, using Animoto. They are great fun to make once you have your story board complete. You have the chance to use lots of pictures or text even for a short video.

You will be seeing a lot more of these fun and informative ways to communicate concepts on websites. My biggest challange is finding royality free music that isn't excessively electrical music. If any of you know a great source of nice music for the background, please let me know.

I was able to get many things done this week, but still find I'm not following through on my time alications. If I'm really into doing something I want to keep going not stop and work on another project. I think that is normal and it works great if what you're working on is high on your priority list (seems like it often isn't - my bad). So this week I'm going to do better prioritizing my activities. I have some that simply must get done and they are usually not the most fun ones.

See you soon on the computer.

If you find a great source of music (non-royality) let me know.

Naomi

Descriptive Writing

by Brian Moreland, author of Shadows in the Mist

I receive a lot of letters from aspiring writers asking for advice. Recently, one writer asked for some tips on being a more descriptive writer.

First, read a lot of books from various authors. When you come across a descriptive passage you really like, read it again, study it. Notice what verbs and adjectives they used. Write that passage in a journal or type it. I've written passages from other books, from Stephen King to Dean Koontz, and that helped put me in the mindset of that author. It impacted my writing.

Learn to write poetry. Even if it's bad poetry. It teaches you about the rhythm of language. I spent some time writing a number of poems, some good, some not so good, but I trained my brain to write more descriptively. When you write flowery poetry for awhile and then go back to writing prose, you'll discover your writing has become naturally more descriptive.

Learn a plethora of new vocabulary. Play some vocabulary games. Challenge yourself to use words you don't normally use. I keep a Thesaurus handy, and when I'm revising a draft, I swap out plain words for more descriptive words.

Learn to use figurative language such as hyperbole, simile, metaphor, symbolism and personification. Knowing these gives you a great foundation for descriptive writing. And for the most part it is better to show than tell. Rather than narrate what's happening from the author's point of view, play the scene out from the character's point of view.

And remember that descriptions are also visual details of what's happening in your scene. I'll often write a first draft that doesn't have a lot of description. Just some basic action and dialogue. But then I'll re-read the chapter over and over, visualizing what's happening, and that's when I add more visual details.

I describe in ways that invoke the five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. My goal is for the reader to feel like they are in the scene, experiencing it through multiple senses. For instance, in the war scenes in my novel, Shadows in the Mist, I described what my character Lt. Jack Chambers is seeing--the battlefield, the fog seeping through the war-torn forest, enemy soldiers charging between the trees. Then I added in some sound effects, like gunshots and explosions, soldiers yelling, the metallic crunch of tank tracks rolling over rubble. Then touch: the heat of the blast scorching the soldier's skin. Then taste: his mouth filling with dust and grit. And smell: the stench of death all around him. When you combine descriptions of all five senses, you create a visceral experience for your readers.

Keep challenging yourself to improve your craft and your descriptions will get better over time.

 
*   *   *

 

Brian Moreland is a writer and success coach to writers living in Dallas, Texas. In addition to novel writing, Brian writes two blogs: “Coaching for Writers” and “Adventures in Writing.”  He also works as a video editor and producer. He wrote, produced, and edited a WWII documentary about his grandfather, Return to Normandy. Shadows in the Mist is Brian’s first novel. In 2007, the book won a gold medal for Best Horror Novel in an international contest. A German version will release in Austria and Germany in 2010. He is currently writing the final chapters of his next horror novel, Dead of Winter.

Official Website: http://www.BrianMoreland.com

Coaching for Writers blog: http://www.CoachingforWriters.blogspot.com

Adventures in Writing blog: http://www.BrianMoreland.blogspot.com

As I get into the grind of my last semester of school, I am finally taking classes where I am actually willing to pay attention.  My favorite class so far is advertising, because we are learning photoshop with Lynda.com.  I finally see how you can use photoshop for anything - photos, websites, logos, print ads, and more.  I am excited to get in the groove of using it and test it on my photos that I have taken. 

This week we are talking about thinking creatively.  It sounds like something that would come naturally, but it really is something you have to work at.  We watched a video in class where an advertising agency representative was speaking about how adults think creatively.  It really made us think about how as children, we are daring and unafraid to express our ideas.  But now when brainstorming with co-workers, or fellow students, we tend to hold back because of fear of judgment from our peers.  As we go through school, the system slowly weeds out the creative activities - painting, making things with dry macaroni, and drawing, so eventually we lose our spark for thinking in a creative way. We did an activity in class where we had to draw a picture of the person sitting next to us, most of whom we did not know.  As everyone finished up on their masterpieces, "sorry" was heard around the room.  If this same activity was done in elementary school, there would be no shame as artwork was proudly displayed around the room.

So, I challenge everyone to not be embarrassed by the ideas you come up with when brainstorming.  Share all your ideas with those around you, and encourage others to share their ideas as well.  This can help more creative ideas blossom. Happy Humpday!

Good day to all those Techy! I'm going to reveal a new system for easy content management today. Our current CMS is a great application for the web, but requires the user to login to the "administration" area of the website to manuplate their website. The new CMS I have in development will be much more user friendly and will allow the user to edit the website right on the page they are looking at.

This next release of the CMS will be a major improvement and I will be using Django's Site framework much more effectivly. I am learning a lot about manupliating Django's backend to make it work for my needs. Its actually a very workable framework. The best part about this new CMS is that it will drop the production time by 6-10 hours! That means I can get a site loaded and fully functional in about 6-8 hours after design. The new CMS will also share certain resources, such as TINYMCE, across all the sites cutting down on bandwidth and server space.

Upon released the CMS, I will also be wrapping up my "Content Cleaner" script and porting that to the new CMS so that when you go to edit your content, you will be given the option to upload and clean a word document giving you a cleaned copy of the souce rather than all the crap that microsoft puts into their code. Right now it only supports .doc but I am working on a extension to add .docx, .rtf and .txt.

I am in full fledged testing of the new CMS now and hopefully I will be able to post some screenshots of it next week.

Authors: Consider Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
By Carol Hoenig
 

At first, when Susan Driscoll, then CEO for iUniverse approached me, wanting to hire me to write a book on how authors could have successful events, I couldn’t imagine I’d be able to actually fill pages on the topic. I kept thinking that I didn’t have enough material. Yet, there was no way I could turn down a generous paying writing gig and decided I’d somehow have to pull it off. I was surprised to discover that I knew more than I realized.

 
I suppose, in part, that was because my novel, “Without Grace” did very well and Susan was impressed with how I managed to get events in support of this quiet little book. But without a doubt, it was also because I had the experience from the other side, having been a community relations coordinator and then a national event specialist for Borders Books for over eleven years. I had the opportunity to work with authors and publicists from both small and large publishing houses by booking events for Borders stores across the country. Most of the authors were published by traditional houses, but occasionally, if it made sense for them to do an event, I would book a local, self-published author. And, want to know something? Often, their event filled every chair in the room, as opposed to the mid-list author who didn’t think they needed to work so hard to bring people in since they had their own publicist.


More often than not, pressure was on me to be sure people attended an event, but with limited resources, there was only so much I could do. Some authors were understanding and just happy to see that their book was front and center, thanks to the scheduled event. However, there were other authors who grilled me, wanting to know what I’d done for their event. I explained how I’d written it up in the newsletter, made intermittent announcements over the PA, splashed displays throughout the store announcing the forthcoming event and instructed the booksellers to be sure to let customers know. They would then ask if I’d placed an ad in the New York Times. That’s when it was apparent that they had little idea just how pricey an ad, even the size of a thumbprint, could be. The thing is, when I did have the budget to run an ad, even a decent-size ad, it didn’t do much in the way of event attendance; however, it did boost the author’s ego, which often seemed to be the main issue.


Soon, though, I got savvy enough to create a take-away folder for these authors with copies of the flyers, newsletter and a long list of where the press release announcing the event went out. Yet, most of these authors didn’t realize that the success or failure of their event was some of their responsibility. I haven’t been with Borders for over five years now and without a doubt successful events are even more difficult to pull off. Yet, that doesn’t have to be discouraging to authors since we are entering a new phase in this precarious industry.


As a fulltime writer and publishing consultant, I work with many authors, a large portion of them self-published. They often hire me because they realize how difficult it is to get bookstore events. The reason they cannot acquire these events, though, is often because their book is not returnable. Bookstores don’t want to take the risk. So, authors believe they’ve hit a brick wall, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Yes, bookstores have books, but that does not mean that is where you’ll find your audience. Authors need to get creative in securing events. For instance, if you have a novel that has something to do with food or cooking, you may want to consider contacting the manager at your local grocery store to see if you could set up a small table with some light snacks and your books ready to be signed and sold. Glamorous? Not really, but it may be where you’d attract some attention. Or maybe you’ve written a children’s book. Why not see if the local school will let you do a story time event where you give a portion of the proceeds to the PTA? That would stir some interest, maybe even an article in your local paper, not to mention sales.


The point is, there are many possibilities where you can do events and you must be willing to take the risk just as I did when I told Susan I’d be happy to write “The Author’s Guide to Planning Book Events.” I had little idea where it would lead, but getting out of my comfort zone was a good lesson for me, one I hope other authors consider.  So, when you think of doing an event for your book, don’t limit yourself to bookstores, since there are so many other lucrative opportunities yet to be tapped.

So, after being away and sick for almost two weeks, I am back! My post today was inspired by a recent conflict on Gather.  I won't go into detail, but basically someone was insulting different methods of publishing, and it was thrown in there that we were possibly spammers, and the Gather "police" were all over it.  Looking in on the different conversations and arguments that took place, it is pretty comical, which is why I chose it for today's post.  Ijustfinished.com and Stimulating Conversation are members of most of the big social media sites: Facebook, Gather, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  My advice for those of you out there who are also members of social media outlets, is to try and maintain good relationships with all of your "friends" the best that you can.  Having good virtual relationships and keeping up with those relationships will be beneficial to you or your business.  This means that if someone else is taking time to post valuable information, that it is best to read and comment on it.  So just remember, these social media sites are in a virtual world, and even if your business is using them, don't take them too seriously! Yes, they are an important part of your business, but have fun with them.  Running around online and posting negative comments makes people feel bad, therefore cutting relationships with people who could have been potential clients.  I always try to see the light side of things, so have fun when managing social media, but be careful.

Happy Hump-day!

I'm focusing on my blog, so I'm writing it ahead of time. Yea me!!

So now, what will I talk about on this focus blog? The key point of this blog is planning. Planning to help focus.

I find that using a calander to plot out my projects is very useful. I like the paper calendar because it feels more flexable and visual. The computer calendar doesn't let me see it all the time and just scribble all over it. I can use colors to hightlight different projects or deadlines. These simple techniques allow me to focus on the important things I need to accomplish daily. I'm easily distracted by email and social media discussions, so anything that keeps me focused is worth trying.

I have a friend who uses a timer to help keep herself focused and within the time limits she has set. Again, try different ways to focus yourself so you can accomplish your goals. If you think of a great way to help focus let me know. I'm all ready to try. I find that I have to switch the techniques after a while. The switch helps me pay attention to what I'm doing when it gets to be too automatic.

So give me some ideas on how you focus your attention to accomplish your goals.

Naomi

By Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji

 
When I was young, I listened to my head. For one who was about to enter university, said all my counsellors and classmates, the best courses are those that would give me a shining career. So I took commerce, with major in accounting, business administration, law. But when I graduated and worked as an accountant, I found it a distaste.

As the tiring years rolled on and as some intriguing thoughts ran through my mind, haunting me continuously, I began doing some research. Like a kid exploring a cave, I became excited over this new venture. Then I started putting these thoughts into a novel, a pretty experimental project for myself, simply because I have no formal training in writing or literature.

Something intrigued and fascinated me. There was that mystifying bloop sound in the South Pacific that had captivated many social websites; there were evidence of cryptozoology from our past that had troubled our scientists; there were dragon and sea-serpent stories that littered all over our diversified cultures; and there was the Leviathan, we were told, that could rise again.

And lastly, but not the least, I was intrigued as to why, in life performances, movies and novels, the Japanese often have their epitome on suicide? How are these observations connected? Are they a ring of inter-connecting information that liken to an outline of a shadowy elephant through the moonlight, or are they rather like some kind of isolated pyroclastic sparks?

Another teething question is whether some subjects are too sensitive or too traumatic that they shouldn’t be documented in text. Or could a fictional story create a truer experience or imagination for an audience?

In this venture, I found it in the affirmative in both instances. And the fact that I’m painting a possibility is precisely why this novel is written. So I began the process of planting plots, incorporating characters, establishing themes along the storyline, and eventually associating a Pekingese in my novel. I found the course of novel-building pretty elaborate and complex, but the general consensus is the same: that fiction explores my mind, explodes my imagination and opens a range of sensitive possibilities that cannot be comfortably expressed in standard text.

Writing could be fun. By creating a professor in geology, some earth science could be incorporated into the story. Professor Wulfstein developed a simulation model on his laptop, dubbed EQ-Lun, focusing on the crust relating to the Japanese archipelago. His mission, to understand what his childhood dream meant. So he shifted his study to mythology. True to his mission, he found how arts could be linked with the sciences.

Eileen O’Neil; she was a reporter for the Raging Planet magazine, interviewed Wulfstein several times in Boston and in Tokyo. She lost her husband three years back, but it set her mission to travel in Japan, joining the scientists in several of their trips, and was later emotionally attached to Wulfstein.

And there were supporting characters: Byron, a PhD candidate, a scientist by training; he believed the Sinking Syndrome is caused by the diving plates, and Nobuko, daughter of a Japanese professor, Hiroshi Yoshino. Pilot Kiichi, the skipper of the deep-sea submersible Kaiiko that disappeared. Mrs Chiyo Okino; a landlady of Eileen when she was an exchange student, mother of Captain Okino who committed seppuku. Yoriko; she discussed her Shinto belief with Eileen from her perspective of life and what it meant to her. Added to the above were cross-cultural conflicts and romance to spice the senses of my readers.

At work, my heart took over from my head, beating with my subconscious emotions, and soon I began indulging further into the project, moonlighting. I was in another world, a world I created myself. On numerous occasions, it seemed impossible to dot all the points to make it into an intelligent outline, but I kept trying. Novel writing doesn’t pay, and most of the time spent on it is unappreciated, but my heart was pumping, loudly, clearly. The cave seemed wider and deeper than anticipated; it seemed unexplored, untouched and I wondered around like a kid would.

Could we, as human, have been too slow to understanding another mystery of the universe? Could an animal like a Pekingese have better sense than us? My accounting profession suffered; I never proceeded to a full fletched chartered member as I seldom go for my regular ongoing courses that are required by members of that profession.

I was able to draw strength from a great speculative fiction writer, Arthur C Clark. He broke his thoughts outside of what were established, and became well ahead of all the encyclopaedic store of knowledge of his time. As his visions of space travel sparked the imagination of readers and scientists alike, I too, saw something strange and intrigued in my research and writing. I couldn’t stop; it seemed that I was entrusted with something. What exactly? Why? All these questions, plots and themes kept coming back.

By trying to connect all the dots in my novel, I was, indeed, trying to establish a creative form of fiction, a fiction that may possibly be another source of communication about our understanding of the mystery of the deep. “No one can predict the future,” Arthur C Clark once said, but he didn’t resist drawing up timelines for what he called “possible futures.” Yes, all the possibilities are out there. As I kept ploughing away, the image seemed more strange and puzzling than ordinary.

Few years later and in trying to get an established publisher, I got rejected by all agents. It was frustrating. But it was actually good; it forced me to keep widening and polishing my novel: plot, characterization, dialogue, themes. Now, after ten suffering years, Over Mount Fuji is published. It may succeed, or it may fail, time will tell, but whatever the outcome, I thoroughly enjoy this process of venturing under the real Pacific and onto a necklace of islands called Japan.

When I was interviewing authors for the book marketing series was to ask them what tips they had to share with other authors.  What worked for them?

"Fully utilize the internet as much as possible for free promotional opportunities. Look for sites that do interviews and book reviews (for free) but if it is a book review you are looking for make sure the site has been updated recently before sending them a copy. Also when it comes to review copies, if you can get away with sending an ebook version, by all means do, or have the publisher send a hard copy, but you shouldn't have to pay for those yourself. Look for book database sites and literary sites that let you add author listings. Amazon has one, goodreads.com, librarything.com, booktour.com, and redroom.com are just a few. Any time something happens in relation to your book: an author event, an award nomination, being selected as a finalist, or winning, a new release...pretty much anything newsworthy, write a press release and send it to all local media (print and broadcast) as well as submit it to the free press-release distribution sites on the internet. Biggest advise, though: don't give up. If you want it, work for it, and understand it's going to take a lot of hard work and for a long time you might not seem to be getting anywhere, but if you give up, you DEFINITELY won't get anywhere."--Danielle Ackley-McPhail, author and editor of the award-winning Bad-Ass Faeries Anthology series, www.sidhenadaire.com

"Go with marketing strategies that suit your personality. If you're an introvert, Facebook might work better than public speaking. If you're dyslexic (and a lot of writers are, oddly enough), don't try to write your own copy."--Shel Horowitz, marketing/publishing consultant and author of Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, http://grassrootsmarketingforauthors.com

"Marketing really is challenging, but if you can build a list, and get out there and talk about your book, that's a huge help with sales. Build your platform. Don't give up if it's really something you believe in. I have to remind myself of that all of the time."--Laura Faeth, I Found All the Parts, Healing the Soul through Rock 'n' Roll www.soundofyoursoul.com

"Be a servant and a resource for your readers."--Latayne C. Scott, author of 15 published books including The Mormon Mirage:  A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009) and Latter-day Cipher: A Novel (Moody Publishers, 2009.) Website:  www.latayne.com and http://novelmatters.blogspot.com.

"Read, Think and Reason.. a chapter from my book Cosmic Cow Pie...Connecting the Dots
Everything you need to know is on the internet.  It takes hours of time to research each step but it can be done.  I had one consultant tell me it would cost $150,000 to do what I have done for myself.  So, read the internet.  Copyrights can be done on the computer and your work submitted for $35.00 .  ISBN numbers can be purchased as well as the bar codes once you decide your marketing price.  Createspace allows you to print 1 book at a time or order in bulk.  Everything is done electronically. There are self publishing books to also help guide you through the process."--Carra Riley author of Cosmic Cow Pie...Connecting The Dots  due out fall 2009 For a free chapter of the book go to http://www.cosmiccowpie.com

Well, it happened again, Friday slipped away, so here it is Saturday and I'm posting my Friday post. I wrote this whole post in my head, but it never made it to the computer. Sorry, but hope you find it interesting.

Friday, as I told my grandson to turn off the TV for the third time, he explained he was doing his homework. That was supposed to make it okay, I guess. I began to think about the idea of multi-tasking; watching a Dr. Who marathan and doing homework, keeping an eye on a 15 month old hurricane while working on webpages, hearing Dr. Who in the background and doing laundry. Nope, it just isn't possible to focus and produce your best work as you're splitting your attention.

The split focus is the reason for new laws about teens not being on a cell phone while driving and others only on hands-free. But in truth talking on the phone, texting, eating, putting on make-up, smoking, listening to books-on-tape and at times even conversations are all pulling your focus away from your main job- -driving and keeping everyone safe. The point of all this is that to truely focus or apply your attention to one job at a time produces better results.

My own multi-tasking meant I didn't get this job done on time, so my goal for next week is to focus on projects one at a time as much as possible. How about you?

See you on the computer, soon.

Naomi

Be Your Own Best Publicist

by Joel Schwartzberg

Congratulations -- you've published a nonfiction book. But so have thousands of other writers this month alone. And with the explosion of self-publishing options in the last few years, putting your book on Amazon is like placing your prized needle in a haystack. More accurately, it's like placing your hay in a haystack. So how do you get your book exposure beyond your Mom's reading club and your own list of Facebook friends? The good news is that most authors don't know how to aggressively publicize their own books, or even that they should, so there's plenty of opportunity to separate yourself from the stack.

First, don't rely on your assigned publicist to do your marketing for you. Unless you're already famous, your publicist is about as reliable as that slacker lab partner you had in high school. Your book's best publicist is you. Think about it: You're the person most passionate and knowledgeable about the material. You're the person most invested in the book's success, and you're the person editors most want to hear from, not your publicist. So let your publicist do his/her thing if you have one, but also get busy yourself.

The following five tips (six if you add "write a damn good book!") were culled from my experiences as a new author, a public relations executive, an author publicity consultant, and a mediabistro.com instructor in this area. The success of your publicity campaign is directly related to how much time and effort you personally put into it. But spend that time wisely.

1. It's not about getting people to buy your book; it's about getting people to promote it

Sure, you can sell a few copies at a bookstore signing, but if you want to reach people en masse, you need to find individuals and media entities with built-in audiences, or as they say in the publishing business, platforms: bloggers, podcasters, magazine and newspaper editors, and radio and television producers. When you find them, remember...

2. Don't sell your book; sell your mission

No one in the media is interested in selling your book for you, unless you have blood family in the media. Professional and amateur book reviewers will review your book if they feel so inclined, but your book has to get in a very long and competitive line. For the rest of the media world, you need to sell them on something more instantly interesting then the book itself: your mission. If you haven't already defined a mission, consider how your book uniquely and superlatively counsels people, fixes an institution, saves the world, enlightens the public, or performs some compelling function other than holding up short table legs and pressing flowers. A mission implicitly sells your book, while a description merely describes it, so work your mission into all of your marketing materials. When your mission is ready for prime time...

3. Turn your mission into a sellable article

Put your writer's hat back on and create a 500-word personal essay, list of tips, Top 10 list, or a self-quiz that showcases your mission and/or expertise. These pieces, unlike your book pitch, are appealing (and sellable) to local and national newspapers, magazines, media Web sites, and some radio shows. You can then mention (and link to) your book in your byline. Having clips like these instantly improves your media credibility. Some editors advertise their editorial needs on Web sites like HARO.com (Help a Reporter Out) and PitchRate.com. I recommend registering for these free sites to catch publishing opportunities. Remember: Any media mention is a marketing ally. And speaking of marketing allies...

4. The Web is your friend, but that doesn't mean you need to start a blog

Start by creating your own book Web page using a free or low-cost Web-building site (I use Yahoo, but there are others). You should also create a Facebook fan page, and "suggest" it to as many people as possible. If you don't know how to do that, consult your teenage kid, a friend's teenage kid, or a nearby college intern (and get used to some eye-rolling).

On your Web site, place your book cover, your blurbs, your bio, and your description. Then, purchase low-cost URLs for that page using keywords related to your mission (not just your book title). For my book of collected essays on divorced fatherhood, for example, I bought "divorceddadbook.com" from GoDaddy. Insert key language as many places on the page as possible, and link back to this page on all of your published work and marketing materials. This is how I got my book's Web site at the top of Google search results for "divorced dad book."

5. Don't work for the blogosphere; put the blogosphere to work for you

Unless you've been blogging for a year with an established and loyal audience, it's just not worth it to start a blog from scratch. That's just more hay in the haystack. But established bloggers, especially those focusing on your niche (the niche-ier, the better) need a steady diet of new ideas to talk about. Often, bloggers will take a free book PDF in exchange for a link, a mention, a review, an interview, or something else that'll help promote your book to their key audience. And their key audience is your key audience. All you have to do is find them.

In my case, I researched and found bloggers who focused on fatherhood and parenthood, pitched them (armed only with a PDF, my credits, and my email charm), and was eventually featured in many of the most popular parenting blogs on the Internet. Remember: the point is not to get bloggers to buy your book; the point is to have them promote it, so don't be hesitant to send a PDF or a galley copy.

When you finished writing your book, you became more than an author; you earned a graduate degree in your book's subject, and became a foremost expert in your book's mission. It's your job and -- for the most part -- your job alone to leverage that status to get your book the kind of recognition you've already spent so much of your writing time fantasizing about.

So roll up those sleeves again, hit that laptop, grab your pitchfork, and be your own best publicist.

Joel Schwartzberg is an award-winning freelance essayist and author of "The 40-Year-Old Version: Humoirs of a Divorced Dad" www.divorceddadbook.com

Why is book marketing and promotion so difficult?

This is a question I think authors are asking everyday, but professionals in the book industry are not providing an answer.  Being that girl in class never afraid to ask questions, regardless of the groans and grumbles of my classmates, I decided to ask, and more importantly, answer.  If you are already following this series, then you know I have asked the essential questions in a survey.  If not, you can read the survey here:  add link to post.  I submitted a media query, and sent out surveys to respondent authors, asking them to please pour their hearts out about their struggles with marketing their books.  Pour their hearts out they did!  After receiving many dozens of answered surveys, I set out to distill the essence of the main question, or what I thought was the main question:  

2) What were the top 3-5 challenges you have encountered in marketing and promoting yourbook(s)?  (these can be internal or external)  The intention here was to use these 3- 5 challenges to focus the series, and get to the bottom of the difficulty.

Answers varied in wording and tone but themes began to emerge.  Although I know the topics are general, I think you will agree author marketing challenges all seem to fall under one of these categories.  Don't worry, I will break them down in detail, as we explore each topic.  Drum Roll, please!  The winners are:

   1. Cost/Money
   2. The Learning Curve
   3. Time/Balance
   4. Personality
   5. Technology

The unexpected and interesting tidbit the survey uncovered, is that there are some other areas that need to be explored.  I assumed the $64,000 question was about the challenges, but when reading the answers the big picture became clear.  All of the questions on the survey really expose the whole experience.  With this realization, I have decided to expand the series to also delve into these topics, extracted from the other survey questions:

   1. Authors' expectations--going into the author biz, knowing what to expect
   2. Scams, Spam & Cons
   3. Marketing Plans for Authors
   4. Publishing Options:  Pros and Cons of each method
   5. Authors' chance to ask specific questions
      
Over the next ten weeks, each topic will be explored and discussed.  I will bring you experts who can offer their solutions, and authors who will express their experiences.  I will ask the hard questions.  I hope to encourage discussion; you know me:  CONVERSATION!  I hope this is an open forum, as well as a useful, unbiased tool which will genuinely help authors.  If you have question, an answer,  or would like to have your experiences added to the survey group, don't hesitate to contact me:  Renee@stimulating-conversation.com, or call  979-209-0436.

Please help me in supporting the authors who took the time to help with this research, and whom you will be hearing more from and about over the next ten weeks:
Alphabetical list of author's names and links

• Danielle Ackley-McPhail, author and editor of the award-winning Bad-Ass Faeries Anthology series, www.sidhenadaire.com
• Lucy Adams, author of If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny, www.IfMama.com.
• Sybil Baker, The Life Plan, www.sybilbaker.com
• Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem M.Ed., Author/publisher of Questing Marilyn, Questing France, and Questing Home  http://www.questpublishing.ca
• Carolyn Bartz, author of "Secrets of Cat Attitude Revealed" http://www.secretsofcatattituderevealed.com "Living Your Passion with Perseverance and Purpose"
• C. Robert Beale, author.  A Silly Flop-Flipping Parade http://crobertbeale.home.comcast.net
• Bill Brazell, co-author, "He Meant, She Meant: The Definitive Male-Female Dictionary."  www.kennythekidney.com
• Lillian Brummet: co-author of the books Trash Talk and Purple Snowflake Marketing, author of Towards Understanding; manager of 2 blogs & a newsletter, host of both the Conscious Discussions talk radio show & the Authors Read radio program - www.brummet.ca
• Dr. Gloria J. Burgess, award-winning writer and poet, and best-selling author of Legacy Living and her latest book: Dare to Wear Your Soul on the Outside, www.gloriaburgess.com, http://gloriaburgess.wordpress.com/.
• Lori Chance, author of Who Am I? How to Answer the Single Most Important Question You’ll Ever Ask and mentor to first-time authors of nonfiction. http://www.lorichance.com or find me on facebook at http://www.fbook.me/lorichance.
• Professor Mark Changizi, author of: The Vision Revolution (Benbella Books)http://www.changizi.com
• Doug M. Cummings, author of the Reno McCarthy crime novels. www.everysecretcrime.com
• Janet O. Dallett, Ph.D.  Listening to The Rhino: Violence and Healing in a Scientific Age publisher www.pleasureboatstudio.com or www.junginpt.com
• Wayne English, Wayne English, Web content expert and author of Web Content Rx: A Quick and Handy Guide for Writers, Webmasters, Ebayers, and Business People, www.webcontentrx.com.
• Laura Faeth, I Found All the Parts, Healing the Soul through Rock 'n' Roll www.soundofyoursoul.com
• Renee Fisher co-author, Saving the Best For Last: Creating Our Lives After 50 co-author, Invisible No More: The Secret Lives of Women Over 50 www.invisiblenomore.com DC Boomer Humor Columnist, www.examiner.com
• Eileen Flanagan, author of The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When to Make a Change–and When to Let Go, http://www.eileenflanagan.com
• Anna Florin, independent writer and publisher at www.FeatherwoodPublishing.com
• Elizabeth Fournier, author of "All Men Are Cremated Equal: My 77 Blind Dates." www.elizabethfournier.com
• Prof. James Andrew Freeman, author of "Liars' Tales of True Love," (www.publishamerica.com) "Parade of Days," (www.Xlibris.com) "Never the Same River Twice," (www.amazon.com) and "Ishi's Journey" (www.Nautregraph.com) .
• Sonia Pressman Fuentes, author of Eat First—You Don’t Know What They’ll Give You, The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter. http://www.erraticimpact.com/fuentes
• Diane Griffith, Chasing Dreams in Lefkas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn5hQiD6-Aw www.eloquentbooks.com/ChasingDreamsInLefkas.html
• Michael J. Gyulai, author of Midnight in Rome, www.midnightinrome.com
• LeeAnne Hanks author of "Within the Flame" a YA Fiction. www.booksmithleeanne.blogspot.com
• Carol Hoenig, “Without Grace” and “The Author’s Guide to Planning Book Events”www.carolhoenig.com.
• Shel Horowitz, marketing/publishing consultant and author of Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, http://grassrootsmarketingforauthors.com
• Emyl Jenkins, The Big Steal (Algonquin Books), www.emyljenkins.com
• Nancy A Kaiser author of Letting Go: An Ordinary Woman’s Extraordinary Journey of Healing & Transformation www.NancyKaiserAnimalCommunicator.com
• Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed., is an expert on the psychology of eating. Her latest book is NICE GIRLS FINISH FAT--PUT YOURSELF FIRST AND CHANGE YOUR EATING FOREVER. Visit her websites at http://www.eatingnormal.com and http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com.
• Danny Kofke, author How To Survive (and perhaps thrive) On A Teacher's Salary
  www.dannykofke.blogspot.com
• Terry Kohl, author of Lost Your Job? Now What! www.lostyourjobnowwhat.com
• Sid Korpi, Good Grief: Finding Peace After Pet Loss; http//www.goodgriefpetloss.com
• Cecelia Leeman author of Christmas in Heaven
  
• Nikki Leigh - Award Winning Fiction and Non Fiction Author Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing http://www.nikkileigh.com  & http://www.virtualblogtour.blogspot.com
• Rona Lewis, celebrity fitness trainer and healthy gourmet cook; "Does This Cookbook Make Me Look Fat?  Healthy Recipes Even HE Will Eat!"  www.doesthiscookbookmakemelookfat.com.
• Emily Liebert; Facebook Fairytales: Modern-Day Miracles to Inspire the Human Spirit; www.emilyliebert.com & www.facebook.com/facebookfairytales
• Will Limkemann, author, business advisor, speaker www.doublewarepub.com
• Kimberly Llewellyn Latest release: The Quest for the Holy Veil www.KimberlyLlewellyn.com aka "The Wedding Writer"
• Harold Longs "God Are You Mad At Me?" http://www.strategicbookpublishing.com/godareyoumadatme.html
• Cynthia MacGregor is the author of 54 conventionally published books and 27 forthcoming e-books. Her website is www.cynthiamacgregor.com
• Susan E. Mead, Master Herbalist and award winning  author of Take Back Your Body. www.SusanEMead.com
• Brenda Nixon, M.A., www.BrendaNixon.com Conference Speaker and Author of The Birth to Five Book
• Jill Nussinow, The Veggie Queen™, The Veggie Queen™: Vegetables Get the Royal Treatment, http://www.theveggiequeen.com.
• Michael J. O'Neal, author of Crazy Bett, a novel of Civil War espionage. www.crazybett.com
• Julie Papievis, author, Go Back and Be Happy www.GoBackandBeHappy.com speaker, mentor, advocate for those experiencing a sudden change in life
• Norma Pimenta, Smiling Eyes, A Cheerleading Coach’s Personal Victory, www.normapimenta.com
• J.L. Smith Reporting for Doodie:  One Grandmother's Story of Commitment, Frustration and Unwavering Love www.ReportingForDoodie.com
• Meri Ramey-Gray Mother, Author, Speaker and Life Advocate 'Babies' Guide to Parents (and other important people)' http://www.babiesguide.net
• Bill Raney, "Letters to Zerky, a Father's Legacy to a Lost Son and a Road Trip Around the World," a travel memoir,  www.LettersToZerky.com.
• Pauli Reading Sherlock McBiskit Shares His Secrets to Good Character and Respect HTTP://WWW.SHERLOCKMCBISKIT.COM.
• Carra Riley author of Cosmic Cow Pie...Connecting The Dots  due out fall 2009 For a free chapter of the book go to http://www.cosmiccowpie.com
• Jeff Rivera is a published author (Grand Central Publishing) and founder of http://www.GumboWriters.com
• Rick Robinson, author of The Maximum Contribution, Sniper Bid and Manifest Destiny (due out in spring 2010) www.publisherpage.com
• Jill Russo Foster www.CashCreditandYourFinances.com Speaker and Author of Cash, Credit and Your Finances: The Teen Years
• Lisa Ann Schreier The Timeshare Crusader "Surviving A Timeshare Presentation...Confessions From The Sales Table" www.timeshareinsights.com
• Joel Schwartzberg is an award-winning essayist, book marketing teacher, and author of "The 40-Year-Old Version: Humiors of a Divorced Dad" (www.divorceddadbook.com)
• Latayne C. Scott, author of 15 published books including The Mormon Mirage:  A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009) and Latter-day Cipher: A Novel (Moody Publishers, 2009.) Website:  www.latayne.com and http://novelmatters.blogspot.com.
• Dani Silberman The Three Monkey Brothers http://bit.ly/j2661 http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53728126375&ref=ts
• C.L. Talmadge, author, Green Stone of Healing® series. www.greenstoneofhealing.com
• Gayle Trent, Cozy Mystery Writer, http://www.gayletrent.com
• Gary Unger Author of "How To Be A Creative Genius (in five minutes or less)" www.garyunger.com and http://tinyurl.com/Unger-Amazon
• Adrienne van Dooren Author of the book in support of Katrina victims-The House that Faux Built: Transform Your Home with Paint, Plaster and Creativity in bookstores & Amazon now Free chapter download at www.fauxhouse.com
• Carol Vinzant, author of Meet Me in the Gloaming, published by www.tatepublishing.com. Out of the twilight of the Great Depression dawns an unforgettable story of love.

Have you ever lost a day? Well, I seem to have lost Friday. I had planned what I was going to write about but somehow the day went by without my producing the blog. So today will be the Friday Focus on Saturday.

Publishers and agents talk a great deal about a "writer's platform" and its importance. But many new authors are like the author who said, he didn't have time to build a platform. He was busy writing and wasn't good with a hammer and nails anyway. Yes, a platform is important, even essential, but first you need to know what it is in order to build one.

A writer's platform is how well known you are for your writing, speaking, seminars, etc. The goal is to have a presence on the web and get your name spread around. Sounds like a daunting task for a new writer, but social media networking has made this much easier. Not easy but easier.

Here are a few starting points:

• Have a blog/website that you update regularly so people will want to return

• Comment on other blogs and sites in your area of interest or expertise

• Become a guest blogger on sites you admire or are in your field

• Get links to and from your site to revelent sites.

• Talk to people, everyone you know and don't know- -hand out book marks or business cards with your contact information and website

• Offer programs/seminars for free to get the clips for your site. It's like creating a resume, but more fun and varied.

• To get started you might want to do some mind mapping using youfself as the center and build out with all the people and groups you have contact with. You'll be surprised at how many people you know or have connections with.

• Keep writing and building, your platform will appear.

Good luck and see you on the computer.

Naomi

We were honored to be able to post a guest blog for Tony Eldridge's Marketing Tips for Authors. Tony shares his book marketing tips with fellow authors through his blog and through free weekly video marketing tips for authors. It is his goal, like ours, to help authors market their books more effectively. Thank you Tony for allowing Stimulating Conversation to be a part of your site.

By Renee Giroux

The benchmark of book marketing is the art of conversation. On rare occasions conversation is started for us, but much of that happens by luck and timing. When Kaylene Johnson wrote her book, Palin: How a Hockey Mom turned the Political Establishment Upside Down, neither she nor her publisher even imagined Ms Palin would be running for Vice President. Timing and luck at work. But banking on your book being thrust into the forefront of media is like basing your retirement on lottery winnings without buying a ticket.

Authors must do their part in getting the conversation about their books going and keep it flowing. Today the Internet offers free to inexpensive opportunities to let the world know about you, the author, and your works. Here are some relatively painless and often fun ideas to get people talking about your book. The key is staying current and interesting.

1. Take a step back and look at your book. Look deeper than the characters you love, the intricacies of the story line, and the amazing ending. Think about the trials and tribulations you endured while writing the book, the research you delved into to develop a believable story. Readers love to hear the back story, how the author learned about a little known detail used to make a scene realistic.

Recall any situations or comments made where you were torturing your significant other to reread, or worse, listen to you reread the text for the four hundredth time. Turn these into to anecdotes that are fun or touching. Think about the days when you were madly in love with the story, and the days when you never wanted to think about it again, and maybe you decided you might prefer any other job than being a writer. Write down these little vignettes. They are interesting to your readers. I know, that seems strange to you, but it humanizes you, makes you a richer person and far more interesting.

Keep these gems tucked away for the really great interviews or for blogging days when you feel stuck. Believe me, when you're on Oprah or Fresh Air, you don't want to repeat the blurb on your book's back cover or press release. Keep it fresh and current, remember. Keep notes or a journal you can refer to with enough of an opener to jog your memory about a story and tell it with conviction.

2. If you are not already on the HARO board, sign up now. I mean right now, go there, sign up and you can come back and finish this article. HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out. It is a free, genuinely altruistic service that you can read about in detail on the board. The really amazing thing about this service is that thousands of journalists use the free, yet very well connected, service to find contacts and experts for their stories. Everyday you get a nice handful of emails which list in a very organized fashion stories journalists are seeking experts for interviews or some other help. The cool thing is that one day you will be reading across your HARO email, and shazaam! a journalist will be looking for you!

Don't waste your time trying to fit your square peg in a round hole with HARO. Realize that everyday there are hundreds of requests sent. After reading them for a day or two you will see the variety and the mainstream outlets who use the board. You will have more faith that your area of expertise will be listed. On that day, pitch your heart out to the requesting journalist. With luck and timing, your name will appear in a regional or national outlet.

3. Search for your genre specific blogs and follow them. Even more important, make comments, ask questions, interact with the members. Let people know who you are and how to find you. Use a good signature line with your name, contact information and maybe even list your last book or two. Look at other authors' signature lines and model yours after the ones you like. You can use slightly different ones on different sites, but always keep your name and contact information the same.

Check out the rest of Renee's tips for Stimulating Conversation here.

When I update our social media sites with information about our weekly author interviews for Ijustfinished, I always see a number of people say they are "too far away" from Ijustfinished to attend the interview.  And every week, I have to point out that all of our interviews are online and ask Renee if there is something I am not seeing on our event walls about the interviews being in Texas.  You would think that by putting online in all capital letters 3 times on the event that people on Facebook would understand.  Finally today someone other than me pointed it out. He commented on our "Coffee with an Author" event on Facebook with this: "I wonder if people understand that this is online..." Thank you!

So the real point of this story, other than the theme for Wednesday's Wit & Whimsy, is that I am realizing more and more how times are changing.  Obvious, I know, but it really is amazing how over the past few years, we have come to rely on the internet for so many things.  I'm sure there is still a huge group of traditional people who have not come to realize the power of the internet (they are probably the ones who are saying they are too far away from Texas), but for the most part, both businesses and personal lives are moving online. 

This move has changed the way people do business, especially in the book world. It is our goal at Stimulating Conversation to help authors realize the power of having a website, and utilizing the blogging and social media services that are available.  With the Internet's ability to reach people all over the world, we can help you implement effective online marketing strategies. 

Happy Hump Day!

As a Programmer / Web Developer things just make sense to me. I know that when I write in MS Word that the underlying code is disgusting and never should be blatantly copy and pasted into an online editor but not everyone is a programmer and not everyone wants to understand how the web works. They just want it to work.

So the problem becomes "how do I create an easy to use solution that people will use to clean their content before they upload it to the web?" The solution is to create a free program that will link to our CMS (content management system) and give it to all our customers to use to upload their content to the web. The program will ask if an author would like to upload a file, then the program would strip the crap out and BAM we have clean HTML.

Not many people get excited about this kind of stuff but I do? It makes life fun.

I am writing this program in Python and right now it only works in Windows but it shouldn't be to hard to port it to Linux/Mac in the future.

Right now the program doesn't link to the website it just takes your .doc file and then spits out your HTML into a box that you can copy and paste.

Stay tuned for updates on how this is turning out.

PS Sorry about the late post and I wrote this in MS Word and then exported the HTML with the program I wrote! 

Last week I had writer's block.  I needed inspiration.  I asked Naomi, and she suggested the topic of "Why is promoting your book and book marketing so difficult".  Great topic.  I started writing, and felt like I was writing all my personal assumptions, but I had not actual facts, only the many conversations with authors over the last couple of years. 

1. What were your expectations for your book regarding the marketing and sales of it, when you originally published?
2. What were the top 3-5 challenges you have encountered in marketing and promoting your book(s)?  (these can be internal or external)
3. What have you found that has worked for you, if anything?
4. Have you found anything that you felt was a con, spam, or generally scammy that you would like to caution others about?
5. Did you use a marketing plan?
6. What publishing route(s) have you used?
7. How much money out of your own pocket have you spent? Guesstimates are fine.
8. Any other questions that you have that you would like me to research for the article?
9. Your tips for other authors.  (This is actually going to be it's own article, but since I have you, I want to compile a list of tips from those who have been there, and your tip will remain a direct quote, with a link to your site and name.)
10. How would you like to be credited in the article?  (name, book title, and link, etc.  I cannot include all 100+ bios and back-stories, sorry)

It's Friday, the beginning of one of the few weekends left before school starts. School includes grade school all the way to college and effects students, teachers, drivers and shopping. School has economic, social, and psychological impacts. So since the summer break for most of us is about to come to an end, I thought I'd focus on enjoyment of the less structored life-style of summer.

By now the kids are tired of running free and looking for things to do. Parents are looking forward to not having to find ways to entertain the kids. So before the heat and the extensive togetherness of summer vaction makes us all a little crazy, lets focus on one last fun outting with the family.

We have spent this summmer trying to work and be there for the kids. Carting them to and from the pools and activities, so let's just look for a minute at something fun for everyone. The last fling of summer.

Consider getting away for just a day or an overnight, planned with nothing to do, but enjoy relaxing with each other. It can be a day at the pool for everyone, not just the kids. A picnic in the park that everyone contributes to, canoing on an area lake or a national park adventure. A movie marathon at home with popcorn and a movie selected by each member then critqued by all, can be an easy fun way to enjoy each other.

Summer is ending (not the heat) and life will become less carefree, more regimented for most of us. Take one of these few remaining weekends and focus on relaxing with those you care about.

Naomi

A tip from author Sheila Lowe

With the rising popularity of social media for personal use and business use, it is important to let your personality shine in each of your accounts.  There are over 200 million active users on Facebook alone, so being able to stand out among these is very important.  For Stimulating Conversation we use Facebook, Gather, Twitter, Goodreads, and LinkedIn.  We have to make sure that our brand and image are being represented and looked at among all of these outlets.  Since this is all obviously on the internet, it is important that a business expresses themselves.  Here are a few tips to help in doing this:

• Make sure your logo/image is the same across all social media sites.
• Keep each site updated so that users know effort is being put in.
• Use applications on Facebook such as Graffiti to keep others interested.
• Join as many groups as you can that are applicable to your business and keep updated with events within those.
• Hold events, such as interviews or contests, to keep people involved.

The limits are endless when using social media sites, so get out there and get involved with each of them.  Remember to express the personality of your business so others can know who you are!

Check out our profiles: Facebook, Gather, Twitter, Goodreads, & LinkedIn.

Howdy everyone! Today's is Techy Tuesday and since I am the "techy" guy around here I have been dubbed with the responsibility to tell you all things Techy! What a great way to let y'all into my world. Oh how confusing and lovely it is but to get back on topic here. I want to share with y'all our new look! It is still undergoing changes but it is here and will be released by Wedensday.

We are excited to launch this new professional look. We have hired a great design firm and have been using them for all our recent sites including Gary Giroux's website. I encourage you to check it out and see the high quality designs we are going to be producing from now on.

I am no writer so I am going to end this post for today. I hope you enjoyed the screenshot and look forward to the new site on Wednesday!

Play Hard, Play Fair and Have Fun

Every author should have a website.  I think that is a safe statement, although I am sure there are exceptions.  But I need to take it one step further:  Every author should have a useful and functional website. 

As many of you know, Stimulating Conversation was founded in large part after our sister site, IJustFinished.com, was already successfully up and going strong.  On IJustFinished.com, we host two author interviews every week.  We do not charge anyone for those interviews, and take the promotion and marketing of the authors' interviews very seriously.  We make every attempt to help those authors reach out to their readers and possibly open up to new ones. 

Here's where the soap box comes out, so settle in.  My staff and I have become quite proficient at assessing a website, obtaining the relevant information, and re-purposing it to help market the author.  That is standard fare for most media outlets.  When a website is done correctly it serves it's owner and readers well.  When it is done badly, the results are punishing! I do want to qualify here and say that the site does not have to be gorgeous, or flashy, or even clever.  All of those things are really nice, but most of all it needs to have the basic anatomy for media and readers to be able to use the site effectively.

Essential anatomy of an author's website is:

1. Your name (author's name) generally used as a logo on all pages. Your name should also be your domain name.  This helps with Branding and SEO. Sometimes, when your name is not available you can use something like www.johnsmithauthor.com or www.johnsmithwrites.com.  You get the idea. Try not to be too clever.  Generally people searching for you will use logic over wit.
2. Navigation is the most essential piece of the website design.  Navigation should be straight forward, and easy to understand.  You may be very funny or clever, but save that for your content, interviews, and books.  People need to clearly, easily, and logically find their way around your site.  The navigation needs to begin above the fold, and should not be difficult to locate.  Websites that Suck coined the term Mystery Meat Navigation.  If you are in any way not clear on navigation, or are just curious if your site uses Mystery Meat Navigation, check out the site. 
3. Your Book.  I know that seems like an obvious statement, but honestly you would be surprised.  You should have an image of your book, and at least one way to buy your book.  A ton of online retailers make it very simple.  There are even IndieBound booksellers happy to provide you with that service, if you are wanting to promote independent booksellers.
4. About You.  People want to know about you.  You should have a bio.  That is an essential part of your marketing plan anyway, so go ahead reuse that essay you already wrote.  Here is where you can be clever and fun.  Your readers want to know about you and your personality.  
5. Your Image.  I am a huge advocate for a professional photo, not a snapshot of you in your kitchen, but a well thought out picture.  I have met many authors who either write under a pen name, or who otherwise would rather not have their photo posted for the world.  I understand.  I have seen many clever alternatives to the photo.  One of my favorites is a sketch drawing.  A stylized photo would work.  Keep in mind, if a major press outlet was doing a story on you, what image would you want them to use to represent you.  Having your image on your website, even if only on the media page, helps media outlets promote you.  
6. Contact information.  Again, I know that this seems obvious, and every website handles contact info a little differently.  You can make a contact form easily, even in the free templates, but it is also just fine to have a narrative page.  Some authors list the different contact names and info for themselves, their assistant, their agent, their PR rep, and their publisher.  If you are not comfortable with listing your email with a 'mail to' link attached, then spell it out. (i.e.:  renee AT stimulating DASH conversation DOT com.  Regardless of how to you present the information, always include your contact information.
7. A link to your publisher.  Even if you are self published, people should be able to access that information from your website.  
8. A Media Page.  You may just be starting out, and not yet have tons of interviews or press to include, but please, expect that you will and leave a place for it on your website.  The media page can include links to all your media coverage, information for media to use for interviews,  Virtual press kits, your press releases, or optional images if you have them.  Anything you would like Oprah's or Terry Gross's staff to know when they are researching you for your interview.
9. A Site Map is usually included with most DIY services.  Any professional site is going to have the site map done for you, so don't stress over it too much, but understand that the search engines use the site map, hence it's importance.
10. Title Tags and Metadata are technical terms for the small details that you don't realize we use.  Title tags, for example, are the titles on the page at the very top of the browser window.  For sites that don't have title tags, generic information renders where the title should be. Another example of metadata populates the small paragraph you read when looking at search engine results.  These details seem small, but when they are not included they make a site look unprofessional, and more importantly, they make it very difficult for your site to be found by search engines, and in turn readers and media.  Wiki explains, but technically. If you have questions about your site's metadata, feel free to ask, we can help you identify it, and edit it if needed. 

I want to emphasize that regardless of whether you create your own website from a template, use a free blog platform, hire a professional web developer, or hire your brother-in-law, please think through the needs of your site before starting.  Try to step back and see your site through the users point of view and expect press and readers to visit your site to get more information about you.

Happy Website Developing,

In honor of focusing, I'd like to share an article from Barbara Whitlock. She posted Tips for (and Benefits of) Finding a Writing Niche on Helium. Ms. Whitlock explains why discovering your writing nich can be a lucerative way to become an experts and get noticed as a writer. Her article provides an easy to follow outline to ensure your success.

Thank you, Ms. Whitlock for a terrific informative article.

Link: www.heliumblog.wordpress.com    then search for the title and/or author.

Nala was a big help at our Team meeting.

Since my newly-declawed and spayed kitten Nala was still recovering from surgery, she tagged along at our Team meeting on Saturday.  She is a complete mess and as you can see, she had a lot to contribute. 

We got a lot accomplished and are on our way to better organizing our tasks and duties. I might just have to bring her along to all of our Team meetings.

There are many websites I check daily and one of them is engadget. Today there was a post that peaked my interest and it was about a team of researchers that taught a robot to have collison detection with real life objects. Well, pink and blue construction paper... but its a start!

Check out the whole article here!

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/04/researchers-teach-asimo-and-hrp-2-a-bit-of-real-life-frogger/

Now that your website is live it's time to get your profile on every FREE site for authors. Your name, brand and profile need to appear in all the places where writers and readers gather.  The other important factor is that all of these important sites provide your site with a link back, from a high ranking book website.  That is the basics of gaining high SEO ranking.

The following sites offer authors a FREE service, so take advantage. Get your name out there! 

Amazon's Author Central:  Amazon loves books, and books begin with authors. As an author, you are part of a special community at Amazon. At Author Central, you have the opportunity to share the most up-to-date information about yourself and your work with your readers -- you can view and edit your bibliography, add a photo and biography to a personal profile, and use a blog to connect with readers. 

If you’re an author with a book listed in our catalog, you are eligible to join Author Central. You can use your Amazon.com customer account to get started (or create a new one if needed).

BookTour:  Events in BookTour’s database are sent to online calendars and our partner book-friendly sites. Adding your events to BookTour is the quickest way to get them seen by thousands of potential new readers.

Filedby.com:  Any author with a book published in the U.S. or Canada can join for free, manage and enhance their pages, promote their books, check for accuracy, provide corrections and much more. The company was started to provide every author with the tools to market successfully on the web.

Goodreads Author Program:  Much like MySpace Bands pages, the Goodreads Authors program is a completely free feature designed to help authors reach their target audience — passionate readers. This is the perfect place for new and established authors to promote their books.

The Authors Program is designed for people with published books, or who are in the process of publishing a book. It's best if your work is on a bookseller's site like Amazon, but we will accept any author who has published a book. This includes authors from other countries as well as authors who are self-published (such as through Ebooks or services like Lulu). If your book is self-published and is not yet in the Goodreads database, you may manually add it.

If you are a writer but have not yet published a book, you may want to check out the writing section of your profile where you can post your writing for others to read and review.

Authors Den:  The largest most vibrant free online literary community of authors and readers!  Visited by 1,400,000+ readers/mo. Authors:  participate and you will reach many readers. Share your bio, books, blog, events, stories, articles, poetry and drive traffic to your other websites.

Librarything:  LibraryThing is a great place for authors to connect on a personal level with their readers. If you're also a LibraryThing member, then become an official LibraryThing Author, and showcase some of your personal books for interested readers.

Sign up to participate in an Author Chat.

Use LibraryThing Local to your advantage. Add readings and upcoming talks to the "Events" section on your author page, so readers know where to find you.

Linkedin:  is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.

I can't say enough about LinkedIn, here are several articles and posts explaining why authors should be here:

• http://michellerafter.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/how-writers-can-use-linkedin/
• http://www.fundsforwriters.com/linkedin.htm
• http://writeitdown.groupsite.com/
• http://www.authortechtips.com/2009/07/4-reasons-why-every-author-should-use-linkedin/

Shelfari:  introduces readers to our global community of book lovers and encourages them to share their literary inclinations and passions with peers, friends, and total strangers (for now). Shelfari is a gathering place for authors, aspiring authors, publishers, and readers, and has many tools and features to help these groups connect with each other in a fun and engaging way. Our mission is to enhance the experience of reading by connecting readers in meaningful conversations about the published word.

Requires you create a "profile" and then request to link your profile with your author page you may have to request that your book be added to their datadase.  Their Author Unbound Program allows any member to edit or add to the author's page.

Barnes & Noble:   Meet the Writers:   If you'd like to be considered for Meet the Writers, send an email to writers@book.com

A Directory of Authors on Twitter: Authors request their twitter account be added.

BookBuzzr:  A portable author website in the form of an embeddable book-widget that's shareable across multiple social networks. And with book-pages that look and act like pages from a real book.This is a nifty, free widget to add more flair to your virtual presence.

Storycasting.com:  is a site for members to "cast" their dream cast for their favorite books.
<- 25-30% of readers already do this casting thing in some way, and so all we're doing is web-enabling an existing casual hobby. Even if the author isn't one of these 'casual caster' types, they should know that a significant portion of their readers are, and so it's worth it, in terms of the reader/author connection, to post a cast of their own and send their fans. It's a hook, and if you don't use an available hook (especially when it's free), you're just missing out.
- It's a great source of information to blog about. They can blog about their cast, they can make a blog contest using Storycasting, they can later blog about all their fans' casts, etc.
- Storycasting.com is starting to engage with the publishers, by this winter you're going to see publishers using their publicity engine to send readers to the site as part of their launch and genre push.
- Storycasting should be on the list of things every fiction author and publisher does as part of their book promotion process.

Interested authors may email:  Holly,author support intern, who will get them and their books set up on the site, and get them an author account so they can cast. Needed are:  author, title, synopsis, and cover-art; Storycasting.com can get all that from their website, or from Amazon. If they don't have a website or aren't on Amazon, they need to send that directly (please limit synopsis to ~85 words). Either way, Storycasting.com will put the books in, with the links to Amazon, and a link to their website or blog.

If you learn of other places that authors can post for free please let us know. Spread the word.

Happy Marketing!

Focusing is much easier when you have a target. In fact it can be almost impossible to achieve focus without a target. So today still being Friday my focus is to get my blog spot written before the day turns over.

I have a very good friend, who bought a copy of  No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty and decided to take the 30 day challenge. Now this friend is a writer, but she has always written non-fiction and opinion pieces, so this was a challenge in many ways for her. She very carefully calculated how many words she had to write each day to reach her goal, choose a starting date which generated a finish date. Then she told a select group of friends about her project including her incremental goals. The role of the friends was that of cheerleader; to encourage, congratulate, keep her moving and reward her hard work. She sent daily word counts by text messages to keep everyone current. Even with the texts, I still made a point to ask her how many words she had written and how her story was doing. Only a couple of times did her focus waver. She was able to pull it together and reach her goal a day ahead of time. She is very excited and now wants to write another book.

As writers we all know that her book is far from finished in the sense of being in a publishable state, but she reached her goal. Her focus was gauged to smaller easily achievable goals. She reported on her progress and allowed others to help keep her motivated.
It all goes back to that old saying about living life one step at a time, one day at a time. Our focus would be stronger or conviction more determined if we chose our goals carefully and staged them well.


So it's still Friday and I've said my piece. Now, go forth and achieve your focused goals!

We ran across this fun little quiz, and could not help it, we had to pass it on to you:

Which Crazy Writer Are You?

Enjoy!

If you are not already on LinkedIn, here is a great little article on why you should be:

http://www.authortechtips.com/2009/07/4-reasons-why-every-author-should-use-linkedin/

Enjoy, and don't forget to link to me on LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/reneegiroux

I have just now at 11 o'clock at night come to the realization that it is and shortly won't be Friday. To say my focus wasn't on work goals today would be an understatement. When we strive to accomplish our goals we need to remember they aren't all work or career based. For me today was a personal day of focus.

Our lives do need a semblance of balance among all the aspects of our lives. Our goals should reflect this balance. Most of the time we can keep each area of our lives in their neat little compartments and work on those related goals at designated times. But, there are times that life interferes. You know the old saying, "the best laid plans, etc, etc."  So accept the happenings of life and look to the new day to start again.

Goals are great things to have. They give us purpose and keep us moving (some of us getting up in the morning). They require focus, energy and dedication to be achieved. Sometimes our time frame for the resolution isn't what the universe has decreed. Accept and move to the new day. Focus on the projects of that new start.

I bid you all "good night" on this some what un-focused Friday and hope your weekend will bring you closer to your goals.

In honor of Robert and I both getting new kittens:

Excerpts from a Dog's Diary......

• 8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
• 9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
• 9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
• 10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
• 12:00 pm - Lunch! My favorite thing!
• 1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
• 3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
• 5:00 pm - Milk Bones! My favorite thing!
• 7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
• 8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
• 11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from a Cat's Daily Diary...

Day 983 of my captivity...
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.  They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets.  Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.  In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet.  I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of.  However, they merely made condescending comments about what a 'good little hunter' I am.  

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight.  I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event.  However, I could hear the noises and smell the food.  I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of 'allergies.'  I must learn what this means and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking.  I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.  The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return.  He is obviously retarded.

The bird has got to be an informant.  I observe him communicating with the guards regularly.  I am certain that he reports my every move.  My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe.  For now................

Booksquare University is offering Tweet Camp specificially for the authors and book minded. Check it out:

Are you serious about books and publishing? Then you owe it to yourself to be on Twitter

Twitter is the best way for you to plug into the publishing industry. Whether you're an author, agent, editor, publisher, publicist, or bookseller, Twitter helps you make the right connections.

Like a great cocktail party, Twitter provides an unparalleled networking opportunity: connect with the right people, participate in the best conferences and events, and hear about the latest industry news and trends...first.

Twitter is about more than what you ate for breakfast

Between the endless media hype and non-stop celebrity tweeting frenzy, it's easy to be skeptical about Twitter.

Not everyone wants to tell the world what they're doing at any given moment. And most of us have no interest in listening to the unfiltered thoughts of b-list celebrities.

Fortunately there's a lot more to Twitter than answering the question "what are you doing now?" (and you're under no obligation to follow Ashton or Britney).

Twitter power users:

• Network with their peers.
• Stay current on the latest industry developments.
• Follow conferences and live events like BEA, TOC, and SXSW as they happen.
• Participate in interesting group discussions like the Twitter Book Club and Follow the Reader
• Use Twitter's real-time search for research, technical support, and information on a wide range of issues.

Best of all, real people just like you use Twitter to meet interesting people and make new friends.

The problem with Twitter

Twitter is the world's fastest growing social network, but it's still largely misunderstood and misused. Despite Twitter's apparent simplicity, it isn't always easy to understand what Twitter is or how it's supposed to work.

As a result, most people miss out on the opportunities Twitter offers. Some people avoid Twitter altogether, while others sign up for the service, quickly abandoning it after failing to grasp the basics. It's an unfortunate missed opportunity.

The only thing worse than wasting your time on Twitter is not using Twitter at all.

Tweet Camp to the rescue

Booksquare University's Tweet Camp is an online workshop designed to help you get up to speed quickly and have you tweeting like a pro in no time.

Booksquare University is a new way for authors and publishing industry professionals to keep up with the rapidly evolving world of social media. Our online workshops mix multimedia content and online interaction to teach participants the essential elements of social media. Our emphasis on practical applications and real-world uses ensures that you learn what you need to know while avoiding embarrassing and time-wasting mistakes.

Advantages of Tweet Camp:

• Learn at home.
• Study at your own pace.
• Interact with Tweet Camp counselors and fellow workshop participants in our member forum.
• Our in-depth videos demonstrate the essential concepts and walk you though the basics. It's like sitting next to a master trainer.

Who is Tweet Camp for?

Tweet Camp is designed specifically for authors and publishing industry professionals, including agents, editors, publishers, publicists, and booksellers.

If you've never used Twitter, but you're interested, Tweet Camp is for you

If you use Twitter, but you still don't quite get it, Tweet Camp is for you.

Get up to speed quickly and start using the full power of Twitter today

Tweet Camp provides you with the essential skills you need to make the most of Twitter.

• Our introduction to Twitter guides you through the sign-up process quickly and efficiently.
• Important tips on how to make a great first impression.
• Learn all about the various types of messages on Twitter, including when and how to use each. We take special care to help you avoid of the most common mistakes.
• Learn how to find your tribe and build a following of interesting people.
• Discover the power of Twitter search. Frequently called Twitter's killer feature, Twitter search is a phenomenal tool for finding conversations, following live events, and connecting with the right people.
• An overview of the best free Twitter applications to help you save time and improve your Twitter experience.
• Twitter etiquette tips help you avoid coming off like a rude party guest.

Get instant access to over an hour of instructional video, more than a dozen high quality articles, guidance from the Tweet Camp counselors in our member forum, and the Tweet Camp Activities workbook.

Testimonials

Don't take our word for it -- here is what previous Booksquare University graduates have to say about Tweet Camp:

Sign-up Today

Sign me up for full access to the online Tweet Camp workshop today. I understand that I will have full access to the Tweet Camp training environment and member forum for 15 days for a special introductory price of $19.95.

We're so confident that Tweet Camp will meet your highest expectations that we're offering a no risk, money back guarantee. If you are not completely happy with the workshop just let us know and we will refund 100% of your Tweet Camp registration fee.

If you haven't read the about us page of Stimulating Conversation I am the main developer for the business. Recently I have been tasked to create a few features on the website! The features I have in que right now are page comments, blog comments, ability to set a date for a post to submit and some backend admin stuff.

I am also creating an API for the writers resource's that we are building to allow all our fine follows to tap into this weath of marketing knowledge. This is a very large task and I have been breaking it up into pieces to keep my sanity.

I will be posting more about the development process as it comes... on a lighter note I brewed my first batch of beer this weekend! You can read about it on my blog, Robert Johnson

Play Hard, Play Fair, Have Fun!

It's Friday again and yet I still have lots of things on my to-do list. Some Fridays seem to spill over into the weekends. Getting our message about the new business out is so important that it will go on, until we have reached our minmum of 1000 outlets. So focus is the key word for the next few days, as it has been all week.

Having a goal as hard to reach as that old brass ring has kept the Team on its toes and very focused this week. But like the ring that is visable and tangable, our goal is as easy to see and we can almost touch it.

We know we have a great service to offer. We know others have need of our services. We must let people know what we can do for them. We must stay focused and positive as we launch our experiment.

We hope as you follow along on our journey, you too will remember to focus on your goals and keep reaching for them.


Positve vibes coming your way.

I am sure lots of people have been wondering, and more will ask: "Renee, why are you doing an experiment with your new business' marketing launch?  That is crazy!". 

Just like most things I set out to do/create/write/build or the like, it happened in a moment of inspiration.  Middle of the night, yada, yada,yada, I just knew that showing the world our theory in action was the honest and most effective way to explain the entire premise of Stimulating Conversation.

I sat down with my dad (side note on dad, he is a full professor of accounting at Texas A&M University, in the Mays Business School, a well published researcher in his field, an author, and no slouch) to ask for advice on how to set up the experiment.  His reaction shocked me.  So far everyone I had talked to about the concept was very supportive, and thought it was a great idea.  He thought it was asinine!  He explained that business is not for experiments, and clients want professionals, not researchers.  He did have a point.  I am sure he was speaking for the whole of traditional business and business people.  Conducting experiments during your company's ribbon cutting is not the usual way things are done.

...Were done. Is not the way things were done.  I think change is good.  That is the premise of Stimulating Conversation.  Changing the way books and authors are being marketed.  I also think the truth, and transparency are good.  I fundamentally believe in both.  That is the reason for the experiment. 

The theory behind, and platform beneath Stimulating Conversation is sound, and well thought out.  Marketing should and can be done effectively, thoroughly, and cost effectively by any author who is willing to put their heart into it.  But, until there is a nice portfolio of wildly successful clients, it is just that:  a theory.  What do you do with a theory?  Prove it!  And, so an experiment was born.

I want to be able to guarantee to our clients that the program we lay out for them will work, and know how much effort, blood, sweat, and tears are required to make it work.  I am a believer in actions speaking louder than words.

It was after listening to my position that my dad sat down and showed me how to write out the experiment, and how to collect my data, and write the whole thing up when it is concluded. 

Hope you are following along as we are proving our theory.

Happy observing,

Image credit: Flickr Creative Commons Marco Bellucci

I found a neat book called, You Can't Be A Smart Cookie If You Have A Crummy Attitude by John C. Maxwell. It's a small book with a huge title filled with quotes and insights about positive thinking and learning. I thought I'd share a few with you since it feels like we all need a lift this Wednesday.

All our dreams can come true -- if we have the courage to pursue them.  Walt Disney

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.  Albert Einstein

Whether you think you can or think you can't -- you are right.  Henry Ford

Quitting is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  ??

People catch our spirit just like they catch our colds: by getting close to us.  ??

Commitment: another name for success.   ???

All is as it should be.  ??

So hang in there just like that poor cat in the old picture. We will succeed, if we set our minds to it. And sit in the chair to do the work.

If you are not already touring, or working on a book tour, GREAT!  I have a resource for you!  BookTour (booktour.com) is every author's friend.  Chris, Kevin, and Adam at Book Tour have created one of the most useful tools for any author heading out for tour.  

From the About page at BookTour:

As the world's largest, 100% free directory of author events, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.

In just a few minutes any author can create a page showcasing their biography, books, and upcoming engagements. Listing new events is as easy as answering a few questions. Publishers, booksellers, events managers, and even just well-informed readers can add tour dates by simply filling in a few blanks.

BookTour has recently partnered with Amazon, to cross post your tour information onto your Amazon Author Central profile (free on amazon, so click here if you don't have one already).

What else can you ask for?  Well, let me tell you!  Since you are an author, it is probably safe to assume you are a reader as well.  Enter your zip code, and weekly you will get a handy dandy email sent to you sharing all the details of authors touring in your area.  Now you will never be the last to know, when your literary role model is speaking at the indi bookstore down the street.

"What's the catch?"  I know you are thinking.  Seriously, none.  Some things to be aware of:

• Make sure that you set up your Amazon Profile to capitalize on the cross posting
• Fill out the entire address and contact information for every location you are touring.
• You can use their system to find other bookstores you may not of thought to contact, so explore the site!
• follow BookTour on twitter to keep up with updates, and the most current info!

Happy touring!

In honor of Stimulating Conversation's Grand Opening, we are conducting an experiment.  Testing our theory that more is better. The same principal we will use with our authors.

Our hypothesis is that the 30-50 media/social sites reached by standard publicity is not enough exposure to generate adequate conversation or buzz about a book.

We contend an author is more effective when sending a cohesive consistent message to 200 targeted media/social outlets.
 
We are "walking the talk," as it were, by applying this same principal to Stimulating Conversation.  If targeted media outreach is the way to stimulate conversation for our clients and their books, then it is the logical marketing/PR solution for our business as well, right?

Stimulating Conversation's experiment looks like this:

Question: How to generate the most conversation, get people talking about our business on the web?

Objective: To demonstrate an effective way to generate conversation on the web.

General Statement: Publicity is the generation of interest in something or someone. The best way to accomplish this is to get people talking about the  topic of interest. The more people you let know about the topic the more people will talk about it.

Hypothesis:  If a cohesive, consistent message is delivered in a specific period of time to targeted audiences the result will be increased interest and discussion about the topic. This should translate into increased sales.

Methodology:   July 7th through July 14th press releases and announcements about Stimulating Conversation will be sent to 1000 targeted media and social media sites.  These sites include traditional media, established social media outlets, bloggers, writers groups, Twitter, publishers, and other sites specific to the writing/book/publishing world.
 

To establish the effectiveness of these efforts we will:

• Monitor the conversation via Google alerts, social media, inbound contacts/response to our message.
• Release a daily list of contacts sent our message, and the resulting feedback.
• Post on Twitter, and our other social media outlets the progress, and the process, no matter how awesome, or painful it may be!

Conclusion: we will provide the list of contacts we contacted, number of potential clients we developed, and report on how  well the generation of conversation went. We will use our results to the benefit of our clients. Since we will be sharing the course of the experiment with you, we hope you will use the information to create conversation for your benefit.


The starting gun has fired and we're off! Keep up with us here on Stimulating Conversation Blog.

The great push with the days counting down to our Grand Opening of Stimulating Conversation is underway. Six days to the giant blitz-to media, social networks, friends, writers groups, and just about any one we can dream of talking to. We plan to stimulate conversations in person and all over the web about our new services. To accomplish this we must stay focused.

Staying focused in our office is part of the basic structure of our business. We are using  a wonderful program called, Basecamp. This program allows us to break each project into its parts and sub-parts, assign responsibility, track time used in each activity, see where there might be impedance, comment on what is being produced and all this is visible to all of the team even the distant ones. Our nightly follow up 15 minute meetings keeps everyone in the loop and responsible.

Focus is much easier to maintain when the huge project has been broken into smaller units. (Also when you have two driven team members with whips!) The system allows us to see our progress as items are marked as completed, moving us ever closer to the deadline and success. Becoming overwhelmed interferes with focus and productivity. So stay focused!

Suggestion for Focus Friday is break your project into its smaller parts, identify responsibility (if you can), set deadlines and find a way to track your progress to success.

Happy Birthday Renee!!! Your birthday is over, so keep working only 5 days left.

I know, I know, I did say that I was going to be blogging useful, helpful information, not tooting my own horn all the time!  I hate that guy!  I promised no sales pages, and links to point out how great we are, but today is my birthday.  Isn't a little horn tooting allowed?  With the intention of transparency it is my 36th birthday. 

I am  not sad, or struggling with the age, so much as contemplative, and busy.  I am a firm beliver in goals, and their importance. I tend to set high, lofty goals, but usually amaze those around me when the come to fruition. (I often amaze myself, but let's not talk about that.)

I think that success is two fold.  One part writing it down.  I journal.  I write "to do" lists.  I make action plans. Sometimes I even posts lists on my mirror to look at everyday.  The other part is that I have a big mouth.  I have never been good at keeping my cards close to my chest, or bluffing.  SO, when I have plans, and goals, I talk about them.

So that is what this birthday brings.  The announcement of our first big goal for Stimulating Conversation.  Here is more horn tooting, fair warning.  We are launching the new site, and services, on Monday the 6th of July to .....1000...media outlets.  Yes, that is correct.  It is my contention that we can show an author how to tap 200 outlets speaking directly to their target audience, so why not set the bar high, and follow the same plan for our own branding and marketing campaign.

Aww, come on, it will be fun.  In all honestly, since the emails and press releases will all be done individually, it will take place over the course of the week, and the whole team will be participating, so it is managable.  In the process, we are also building the huge Writers Resource Database for Ijustfinished.com's new launch, and gaining a great network of conversation.  In the research I have found amazing resources, awesome new connections, and next week am looking forward to wonderful contacts.  Feel free to join in our not so little experiment, and let us know who you think we should email or send our press release.  

Oh and the other cool part, since we are doing this huge inital promotion, we are offering 15% off any of our services for the entire month of July.  In honor of my birthday, and all! 

Happy goal setting, and happy birthday to me..

For a nice laugh...check out our team picture outtakes:  on Facebook

Happy laughing,

This is a link to, in my mind the best overview of Twitter, and how to use it effectively.  Chris Brogran is a social media guru, and an author as well.  He has great insight and a realistic approach.  Although the post is titled Twiiter for Business, I want to remind you that is does apply, because you should think of your books and writing as a business.  Please, enjoy!

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/

don't forget to follow up on Twitter @aboutyourbook

Happy Tweeting,

This post was posted on Penny Sansevieri's Author Markeiting Experts Blog on Jan 27, 2009:

Happy reading,

Michael Levin, Michael@businessghost.com

The publishing industry died last week. The economic meltdown was the meteorite that hit the dinosaur right in the forehead. The only surprise is that traditional publishing lasted this long.
The firings of industry leaders, mass layoffs at top publishers, and the decision of at least one other major publisher to cease accepting new book proposals for consideration, taken together, indicate the end of the influence of the major publishers. Sure, they’ll be there to push celebrity books onto a celebrity-besotted public, through non-traditional book outlets like Wal-Mart and your local supermarket. But the business that began with editors who loved books and published what they wanted is vanishing, a victim of its own inability to find a reason for being in the Internet and print-on-demand world.

The firings are an immediate result of the plunging economy, but the death of traditional publishing is really self-inflicted. Publishing became too big and too dumb to survive, a victim of its own arrogance and unfathomably foolish business practices. Let me explain.

Who Chose This Stuff?

Is there any other industry that chooses its newest offerings on the basis of the collective whim of a group of people (acquisitions editors) with practically no business experience? Is there any other industry that pushes out thousands of new products a year but offers marketing support to only a handful? Even the Big Three automakers, as dumb as they are, spend a billion dollars in test-marketing a new car before launching it in showrooms.

Not publishing.

Twenty years ago, publishers spoke of an 80-20 rule: 80 percent of the marketing dollars went to 20 percent of the books. Today, the rule is more like 90-10 or even 99-1. If Dr. Phil is publishing a new book in the same catalog as a first-time author, Dr. Phil will get all of the marketing dollars and the new author will get crumbs. As a result, that new author’s sales will be so poor that agents and publishers will make the (wrong-headed) decision that her work is forever unsaleable. And she’ll never get another deal as long as she lives.

When I go to the library or the bookstore and study the new offerings from the major publishers, I find myself asking these three questions over and over again: Why did they choose to publish this stuff? Who do they think will really want to buy this stuff? And what could they have rejected if this was the stuff they signed up?

After all, what are the major publishers giving us? Pretty much the same thing over and over again: political tracts that pander to the left or to the right (but offer much more heat than light). Diet and exercise books that rehash what every other diet and exercise book has ever said: eat less, move more. Motivational books that shamelessly recycle Tony Robbins, Earl Nightingale, and Napoleon Hill, either with a religious spin or a make-more-money-now angle, or book, whose authors have lots of speaking engagements and nothing new to say.

The CEO of a major publishing chain once admitted that only 2 percent of the books in his stores actually sell; the rest are “wallpaper.” Who knew that major publishers are actually in the wallpaper business? They certainly don’t act like they’re in business at all, between the poor quality of material they publish and the laughably poor efforts they put into actually selling books.

ADD: Agent Distraction Disorder

And then there are the literary agents, as a class the least business-minded and least-organized people in the entire business world. If they worked in any other industry, their habits of letting projects languish, slip through cracks, and fall by the wayside would get them fired. Not in publishing, the land without deadlines. I honestly don’t understand how most literary agents make a living. When it comes to staying on top of things, staying in touch with their clients, and managing the book proposals they order up, they are notoriously irresponsible. I hear over and over again, even from major celebrities who were solicited by top agents to become clients, “I can’t get my agent to return my phone call or email.” What are the agents actually doing? Maybe if they did a better job of screening projects and actually getting proposals for marketable, fresh books to publishers, the publishers would have more to work with. Or maybe not.

I call the approach of most literary agents to their work “ADD” for Agent Distraction Disorder. I don’t know what’s distracting them from doing their basic job—reading and critiquing proposals, and looking for deals. How most of them survive is a mystery to me.

Actually, it’s about to be a mystery to them, too, because the future of royalty publishing is small advances or even no advances for all but a handful of books. Everything is moving toward a model where authors get a piece of the back end and not a generous upfront advance. Last time I checked, 15 percent of 0 equals 0. So unless agents get a whole lot more efficient, they’ll be looking for work in other fields, just like the editors who are losing their jobs.

So what’s the future? There will always be millions available for the Hillary Rodham Clintons and other political heavyweights seeking book deals. Why? Because if you’re Sumner Redstone and you own Viacom, and you want to make a multi-million dollar donation to Senator Clinton, you can disguise it as an advance from your Simon & Schuster book division. And there will always be room for what even the publishing industry used to call “non-book books”—stuff about cats, new diets, and new ways to find God without actually having to pray or do something for your fellow man.

The Future Is Now…And It’s All About You

So what’s the future for the book industry? After a dozen years, the troglodytes who run the New York publishing empires never figured out a way to survive in the digital era. The relevancy of major publishers today can be compared with that of the traditional music industry (all but dead), FM radio (all but dead) or the three major TV networks (still breathing, but of increasing irrelevance in a 600 channels/D.I.Y. world). The major publishers will still be there, in a humbled, slimmed-down fashion, but they won’t matter nearly as much as they once did.

The future of publishing is in your hands, and my hands, and in the hands of anyone with a few hundred bucks to self-publish with a print-on-demand company or even to put up an e-book on their own website. In other words, the future of publishing is as much about narrowcasting as is music and video. You’re the writer and the publisher (and the marketer as well). You get to choose your audience, you get to write directly to them, and you no longer need grovel before literary agents and acquisitions editors at publishing houses whose jobs, quite frankly, are going away. Meet the new boss: it’s you.

What do you with all that power? You sell like hell. You use the Internet 2.0, the social networking Internet, to come into contact with the specific audience your book seeks. You connect with them through Facebook, YouTube, GoogleAds, or whatever cool new thing gets released tomorrow. You put your ideas in your audience’s hands, the same way new bands are putting their music into the ears of listeners worldwide, without the mediation of a jaded, over-commercialized publishing industry.

You get to say whatever you want to whomever you want…and you get to speak your piece right now, without the traditional two-year period when your ideas languish while you beg and plead for an agent to pay you some attention, seek a publishing deal, and have your book hang in limbo until it finally, finally reaches its pub date. Your pub date is the minute you finish the manuscript, give or take the weeks necessary to run it through a typesetter and digital printing company or whomever you choose, unless you just do the whole damned thing yourself, which is so easy that your 10-year-old can be your technical advisor, if you’re too right-brained to RTFM.

It’s exhilarating, it’s fantastic, and it’s here right now. Traditional publishing is dead, a victim of its own self-importance. Writers of the world, step over the carcasses of the troglodytes. A new world awaits, and it’s all about you.

Michael Levin is a New York Times best selling author, and author of more than 60 books, He co-writes and ghostwrites nonfiction and fiction through his websites, www.BusinessGhost.com and www.CelebrityGhost.com. His most recent books are Making Jack Falcone with Joaquin Garcia (Touchstone) and Where’s My Fifteen Minutes? with Howard Bragman (Penguin/Portfolio).

Reference Source:
http://parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/newsletter.cfm
Dec. 15th

It’s Friday and I’m trying to focus! Today has been one of those days, you know the type -pulled in eight different directions and none of them toward my goals. So it is time to grab control and shut out the rest of the world for a short time so I can focus.

Yes, it is important to focus on your goals, but you also need to develop flexibility ’cause life happens. It is truly a well controlled person who can schedule each day to do only what they need to do to meet their goals. The rest of us must find ways to scrape together bits of time to focus on parts of our goals.

Having goals clearly spelled out and in front of you helps to motivate and refocus when things pull us from the straight path we want to follow. Breaking goals into workable components and spreading their completion over time allows flexibility and a sense of accomplishment when a part is completed. Remember not to allow procrastination to destroy your carefully developed plans. Putting off til tomorrow can be habit forming.  Remember your goals! You do want to achieve them don’t you?

Deadlines happen, but you can control the stress they can generate. Again focus! Break the job into parts and schedule the work out allowing your completion deadline to arrive before the drop-dead date. This allows for life and even a final review of your project before others take over.

So the word for today is focus. Find a way each day to focus on your goals.

We recently presented a workshop about blogging, so for Tech Tues I thought I’d share that article.  It is a quick overview.  Blogging is an essential tool in the author’s tool kit.  If you’d like more help with blogging, or have questions about your blog, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line, or leave a comment, and I will get back to you right away!

Happy Blogging,

Blogs/Blogging/Bloggers

Everyone who wants to connect to others and get their products noticed needs a blog.  This is an easy first step as you are developing a full web site or can be the complete extent of your way to communicate.

What is a Blog?

A blog is defined by Wikipedia the free encyclopedia as:
A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Why do I want a Blog?

A blog is an easy way to communicate with large numbers of people and to let them get to know you. Readers enjoy learning about the everyday lives of their favorite authors.  You can be as personal as you want. As an author you can post pieces of your writings to help develop interest in your writing. You allow comments and track visitors to your site.

What would I say in a Blog?

Blogs are used in many ways, so you decide how your blog will be used. The biggest issue is contributing to it regularly. You can use the blog to journal, talk about your writing life, your other life, present some of your materials, ask and answer questions, run contests, post pictures and links to video and audio podcasts. (Podcast are just taped conversations.) You could do your entire blog as a podcast or video cast. Technology is great! You can open your blog for comments and/or for others to post to it. The idea is to have fun with your blog.

How do I set up a Blog?

Choosing where to locate your blog is a matter of deciding what works easiest for you.  Many websites are set-up with the blog as part of them, so if you are developing a site you might want to start the blog first. You can start a free standing blog at www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com.  An important thing to consider as you name your website or blog is:  how would people search for you? Many authors use their names as their primary website name. Makes finding them easy.  Do some brain storming to come up with words that describe your product and ways
people might search for you. Then test the words to see how many results you get for each word and phrase. Lots of hits are good, but now you need to combine those words to make you special. These become your words to use in content allowing searching people to find your blog or website. You should review your words monthly to keep them
fresh and to add new ones based on new content you’re offering. These key words or tags are important as you reach out to your audience.

Do I have to write on my blog every day?

No, but on a regular schedule. You want people to find something new each time they come to visit so they will keep coming back. That is why blogs often contain lots of different types of material. One day you might be writing about a life happening or the weather. The next day it might be about your next project or a success you’ve had. Your blog might be the primary changing part of your website when you start out. Themes for the month or days of the week can make blogging much easier, and help minimize the feeling that you must blog something smart and witty everyday.

What is a Blog Tour?

Blog Tours are a fun way to get great exposure of your work. You arrange with blog owners to be guest bloggers on their sites at specific dates. Both of you publicize the upcoming event. Some blog tours are interactive in that they can be conducted in real time. This allows guests to question and make comments to the visiting author. Many book bloggers have huge followings and are very effective at promoting books and authors. It is well worth your time to be a guest blogger, or participate in blog interviews.

What are Group Blogs?

Group Blogs are found in several forms, but the basics are that a group of authors take turns in writing the blog posting. Several publishers use this technique to showcase their clients.  A variation on group blogs is a Community Blog where short stories or articles are submitted and then edited before chosen for publication. Some news services use this
technique to keep a rapid flow of news coming. Community Blogs have editors who select who will be published and do the editing unlike Group Blogs. Often in Community Blogs the authors get no credit for their work. The BBC website is an example of a community blog.  Special platforms are available to make group blogging easier.

Good blogging requires time and effort, but you will develop a following if you use good tags and provide useful and/or fun information. Stimulating Conversation can help you identify tags and key words to help you become more discoverable. Contact us for a consultation. We are also happy to assist you with the set up and plan for your own
blog.

Before you became an author, you probably had a normal life.  I assume most people do, then one day that life was readjusted.  I know.  The same experience happened to me. Although, Ijustfinished.com is not a book, it is a work of the heart for me, much the way a book is for an author.  It also forced me to learn things I never even considered in my life before my passion for books became a business.  One of those things was marketing.  I began to see the world from a branding point of view, and thought of things like logos, and images.  It changed my point of view.  No longer did I read the newspaper or magazines the same. Driving down the road was far more interesting than it had ever been.  Moving around in the world, in my normal life took on a whole new vibe.  Everywhere I looked I saw marketing.  I realized how much time and effort is put in to marketing and reaching out to customers, or potential customers.  Every sign, every ad, every store layout, is a well thought out attempt to speak to you, the customer.

That is when I began to think like a marketer.  What speaks to me?  What doesn’t?  What do I want to put out there for myself, my business, my brand? Look around you, and ask yourself the same questions.  Think of yourself not only as an author, but as a brand.  You are marketing yourself, your image, and your books.  What do you want to put out there, and how should people relate to you?

For me, I really enjoy things that have meaning.  I have been accused of thinking too much, more than once in my life.  Therefore, I want my image to be more than initially meets the eye.  I want it to make you think.  I was speaking the other day to a group of writers about Stimulating Conversation, and someone asked “is stimulating a verb or an adjective?”.  I said “both”.  That is the point.  It has a double meaning.  To make you realize, by creating (stimulating) conversation that is smart (stimulating) it is the most effective way to promote your book.  I whole heartedly believe in that approach, therefore that is the focus of my brand, and the message of my marketing.

Take a step back, and think about your message.  What does it look and feel like?  How can you convey that message with your logo, and tag line?  How else can you incorporate your message into your marketing plan.  Then look though that lens at your everyday life, and see how other businesses are conveying their messages through their marketing efforts.

Let me know what you observe, and what your own branding ideas are, or your take on ours.

Happy Marketing,

As we are developing this website and this business, we are taking our own advice.  We are assembling our media kit, writing and rewriting our content, press releases, social media plan, et al.  Even with a team effort, it is daunting.  Using the how to eat an elephant cliche, I suggest taking one aspect at a time. The boilerplate is a perfect place to start, or revisit to gain focus.

Your “boilerplate“, aka your elevator speech (short enough to be used on an elevator ride) is one of the hardest, yet most vital, and versatile aspects of your marketing plan.  It is a short paragraph that seems like it should be a simple thing, but I have found writing your own elevator speech to be more challenging that one would think.  It is such an important part of your media kit for several reasons.

The first, you are forced to bring your product/self/book/business into focus with minimal wording, and plenty of hook.  You want people to understand what your talking about, and elicit desire to get more information from you.

The statement should be save somewhere you can easily access it, because you will use it often.  (I keep my boilerplates for Stimulating Conversation and Ijustfinished.com in my Google Docs account so I can access them anywhere I can find a computer)  All press releases should have it attached to the bottom.   You can use your boilerplate as the footer for your professional email, and with all your media pitches.

You should know it by heart, after all it’s your 30 second spiel! You should have it on the tip of your tongue every time you are asked:  “What do you do?” by anyone from your hairdresser, to the stranger at the book conference, to Oprah.   It should hook people into asking you for more information, thus stimulating conversation; invite you for an interview, or buy your book.

You can reuse it, or a variation of it for most of your “brief bios” on all your social media outlets, and profiles, as well as virtual marketing and promotion.  It can be enhanced for your “about me/us” pages on your website,  book covers, and other marketing materials. That alone will save you hours of time not having to retype your “profile” the multitude of time you are asked to fill out a bio.

Most importantly, writing and using your boilerplate statement gets your message into focus and using it keeps the message cohesive, and professional across all your marketing and branding campaigns.

That said, you should reread your boilerplate from time to time to ensure that it is still current and interesting.

Here is our Stimulating Conversation’s freshly written boilerplate statement:

Stimulating Conversation About Your Book is an author marketing strategy company.  Authors have a story to tell, that’s what drives them to write.  We think that story is worth talking about.  After watching authors flounder, and pay huge amounts of money for little return we set out to create a more effective model.  The conversation about books is strategic marketing.  Getting people talking about your book is the key.  Stimulating that conversation is our specialty.  We use all the resources and tools available ranging from the press releases and media kits to social marketing, websites, and blog tours.  It is our objective to create cohesive, effective author marketing strategies at affordable prices. Every author’s story should stimulate conversation.

Visit our website at stimulating-conversation.com for your author tool kit & assessment, or email Renee@stimulating-conversation.com for your information packet or to schedule your free consultation.

Happy Writing,

One of our blogging strategies for authors or any blogger really is to use a blog schedule. We are going to take our own advice here, and have a theme for every day of the week. This is our theme schedule as of right now: (feel free to make suggestions, if you’d like to see another topic)

Mondays: Marketing your Masterpiece-expect tips and ideas for your marketing
Tuesdays: Technology Tips-read about everything from Social Media to web development
Wednesdays: Witty & Whimsy-fun ideas, cartoons, and inspiration
Thursdays: Thoughts-peek into our thoughts, and personal ideas
Friday: Focus-goal setting, time management and objective based subjects to wrap the week

anything on the weekend, just consider a bonus!

I hope you subscribe to our blog, and look forward to each days post. We are thrilled to have your comments and questions. Happy Blogging!

Hello Everyone and welcome to Stimulating Conversation's new and improved blog! We have some awesome things coming and I hope that you stick around to find out what is going on in our office.

Our website is under construction so you might notice some weird bugs, if you do see a bug please report it by email to one of us.

We hope that you enjoy your stay at Stimulating Conversation and stay tuned for more additions to the website!