Social Media Secrets, Part III: What Should an Author Blog About?

This is the third in my series on my "Social Media Secrets." If you haven't read the first two yet, you might want to check out #1: How to Avoid Twitter-Fritter and Facebook-Fail and #2 How to Blog Your Way Out of the Slush Pile and onto the Bestseller List.

When I teach blogging, the most common question I get is: "What should I blog about?" 

My answer isn't the same as you'll hear from most blogging gurus: I say it depends on where you are in your career.

1) If you're a new author/blogger, your primary goal is to build an audience. The best way to do this is to network with other bloggers.

Most people who read blogs and comment regularly are also bloggers themselves, so this is your potential core audience.

Blog hops can be very valuable at this stage of your career. Jump on any opportunity to participate.

Go to other blogs in your niche—that's readers, reviewers and other authors—to see what they're blogging about and get to know people. When you find yourself leaving a long comment: that's your next blog post!

If you hope for a traditional publishing career, you should also be regularly visiting agents' blogs like Janet Reid's and Kristen Nelson's and former agent Nathan Bransford's to find out how the traditional publishing process works. You can also interact with other writers who comment on the blog.

If you think you might go indie, do the same on indie blogs like Joe Konrath's and The Passive Voice.

No matter what path you're contemplating, hanging out at friendly, troll-free writing-community blogs like Alex J. Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group, Nathan Bransford's forums, and Kristen Lamb's We are Not Alone, will make you feel less isolated and help you meet people who can help you in your career.

This is like hanging out with co-workers in the coffee room or cafeteria at a new job. You'll find a huge amount of information just by listening. Think of your blog as your cubicle where people stop by to say hello. But first you have to introduce yourself in a general meeting place.

This means yes, you CAN talk about writing and publishing when you're starting out. You can commiserate and congratulate each other as you ride the roller coaster of this crazy business. (As long as you don't complain too much. Believe me, we've all felt the temptation to vent about the unfairness of the industry, but it won't help your career.)

2) Once you've got a few followers and you're getting ready to publish, it's time to switch gears. 

You don't have to stop blogging about writing entirely, but mix it up so you can start attracting more non-writers—especially readers in your niche.

Remember people surf the Web looking for two things: information and entertainment.

Your blog can spin a good yarn, make people laugh, provide information, or all three, as long as you put it in your own honest, unique voice and you’re not too whiny or preachy. (Although experts generally advise against fictional yarns. More on that below.)

Joel Friedlander wrote a great blogpost this month on  3 major mistakes author-bloggers make . He points out you need to know who you're blogging for. If you're writing hard sci-fi, you're going to want to reach to a different readership than if you're writing cozy mysteries. Unfortunately, marketers often tell authors to market indiscriminately to the entire population.

Try picturing your ideal audience when you're deciding what to blog about. What movies and TV shows might appeal to people who would like your book? What's their age group? What other interests do those people have?

If you're writing a Hunger Games type YA dystopian, blogging news about the next Hunger Games film might attract your ideal demographic. Tweet Jennifer Lawrence news and you'll get the HG fans coming to your blog.

If you're writing Regency romance, run a series on your favorite films set in the era, or talk costumes and history. Or join a Janeite community and weigh in on controversial topics like the mental health of Jane Austen's mother and whether Colin Firth is the one and only Darcy.

What Works in a Writer’s Blog

This is a partial list. I'd love more suggestions in the comments.

• Interviews and Profiles: These don't have to be interviews with authors, although that's a fantastic way to network AND reach readers. Write crime novels? Interview a cop, forensic expert or private detective. Write bookstore cozies? Profile a series of bookstore clerks and visit their blogs.  
• Informative pieces: This is where you can use all that research you did for your books that sounds too much like "info-dumping" in your novel. 
• Reviews and spotlights of books in your genre: But be wary of starting an all-review site if you're an aspiring author. Honest reviewers sometimes have to be negative, which can open you up to bullying by an authors' posse. Spotlights make more friends. 
• Film Reviews and info about other media in your genre. Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog is a great example of how to do this right. (Alex will be visiting next month to talk about how to create a blog community.) 
• Comic or inspirational vignettes about your life. This can be almost anything, as long as it's entertaining, has a point, and doesn't turn into a pity party. An author who does a fabulous job with the comic personal story is rom-com author Tawna Fenske.
• Stuff about your pets. Seriously. Never underestimate the power of a cute puppy or grumpy cat to draw hits. Catherine Ryan Hyde posted photos and videos showing the progress of her new cat and old dog learning to get along: a lesson in diplomacy. It got so popular, the dog and cat—now best of friends—have their own Facebook page.
• Opinions (as long as you avoid polarizing subjects: see below) Any opinion piece about publishing news will probably get a lot of readers in the bookish community. Weigh in on Bezos buying the Washington Post, or how you feel about "authorized" fan fiction.
• History and nostalgia pieces: Write historicals, or novels set in an earlier era? Anything about that era will be of interest to your readers. This is where people writing books of military history can share their own experiences. If you lived through history, the world wants to know about it. A blog is the perfect place to share. 
• Travel pieces about the settings of your books. Even if you've only made the journey via Google maps and Wikipedia, your readers will be interested. If it's your hometown, even better. Interview local business owners and people who live and work in similar places to your fictional ones. This is where your own photographs can be a big plus. (Make sure all other photographs you use are not copyrighted. Only use photos licensed through Creative Commons.) 
• How-to's and recipes. Write crafting mysteries? Offer interesting quilt patterns or knitting directions. Have a character who likes to fly kites? Tell readers how to build one.  And no matter what genre you write, if food is involved, people will enjoy a recipe for it. Or maybe you can offer a recipe for the busy writer to throw in the crockpot, or a tasty snack to serve to your book group.
• Almost anything of general interest—especially to the kind of people you think might like your books. Anything that might make a good magazine article will make a good blogpost—especially a magazine your ideal reader is likely to buy.
• A series of articles or vignettes you hope to make into a book. For nonfiction, blogging your book is OK, although if you get a traditional contract, you may be asked to take down those posts because of "non-compete" rules.

Not so Much

• Daily word count. Sorry. Nobody cares. (Unless you're a member of a writers' group encouraging each other on—as sometimes happens during NaNoWriMo.) Although the original "weblogs" were often personal diaries, today's blogs are "other" oriented rather than "self" oriented and you need to write stuff that's interesting to people who don't already know you. 
• Rejection sorrows and personal woes. These belong in your private journal. The one with the lock on it.
• Your writer's block. Ditto. 
• Teachy-Preachy stuff. Especially if you're not an expert. Don’t lecture people on how to get published if you’re not.
• Pretentious word-farts. I landed on a writer's blog recently that gave no indication of the writer's name, genre, or work. Random phrases were scattered around, like: "This is all there is," and "Unless you are in pain, you're not doing it right," and "99% of published work is BS." Um, speaking of BS...  OK, this person is obviously young and going through a stage, but this isn't something you want to do in public.
• Apologies for not blogging. We know it's hard to get around to the old blog. You don't need to tell us the specifics. Just call it "slow blogging" and get on with something interesting. 
• Writing about writing exclusively, unless you have a "how to" book for writers. 
• Religion or politics: unless your work is exclusively for people of the same faith or political persuasion. Or you live in a  part of the world with interesting politics and you have a unique viewpoint. (Extra credit if you're in a war zone.)
• Your Fiction WIP. Especially if you hope to attract an agent. Not only do agents not have time to hunt for novels in the blogosphere, but they generally won't take a novel that's been blogged because it's already "published." (Selling novels is a different process from selling nonfiction—which is generally based 99% on platform—so the rules are different.)
  
  Some writers ARE able to attract a blog following by posting some short fiction or poetry, but I don't recommend you do it exclusively, because people skim blogs and usually won't read denser stuff. Plus you are giving away first rights and can't enter it in contests or submit to journals after putting it on a blog. It's better to post work in progress on a place like Wattpad which is password-protected and therefore not "publishing."
  
  But especially don't blog your unedited, unfinished novel hoping for praise or critique. You'll thank me later when you're at your editing stage. Honest. (If you want critique, I suggest you join one of the many online groups for the purpose, like CritiqueCircle.com.)

A blog is an expression of who you are: the face you offer the world. So be real and have fun.

Sometimes blogging can take off and you find you'd rather blog than work on your WIP. There's nothing wrong with that. You may have a future as a professional blogger and content provider—a much more lucrative field than writing novels. Nina Badzin discovered she enjoyed blogging more than fiction writing and used her blog to launch a career as a freelance writer.

Or if you're a book review blogger, you may be invited to intern for an agent and even become an agent yourself. That's what happened to book blogger Danielle Smith, now an agent at Foreword Literary.

But if you have your heart set on being a novelist, remember your fiction must take priority. That's why I support "slow blogging"—blogging once a week or less, preferably to a schedule.

For fiction writers, here's a quote from Jason Kong's post "7 Reasons Why Social Media isn't Growing Your Fiction Readership" from Joel Friedlander's blog.

"Your key to more followers isn’t posting more frequently or having more conversations. Nor is it constantly checking your feeds to see who said what. A readership develops because they have something to value and talk about....Writing good stories, as always, should remain your top priority."

For a more in-depth piece on how the stages of your writing career affect your blog you might want to read my piece, How to Blog Part 3: What Should You Blog About?

And here's a great piece about how to make your content "addictive" from Jeff Bullas. 

What about you, scriveners? What do you blog about? What do you want to read on other blogs? Any suggestions for the new blogger?

Next week: Ruth Harris is going to tell us about METADATA: one of those things we're all supposed to know about, but if you're like me, you're not quite sure what it is.

THIS WEEK'S BOOK DEAL: 
The Camilla Randall Mysteries Boxed Set is now on sale INTERNATIONALLY! 

My publisher has now spread the sale to all outlets. Thanks everybody, for keeping it on the Amazon US comic fiction bestseller list all summer. (And this week on the women's fiction bestseller list in Canada and comic fiction in Germany.)

99c on Amazon US, NOOK, and now £0.77 on Amazon UK  and 99c CDN on Amazon CA and 49 rupees on Amazon IN, and the equivalent on all Amazon stores.

"The Best Revenge, Ghost Writers in the Sky and Sherwood Limited are hysterical. Anne Allen will keep you laughing throughout, but in the meantime she dabbles her fingers in some topics worth some serious thought: sexism, weightism, lechery, murder, duplicity, homelessness & poverty to name a few. If you love to laugh, you'll like these three books. If you love to think, ponder AND laugh, be ready to fall in love"... C.S. Perryess

Note to anybody who has read a Camilla book and enjoyed it— 

I could use your help. If you have time to leave a review on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, I'll be eternally grateful. When you have a bestselling book, the negative nellies come out and your star rating takes a hit. Comedy can be so subjective and a lot of people don't "get" the same things. (And sock puppets abound: a lot of the nasty comments come from people who've never reviewed anything else—or give nothing but one-stars to every other book on the same bestseller list. Plus on B & N, people can give stars with with no text.) If you do like my humor, and you've enjoyed the books, I could really use your help. Just a star rating on B & N could make all the difference.   

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS

1) Find a Writing Group through Galley Cat! One of the most reliable and popular news outlets in publishing is creating a directory for writers to network to get critiques of their work You can sign up here.

2) Get your book international visibility for a reasonable price. EBUK is now advertising bargain books to close to a dozen countries, including the US and Canada, and they're still at half price through the end of August. You can get more info here. Make sure your book is under $3.99 and provide links to all stores, not not only Amazon (unless you're in Select.) Ads are a little over 10 bucks until the end of August.

And you can sign up for the newsletter for your country right here. I've signed up for the new US version. If you like bargain ebooks, this is a great free service.

3) Writer's Digest Popular Fiction Awards. Since most short fiction contests tend to favor literary work, this is a great one for genre authors. Choose your favorite genre and enter your best in 4,000 words or less. Six first prizes of $500 each and a Grand Prize of $2,500 and a trip to the 2013 Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City. Deadline September 16th

4) FAMILY CIRCLE FICTION CONTEST NO ENTRY FEE Submit an original fictional story of no more than 2,500 words. Three (3) Entries per person and per household throughout the Contest Period. Grand Prize: A prize package including $1,000; a gift certificate to one Mediabistro online course of winner's choice, one year Mediabistro AvantGuild membership; and a one year Mediabistro Freelance Marketplace membership. Second Place Prize: $500; one year Mediabistro AvantGuild membership; and a one year Mediabistro Freelance Marketplace membership. Third Place Prize: $250; and a one year Mediabistro AvantGuild membership. Deadline September 16th.

5) The Harper's Bazaar UK Short Story Prize is open to all writers. NO ENTRY FEE. Are you the next Dorothy Parker or Anita Loos? Submit an original short story (up to 3,000 words) on the subject of 'spring' to:shortstory@harpersbazaar.co.uk. The winning entry will appear in the May 2014 issue. Its author will be able to choose a first-edition book from Asprey's Fine and Rare Books Department to the value of £3,000 and enjoy a week-long retreat at Eilean Shona House, on the 2,000-acre private island off the west coast of Scotland where JM Barrie wrote his screenplay for Peter Pan. Deadline December 13th.

Read More

The #1 Reason for #QueryFails—How to Avoid Automatic Rejection from a Reviewer, Agent, Editor or Blogger

Whether you’re a freelance journalist trying to place an article, a novelist looking for literary representation, or an indie author seeking reviews and/or guest post gigs, every writer needs to learn to write a smart, short, compelling query letter. (And no, it can't be a Tweet or personal message on Facebook. Please.)

A query only needs three paragraphs:

1) A statement of why you’re contacting this particular editor/agent/blogger and what you’re offering.
2) A three-to-four sentence synopsis presenting the book, blogpost or article,
3) A quick mention of your most notable qualifications.

Then close with a nice thank you.

That’s it.

Sounds easy. But it’s way hard. Believe me, I know. It’s tearing-out-hair hard. Banging-head-on-desk hard. Especially writing the dreaded synopsis. If you need help in the daunting task of writing your pitch, we can offer some in our post on Hooks, Loglines and Pitches.

But you know what isn’t hard?

Visiting the agent/editor/blogger’s website before you write the query.

And yet this is the number one reason queries are rejected.

• Agents say their most common reason for rejecting a manuscript is that it’s not in a genre they represent. You can avoid this by reading the bio on their agency website and looking for key phrases like, "genres I represent."
• Book reviewers say their most common reason for not reviewing a book is it’s not in a genre they read. The genres they review will be stated on the blog.
• Magazine editors say the most common reasons for passing on an article or proposal are 1) the article is not compatible with the content of the magazine or 2) They ran a similar article recently. You used to have to buy issues of the magazine to see what kind of things they buy and find out about recent article topics. Now you can find sample articles and a table of contents—or maybe even the whole magazine—online.
• The major reason I personally turn down an author or publicist asking me to review a book on my blog is: I DON’T HAVE A BOOK REVIEW BLOG. Um, look around. How many book reviews do you see? 
• I also don’t take on a prospective guest blogger who’s a beginning writer who offers to “write on the subject of your choice: free of charge.” Why? The answer is on our “Contact Us” page.

One click. Thirty seconds. Probably quicker than cutting and pasting my email address into that mass query. And think of all the wear and tear on your psyche you’ll save by cutting down on those rejections.

Seriously, it usually takes less than half a minute’s visit to a website or blog to find out if you should be querying or not.

Looking for a review of your inspirational YA romance? If all the book covers on the site have naked male chests on them, you're probably not going to get a review here. And you wouldn't like the review if they wrote one.

Looking for an agent to rep your occult horror novel? If there's a "Scripture quote of the day" in the sidebar and the agents' clients are all published by Christian publishers like Thomas A. Nelson and Zondervan, you're going to be wasting your time.

A few moments more and you can click on the “about me” or “submission guidelines” page and get exciting information like “what I’m looking for” from an agent and see that part where she says “If I ever see another vampire romance, I’m going to drive a stake through my own heart.”

See how much heartbreak an author can save herself with a couple of clicks?

Querying somebody in business isn’t that different from asking somebody on a date (in principle—not in style, please. Always remember a query is a business letter. Candy and flowers may get you noticed, but not in the way you want.)

Most important: the letter needs to be about what you can offer THE OTHER PERSON, not about your own needs.

Which of the following emails do you think would be more likely to land this guy a date?

“Hey there, human being with lady parts (cc half the human race) — 

I’m a five foot ten inch hetero male with brown eyes and hair. I have a degree in English lit from State. Well, almost. I didn’t finish because of the expulsion thing, but the hazing accident at DKE house totally wasn’t my fault. 

I really need a girlfriend. I haven’t got laid in almost a year, because most women are such bitches they won’t give you the time of day. I don't have a car, but I keep very fit riding my bicycle every day, so NO FATTIES! 

But you probably don’t want to go out with me because I live in my mom’s basement and I only work part time as a bike messenger. But I have a much tighter butt than George Clooney, who is just an old guy and totally overrated. 

Please write back by midnight tonight or I’ll kill myself. 

Very Truly Yours,
Desperate Dan”

Or this one?

“Hi Marci—

Fun talking to you in the line at Starbucks yesterday. (I’m Dan, the guy with the dorky bike helmet.)  You sure know a lot about bike trails in the Bay Area. Just as you were rushing to get back to work, you mentioned you did a bike tour of Canada last summer.  I’m planning one myself and sure would like to talk with you about your trip.

Would you like to meet up at Starbucks again next week? I’ll buy your Venti half-caf soy latte!

Hope to see you soon—
Dan”

The first one is all about Dan and his needs. The second one pays attention to Marci—it mentions her interests (and even her coffee order) and why she is a person he wants to get to know. Notice he didn’t shower her with meaningless over-the-top compliments. He asks to meet her for coffee because of what she has to say, not just because he so desperately wants to get an agent a book review laid.

Like Marci, agents, editors and bloggers usually on the run and wildly busy—and fulfilling your needs isn’t in their job description.

If you want a relationship with somebody—whether it's personal or business—you have to show you're a person who's pleasant to be around and respects others. No matter how fantastic your book, content or gluteus maximus, if you treat everybody as interchangeable ciphers, they’re not going to want to work with you.

And you know what? You don’t have to stand in the same line at Starbucks to get to know agents, editors and bloggers these days.

Back in the olden days when I started querying, you had to go to conferences and buy big expensive books like Writers’ Market or Jeff Herman’s Guide every year just to get a few agents' names—and the books were always out of date by the time they went to print.

Now, through the magic of the Interwebz, all that info is available to you—up-to-date and absolutely free—at the proverbial click of a mouse.

So why do so many people fail to use it?

I think some writers are using publicity agencies. A lot of the generic queries I get sound the same, so one place may be churning out a lot of similar generic crapola.

It should be obvious how counter-productive it is to hire somebody to alienate bloggers for you. Blogging is a social medium. Be social. Read book bloggers in your genre regularly. You get big pluses if they recognize you as a regular commenter.

Even though this blog usually has well-known authors and industry professionals as guests, and we've hosted literary icons and movie stars, we'll consider a guest post from a newbie if 1) the topic is unique and useful to our readers and 2) the query comes from a regular commenter. But I have to reject 90% of queries I get. Why? 90% of queriers haven't read this blog. All they know is we have great stats and lots of eyeballs looking in, so WE can do a lot for THEM. But they don't think about what they can do for us or our readers.

Agent-querying services are even worse. Any agent's assistant will pass on a mass query without reading it. When they see that “Dear Mr. or Ms. Esteemed Agent-Person” salutation, they can’t hit the delete button fast enough. Your money has been wasted.

But your book is brilliant! Exquisitely written!! You’re the next Dan Brown/JK Rowling/Hugh Howey rolled into one!!! Plus you have an MFA!!!!

Thing is: the quality of your book doesn’t matter—any more than Desperate Dan’s tight butt—if nobody sees it. If you turn people off from the get-go, nobody sees your fabulous qualities or reads that brilliant, heart-stopping synopsis you’ve been honing for months.

And for those of you who are looking for reviews from book bloggers, I’ll repeat below the wonderful tips we got last year from book review blogger Danielle Smith of There’s a Book.

I need to add that Danielle is no longer a just a book reviewer. As of this week, she has become a literary agent! Yes, Danielle is now an agent repping children's books at the powerhouse new agency Foreword Literary. She’s zoomed from book blogger to assistant to agent in a matter of months—Yes, book bloggers ARE the new gatekeepers. So treat them right!

Congrats to Danielle, Pam van Hylckama Vlieg, Gordon Wornock, and Foreword Literary Agency founder Laurie McLean on their exciting new venture.

You can read Laurie McLean's predictions for the world of publishing in 2013 in our archives. She didn’t tell us then that future would include an exciting new agency with a cutting-edge outlook and traditional publishing deal-making skills, but this development does fit into her forward-looking predictions.

Some tips on Approaching Book Review Bloggers

How do you find the right book bloggers to query?

New Agent Danielle Smith

The best way is to check similar books in your genre—especially those that have been recently released. Do a search for those titles with the word “review” and read as many reviews as you can. Make a list of the reviewers you like and read their review policies.

Yes, there are lists of reviewers out there. I’m suggesting this instead of relying on lists because reviewers get their calendars filled up fast and change policies often. Using a prepared list can lure you into mass querying. So if you do use a list, remember you still need to visit each blog before querying. You’ll get better results and make fewer enemies.

Remember:

• Keep queries short and intriguing. 
• Don’t take it personally if they turn you down. Reading takes a lot of time and most of them are swamped. 
• Understand the review is for the READER, not the writer, so negative reviews happen. 
• If you get a less than stellar review, mourn in private and move on. NEVER respond to a negative review.

 Danielle Smith's Guidelines for Authors Seeking Reviews

• Make sure you address the blogger by name
• Include a two to four sentence synopsis—no longer
• Keep personal information to a minimum. And don’t guilt-trip.
• Attach an image of the book cover
• For children's books, give the age range of the intended audience
• Include the page count (for print books)
• Provide the publication date
• Don’t ask for a review outside the blogger’s genre
• Don’t query if you don’t have a website or a blog. (That screams “unprofessional” to a blogger.)

In other words, treat the book blogger like a professional and she will reciprocate. And for goodness sake: VISIT THE BLOG!!

What about you, scriveners? Have you made this mistake in your query history? (I’m not going to pretend I’m innocent. I cringe at my old queries. I finally burned them all in a big bonfire last year.) What’s the dumbest query mistake you ever made? 

BLOG NEWS: Next week's guest post is from Boomer Lit author Michael Murphy. "So You Want to Use Song Lyrics in Your Novel? 5 Steps to Getting Rights to Lyrics." This is essential information Michael learned when writing his Woodstock novel, Goodbye Emily. Do NOT publish a book using song lyrics without reading this. You can end up owing thousands to the copyright owners.

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS:

1) BiblioPublishing is looking for submissions of out-of-print or new books for publication through their small press. This 25-year-old press (formerly called The Educational Publisher) is branching out from educational books to other nonfiction and selected fiction. They're especially looking for self-help and sci-fi. They provide cover design, formatting and distribution, but ask your ms. be pre-edited. They publish in print as well as all ebook formats

2) Interested in having your short fiction recorded for a weekly podcast?There’s no pay, but it’s fantastic publicity if your story is accepted by SMOKE AND MIRRORS. They broadcast about three stories a week. Spooky, dark tales preferred. No previous publication necessary. They judge on the story alone.

3) Cash prizes for flash fiction. The San Luis Obispo NIGHTWRITERS are holding their annual 500-word story contest. Anybody from anywhere in the world is welcome to enter. Prizes are $200, $150 and $75. This is a fantastic organization that boasts a number of bestselling authors among their members, including Jay Asher, Jeff Carlson, and moi. (Well, some sell better than others :-) ) Deadline is March 31st.

4) Ploughshares Emerging Writers Contest. The prestigious literary journal Ploughshares runs a number of contests during the year. Winning or placing looks really good in a query. Plus there's a cash prize of $1000 in each category. This one is limited to writers who have not yet published. They're looking for poems and literary stories of up to 6000 words. Deadline is April 2.

5) FREE BOOK: Sherwood, Ltd, Anne's hilarious Camilla Randall mystery set in Merrie Olde England, is FREE for your Kindle, Nook, iPad or any other e-reading device for a few more weeks. You can pick it up here.

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How to Query a Book Review Blogger—and Combat Paid-Review Mills

The literary community was shaken this week by an article in the New York Times revealing how many "reader book reviews" are written for hire by book review mills. The most shocking revelation involved John Locke, one of the self-publishing movement's greatest stars.

Locke admitted to buying hundreds of reviews from a review mill because "it’s a lot easier to buy them than cultivating an audience."

But other people weren't all that surprised. The NYT article quoted University of Illinois data-mining expert Bing Liu, who said, "about one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake."

According to the article, Mr. Locke seemed to think purchasing reviews was OK, because he specifically asked the reviewers to be "honest." But once you're in review-buying territory, you're on a slippery ethical slope.

Things are complicated by the fact that Mr. Locke wrote a book about how to sell books in which he instructed writers in specific detail on how to go about "cultivating an audience." The book didn't mention this particular rung on his ladder to success.

To be fair, exchanging goods and services for book reviews is a time-honored practice. Most reviewers get free books, and reviewers in print publications are generally paid—not directly by the author, of course—but the publisher may have to purchase advertising in that publication in order to have that company's books considered for reviewing. And authors have always reviewed other author's books (not always favorably.) But there has always been an attempt to avoid a blatant quid pro quo in order to provide unbiased reviews.

When the respected Kirkus magazine started offering reviews for hire to self-publishers, a lot of people got uncomfortable. Does putting a price tag on a Kirkus review diminish its value to readers?

Some people think so. In the comment thread on an in-depth post on this subject on Porter Anderson's Writing on the Ether this week, Barbara Rogan said. "The only reason writers buy those reviews from Kirkus (at $425 a pop!) and the only reason readers respect them, is because of the reputation of the original Kirkus, respected for its (sometimes scathingly) honest reviews. They are degrading their own brand."

However, this is not only a self-publishing issue. Thanks to Nathan Bransford for pointing this out in his August 29th blogpost.

The traffic in fake raves is not the only way the review system is being abused. Fake negative reviews are up for sale too. And an article in the UK's Daily Mail this week reports some publishers are being sued for planting negative reviews for other publishers' books. Even academics are getting into the negative-online-review game, with rival scholars panning competitors' work on Amazon. The article also cites negative reviews given to books by somebody who dislikes the author's spouse or associates.

I've seen "reviews" like this myself. I have also seen sites for review mills that offer to write—for a slightly higher price—a batch of negative reviews for better-selling books in your genre.

Which brings me to what happened the day after the NYT article about the review mills came out:

A gang of cyber-vigilantes decided to voice their displeasure with Mr. Locke's behavior by writing one-star reviews of his books.

Um, people, how does abusing the review system give a message that abusing the review system is bad?

As the sensible Chuck Wendig pointed out Bad Author Behavior in Response to Bad Author Behavior is still Bad Behavior.

If you use Amazon reviews for ANYTHING other than giving your honest opinion of a BOOK, you are disrespecting the reader and further degrading the review system.

I don't care if the author is an ax-murdering, sulfur-spewing, puppy-eating alien from the planet Zog: using Amazon reviews as a tool for vigilantism is JUST PLAIN WRONG.

When you see this kind of abuse of the system, hit the "report abuse" button and let Amazon know. They are finally cracking down on the review mills, and they will crack down on the vigilantes, too. We all benefit from keeping customer reviews useful and relevant.

Amazon does seem to have been a little slow on the crackdown, and a new article by David Streitfeld on today's NYT blog says manufacturers have been steadily buying reviews for years with very few repercussions--like the Kindle Fire carrying case whose buy page exploded in 100s of ecstatic 5-star reviews last January. (Thanks to Jay Strouch for that link.)

But Amazon does respond to specific reports of abuse, so if you think an author (or a corporation)  has done something unethical, do report it. And there are many other ways to voice your outrage. Rant on your blog. Tweet and Facebook about it until the steam comes out of your fingers. Start a petition to have the author censured by the professional organization of your choice.

But if you haven't read a book, don't review it. Full stop.

Instead, how about doing something positive to fight the degrading of book reviews? Here are some suggestions:

1) Write reviews of the books you read. If you like a book, say so. If you don't, say that. (Unless the book is simply not your cup of tea and you don't feel like giving it any more of your time.)

Every time you write an honest review—even a couple of sentences—you're helping to balance out the phony ones. If you're my age or older, it may seem daunting, but it's really pretty easy. It's not like writing those book reports you hated in grammar school. All you need is an Amazon account and twenty or more words.

2) If you're an author, revel in your one-star reviews. Don't complain. Welcome them. They're a badge of honor. A wonderful piece on Galley Cat this week pointed out that all the big bestsellers have hundreds of them.

When you get your first one-star, break out the bubbly—you're in the big time now. When you get over 400 one-stars, you'll be up there with George R. R. Martin and Steig Larssen. Get to 1300 and you might be the biggest bestseller ever, like E. L. James. A one-star shows your reviews are real. If you're good-humored about bad reviews, you're more likely to encourage honest reviewers.

3) Encourage review sites to change their policies if they require books to have a certain number of 4 and 5 star Amazon ratings to be featured. Sites like Pixel of Ink and Digital Book Today are great—but they insist on 10 four-or five-star Amazon reviews for a book to be considered for review. Not easy if you're a new writer launching a new book. Easy if you're a fat cat who uses a review mill. Because these ratings can now be purchased so easily, the arbitrary barriers do nothing but exclude new authors who don't cheat.

4) Read traditionally paid professional reviewers. Yes. They still exist. I still read the New Yorker reviews and even the NYT Book Review, (although I admit I skip a lot of the middle-aged male angsty stuff.) Let's hope these publications will join the 21st century and get out of the Big 6 pockets pretty soon. But some remnants of print culture are worth keeping. In this week's Guardian, Paul Laity wrote a great piece on the value of the professional critic. (Thanks, Porter Anderson, for the link.)

5) Hug an independent book review blogger today! Read their blogs!! Buy books by clicking through their ads!!! An honest, unbiased and independent reviewer is an author's best friend.

Most book review bloggers are not paid. They usually get the book free, or may receive a small click-through payment from Amazon or other retailer, but their work is mostly a labor of love.

However, I know reviewers who have received hate mail and threats after giving a less-than-stellar review. This is absurd, people. If you're that thin-skinned, you're not ready to publish.

I've recently had personal experience with the disrespect book review bloggers get. Since this blog was a finalist in the IBBA awards in June, I have been inundated by queries from publicists, agents, and publishers who don't bother to take the 20 seconds to click through to see this is a publishing industry advice blog, NOT a review blog. These people never personalize, never treat the blogger as an individual, and send a mass-query that says nothing but "review this book!"

No wonder book bloggers can sometimes sound a little cranky.

So how do you get a blogger to review your book?

That's supposed to be my subject for today, so I'll finally get to it.

Book Review Bloggers: How to Find Them and How to Treat Them Right

How do you find interested book bloggers?

The best way is to check similar books in your genre—especially those that have been recently released. Do a search for those titles with the word “review” and read as many reviews as you can. Make a list of the reviewers you like and read the review policy.

Almost no blogger will take all types of books. Some only read traditionally-published paper books; others want only indie ebooks for Kindle. Some specialize in Nook. They almost always have specific genre requests, so read carefully, and always follow them. Even if the blogger agrees to do a review outside their genre, you won’t reach the right readers. People don’t go to a chick lit review site to discover the latest zombie gore-fest.

How do you approach them?

You should make initial contact with a query—the same way you approach other gatekeepers like literary agents and editors. This means you send a professional letter—not a Tweet or wall post on Facebook.

Here are some general rules for scoring a review:

• Read the guidelines carefully. 
• Then, um, follow the guidelines carefully. 
• Never send an unsolicited book: query first. 
• Don’t query with books outside the prescribed genre. Personalize the query. 
• Keep queries short and intriguing. 
• Don’t take it personally if they turn you down. Reading takes a lot of time and most of them are swamped. 
• Understand the review is for the READER, not the writer, so negative reviews happen. 
• If you get a less than stellar review, mourn in private and move on. NEVER respond to a negative review.

Last November I interviewed popular childrens' book blogger Danielle Smith of There's a Book, and she gave some great advice on how to get your book reviewed by a blogger. She says the best way to approach a book blogger is to keep your query professional, but show some personality.

Reviewer Danielle Smith's guidelines for authors:

1.  Make sure you address the blogger by name
2. Include a two to four sentence synopsis—no longer
3. Keep personal information to a minimum. And don’t guilt-trip.
4. Attach an image of the book cover
5. Give the age range of the intended audience
6. Include the page count (for print books)
7. Provide the publication date and expected time frame of when you'd like to see the review posted for scheduling purposes.
8. Don’t ask for a review outside the blogger’s genre
9. Don’t query if you don’t have a website or a blog. (That screams “unprofessional” to a blogger.)

In other words, treat the book blogger like a professional and she will reciprocate.

If you want to know more about book bloggers and how to approach them, Danielle Smith is leading a panel at the Central Coast Writers' Conference with several Book Bloggers, including Amy Riley of My Friend Amy, and Pam Van Hylckama Vleig aka Bookalicious Pam who is also an agent with San Francisco agency Larsen-Pomada.

And if you want to read some genuine, not-paid-for Amazon reviews, here are some hilarious ones for a set of Bic pens.

How about you, scriveners? Would you ever consider paying for reviews? Does this change your opinion of John Locke? Do you read book review blogs?

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Confessions of a Big Six Editor: The Triumph of the Slush Pile

Thanks to everybody who came by and/or commented on last week’s post on Amazon reviews. You gave the blog its own Black Friday, with a record 1200 hits on Friday alone. 9000 visits, 140 comments, and counting. It’s now our #1 post of all time!

But I seem to have seriously miffed a lot of professional reviewers who thought I was lecturing THEM—telling them not to give negative reviews.

Major, major apologies, reviewers! NOT what I meant to say at all.

Without negative reviews, the positives wouldn't mean a thing.

NOTA BENE, SCRIVENERS: BOOK REVIEWERS ARE DEITIES WHOM WE ALL LOVE AND ADORE. They are our helpers, not the enemy. They are the new gatekeepers. To learn more about how phenomenally important they are, read my post THE NEW GATEKEEPERS and my interview with book reviewer Danielle Smith here. 

The purpose of my post was to tell the non-Amazon-savvy readers in my own demographic they now have more power than they realize, and that it’s easier to exercise than they may think.

But it seems the non-savvy Boomer was me. I talked about review conventions that are kind of obvious to anybody who’s been to Amazon a few times, but are apparently (sotto voce) THE FACTS THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED. 

I didn't know. Seriously. Sorry.

But, since humans are always more likely to be more vocal with complaints than with praise, I will continue to urge fans to support their favorite authors and reviewers. 

If that gets me more cyberbullying, so be it. I still think that if you love a book, it's good to say so. And it only takes a minute. 

As I said in last week’s post, if a review is useful, whether positive or negative—say that too. Good reviewers need our support just as much as good authors. Publishing is a business, and professionalism should be rewarded.

I also want to apologize to any Boomers who got their feelings hurt when I said some of us don’t automatically think of leaving an Amazon review and may not be acquainted with online review conventions. Ruth and I are both Boomers ourselves, specializing in what Ruth laughingly calls “biddylit”—that is, women’s fiction for grown-up ladies--many of whom tell us they're terrified to leave reviews.

I assumed this was because most of us born before 1965 treat tech as a second language, and don’t have the automatic tech instincts of Millennials and Gen X-ers, but to the Bill Gateses and Steve Jobses (we’ll miss you, dude) out there: sincere apologies.

Yes, the whole durn computer/Interwebz thing was invented by us Boomers. Yay Mickey Mouse Club, the Beatles, and Woodstock!

A number of people argued that, with Amazon becoming one big slush pile, the reviews should have stricter guidelines.

I agree. 

There’s no doubt a lot of not-ready-for-prime-time stuff is getting uploaded to Amazon every day, and (OK, I'll whisper it: A LOT OF AUTHORS DO GET FAUX RAVES FROM THEIR SISTERS AND THEIR COUSINS AND THEIR AUNTS.) Those are just as unhelpful as the ones written by trolls who leave semi-literate 20-word negatives for 1000s of books they’ve never read. (Which, BTW, happens to Big 6-ers as much as indies.)

The Kindle revolution means that we bypass the gatekeepers. Which turns us—the readers—into gatekeepers.

So how do we tell if a book is part of the Konrath’s tsunami of crap  or a brilliant new find?

We have to learn a new set of skills. 

Readers can learn which one of these is more positive:

“*****5-stars: The author is a friend from church who got me to write this in exchange for bringing her tuna surprise hot dish to the Sunday social, and I guess her book is OK if you like a bunch of filthy sex in a romance novel.”

“**2-stars: This is the most brilliantly written romance novel I’ve ever read. Strong, believable characters, eye-opening insights, and a page-flipping story, but hey, it’s a romance--not exactly A la Recherche du Temps Perdu.”

But unfortunately the Amazon algorithms can’t read between those lines. They only read the stars, so that leaves more work for us, the readers. A 3-starred book is going to be way harder to find, but keep looking.

As a customer, you can also look at the book description, the blurbs and, if you’re in the US, get a hefty sneak peek into the book—usually several chapters.

That makes you a new version of the old gatekeeper: the publishing house slush reader.

So who is better to teach us than Ruth Harris, former slush reader for Bantam?

Ruth went on to become a senior editor at both Bantam and Dell—and then publisher at Kensington, as well as the author of a whole lot of NYT bestselling novels. She knows the business from all sides.

In this piece, she reminds us of three hopeful things:

1) Great careers DO start in the slush pile.

2) There are a lot of seriously clueless people out there, so if you can read and write English, know how to follow directions, and are taking your meds, you’re way ahead of the game.

3) Somebody does actually read your submissions, (although nowadays that somebody is unlikely to be paid.)

TRIUMPH OF THE SLUSH PILE

by Ruth Harris

Back in the twentieth century when I started out in publishing, publishers did not insist that all submissions be agented, and direct submissions, aka the slush pile, served as training wheels (more like hamster wheels as it turned out) for young editors.

Beginning a new job at Bantam, I was assigned a desk in the secretarial bullpen where a monster stack of manuscripts waited for me. My job was to read them to see if any might be worth passing on to one of the older, more experienced editors.

Conscientious and wanting to impress the senior editor who was my boss, I began to read, at first assiduously finishing one manuscript (I had learned by then they were referred to as “ms” in written communications) after another.

The quasi-literate (they were the ones who loved "big" words and used them incorrectly), sub-literate and illiterate were sandwiched at random between the religious visionaries, the sexually shall-we-say peculiar, and the politically febrile.

There were the demented, the deranged and the delusional, submissions from jails and penitentiaries.

Most of all there were would-be writers who had never met a comma or, sometimes, even a paragraph, who had no idea how to shape a scene or introduce a character much less write a line of dialogue that any human being might actually have uttered. To those wannabes (that word didn’t exist then), quote marks also often seemed a galactic mystery as did sentences containing both a subject and a verb.

I was no literary snob and my reading choices embraced the entire range from Willa Cather to Mickey Spillane—but the slush pile did me in.

No matter how fast I plowed through the mss (that’s the plural of ms), attaching Bantam’s form rejection letter to the top and placing them in the required SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope), the pile never diminished.

Every morning and every afternoon (two mail deliveries a day back then) the mail room guy dumped another stack of mss on my desk.

They were typewritten, smeary, sometimes single-spaced, sometimes sans margins, punctuation or paragraphing; some were hand written, scrawled in old-fashioned school notebooks, the kind with the marbelized black-and-white cardboard covers. They were held together by rubber bands, string, yarn and, once in a while, ribbon.

The pages were occasionally pristine but more predictably smudged, dog eared, defaced by icky, unidentifiable substances, or dotted with coffee stains and cookie crumbs left by previous editors who had read—or made a valiant effort to read—the submission in question and, as they say in the trade, “passed.” 

I quickly learned to read the first one or two pages, maybe scan a few more, then flip to somewhere around the middle to see if anything had improved and, if any shred of hope remained, look at the last page or two to see if a more careful reading might be called for. (Dream on.)

The only further communiqué from these would-be authors was an occasional complaint that they’d left a piece of white thread on page 125 and, when the ms came bouncing back, the piece of white thread remained in place.

Why, they wanted to know, hadn’t the entire ms been read? How could we (the nameless editors because no one ever signed a name to a form rejection) reject their masterpiece without reading it in its entirety?

Let me count the ways.

I moved on and so did the slush pile: to agents who weren’t about to pay a young assistant to get the slush sorted—by now, it was their unpaid interns who slogged through the mess. (As opposed to the mss.) There was to be a double benefit: publishers no longer had to pay salaried employees to sift through the slush pile and, in the bargain, submissions had now been vetted before appearing on an editor’s desk.

As time passed, we arrived somewhere in first decade of the twenty-first century and reading the slush pile had gone from paid labor to unpaid labor.

A sort of progress, I guess, but one last glimmer of progress beckoned:

The Internet.

The quick and easy upload that earned Amazon a 70% cut every time a 99c book was purchased. Amazon had managed what once had seemed the impossible: it turned a huge time and money sink into a profit center.

Or, as my Mom would say: Someone had finally figured out how to turn shit into Shinola.

And guess what? The same problems that beset me years ago at my piled-to-the-rafters desk persist today in cyber-ville.

• Mangled grammar? Check.

• Run on sentences and run on paragraphs? Check.

• Typo infestations? Check.

• Terrible formatting,

• No discernable plot,

• “Characters” unrecognizable as human beings,

• Blobs, clunks and chunks of back story bulldozed in,

• Hopeless attempts at description,

• Even more hopeless efforts at narrative,

• Character names that change from one chapter to the next.

• And so on. And on.

About the only thing that’s different is that today’s digitized slush pile comes sans icky unidentifiable splotches and the coffee stains and cookie crumbs left by previous readers.

...and the little piece of white thread on page 125.

PS: Lest you think me excessively bitter and cynical, I will add that the SP is not absolutely, totally 1000% hopeless.

There are writers who have made it out. Stephanie Meyers (Twilight) was rescued from an agent’s SP. Philip Roth back in 1958 from a Paris Review SP (you can look it up on Google). And, IIRC, Kathleen Woodiwiss, one of the queens of the Bodice Rippers, was originally pulled out of the SP as was Rosemary Rogers. At Avon. By a talented editor who knew what Freud didn't: she knew what women wanted.

*******

Please Note: We are very much aware there are lots of thoroughly professional indies, who are producing work as good or better than what was vetted by those slushpile readers of yesteryear. (Ruth is self-pubbing these days, and Anne is with two small publishers.)

But because self-pubbers aren’t vetted, it’s up to you the reader to learn to weed out the bad ones—but I’ll bet you won’t have to read as far as that “white thread” page to spot them.

How about you, scriveners? Do you feel competent to do your own vetting, or do you think interns do a better job? Do you want your book to get the stamp of approval of the Big Six before you’ll feel OK about seeing it for sale?

This week, MWiDP is launching its second Saffina DesforgesPresents anthology: Kindle Coffee Break Collection. Anne's story VIVE LA REVOLUTION appears in the anthology (caution: very noir Hollywood humor there. For fans of dark satire only.)

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The New Gatekeepers: How to Query a Book Review Blogger—an Interview with Danielle Smith.

Publishing insider Alan Rinzler said in a blogpost last summer that traditional book marketing is no longer working. “That $50K space ad in the New York Times?” he said. “Forget it. It’s only for the author’s mother…not even an appearance on the Today Show can guarantee more than a brief spike in sales. The old ways don’t work, and smart people in book publishing know that and say it openly now.” (If you want more on this, check out Meghan Ward's Blog, Writerland where you can read her brilliant interview with Rinzler and agent Andy Ross.)

Many agents now say they’re no longer interested in queries from unknowns. Some even suggest you self-publish first, then query only if you have good sales. 

So if agents are abdicating as gatekeepers, and the New York Times and the Today Show are no longer the best places to find out about new books, where does a reader go?

Increasingly, people are going to book review blogs. That’s why getting a good review from a prestigious blogger in your genre can be the best way to launch a book.

But how can you find the right reviewers? And how do you approach them?

You send a query—pretty much the way you approach other gatekeepers like literary agents and editors. (See, you didn’t entirely waste the two decades you spent querying every agent listed at AgentQuery.com.) 

Here are some general rules for scoring a review: 

1)     Read the guidelines carefully.

2)     Then, um, follow the guidelines carefully.

3)     Never send an unsolicited book or file: query first.

4)     Don’t query with books outside the prescribed genre. (Even if the blogger agrees to do a review, you won’t reach the right readers. People don’t go to a chick lit review site to hear about the latest zombie gore-fest.)

5)     Personalize the query.

6)     Keep queries short and intriguing.

7)     Don’t take it personally if they turn you down. Reading takes a lot of time and most of them are swamped.

8)     Understand the review is for the READER, not the writer, so negative reviews happen.

9)     If you get a less than stellar review, mourn in private and move on.

Who are the worst rule breakers? Turns out it’s marketers, publicists and other publishing professionals who don’t get social networking. People who blast generic review requests into thousands of bloggers’ inboxes only get thousands of deletes. (Kristin Lamb has a funny post on those “Dear Madam” email requests this week.) 

To get the real skinny on how to approach a book blogger, I decided to talk to one. I'm lucky enough to live near Danielle Smith, who has one of the most popular review sites in her genre.

I met Danielle long before I knew she was a reviewer—and before I knew she was my neighbor. I met her at the blog of Emily Cross--the wonderful Irish writer who started the Writers' Chronicle Forums--and I just assumed Danielle lived in Ireland like Emily. So I was blown away when Danielle introduced herself at the Central Coast Writers Conference and told me she lived only twenty miles from me.

Here’s how important book bloggers have become: after I introduced Danielle to one of my classes at the CCWC, two fierce older ladies came to my “table talk” and plunked themselves down, announcing, “We don’t want to talk to you. We want to talk to the book reviewer!” I explained that because Danielle wasn’t a presenter, she wasn’t part of the table talk, but the two ladies had staked their claim and they weren’t going to move. They may be sitting there yet.

But I can pretty much guarantee that their approach isn’t the best way to get a book reviewed. So what works better? Let’s let Danielle answer.

Anne: How can authors find the right reviewers for their books?

Danielle: Here are some great places to find book bloggers for every genre:
Book Blogger Appreciation Week
Book Blog Directory
Fyrefly's Book Blog Search 

Anne: What got you into book blogging?

Danielle: My kids. I've been a long time reader and blogger, but I'd never combined the two. My son actually started reading on his own at around a year and a half which lead to a giant problem...which books do I pick up for him? I felt overwhelmed in book stores and libraries and quickly came to the conclusion that I couldn't be alone in my plight. I started There's a Book to help others find the right books for their own kids, no matter their age. After about a year I connected with Leah from Chick Lit Reviews and News and started reviewing there as well. I love it!

Anne:  I know you review on two separate sites. Do you only review children’s and chick lit novels?

Danielle: Yes. I review picture books, middle grade and young adult books as well as chick lit/women's fiction novels.

Anne: What are your submission guidelines?

Danielle: Anyone requesting a review or feature I suggest they read over my review policy first and then contact me via email at the1stdaughter at gmail dot com. But, read the review policy first!

Anne: Do you like an author to approach you first with a query letter?

Danielle: Yes. I'd absolutely prefer a query letter first.

Anne: What do you want to see in the query?

Danielle: Think about this the same way you'd approach a publisher you hope to have publish your book. No, I'm not going to get you published, but I may just be able to help sell a few copies of your book.

Keep your query professional, but show me some personality. No guilt trips of course. Be concise and make sure to share a two to four sentence summary of your book. Also helpful is an image of the book cover if available, the age range of the intended audience, page count and publication date. I also like to know if you have an expected time frame of when you'd like to see the review posted for scheduling purposes.

Anne: What is most likely to get your attention and make you want to review a book?

Danielle: Cover and then the synopsis. Yes, I love a good cover. Then and/or if you've done your homework the topic will be something that appeals to me. It really frustrates me to get queries about books I list as specifically not accepting. Not only because it's a waste of my time, but a waste of time for the author. Think of all the excellent book bloggers you could be reaching out to who love the topic you write about!

Anne:  Do you give unfavorable reviews, or do you only review books you like? Have you ever had a bad reaction to one of your reviews?

Danielle: Yes, I do write negative reviews. Honesty is always my policy, but I'm also very constructive in my criticism. I understand how difficult it is to write a book, no matter it's size and I don't like to write negative things for the sake of being negative. Generally speaking though, I've gotten much better about selecting the books I read and review which cuts down considerably on the number of negative reviews I have to write.

As for bad reactions...not really for reviews. If anything, I've received negative reactions about my decision not to review a certain book. Which is unfortunate because I'm almost always happy to refer someone to a reviewer I know personally who may enjoy their book.

Anne: What are your pet peeves that authors and agents do when approaching you?

Danielle: There are only a few things that really get to me when being approached:

• Contacting me for a review via Twitter. I will not take review requests via Twitter and this seems to be an increasing trend with authors unfortunately. Most book bloggers I know won't accept them either.

• Not using my name in an email requesting a review. This is an immediate indication to me that the person hasn't read my review policy. It's also slightly rude. Often I get requests opening with "Hi..." and nothing else. Would you email a publisher or employer that way?

• Requesting a review from me for a book I clearly wouldn't read. I recently had a request for a James Patterson novel and though his books are excellent they aren't exactly the right fit for either of the sites I review at, are they?

• Too much personal info. I want to know about your book and not your cat, sorry! I love cats, but unless they appear in your book I don't really need to know them to decide about reviewing your book 

• A synopsis for your book that exceeds a paragraph. I simply don't have the time to read more than that.

• Authors who don't have a website and/or blog. Sometimes this can make or break my decision. If you don't have one I may not review your book. It doesn't need to be fancy, but often this is where I go to find more info about your book if I'm not quite sure if it’s a good fit.

Anne: Any advice you'd like to add to authors who want to approach you?

Danielle: Be fearless! If you love your book, which I know you do, then make it shine and show me why I should love it. Also, don't be afraid to contact me with a general question. If you know your book isn't a good fit and need help finding a great book blogger don't be afraid to ask. This goes for most book bloggers I know, we're generally a very friendly bunch and a tightly knit community so don't be afraid to reach out to us, we love authors!

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity Anne. I'll gladly answer questions to anyone who comments, so please feel free to ask away!

Thank you Danielle! There’s so much information here, and you’re so generous about helping authors find the right reviewers.

So scriveners—you heard the lady. Ask away!

*********

NOTICE: We've had some tech problems with the ebook of THE GATSBY GAME. If you've had any problems with downloads, or bought a copy with funky formatting, please let me know!  Email me at annerallen (dot) allen (at) gmail.com.

But now everything seems to be fixed and all is well!

But I would like to test it, so if you'd like a FREE EBOOK, email me at the above address. I'll just need you to download it in the next 24 hours and let me know how it looks. Thanks for bearing with me here. This is when it's awfully nice to have a publisher who can fight these battles for me. Thanks, Mark! 

**********

Remember that next week, November 13^th, we have a guest post from none other than the legendary grand master of mystery writing, LAWRENCE BLOCK!

New on the blog this week is my page for the Indie Chicks Anthology--an anthology of personal stories and writing samples from 25 independent women. All sales go to breast cancer research.

I continue my blog tour this week at Florence Foisttoni's blog, Florence Fois in the City with a guest post on November 9th on women and body image.

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How to Blog Part IV—What the #%*! Should I Blog About?

OK, sez you. I’ve finally finished my novel/memoir and I’m about to send out my first round of queries. People say I need a blog. But now you tell me not to post excerpts from my WIP or focus on my personal life. I’ve only written one book (if you don’t count that one I’ve stuffed in a drawer for now.) I’m not famous or an expert on anything special.

…so what DO I blog about!!?

To get your ideas flowing, start by surfing around the writing blogosphere. Click on some of the names of commenters on popular agent blogs—or right here—and read their blogs. Analyze the ones that draw you in and find the elements that make them interesting. Then borrow a few ideas and put them together in your own way.

(And don’t forget to leave comments. That’s how the blogging community gets to know you. Reading and commenting on other blogs is essential to generating readership. Factor that into your blogging time.)

Or you may find yourself making long comments on some subject that gets your hackles up/juices flowing. That’s the stuff you should be putting in your own blog.

The most successful blogs reveal the writer’s personality and provide useful information at the same time. They usually focus on one particular niche, although the occasional foray off topic is OK when the content is fresh and interesting.

Here are a few ideas for finding a focus for your blog:

• Concentrate on your genre or subgenre. You don’t have to limit yourself to books. You can discuss movies, videogames, TV shows, even jewelry and costumes—as long as they relate to your niche. SciFi writer Alex J. Cavanaugh has a great blog that specializes in all things SciFi. He won this year’s Movie411 award for best SciFi blog, for good reason. 

• Focus on your novel’s setting. Recently a country singer/songwriter who’s working on a mystery novel asked me for help with his blog. He’d been posting mostly lyrics from his songs (not a good idea because music copyright laws differ from written word copyright laws, and he might have been giving away his songs forever.) I suggested he concentrate on some aspect of his novel instead. He renamed it “Southern Life” and he’s going to blog on the setting of his planned series—the rural south. Bingo.

• Your character’s hobbies can make a great subject for a blog, too. Write cozies about a sleuth who collects dolls? Start a blog about dolls and the history of dollmaking, and maybe review sites that sell doll-making materials. You’ll draw in a whole demographic that might not usually read mysteries, but will loyally read yours because they’re interested in the subject matter.

• Write historicals? You’re sure to have tons of research notes you couldn’t fit in the book. A blog is a great place for them. Provide information about a specific time period aimed at history buffs, costumers, Creative Anachronists and other historical novelists and you'll draw a variety of readers.

• Do you write for a particular demographic—single urban women, Boomers, stay-at-home moms, or the just-out-of-college dazed and confused? Focus on aspects of life of special interest to that demographic.

• Have some great recipes that relate to your character, time period, or whatever? Write about the food in your books, or food in fiction generally.

• Is your historical based on a real person or your own family history? You could target readers from the genealogy blogosphere and provide how-to-study genealogy info and links to historical research sites.

• Have you written a memoir that involves caretaking or surviving a particular disease or disaster? Or does your novel have a protagonist with a disability? Reach out to others in the same situation and provide information and pep talks for others dealing with the same issues. They’ll provide a ready-made audience when your book comes out.

• And you CAN write personal stuff—as long as you make it entertaining and funny. Think stand-up comedy rather than confessional personal diary. Romantic comedy writer Tawna Fenske somehow manages to do this in post after post.

If you want to build a readership quickly, and you have time to do some research, consider a service blog.

• Profile agents who represent your genre. Casey McCormick does this for agents who rep YA. She takes the info. from agency websites, interviews, articles and blogs and compiles them into easy-to read form. Basically she does your research for you. (Thanks Casey!) Other genres sure could use somebody like this.

• Review books in your genre. If you write thoughtful reviews, you’ll immediately become everybody’s best friend. Every published novelist is dying for reviews. Danielle “First Daughter” Smith has a great review site for children’s books.

• Review books about writing. There are a ton of them out there. You could start with the ones you’ve got on your shelf right now. How helpful are they to a writer in your genre? What classics are no longer helpful in today's marketplace?

• Post a weekly/monthly round-up of other blogs in your niche. Sierra Godfrey and the writers at Adventures in Children’s Publishing  provide consistently good round-ups—and there are many, many more. 

Or you can be uncreative like me and write about writing. Mostly. A huge number of writers at various stages of our careers blog about our creative process and all aspects of the writing life. Join us. Writers are book readers (or we should be) so you have a ready-made reading audience.

Ending your posts with a question is a good way to generate comments. Anybody out there have more suggestions for subject matter for new bloggers? 

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