Social Media Secrets Part II: How to Blog your Way out of the Slush Pile and onto the Bestseller List

"Blogging doesn't sell books."

"Don't waste your time blogging."

"Spend more time on Facebook/Pinterest/Tumblr/Twitter/YouTube/ Goodreads/Soliciting reviews/Spamming your friends with newsletters."

You're hearing this stuff every day.

But in a survey published this week, 63% of readers said they discover books most often on author websites (a blog is a website.) Facebook nearly tied with that, but other forms of social media were also-rans, with newsletters at 36%, Goodreads at 27% and Twitter at 18%.

I think every author can benefit from a well-maintained blog. Even if you only blog once a month. (I'm a big advocate of slow blogging, but I think it's best to post on a timetable: write at your leisure, but post to a schedule.)

Why do I think authors should blog?

Because it worked for me. Let me tell you my story—

Four years ago my career was over. My publisher had gone under. My third agent had dropped me. All my freelance writing gigs had dried up or stopped paying.

I was bloodying my knuckles on the doors of agents and publishers. If I got a response at all, it was to let me know that nobody wanted a washed-up author of funny mysteries. (Humor never sells; just ask any agent.) I was advised to change my name and start writing steampunk or YA zombie romance.

If you Googled my name you'd have to go through 10 pages before you found one entry about me or my books.

On a sad Friday the 13th in the late 'oughties, I decided to start this blog as a place to post archives of my old columns from Freelance Writing Organization International.

I promptly lost the blog. Yeah. Don't do this. Remember to bookmark that baby blog!

But three months later, I went hunting and found it again. And I started blogging once a week or so. For the first year, nobody read it. Seriously. I have posts that still haven't had more than 10 hits.

But posting once a week gave me back some of the confidence I'd lost when my career fell apart. I felt like a professional again. I could communicate with other writers all over the world. (As well as close to home: a book blogger I met on an Irish site—so I thought she was Irish—turned out to be my neighbor in San Luis Obispo, CA!)

Then, in 2010, after I won a guest post spot on Nathan Bransford's blog, more people started to drift over here.

Fast forward to 2013.

• My mystery boxed set has been in the top 50 bestsellers in comic fiction for two months. I'm playing bestseller-list leapfrog with my idols: Dave Barry, Douglas Adams, and Lisa Lutz.
• I've got seven books in print, another in final edits, and my work is in over a dozen new anthologies, magazines and literary journals.
• Both my publishers came to me—I didn't have to query.
• I share my blog with Ruth Harris: a NYT bestselling author.When I first started reading Ruth's books in the early 1990s, I never dreamed I'd even meet such a famous author.  
• I've written a book with Amazon's current #1 bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde (and we're now preparing a set of webinars for new writers.)  
• I'm invited to speak at writers' conferences and seminars—and magazines now solicit my work.
• When you Google my name, you get 47 pages of ME before you get to Anne R. Allen the San Jose stockbroker, (who must hate me. I apologize, Anne.)

All of this happened directly because of my blog.

I'm not saying all blogs will do this. But with patience, a blog can help you meet the people who can take your career to the next level.

I know many authors who, like me, have met their publishers, agents, and writing partners through blogging. (And that neighbor I met on the Irish writing site? She's now a literary agent.)

Do all authors need a blog? Maybe not, but you need to be on social media somewhere. You can't just have a launch party in your local bookstore and get a press release into your hometown newspaper and expect to make significant sales. (And don't count on your publisher for much help with marketing.)

Today, a writer's market is global. Do you know the country where people read the most? India.  Or where the 2nd biggest population of English speakers lives? India. Followed by Pakistan and Nigeria.

A blog is your home in that global marketplace. It's a place where people can drop in and get to know you and find out about your books.

NOTE: Blogging isn't for direct sales of books. No social media is about hard-selling. (See my post on Social Media Secrets from July 21.) Social media is about making friends. (With people and with search engines. You want Google to be your BFF.)

For an example of how making friends on social media can help your writing career, here's a heartwarming story of how Aussie novelist Prue Batten was able to get first-hand knowledge about a Knights Templar building in 12th century France for the next in her bestselling Guy of Gisborne series—through a social media connection.

When should you start blogging? Not when you've just started that book you’ve always wanted to write. Don't scatter your energies. If it’s either blogging or writing the book, the book should always win.

But I'd say if you don't have a blog yet, you should start one when you’re getting ready to send out queries or preparing to self-publish. (Which should probably be when you're polishing up your second book.)

Why blog?

1) You need a website anyway. Sending out a query when you don’t have a website is a waste of time. Most agents and reviewers will reject on that item alone. (And yes, if you're getting lots of form rejections on a polished query, this may be the reason. Stop revising the query and start blogging.)

2) It gets your name into the search engines faster. A static website gets less traffic, so the Google spiders don't notice it as often.

3) You’re a writer. Blogs are writing. This is your medium.

4) Other social media are subject to faddism. MySpace, anyone?

5) Other social media can kick you out any time. I get put in Facebook jail all the time, because some troll loves to mark links to this blog as spam.

6) Control. Unfortunately, the Internet is infested with trolls, rage addicts, and spammers. I know a woman whose Facebook account got hacked by some diet-drug spammer who hit all her FB peeps with insulting ads. Several promptly "defriended" her before she even knew what happened. Another friend got hit by a porn site who "tagged" a bunch of amateur porn with his name so it went all over his page. Stuff like this happens every day.

But on your own blog, there's that little trash can icon. A troll, spammer or furious fool shows up and you click it. All gone.

OK, now I'm going to tell you my #1 big, huge secret that nobody will tell you about how to have a successful blog:

1) Visit and comment on other blogs!!!

Even if you don't have your own blog, you can start building your online presence by commenting on popular blogs. Check the list of great blogs to follow on our new "HOW TO GET A BOOK PUBLISHED" page.

A comment right here can put your name in front of 10,000 people in a week. It could take years to reach that many people with a new blog.

• Commenting on high profile blogs is the quickest way to get into search engines. Most of my 47 Google pages come from my comments on other people's blogs.
• My blog took off because of what I posted on Nathan Bransford's blog, not my own. That's how people learned my name and style.
• Discussions on high-profile blogs can lead to discussions on your own. Find yourself making a long comment? That's your next blogpost. Invite people to discuss it further on your own blog. 
• Support somebody's argument on a high-profile blog and you have a blogfriend. That's how I got my first followers.

But for a newbie, commenting can be a daunting task. They ask you for some kind of ID and you've got no idea what that *&%# is about, right? You may be allowed to comment as "anonymous"—but that doesn't get your name out there, and you can't comment on blogs like this one where anon comments are disabled (because of spam and trolls, alas.)

So here's my #2 secret: if you're not commenting on blogs because you don't have a blog ID—

2) Join Google+ 

It's an easy, no-strings social site where you can participate or not (just unclick "email me" functions if you want to keep participation to a minimum.) It gives you a "user ID" that allows you to comment on most blogs without jumping through all those hoops.

Once  you join, Google knows who you are, and that profile not only allows easier blog commenting, but it comes up when you're Googled, with your photo and contact info. If you have gmail, it's super easy to sign up, and it's not hard for anybody, even a confirmed Luddite.

And you'll be in a position to get more involved when you're ready. Google + is considered the up-and-coming social media site by most top social media experts. Guy Kawasaki says it's what Twitter was in 2008.

Google+ doesn't charge you for reaching more than a handful of readers the way Facebook does, and it doesn't invade your privacy or target you with ads. Right now, it's not as active as Facebook, but with 400 million users, it's a growing force.

You can also join Wordpress without having a Wordpress blog. You can sign up for a username only account.

Here are some more "secrets" I learned by trial and error

3)  Put links in each post.

I happened to have done this right by mistake. (It's my academic training. Write those footnotes! Cite your source!) I always link to my source material, so people don't think I'm making stuff up.

Turns out those hyperlinks are how Google finds you. That's the bait that lures their robo-spiders to your site. That's what they mean by "SEO—search engine optimization"—three words that usually make my eyes glaze over.

Another way to "optimize" those search engines: don't get thesaurus-happy. That means avoid using what grammarian H.W. Fowler called "elegant variation."

Normal sentence: "It was a good bull, a strong bull, a bull bred to fight to the death."

Elegant variation: "It was a good bull, a strong animal, a male creature of the bovine persuasion bred to do battle..."

But search engines who are looking for something about bulls will be drawn to that repetition you're trying to avoid. So go ahead and repeat yourself. (But not so much that you look like you're gaming the spiders.)

4) Write Tweetable titles.

I often find a blogpost I want to Tweet about, but the title says nothing, so I have to make one up, and often I don't have time.

So make it easier for people to tweet you:  No one-word titles. Nothing generic or enigmatic. This is one place to be a salesperson rather than a poet. You want stuff like "How to's", lists, and questions. Think magazine cover teasers: stuff like "What Your Teacher Won't Tell You About the Oxford Comma!" or "Does Chocolate Make You a Better Writer?"

Look at what you click on when you're skimming the web. Are you going to click through to read something titled "Alone" or "Scribblings" or "Sad Thoughts"?

5) Don't try to maintain more than one blog. 

If you write in very different genres under several names, you may need more blogs, but do NOT have a blog for every book or every character. You can't keep them all up, and readers who are looking for you do not appreciate having to click all over the cyberverse looking for your current blog.

Note: the Internet is littered with abandoned blogs. Unfortunately, the old ones will show up higher in the search engines than a new one. So if you want to start a new direction with your blogging, use the old url, or at least leave a forwarding address on the old one. If an agent or reader Googles you and finds a blog that hasn't been updated since your rant about the cancelling of Boston Legal, they're not going to be impressed.

And unless you write erotica and keep your identity a secret, be wary of having a "personal" blog (or FB page) and a "professional" one. Nothing is secret in social media and everything you do online needs to be professional. (I strongly advise a "closed group" family Facebook page for family photos and news.)

6)  Put share buttons on your blog

Those are those little "f" "t", "g +1" and other buttons that allow people to share your brilliant words to their Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts. They are the way you will build a following. Even if you don't use Twitter, Facebook, etc, you want people to spread the word.

7) Write a friendly, informative "About Me" page.

Have any awards, publications, etc? Have a claim to fame outside of writing—like winning the state chili cook-off or raising exotic gerbils? Have any online publications you can link to? This is where you crow about it. Here's more on how to write an author bio.

8) Invite comments.

Ask a question at the end of the post—a call to action.

And turn off the "prove you're not a robot" CAPTCHA. A new blog doesn't get much spam, so it doesn’t need protection from spambots. But it does need comments, so don't make people jump through hoops. Also, I think it's best not to moderate comments on your most recent post. I only moderate posts a week old or more. (Older posts attract the most spam.)

9) Don't forget social media is SOCIAL.

Reply to comments!

Full disclosure: I didn't do that for an entire year. I was totally clueless.

Oh, yeah, and visit your followers' blogs—especially when you're starting out. We don't have time to visit all 1475 of our followers, but I drop in on several each week. I always learn something.

10) Learn to write 21st century prose.

People skim on the Interwebz. Don't post big hunks of text. White space is your friend. So are numbered lists, bullet points, bolding, etc. Anything over 2000 words is off-putting. (I know. Sorry. I sometimes go over the limit myself.)

11) Make your blog easy on the eyes. 

No light text on black background, please. Besides looking like an interface from 1987, it's hard on the eyeballs. Ditto tiny fonts and images behind the text. Anything too busy will drive people away.

12) Put your name on the blog.

Resist the urge to use a cutsie title.  People will Google your name, not "Scribbles on Sunday" If you haven't got your name on your blog, just change the header to "Susie Scrivener's Scribbles on Sunday," (but keep your old URL, or you'll have to start from scratch with the search engines.)

***

And here's my personal #1 reason for blogging: It's the only form of social media (except maybe Google +) where you don't have to act all "OMG I'm totally still in high school!"

In TWO WEEKS, I'll devote a post to the biggest question I get from new bloggers: WHAT SHOULD I BLOG ABOUT?

What about you, scriveners? Do you blog? Have you found it helpful in your career? A total waste of time? Tell us your stories!

Next week: we'll have a fascinating post from the director of a writers conference on what she herself has learned from the conferences she's directed. Plus we'll have 10 must-read tips for anybody planning to go to a conference.

BOOK BARGAIN OF THE WEEK

This month, Sherwood, Ltd is 99c for Kindle US, UK, Nook, and FREE on Smashwords and  on Kobo. And for book-sniffers (I have to admit to some closet book-sniffing myself) it is available in paper for the marked-down price of $8.54. (regularly $8.99 on Amazon and $12.99 in stores.)  It's also on sale in paper in the in the UK for £6.81.

"It's not yer typical whodunnit, nor is the protagonist anything like a cop. Ms. Allen has crafted a wily tale of murder, deceit, and intrigue that can stand with the best of them. Her characters are all too real and her dialogue took me from laughter to chills to suspicion of everybody in the book. Good on her!

Editorially, the book is also refreshingly well-done and all but devoid of grammatical or other such gaffes. This was obviously written by an intelligent woman who is also a fine story-teller. My congratulations to her.

My suggestion? Read this book. It will be well worth the time."...David Keith

Special note to Camilla fans: If you've enjoyed any of the Camilla books, I hope you'll consider writing a review here. Once a book makes the bestseller lists, the trolls come out. And of course, comedy is always subjective. Genuine reviews from Camilla fans would be a huge help right now.

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS

1) SMOKE AND MIRRORS podcasts. Get your short story recorded FREE for an online podcast! 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.

2) Cash prizes for memoir. Poetry or prose. NO entry fee. Memoir Journal A prize of $500 and publication in Memoir Journal is given twice yearly for a memoir in the form of a poem or an essay. The editors will judge. Using the online submission system, submit up to five poems or up to 10,000 words of prose. Visit the website for complete guidelines. Deadline August 16th.

3) Authors: advertise to international readers with EbookBargainsUK. Yes, I keep pushing these guys, but they are growing like mad. I heard they've recently been contacted by Apple, so their newsletters should be great for reaching iPad readers. And their prices are amazingly reasonable.

Listings will be half-price through July and August and anyone listing then will get a credit for a free listing for September onwards (excluding the Holiday period December 20 – January 10). ALSO: They are launching Ebook Bargains Australia, Ebook Bargains New Zealand, Ebook Bargains Canada and Ebook Bargains India, offering authors a chance to target their ebooks at readers through local stores in those countries. Inclusion in these international email newsletters will not cost you anything extra! The one small listing fee will get your ebooks in all five newsletters, reaching five of the biggest English-speaking markets outside the USA.

Readers outside the US who want great deals—sign up here

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 16, 2013.

Read More

7 Ways Authors Waste Time "Building Platform" on Social Media

Authors are getting hammered with more and more demands on our time. We get escalating pressure to blog more! tweet more!! send more newsletters!!! churn out 12 books a year!!!! And don't query unless your Klout rating is as high as Justin Beiber's !!!!!

It's making us all feel as if what we do is never enough, as Nathan Bransford lamented last week.

"It never feels like there are enough hours in the day, or days in the weeks, or weeks in the months, or months in the year. Time slips away, and with it a chance to accomplish something or edge closer to your dream. Social media only adds to the pressure. 

People are completing novels and making New York Times bestseller lists and curing cancer while juggling on a unicycle and it all looks so effortless and who needs sleep anyway??"

I’ve addressed the problem myself in my post Why Are We Running as Fast As We Can to Stay in the Same Place? 

Porter Anderson of Writing on the Ether responded to Nathan with a post of his own, where he said,

“Remember the early XM Radio slogan? ‘Everything. All The Time.’ Are we really going to be able to sustain this?”

No. We aren’t.

We are creative human beings, not machines, and creativity is subject to departure without notice, leaving depression and anxiety in its wake. In succumbing to the pressure, we are abusing ourselves—risking physical and mental illness. Plus we’re increasing the pressure on all our colleagues by appearing to be that magic “unicyclist” Nathan talks about.

Thing is: A lot of the pressure comes from misinformation  and old news.

The online world reinvents itself at least every two years, and the creaky old publishing business has a hard time keeping up. They’ve jumped on the social media party train, but unfortunately, they sometimes jump on the caboose instead of the engine.

A lot of the things publicists and marketers are asking authors to do are time-wasters that have been overused, are no longer relevant, or have no impact on sales.

If you’re in a master/slave relationship with an agent or publisher, you may be forced to do this stuff.  But you can be excused for slipping a link to this post into your next email.

And if you’re an indie, you can ignore it all and do what actually works. (And please, stop trying to manipulate your fellow authors into doing this stuff for you.)

Right now what works is having lots of sales and freebies and—if you can afford it—advertising them on vetted newsletters like Bookbub. E-Reader News Daily or EBookBargainsUK. But next week it will probably be something different. This business is changing by the nanosecond.

The only thing that can be counted on to enhance your visibility as a writer is to interact with readers in a real, honest, and generous way on the social media platform of your choice, as Hugh Howey has showed us. He said he focused on the readers he already had instead of trolling the universe for more. When you create the kind of goodwill and loyal fan base he has, word of mouth spreads news of your books. That way you get those "1000 true fans" instead of amassing pointless lists of numbers.

Here’s stuff that doesn’t work, wastes time, and could lead to serious burnout:

1) Racking up 1000s of Twitter followers  

The only followers that matter are the ones who read your books and blogposts and interact with you. Any others are meaningless.

I’m amazed at all the spam I get offering to sell me followers. A "follower" whose identity has been obtained by fraud and sold is not going to be a willing customer.

Buying thousands of Twitter followers and calling it a “platform” is like renting a lot of empty safety deposit boxes and saying you’re rich.

And paying somebody to send out a stream of tweets saying "buy my book" to a bunch of strangers is pointless, too. I don't know anybody who has ever bought a book because they were ordered to in a tweet by a stranger.

An author with fifty engaged fans on Twitter is going to be far more effective than one with a thousand detached strangers, all of whom are purchased and/or are other authors racking up follower numbers, too.

Another thing that publicists and marketers love that will not gain you any readers: automating Tweets, especially auto-responds that say “buy my book, minion!” and asking your Tweeps to do your marketing for you. Auto-responses to a follow usually get an auto-unfollow, and publicists who insist you put one on your Twitter account are clueless.

2) Madly promoting your "Like" page on Facebook

People actually pay for ads on Facebook and give prizes to readers in order to get more "likes" for an author page. But a post on an author “like” page will only get a dozen or so views now—unless you pay extra fees—and you’re not allowed to interact on other pages or groups unless you have a personal page as well. This means a "like" page is far less important than it used to be.

It's probably a good idea to have an author "like" page so you have a Facebook presence—like having an ad in the Yellow Pages—but the number of "likes" has no impact on book sales. (Ditto Amazon author page "likes".)

A personal Facebook page is much more useful, but if you sign up for a personal page, you open a whole new worm-can. You're at the mercy of malevolent fellow authors who mark your blog links as “spam” in order to get you put into FB jail and block people from visiting your blog. There are no humans at FB to contact to report this kind of abuse. Believe me. I have sent at least two complaining emails a week to dozens of addresses. I have never had a response, and they still block this blog as spam.

At the same time, Facebook encourages real spammers, scammers and gamers who try to trick you into giving the personal information of all your friends so they can sell it to marketers.

And as far as privacy goes—you might as well live in a picture window like an Amsterdam hooker. (NSA, eat your heart out: Facebook has been invading our privacy for years in ways governments can only dream about.)

For me, Facebook is only useful to network with other writers in the various FB writing groups and to announce freebie and sale days on pages like Free Kindle and Nook Deals , 99 Cent Kindle Deals. (There are hundreds of these. It’s kind of a crapshoot which ones will work.)

Requiring an author to have a certain number of Facebook likes/friends is even more pointless than the Twitter-follower thing, since you have to pay to have any of these people see your posts.

NOTE: These days I think a writer can do much better finding readers on a smaller social network like RedRoom, SheWrites, or myWANA—sites where both readers and writers congregate and you can engage with people. (Goodreads can be good too, but they have a bully problem, and I find it incredibly hard to navigate.)

Even simply commenting regularly on blogs like this one can help form community and get your name out there. If I see a new book by somebody who's commented on my blog, or Kristen's or Nathan's—yeah, you bet I'm going to check it out. Much more than if I get a notice of a book launch from one of my 600 "friends" on Facebook.

3) Amassing a huge list of email addresses for a newsletter

I’ve resisted the pressure to start up a newsletter. I do send a private email to a few selected friends to announce new blogposts, but that’s it. That’s because I hate newsletters. They’re mostly rehashed content from blogs or websites and chest-beating self-praise.

A lot of spam-blocker programers seem to feel the same way, because most spam-blockers will block anything sent to more than ten addresses.

So I was so glad to run across a post from marketing guru Jon Morrow last week called "Why You Shouldn't Create a Newsletter."

“Newsletters are so 2005” is the way he put it. He says blogs are much more effective, and it’s annoying overkill to have both.

He says, “publishing [used to be] a one-way street. You wrote a newsletter, article, or white paper, sent it to your readers, and they either read it or ignored it. End of story.With social media though, communication now flows both ways. 

Yes, we still publish information, but now our readers respond back to us, leaving comments, sharing with their friends, and linking to us from their own blogs and websites. It’s a complete game changer. 

Rather than publishing an article you like and hoping your readers enjoy it, now you know what they think within a matter of minutes. You can also compare the response to different articles to see what your readers enjoy most.” 

He also points out that blogposts can be tweeted and shared with thousands, instead of forwarded to one person (if you’re lucky.)

In other words: newsletters are old news.

And as for sending them out to everybody who has ever commented on your blog or emailed you: just don’t. No matter how much your marketing department hammers you to do it. Not only is it likely to end up in a spam folder, but mass-marketing to people who are not your fans only annoys them.

Establish an enticing blog and enable email subscriptions to blog updates. It's more interactive and up-to-date than a newsletter and accomplishes the same goal.

4) Participating in expensive, grueling blog tours

I’m not against blog tours. My sales spike when I visit other blogs. And a professional blog tour organizer can be hugely valuable in helping you target blogs where your potential readers congregate.

But those big, month-long “blog tours” are usually too expensive to be cost-effective and often create an unpleasant experience for authors and bloggers alike.

Part of the problem is that the publicist or marketer who sends you on the “tour” is making money, and the tour host is making money—but the bloggers you visit aren’t making a dime. These are the people who are doing the actual work of reading, reviewing and interviewing. It can make for an unbalanced relationship that can cause bad feelings on both sides.

I know for a fact that many blog tour organizers do not do their homework, because they’re always writing asking me to review books.

Um, see any book reviews around here?

Ebooks do not have to be marketed like pbooks with a big splashy launch and a “tour”. You can build readership slowly, since e-retailers have infinite shelf space and your book won’t be returned if it doesn’t make huge sales in its first month.

That means the blog-till-you-drop $2000 blog tour is idiotic.

Instead, you can guest blog once or twice a month throughout the year. And instead of paying somebody to find the bloggers—who may be burned out by the time you show up—network with book bloggers in your genre yourself. Read their reviews and interviews and comment on them. Devoting a few minutes a day to “blog touring” instead of an intense, soul-crushing month will bring you better rewards.

Or visit five or six blogs at the time of your launch instead of fifty. A blog tour service that’s very affordable and allows for small tours is Black, White, and Read Tours, which was formed by three book bloggers who only charge a small amount for their time and have respectful relationships with the bloggers you’ll visit.

5) Blogging every day

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know how I feel about frantic, frequent blog-posting. I’m an advocate of Slow Blogging. You can read about the Slow Blog Manifesto here.

Advice to blog every day comes from the Jurassic days of the Weblog, when there were maybe 10,000 of them, not uncountable billions. Your readers can’t keep up. Bloggers who blog every day are likely to 1) Blather-blog, because they run out of things to say 2) Burn themselves out. 3) Have no time to write new books 4) Annoy readers with too many notifications of new posts.

I’m so grateful to bloggers who only have one or two great posts a month. I can enjoy their work instead of tearing through it or feeling guilty I'm skipping it.

A blog is the best place to establish a Web presence, build platform and interact with readers, but you can do that with weekly or bi-weekly posts.

Remember readers have lives. And chances are very good they don’t revolve around you.

6) Blog hopping

Blog Hops are big in the indie author community and can be fun. They're a good way for newbies to meet and network with other writers and get some blog followers when you're starting out.

But when you're a working, publishing author, a blog hop can be a huge time suck that offers little reward. They generally don't reach readers—just other authors, who are not your best audience.

"Hops" often involve a big prize like an iPad to be given in some contest that involves Tweeting frantically and making lots of comments on dozens of blogs. Everybody contributes a chunk of cash and some blocked author with nothing to do but Tweet and comment for a week gets an iPad.

Nice for the blocked author. Pointless for everybody else.

On the other hand, getting together with fellow authors in your genre to do a joint sale or promotion can be very successful, as I found out teaming up with other members of the "Official Chick Lit Group" on Facebook. We all posted an ad for the promo on our blogs, but didn't have to hop around to every blog or write timewasting posts and identical, inane comments. A much better use of everybody's time.

7) Worrying about your Klout, PeerIndex or other social media rating

Social media ranking systems like Klout and PeerIndex show one thing: how much time you spend on the Internet instead of writing books. If you're dealing with marketers who are in love with numbers for their own sake, I hereby bestow a rank of 10 million ARA points on each of you.

When somebody puts you down for not having a Klout rating over 80, just roll your eyes and say "Klout is so over. I have 10 million ARA points." Then get out the smelling salts. Big, meaningless numbers make these people swoon.

***

The best way to sell books is to write more books. Good ones. There may be authors who can actually churn out twelve good books a year, but I sure can’t. None of my favorite authors can either. A good book is thoughtful and reflects life experience.

If you’re chained to your computer, mindlessly Tweeting, blogging about your writer's block, and posting LOL Cat pictures to Facebook, you're not experiencing life, so you're not going to have much to write about.

Yes, we all have to be on social media. An author needs to have a Web presence, be Googleable, and offer fans a way to interact. But we need to be smart about it—and never forget our main job is to write those books.

What about you, scriveners? Do you feel pressured to waste time in frantic busy-work? What do you find sells books right now? Can you recommend a smaller social network where writers and readers can get to know each other? 

THIS WEEK'S BOOK DEAL

My publisher has made the Camilla box set ridiculously cheap for beach season. 

99 cents for three hilarious mysteries!

Available on Amazon US, NOOK, and Amazon UK

"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

And if you want to read more of my deathless prose, I'll be visiting Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog on Monday, June 17, to talk about what inspired my latest Camilla mystery, No Place Like Home.

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS

1) Quirk Books "Looking for Love" contest.  They offer a $10,000 prize for the best quirky love story of 50,000 words or more. Visit the Quirk Books website to download the entry form or for further information. Quirk Books was founded in 2002 and publishes around 25 books each year. Their bestselling titles include Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Entries close October 1, 2013

2) The Lyttoniad contest for the WORST first sentence of a novel. This classic Bulwer-Lytton "Dark and Stormy Night" contest makes news every year. Each entry must consist of a single sentence but you may submit as many entries as you wish. E-mail entries should be sent to Scott Rice at srice@pacbell.net in the body of the message, Ariel 12 font. One e-mail may contain multiple entries. Entries will be judged by categories, from “general” to detective, western, science fiction, romance, and so on. There will be overall winners as well as category winners. No prizes that I know of, but lots of admiration from your fellow writers.  Deadline is June 30th.

3) The Hidden River Arts Playwright Award: $1000 prize Eligible: Any previously unpublished and unproduced full-length play. (And yes, full-length musical plays are also accepted!) The full script should be submitted, along with a synopsis and character breakdown. Any scripts submitted without the synopsis and breakdown will be disqualified. Musical submissions should include either a sound file, sent to hiddenriverarts@gmail.com, or a CD mailed to Hidden River Arts, P.O. Box 63927, Philadelphia, PA 19147. The music should be clearly marked and identified so that we can attach it to the appropriate submission. $17 entry fee. See website above for details (takes forever to load, sorry.) Deadline June 30th. 

4)  The Huffington Post's Huffpo50 is now publishing short fiction!   The rules: You must be 50 or older to enter. Writers can submit only one story per year, and all pieces must be 5,000 words or less. Send your original submissions, as well as your contact details, to 50fiction@huffingtonpost.com.

5) FREE book advertising to British readers from EbookBargainsUK (This really works. I used them for No Place Like Home after my freebie run, and my bounce was three times higher in the UK than the US because of the ad.)

DEADLINE EXTENDED! Lots of authors and publishers have had huge successes with their FREE or SALE books by advertising on BookBub, ENT, KND, POI, etc. But none of those target the UK, and their links go to US sites Brits can't use. But now there’s a newsletter for UK readers only. It links to all the big UK retailers like Apple UK, Waterstones and Foyles as well as Amazon UK. They don’t sell books direct or get paid for clickthroughs, so they don't have any restrictions on how many free books they can spotlight like BookBub and the others. So it's THE place to tell Brits about your book when it goes free or on sale in the UK. Since Brits have the highest number of readers per capita of any country in the world, this looks like a great idea to me: Plus: the site will be offering FREE book ads until June 30th, on a first come, first served basis. Remember this is for books you have on sale or free. 

And if you're in the UK, do sign up for their newsletter. It brings links to free and bargain ebooks—at the UK bookstore of your choice—in your inbox every morning. You can subscribe here.

We love your comments! If you can't get through Blogger's hoop-jumping, send me an email at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I'll post it manually.

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Is it Really Time for Authors to Stop Blogging?

In a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog on March 15th, L.L. Barkat said “blogging is a waste of time” for experienced authors. She feels blogging is only helpful for beginning authors who need “to find expression, discipline, and experience.”

Her piece suggests blogging is for farm-leaguers only. Once writers make the pros, she says, “they might want to give it up and begin writing for larger platforms that don’t require reciprocity (an exhausting aspect to blogging and a big drain on the writer’s energy and time).”

She’s not wrong about the exhaustion. And I gotta admit, if a larger, non-interactive platform like the New Yorker or the Daily Beast came calling, I might bail on you guys for a bit.

But as a long-term career move? It doesn’t strike me as a great idea.

We live in an interactive age. Sealing yourself up in an ivory tower (assuming the tower wants you) is likely to annoy readers these days.

And the truth is, most authors who aren’t named J.D. Salinger have always had to engage in some pretty exhausting, time-draining "reciprocity" to sell their books.

In the days before blogs, there were book tours.

Back in those dear dead days, most authors interacted with their readership through exhausting, time-sucking (and expensive) traveling. Ask a career author who has been in this business for a few decades whether they’d like to give up blogging and go back to the book tour, and you’d better cover your ears before the high-decibel “H*** NO!” erupts.

Nowdays only the superstar class goes on real-life book tours; the midlist blogs.

I think marketers at the Big 5/6 have probably been too heavy-handed in their fiat that every author must have a blog, and Barkat represents a backlash to that. She said: “the director of Marketing and Promotion from Simon & Schuster…told me flatly, ‘We ask all our authors to start blogs’.”

Anybody that dictatorial would get my hackles up, too.

But most Big 5/6-ers have softened that requirement.  As I reported in January, agent Rachelle Gardner has changed her hard-line stance on blogs. She said “A few years ago, the standard wisdom was that authors, both fiction and non-fiction, should have blogs in order to gather an audience and build relationships with readers. Now, not so much. As social media and online marketing have evolved, my thoughts on blogging have changed. I think each author needs to carefully consider whether blogging is an appropriate vehicle for them.”

But later in the piece, Gardner makes it clear an author still has to be on social media. She’s not saying it’s OK to do the J.D. Salinger thing.

Jane Friedman herself doesn't tell us to drop our blogs. But in a post at Writer Unboxed this week, she does tell beginning writers who don't have blogs to let go of the pressure to start one. "If you’re a totally new, unpublished writer who is focused on fiction, memoir, poetry, or any type of narrative-driven work, forget you ever heard the word platform."

Friedman says it's best for beginners to concentrate on learning their craft and getting credits by publishing the fiction they want to be known for. (For opportunities to get your fiction better known, check our "Opportunity Alerts" below.)

But she adds a caveat: "Exception to the rule: Nonfiction/non-narrative authors and entrepreneurial authors who are self-publishing. Sorry, but you should probably focus on platform as much as the writing."

I agree. I don't think every beginning writer should be starting a blog. (On the other hand, reading blogs is something that can help from the beginning—and commenting on blogs is a great way to get your name out there.) I've been telling my workshop students that the time to think about a blog is after you've finished at least one polished novel, have another in the works and you're getting ready to query—or you've got a good backlog of short fiction you're sending to contests and journals.

In other words, give yourself time to build some inventory and learn your craft before you start thinking about marketing.

I also don't recommend blogging frantically simply for the sake of piling up blogposts to get the attention of search engines. I'm a big advocate of SLOW BLOGGING—once a week or less, preferably on a regular schedule. You can check out my post on the Slow Blog Manifesto here.

But I do think a blog is helpful, even for fiction authors. This blog doesn't sell books directly, but without my presence here, I'm not sure anybody would even know about them. And blogs are useful for so many other things—networking with other authors and people in the business, polishing your nonfiction writing skills (which are necessary, no matter how "experienced" you are at fiction.) Plus you can learn to write faster and...for fun. Yes. Blogging is fun for a lot of us.

Recently social media Jedi master Kristen Lamb devoted a whole week of blogposts to explaining the reasons why “blogs are probably THE BEST use of an author’s time when it comes to building an author platform using social media.” I wrote more on the subject in my own post that week.

And then there’s Hugh Howey, current media darling and author of the literary phenomenon Wool (and generally phenomenal guy.)

In an interview on Reddit, Mr. Howey said his primary promotion tools were, “After FB, I would say: having my own blog.”

Yup. Not expensive ads at BookBub. Not give-aways on Goodreads. Not Kindleboard ads (although he does mention interacting at the Writer’s Café forum on the Kindleboards, which is where I first met him.) Not vlogs or podcasts or book trailers or webinars.

Just his plain old blog and Facebook rocketed him to fame and fortune. (Well, that and a clever serial-format sales plan and a stupendous book.)

The Reddit interviewer followed up by asking him to name “a single most valuable tool for an author to promote himself” aside from “Amazon's inscrutable algos.”

Howey replied, “I'm guessing 90% of my sales are from reader recommendations and Amazon algorithms.”

Well, we all know the “inscrutable algos” are out of our control. (More on algorithms in a future post) but “reader recommendations”—where do they come from?

Howey said, “I don't concentrate my self-promotion on people who haven't read my work; I interact with those who have.”

And in a post on his own blog, he said very much the same thing: “The best promotion, I’ve found, is to interact with existing readers (which is enjoyable) rather than browbeat new people into reading (which nobody likes).”  

Interacting with readers. Reciprocity. His number one self-promotion tool.

And where’s the best place to interact with readers?

Your blog.

So if you’re thinking of taking up L.L. Barkat’s suggestion to drop your blog to concentrate on pure art, do keep in mind that a lot of successful authors like Mr. Howey find their blogs have been a huge help.

Even experienced authors who aren’t blogging simply to practice the art of keeping their butts in their typing chairs.

I should be fair and mention that L.L Barkat and Hugh Howey’s genres couldn’t be more different. Barkat writes literary memoir and Howey writes blockbuster science fiction. Different genre readers expect different things from their authors. Literary readers tend to be conservative about technology, so they may not be on social media much themselves, whereas scifi-ers are in their native habitat on the Interwebz.

And it's important to consider that literary writers often make their livings teaching, and they may have to arrange for time away from anything "social" in order to stay sane. Most writers are introverts, so being around people too much—whether online or off—can drain your energies to the point where you can’t create.

If blogging does that to you, you might indeed feel you have to drop your blog as Barkat suggests. Maybe you can reach people via RedRoom or Google+ hangouts, or by occasionally interacting on Goodreads. Or write a monthly newsletter.

But I don’t think refusing to interact with your readers entirely is a smart move. No matter how experienced you are.

Not if you hope to follow in the footsteps of Hugh Howey, who still blogs regularly, even on his superstar book tour. He even took time to give this blog a shout-out in January. He is certainly a poster boy for the new era of publishing. It would appear that his accessibility via his blog and his reciprocity with readers has contributed to his phenomenal success.

So think long and hard before you give up that blog.

What about you, scriveners? Have you given up your blog? Will you give it up when you're more experienced? As a reader, do you like to interact with your favorite authors on a blog?

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS:

1) Inspirational anthology accepting submissions: A "Chicken Soup for the Soul" author is looking for heartwarming inspirational nonfiction pieces. Do You Have a Story on Staying Sane in the Chaotic 24/7 World? If you have a great story and would like to be considered for the anthology, 30 Days to Sanity, Send submissions to: 30 Days to Sanity at Box 31453, Santa Fe, NM 87594-1453. Or e-mail stories to stephanie@30daystosanity.com The maximum word count is 1200 words. For each story selected for the program a permission fee of $100 will be offered for one-time rights. There are no limits on the number of submissions. Deadline is May 1, 2013.

2) POISONED PEN DISCOVER MYSTERY CONTEST Enter your mystery manuscript of 60,000-90,000 words in an effort to win a $1,000 prize, the Discover Mystery title, and a publishing contract from Poisoned Pen Press. Open to all authors writing original works in English for adult readers who reside in the United States and Canada. $20 entry fee. Well worth it. Poisoned Pen is a widely respected small press. Deadline March 30, 2013.

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) The Saturday Evening Post’s Second Annual Great American Fiction Contest—yes, THAT Saturday Evening Post is holding a short fiction contest. Could you join the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald; William Faulkner; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; Ray Bradbury; Louis L’Amour; Sinclair Lewis; Jack London; and Edgar Allan Poe? $10 entry fee Deadline July 1, 2013

6) New Literary Journal, The Puffin Review is looking for submissions of short fiction, (up to 3000 words) poetry and essays. They welcome new writers.

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The Slow Blog Manifesto...and 8 Reasons Why Slow Blogging Will Help Your Career, Your Love Life, and Protect You From Angry Elephants

What is the Slow Blog Manifesto?

It’s an essay written in 2006 by Canadian software designer Todd Sieling at the height of the everybody-must-get-a-blog frenzy. You can read the Slow Blog Manifesto here. Slow Blogging is modeled on Alice Walker’s “slow food” movement (the opposite of McBurgerish “fast food.”) The point is quality over quantity.

Todd wrote:

“Slow Blogging is the re-establishment of the machine as the agent of human expression, rather than its whip and container. It’s the voluntary halting of the light-speed hamster wheel dictated in rules of highly effective blogging.”

He urged people to write a few thoughtful, well-researched posts a month rather than daily blabber. A number of influential journalists, technicians, and academics joined his movement. It built steam until mid-2008, when it merited an article in the New York Times. 

It’s a principle that’s caught on. I see a lot of publishing industry bloggers cutting back on their number of posts—even uberbloggers like Nathan Bransford and Jane Friedman.

But unfortunately, not everybody has got the message. This week I saw a post on a popular writing blog telling new authors they should blog every single day.

I couldn’t disagree more. I think new authors, especially, need to limit their distractions. Yes, authors absolutely need social media these days, but we shouldn’t give it any more of our writing time than absolutely necessary.  (Especially since we are all supposed to write 12 books a year—more on that nonsense in another post.) 

Also, in order to get a readership in this saturated blogosphere, it seems to me we should be stressing quality over quantity. People don't want more stuff to take up their time.

If you aren’t quite sure what to blog about, check out How to Blog Part III: What Should You Blog About?   in my "How to Blog for Authors" series.

BTW, you’ll find all of my "how to blog" posts—plus a huge amount of helpful, positive information in the new book I’ve written with Catherine Ryan Hyde: HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE—And Keep Your E-Sanity! Which will debut later this month. (Shameless plug below.) 

See below for more info on the launch!

I didn’t start out to be a Slow Blogger. 

When I started this thing three years ago, I was simply too busy bloodying my knuckles on the doors of the publishing industry to have time to post more than once a week.

But now, largely thanks to this blog, I’m about to launch my sixth book in a year. Tenth if you count anthologies and singles. ( But no. I don’t intend to make a habit of that.) The blog has won dozens of awards—and even made the list of finalists for Best Publishing Industry Blog in the Association of American Publishers/Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards. (Many, many thanks to all of you who voted for us!)

I did this without blogging more than once a week. In fact, thanks to a wonderful blog partner (the spectacular Ruth Harris, who joined a year ago) plus some fabulous guest bloggers, I usually now blog only twice a month.

Which is why I get really annoyed when I see new authors getting hammered with advice to blog every day.

Don’t. Just don’t.

Need more reasons?

1) A slow blog has a longer life-span.

The average life span of a blog is three years. But you want your writing career to last longer than three years, don’t you? A neglected blog hanging in cyberspace is worse than none.

Of course some people can blog brilliantly every day. But I don’t know a lot who can sustain that pace AND write book-length narrative every day.

So you’ve got to plan a blog that’s going to beat the odds. A slow blog is more likely to do that.

Think marathon, not sprint: slow blog.

2) You reach more people by commenting on other people’s blogs than by madly posting on a blog nobody reads.

Author/publisher/social media guru Bob Mayer pointed out on his blog recently:

 “One of the best networking tools is to go to people’s blogs and leave cogent comments.”

Yes, an author needs a blog—it’s more dynamic than a static website (and free) so it’s the best way to interact with readers and fellow writers. But it’s not your best sales tool, especially when you’re starting out—it’s more like your Internet home. If nobody knows you, they won’t come and visit.

Think of it this way: would you reach more people by sitting in your basement making a thousand signs, or by making one sign, standing in a public place, and getting it filmed for a clip on the nightly news?

So use your blogging time to visit other blogs, and only post on your own blog when you have something to say that you can tell people about on other blogs. Then they’ll come visit. See how that works?

Get your sign on the nightly news: slow blog.

3) Busy people are less likely to subscribe/follow a blog that’s going to clutter their email inbox/rss feed every day.  I sure won’t. I don’t read ANYBODY’S blog every day. I’d be so glad if they’d only send notifications of the good ones. Or—even better—only write the good ones. (Which, um, is called “slow blogging.”)

When you write mostly good posts, people will know a visit to your blog is a valuable use of their time and they’ll spread the word. Then maybe an agent or publisher will visit and like it so much they’ll ask you to send them a novel and you’ll end up published. That’s what happened to me—twice. Seriously. Both my publishers contacted ME because they liked this blog.

So if you want to get published, slow blog.

4) Everybody has bad days. When you have to think of something to say on the day you got that nasty/clueless review/rejection, your emotions are going to leak out. 

You’re going to write what you really think about that agent who has hair like Medusa and the literary taste of an orangutan. You’re going to call that agent Monkey Medusa on your blog. Then it will turn out she wasn’t actually the agent who rejected you. That was a different one at an agency down the hall. Monkey Medusa actually loves your book and was about to offer you representation. So she visited your blog to find out more about you and got seriously offended and you lost your big chance for a major book contract.

If you don’t want to lose out on a major book contract, slow blog.

5) Nobody can come up with that many interesting posts. When you slow blog, and you don’t have anything to say, you don’t have to say it.

But if you succumb to pressure to blog every day, you’re going to blather-blog. You’re going to talk about your stupid boss who’s been acting like b***  in heat since the hot new guy joined the department. And it will turn out your boss’s husband is an aspiring writer who subscribes to your blog, so he’s going to dump that b***. She’ll be so mad she’ll fire you. You will not be able to get another job in this economy and you’ll lose your apartment and end up moving in with your girlfriend who will be so PO’d at you for blogging all the time, she’ll break up with you.

Don’t blather-blog and wreck your relationship: slow blog.

6) Writing nonfiction—which is what you should be writing on your blog—uses a different part of your brain from fiction.

When you’re on a roll with a novel, and have to stop to write something perspicacious on the subject of sentence structure, you can stop that flow dead. Maybe you won’t ever get it back. Maybe you’ll have to give up your writing dream and join the circus. When you join the circus, you could get stepped on by an angry elephant.

Don’t get stepped on by an angry elephant: slow blog.

7) You write narrative--remember? The blog is supposed to be about getting your name out there as a creative writer. It’s an aid to your serious writing, not a substitute for it.

If you spend every day working on your blog, you’re going to neglect your novel. When you neglect your novel, you’ll forget why you wanted to be a writer. So you’ll accept that promotion at work where you have to work all hours with no overtime because you’re management now. You’ll wake up one day and discover you’re middle-aged and have nothing to show for it, so you’ll buy yourself a very fast, very expensive car. But you’ll be so exhausted from all that work that you’ll drive your fast, expensive car off a cliff and die in a fiery crash.

Don’t die a fiery crash: slow blog.

8) Trying to blog every day is impossible to keep up, so you’ll constantly feel guilty. Guilt is bad for your mental health. When you feel guilty you eat/drink/smoke too much and then feel guilty about that too.

See where this is going…?

My apologies to the people who write the Direct TV commercials for the “don’t do this…” silliness.

But seriously: slow blogging rules.

Yes, I am aware these comments aren’t true for everybody. There are always the superpersons who can do it all—and I’m in awe of them. But if you don't have tights and a cape in your closet, don’t succumb to the pressure.

Two examples of successful slow bloggers are:

The insightful Nina Badzin, whose thoughtful, eclectic blog has become wildly popular. In fact, her essays now appear in the Huffington Post. She’s recently discovered she’d rather blog than write fiction. (The world needs more thoughtful essayists, so this is a great thing.) But she continues to blog once a week.

My publisher, the esteemed Mr. Mark Williams of International fame, sometimes doesn’t post for six weeks. But when he does—he always informs, entertains and tells us stuff we never knew we needed to know. So his Alexa rating is higher than most daily bloggers.

And the late, great pseudonyminous agent, Miss Snark was all for slow blogging, too. In spite of all the pressure to “build platform,” she advised new writers to always put their writing first:

“Your job is to write…
…There's a lot to be said for sitting down with your ownself and writing. Nothing, literally NOTHING replaces that. Focus. You're wasting time.”

Tell that to the idiots who say you have to blog every day.

****

Win a Signed First Edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD

HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE, which I wrote with my mentor and favorite author, Catherine Ryan Hyde  is coming out very soon!  

It contains my entire “how to blog for authors” series and a whole lot more stuff I’ve discussed on this blog and elsewhere, plus wisdom from Catherine’s popular workshops and seminars. We have material you won’t find in any other book for writers.

It’s not a book about how to write, but about how to be a writer. It’s about how to cope with the increasing pressure to do too much, and learn what advice to listen to, what to ignore, and how to make the choices that are best for you personally and professionally.

Mark Williams international Digital Publishing will publish it in ebook and, a few weeks later, in paper (available the US and internationally.) Although Catherine is mostly published by Big Six publishers, we decided to go with a small, nimble international publisher, because with the business changing so rapidly, a traditionally-published book would be out of date by the time it went to press. But the people at MWiDP will be able to update the book every six months.

So as an added perk, when you buy the book, you will automatically be signed up for those updates and you’ll be able to download them free. Plus we will supply information for an international as well as a US audience. 

On the official launch day, we will hold a drawing, and the winner will receive a signed first edition of PAY IT FORWARD.

If you’d like to be eligible for the drawing, just sign up for our email list—which we will use only for important notifications about the book. All you have to do is leave your email address in the comments. You can write it like this to avoid spam "annerallen (dot) allen (at) gmail (dot) com." Or send it to me at annerallen.allen@gmail.com (Some of you signed up in January and February, so you’re already in the running.)

The official launch will be on July 14^th in San Luis Obispo CA, at a Digital E-Authors seminar Catherine and I are teaching with radio personality Dave Congalton and his group of very knowledgeable tech and writing professionals. 

The one-day seminar will be held Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the Sands Inn & Suites, in San Luis Obispo, CA “the happiest town on earth” (according to Oprah.) So if you live in the area, or you’re planning a vacation on the Central Coast, Register at: Digital Age E-Authors. 

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When Should an Author Hire an Editor? How to Avoid Scams

First: This week marks the anniversary of that fateful day three years ago when I started this blog...and then promptly lost it. But luckily I found it about four months later, and this blog now gets an average of 12,000 hits a month on its four monthly posts (Slow Blogging rules!) and I have a blog partner, Ruth Harris, who is one of my favorite best-selling authors--someone I'd never have dreamed of meeting three years ago. Plus this blog got the attention of my two publishers, Popcorn Press and MWiDP. Without blogging, I'm sure my five novels would still be languishing in query hell. 


So in honor of this blogiversary, I'm giving away A FREE EBOOK to one lucky commenter--your choice. You can read descriptions of all the books on my book page. Just put your title of choice in the comment thread. All the books are available for Kindle and should all be available for Nook by the end of the week. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced in next week's post.

Hiring an Editor: When, Who, and How to Avoid Scams

As I said in my last post: Learning to write books is hard. Earning money from books is even harder.

 So questions keep coming up:

• How much money should you put into polishing a novel?

• How much can you reasonably expect to recoup?

• Should you hire an editor if you hope to get traditionally published?

• When should you hire an editor if you plan to self-publish?

Self publishing has been a great boon to freelance book editors. But an awful lot of writers aren’t totally clear about their function. 

When I was doing freelance editing, I was amazed by the people who came to me with over-inflated ideas of what an editor can do. They’d arrive with collections of raw taped interviews, notebooks full of verses and random jottings, or old letters they wanted me to make into a salable book.

There are people who do these things. They’re called ghostwriters. They’re going to cost a lot of money. And unless you’re Justin Bieber, you’ll never make back the money you put into them.

(That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t publish them for yourself. Sometimes a personal or family history can be a fantastic gift to your children and grandchildren—for more see my post on writing memoir.) 

The term “editor” has several meanings in the book business. The “in-house” editors at publishing companies—the ones who decide what manuscripts to publish—don’t do a lot of literal “editing” these days. According to agent Jenny Bent, the amount of hands-on work they do, “varies wildly from editor to editor…because many editors simply don't have the time or desire to actually edit.” You’ll probably get more editing from some smaller and midsized presses than you will from the Big Six. But there, too things vary wildly from one editor to the next. I’m lucky to have had great editors at all three small presses who have published me.

But no matter what the size of the publishing house, by the time a manuscript lands on an editor’s desk, it needs to be pretty close to print-ready. Agents can help you polish, but they don’t have much time for nitty-gritty text-honing either, so most won’t look at manuscripts that aren’t carefully proofed and edited.

The truth is, the majority of professional writers learn to edit themselves, with the help of a beta reader or two.

Too many newbies hire editors when what they really need is a few basic writing classes and some knowledge of the industry.

I’ve seen some great posts in the blogosphere this week about how a lot of new writers are getting caught up in premature marketing frenzies and fail to learn basic craft. It’s not their fault. Some very successful self-publishers are telling writers “every day your book isn’t for sale you’re losing money.” This true for established authors with an out of print backlist, but it’s very bad advice for a fledgling writer who’s just finished a first novel.  

YA author Natalie Whipple wrote an amazingly candid blogpost a couple of weeks ago about what she wishes she’d done differently in her career. Here’s #4 “I wish I'd spent more time studying the craft. I used to think my natural talent would get me through the gate. I would write stories without much thought to if the plot worked or not, if the characters were real or not, if the world made sense or not. I feel like I squandered my talent for a long time because I relied solely on talent instead of pushing myself to get better."

And Kristen Lamb has been hammering us this week about the importance of honing writing skills before we publish. “We aren’t born knowing three-act structure or how to layer complex characters or how to infuse theme and symbol into a work spanning 60-100,000 words. All of that is learned through struggle.” (Yes. Struggle. She didn’t say “hiring somebody to do the hard work for us.”)      

Agents have been saying the same thing for years: The number one mistake new writers make is trying to publish too early. With the self-publishing revolution, the problem has become much worse.

No amount of editing can fix a book that is seriously flawed or amateurish. I see many self-published writers who blame bad reviews on a hired editor. But I wonder how many are expecting their editors to work miracles with a flawed manuscript.

Of course, if price is no object, you can hire an editor to be your personal writing teacher. Some editors offer “writing coaching” services.

But most professional writers didn’t start out wealthy, so they learned their craft through workshops, extensive reading, critique groups, and years of trial and error.

The people who benefit most from a freelance editor’s work are:

• Self-publishers. If you’re not working with a publisher, you do need to hire an independent editor before uploading your book. Most writers are blind to typos and our own pet crutches and quirks. 

• Experts whose primary field is not the written word. This includes self-help books by psychologists or medical professionals, specialty cookbooks, local history, etc.

• Memoirists who have a unique, marketable tale to tell, but are not planning a career in writing.

• Writers who have been requested by an interested agent or publisher to give the book a polish. Many agents will ask a writer to hire an independent editor at this stage. (Just don’t hire one owned by the agency, because that can be a major conflict of interest.)

• Novelists who have polished their work in workshops and critique groups, but after many rejections, can’t pinpoint what is keeping them in the slush pile.

If you decide to hire an editor, do some research and be clear in your goals. You don’t want just any out-of-work English major. If the editor doesn’t have a good knowledge of the publishing industry, your money will be wasted. I’ve seen “professionally edited” manuscripts that are ridiculously long or too short to be considered by a contemporary publisher, or contain song lyrics (prohibitively expensive) or copyrighted characters. You want an editor who knows the business. Preferably somebody who knows what’s selling now and how to write for today’s marketplace.

The best way to find a good editor is by referral from satisfied clients. A lot of self-published authors will sing the praises of their editors, so visit their blogs. Or ask a favorite indie author for a recommendation. The standard pay scale for editorial services is posted by the Editorial and Freelancers Association. Plan to spend from five hundred to several thousand dollars for a book-length manuscript. 

There are also a lot of scammers out there, who just run your book through spellcheck or give you bogus advice. Check Writer Beware for in-depth advice and a list of some hair-raising editing scams. The Edit Ink scam of the late ’90s bilked thousands. Here are some warning signs: 

• Extravagant praise and promises. Anybody who guarantees you a place on the best-seller list is either crooked or delusional.
• Claims that all publishers require a professionally edited ms. Not true. It’s also not true that an edit will get you a read. In fact, do not say in a query that your work has been “professionally edited.” Agents don’t care who you’ve hired. They care how well YOU can write.
• An agent or publisher who recommends their own editing services or gives a specific referral. As I said above: beware conflicts of interest. Edit Ink scammed writers by giving agents kickbacks for referrals and even setting up fake agencies to tell all queriers they’d get representation if they used Edit Ink’s expensive, useless services.
• One-size-fits-all. You need somebody who’s familiar with your genre. I can’t picture sex with elves without laughing, and torture scenes make me retch. You do NOT want my help with your paranormal erotica or horror novel. Conventions that are required in one genre, like romance, can be poison in something literary or action-oriented.
• Direct solicitation. Scam editors purchase mailing lists from writing magazine subscriber lists. Beware.
• Sales pressure. “Limited time offers” are rarely good deals.
• No client list on their website. You should be able to get a list of clients and a sample of the editor’s work. Some editors often will offer a sample edit of a few pages before any money changes hands.

There are many kinds of edits, priced differently, so be aware of what you need.

• Manuscript evaluation: A broad overall assessment of the book.
• Content editing: Help with structure and style.
• Line editing: Reworking text at the sentence level.
• Copy editing: Attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation and continuity.
• Proofreading: Checking for typos and other minor problems.

A good editor can make the difference between a successful book and a dud. Just choose your editor carefully and wait until you have a marketable project.

And most of all, don’t hire an editor too soon. Editing is polishing, not re-writing. First you have to put in those 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell says are necessary to learn a craft. That’s a lot of hours. Go write.

What about you, scriveners? Have you used a freelance editor? What kind of experience did you have? Have you ever been scammed by a bogus editor?


Indie Chicks Fans: This week we have a story from another successful indie author: Christine Kelsey on why you should never give up on your dreams.

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How to Blog Part III: What Should You Blog About?

When I teach blogging, the most frequent question I get is “What do I blog about?” (For info on what not to blog about, see Part II of this series: How Not to Blog )

A writer starting a blog right now faces two problems:

1)     There are already, like, a trillion writers out there lecturing the blogosphere about how to write vivid characters, prop up saggy middles and avoid adverbs. A lot of them probably know more than you.

2)     If you’re a writer with books to sell, you want to reach a general audience, not just other writers selling books.

So how can you be different? How do you create a blog that somebody will read—somebody besides your stalky ex-boyfriend and your mom?

The most important thing to remember with any kind of blog is you need to offer something. It should be fresh, informative, and/or entertaining.

How you approach your new blog is going to depend a whole lot on your stage in the publishing process and your immediate goals.

Stage #1: You’re a developing writer.

You’re working on your first or second novel, and maybe have a few stories in literary journals or a couple of contest wins. You want to be a published author sometime soon, but you’re not quite ready to focus on  writing as a career.

Your goal: LEARNING THE PUBLISHING BUSINESS AND NETWORKING.

You want to make friends in the writing community for career help and mutual support. You want to learn the best writing techniques, network with publishing professionals, and educate yourself about the business.

Stage #2: You’re ready for the marketplace.

You’re querying agents and ready to publish. You’ve got a couple of books polished and ready to go. You’ve been to writing conferences, taken classes, and maybe hired a freelance editor. Your writing is at a professional level.

Your goal: BUILDING PLATFORM

You want to get your name out there to the general public. When you query an agent or ask for a blurb or review, you want a Google search to bring up ten pages of listings about you.

Stage #3: You’re a published author

Your agent/marketing dept. says, “Get thee to the blogosphere!”

Or you realize the brilliantly blurbed oeuvre you’ve self-published is sitting there on Amazon with only two sales in three months (both to your spouse) because nobody has heard of it—or you.

Your goal: FINDING AND CONNECTING WITH READERS

If you’re in stage #1, it’s OK to blog about writing. (I know social media guru/Jedi Master Kristen Lamb says you shouldn’t do this but I think her caveat is aimed more at people at stage #2 and #3.)

I’m not talking about lecturing on craft as if you’re a pro when you’re not. But an equal-to-equal post about something interesting you’ve discovered about pantsing vs.outlining, writing the dreaded synopsis, or what agents are looking for this month is just fine when you’re reaching out to other writers.

Why do you want to reach other writers? Because writers help each other. (We’re kind of a nice bunch, in spite of our stereotyping as depressed substance abusers.) I know a number of authors who got their agents through a referral from a fellow blogger. I found both my publishers through blogging. I’m not sure I would have made it through the darkest rejection phases if it hadn’t been for the support of writer blogfriends.

When you have a writing blog, you get to participate in blog hops, flash fiction days, contests and all kinds of networking events that help you meet people who can be important in your future career.

But do make sure the blog has something interesting going for it—something that’s helpful. There are all sorts of ways you can help:

• Author interviews
• Profiles of small publishers or agents who are interested in your genre (take them from websites—you don’t have to bother the agents and editors)
• Info on contests, giveaways and blog hops
• Links to great articles and posts in your genre or field of interest.
• Book reviews. If you write thoughtful, useful reviews, you’ll immediately become everybody’s best friend.

If you’re a stage #2 writer, you should heed Kristen’s advice. If you’re starting a blog right now with the goal of building platform, writing is definitely not the best choice of subject matter. You’ve got a trillion competitors and you’re limiting your audience.

So try something that’s related to your writing but has a unique slant. Here are a few suggestions:

• Focus on your genre or subgenre (unless you’re still experimenting with different genres.) You can discuss movies, videogames, TV shows, even jewelry and costumes—as long as they relate to your niche. A great example is SciFi writer Alex J. Cavanaugh’s super-popular blog that specializes in all things SciFi.

• Blog about your home town or state, especially if they’re the setting of your novels. Travel sites that link to local landmarks and Chamber of Commerce will help you make friends locally that can be a big help later on.

• Choose a writing-related subject that has a broader audience. A brand new general-interest writing blog is The Wordmonger, where YA writer C.S Perryess gives a fun, in-depth study of the etymology of one word per week. I learn something with every post.

• Offer links to important information. If you’re writing a memoir or fiction about certain health issues, promote organizations that help with those issues. Link to support groups and they might even link back.

• Provide people with the benefit of your research. If you’re writing historical fiction about a certain time period—post the research on your blog. (This is doubly useful because it will help keep you from cramming it all into the novel at the expense of story.) Have to research guns for a thriller? Poisons for a cozy? Are you basing the story on a real case? There are people who would love to read about this stuff.

• Appeal to another Internet community. If that historical novel is based on a real person or your own family history, you could target readers from the genealogy blogosphere and links to historical research sites. If your heroine loves to fish, sew, or collect stuff, connect with blogs for fly fisherpersons, quilters, or collectors of floaty pens.

• Provide a forum for people in your target demographic. If you write for a particular group—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 them.

• Offer recipes or how-tos. Have a character who’s an expert at something? Give readers the benefit of his expertise in the woodshop, garden or kitchen. Have some great recipes that relate to your character, time period, or region? Write about the food in your books, or food in fiction generally.

If you’ve reached Stage #3, you can be more eclectic. People will be coming to your blog because they want to get to know you and find out about your books—so focusing on one subject isn’t as important. The blog becomes a place to showcase who you are. Think if it as your own version of Oprah magazine: not a place to toot your own horn as much as share things of interest to you that will also be of value to your readers. So you can continue whatever you've been doing in Stage #2, plus add stuff about you and your books.

Yes, you can talk about your books. I think people are silly who say you shouldn’t use your blog for self-promotion. That’s why you’re in the blogosphere in the first place. It’s fine as long as you don’t use hard-sell tactics and you don’t project an attitude of “I’m an author and you’re not.”

Each type of blog can evolve into another as your goals change. 

A few tips for the new blogger:

• Make a list of topics you might like to explore before you begin, so you have a running start. If you visit other blogs regularly (and you should) 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.

• I STRONGLY advise against having more than one blog. It saps your energy and fragments your audience. (It also annoys the hell out of them: I hate hitting somebody’s profile and finding six blogs. Unless one is clearly marked “author” I don’t even try to wade through them: you’ve lost me.) Blogs have many pages. Use them.

• Put your own name in the blog title! Yes, I'm saying it again: your name is your brand. And also, you’ll find it easier to transition from Stage #1 to #2 and #3. Subtitles are easy to change. Titles, not so much. “Susie Scrivener’s Blog” can go from “writing and ranting” to “Floaty Pen Collecting” if Susie decides to change the blog’s focus. But “Floaty Pen Central” can’t be changed to “Susie Scrivener’s Amazing Books” without a lot of confusion. And you want to keep the same blog. The longer a blog exists, the higher it ranks with the Google spiders. (Thanks Camille LeGuire for cluing me in on the importance of longevity in SEO.)

• Write an inviting “About Me” page with clear contact information. I’m amazed at bloggers who don’t even post their names or contact information. The whole purpose of blogging is to let people know who you are and how to find you! (And don’t just post your resume. Be informal and friendly.)

• Don’t succumb to pressure to blog more than three times a week. Posting once a week on a regularly scheduled day is better than posting often but erratically. Allow yourself time to write your books. Remember you’re in this for the long haul. Quality over quantity. Slow blogging works. 

• Be friendly. The way to build an audience, no matter where you are in your writing career, is to be likable and helpful. You don’t have to be chirpy. Just don’t project a phony or selfish tone. Kristen Lamb has a great post this week on how to be liked in the blogosphere. 

More blog advice in my blogpost How To Blog: A Beginner’s Guide for Authors.

What about you, scriveners? Do you have a blog? Does it suit your stage of writing? Are you going to be able to give up those six semi-neglected blogs and concentrate on one great one? What advice would you give a new blogger? 

VALENTINE BLOG HOP:  Here's our Valentine blog hop page: All you have to do is send your email address to annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com, or leave it in the comments here, and you'll be entered to win two books from Ruth and me, as well as a $75 gift certificate or a diamond necklace AND you'll be eligible for the drawing next June for a signed, first edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde's iconic novel, Pay it Forward. For more info, click the pink box in the sidebar.

INDIE CHICKS: This week's inspirational story is from Dani Amore. She tells us why it's important to write what you love to read. Read it over on our Indie Chicks Page.

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