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Social Media Phobic? Facebook is (Still) Your Friend

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The news about Facebook’s embroilment in a data-harvesting-cum-political scandal kind of makes us all want to unfriend the platform for good.

For sure, our collective conscience would be cleaner and we’d all be a lot less distracted without it. Some of us would probably even feel a vengeful twinge of self-righteousness seeing Zuckerberg and his cohorts caught at last with the smoking gun that proves their invention is not only bad for us, but just downright bad.

While a breakup with Facebook might inflict some short-term suffering on most folks — pain from the loss of online friendships and a hollow void in that space between minutes that status updates used to fill — for writers and authors, it would pose a nearly existential dilemma.

For better or for worse, Facebook is still the platform for authors from a community-building and visibility perspective, with its unsurpassed power to spread the word, engage readers, and generate promotional opportunities. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Snapchat combined could never pack the same punch that Facebook schmoozing can.

Throughout all my years as a writer and a publicist helping writers, a few constants about Facebook have reinforced this belief: [Read more…]

The Secret Promo Power of Obscure Media Outlets

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Deep down inside we writers know that those pie-in-the-sky dreams we all harbor of getting our books reviewed by the New York Times, or featured in Oprah Magazine or on NPR’s Fresh Air are, for the most part, just that: pie-in-the-sky-dreams.  A few years back here on Writer Unboxed I gave a glimpse of why. But […]

How to Prepare for a TED-style Author Talk in Less Than 10 days

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Please welcome Deanna Cabinian as our guest today. Deanna is a marketing director who lives in the Midwest, but dreams of living by the ocean. When she isn’t working or writing she enjoys traveling and spending time with her husband and their Havanese dog, Cuba. One Night, her debut YA novel, is out now. Giving author […]

Learning to Outsource and Then Let Go

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In a few weeks I’ll be leading a session with independent editor Nicola Kraus at Grub Street’s annual Muse and the Marketplace writers conference, on “Outsourcing for Writers.” When we first pitched the idea to Grub Street, the conference organizer confessed that the idea “freaked [him] out a bit.” After all, writing is such a solitary […]

Got Galleys? What They Are and Why You Need Them

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At the risk of making everybody’s eyes glaze over, today I’d like to talk a bit about one of those hands-on, practical issues that’s key to any book’s life cycle but totally unsexy: Galleys. No, this has nothing to do with seafaring or food. The truth is, there’s a lot about writing and publishing that’s […]

Why You Should Query Agents For 6 + Months Before Promoting Your Self-Published Book

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When approached by self-published authors for help with book promotion, I used to ask a single question: “Do you have blurbs from at least two established authors?” If the answer was no, I’d suggest they gather some before we speak.  Blurbs are an essential piece of the vetting process and vetting is crucial to gaining […]

3 Steps to Parlaying Random Encounters Into Book Sales (Without Being Pushy)

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We’re pleased to introduce today’s guest Nicole Waggoner, author of the novel Center Ring, and award-winning teacher of upper-level English and Literary Criticism courses.  Beyond her literary acumen, Nicole has an uncanny gift for connecting with random strangers on and offline and parlaying her new friendships into book sales.  She’s here to tell us about how she […]

The Secrets of Trying For A Bestseller List: Interview With Greenleaf’s Magdalene Thomas

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“What can I do to get my book onto a bestseller list?” If I had a dime for each time an author has asked me this question, I wouldn’t need to be a bestseller myself to be rich. Until recently though, my answer has always been a disappointing, “I have no idea.” Or, “There’s nothing […]

Exploring the Rule of Seven

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Our guest today is Lisa Alber, a Hibernophile whose first novel, Kilmoon, was nominated for the Rosebud Award for best first novel. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George Foundation writing grant and a Walden Fellowship, and was recently included in the bestselling anthology, Eight Mystery Writers You Should Be Reading Now. Lisa lives in Portland, […]

The Skinny On Blurbs

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Your manuscript is finished and the agent submissions checklist is all set: Target list: check. Killer elevator pitch: check. Brief bio including previous literary accomplishments: check. SASE ready to go to those agents who still request one: check. Or perhaps you’ve decided to self-publish and everything’s ready, including a cover designed around a gorgeous image […]