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We are so excited to welcome our newest contributor to Writer Unboxed—-Ann-Marie Nieves! Ann-Marie is the founder of the highly respected company Get Red PR, with expertise in PR, advertising, marketing, copywriting, community relations, social media, and more! From her bio:

Ann-Marie is a communications generalist grounded in traditional media and proficient in accessing the power of social media. Within traditional outlets, she has garnered placements in media as diverse as: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, NPR, Fitness, Parade, Working Mother, Fox Business Network, Life & Style, InStyle, E!, New York Magazine and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Welcome, Ann-Marie!

It’s my 20-something year in PR, my 10th in social media, and good ole lucky 13 as a tiny business owner. While I’m thoroughly enjoying the wisdom of my 40s, I can honestly say that each day at my desk, seated in my well-worn chair, feels brand new.

You’ve seen the substantial changes in the media world in 2018—several magazines will cease printing or reduce print schedules. (We’ll miss you Glamour!) You’ve experienced the seismic shifts in social media world. (I can follow #dogsofinstagram hashtag?!) While much has been written in the marketing communications sphere about highlights for 2019, here’s what I’d like my colleagues in words to pay attention to: [Read more…]

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Please welcome back guests Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke who have been best friends for over twenty-five years and survived high school and college together. Together they have written The Year We Turned Forty, The Status of All Things, and Your Perfect Life. Liz lives in San Diego with her husband and two children. Lisa, a former talk show producer, lives in Chicago with her husband, daughter, and two bonus children.

We are passionate about marketing our books because it’s a huge part of our jobs as writers. (We want people to read them!) And instagram is our favorite way to share information about ourselves and our novels because it’s laid back, fun and relatable. The way we hope our readers see us!

Connect with Liz and Lisa on their blog, on Facebook, on Twitter…and of course on Instagram.

The Business of Being Authors

If you had asked us in high school what we thought being a published author would be like, we would have talked to you about the way a hardcover book feels in our hands, and how satisfying it would be to finally get all the stories dancing around in our heads out into the world.

Not once would we have mentioned marketing, publicity or social media.

Definitely not social media. Because, ahem, Facebook hadn’t even been invented yet. Or the internet. Or email.

So now that we’ve established that we’re old, let’s get to the heart of what this post is about. Being an author is hard work. And you must run things like you’re a kick-ass entrepreneur. Whether you like it or not. You may have wanted it to be just about writing (wouldn’t that be fabulous?), but the reality is that there is so much more to being a successful author than putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

If you want to sell books, that is. If you don’t care about selling books, read no further! And congrats on writing and getting a book published!

Getting your beautiful novel into people’s hands isn’t easy. With amazing books hitting the shelves each week, it’s getting harder than ever to stand out. And these days, you aren’t just promoting your writing. You are promoting you. But not in an obvious, scream it from the rooftops kind of way. You have to make yourself accessible. Human. Just like your readers.

We’ll try any social media app once to connect with people—Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, even Google Plus! And they all have pros and cons. But if we had to pick the best one for authors, our money would be on Instagram.

There are so many things to love about Instagram.

It’s easy

We’re not that technologically savvy. So Instagram was like a social media gift sent from Heaven! We’re still trying to figure out what Snapchat is. (Can someone please tell us?) And have zero clue how to use Tumblr (although we did figure out how to create a profile!) But Instagram takes a minute to set up an account and all you have to figure out is how to upload a picture. Then you are off! [Read more…]