readers

Why Authors Should Use Instagram

April 24, 2016 By Guest

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…]

Meeting Readers Where They Are

July 12, 2015 By Guest

Our guest today is Elizabeth Dimarco, CEO and co-founder of BooksILove, a free mobile platform for readers to discuss the books they’ve read and get recommendations from friends and co-workers in non-curated, peer-to-peer conversations. It’s also the place for authors, publishers and booksellers to observe and engage with audiences, publicize author events, book launches and more. A longtime member of the Writer Unboxed community, Elizabeth writes tales at the crossroads of technology and mythology that take place in more than one world.

Achieving widespread book discovery is like hunting a unicorn. Many authors seek it, but only a few ever find it. Having spent the past two years immersed in creating a mobile solution to this issue, I believe authors may be on the wrong quest. What if the key to gaining a reader base isn’t about chasing discovery, but rather slowing down and engaging?

** Special for Writer Unboxed Readers! Tomorrow BooksILove releases the beta version of its new reader engagement mobile app. If you are interested in trying it out, contact Elizabeth at Elizabeth@booksilove.com. If you’re a Writer Unboxed author, Elizabeth invites you to promote your events on the app by going to BooksILove and clicking on Create Happenings Here. Use the promo code WU2015 to enter your event information.

Connect with Elizabeth on Facebook and on Twitter.

Meeting Readers Where They Are

In recent years, the quest for book discovery has taken on almost mythical proportions. Armed with their best tweets, blogs, and pins, authors hunt the elusive discovery beast that is just out of reach. After spending the past two years immersed in creating a mobile solution to this issue, I believe authors may be on the wrong quest. What if the key to gaining a reader base isn’t just about chasing discovery, but also about slowing down and engaging?[pullquote]Over the past twelve months, the buzzword in book discovery conversations has shifted to engagement.[/pullquote]

Over the past twelve months, the buzzword in book discovery conversations has shifted to engagement. While it’s not a new concept, the introduction of reader analytics available from e-reading devices has propelled engagement into the limelight. Engagement represents a change in emphasis to quality of sales over quantity—an engaged or quality reader sale often translates to repeat sales and loyal fans.

So what’s the difference between discovery and engagement? [Read more…]

How To Love Our Readers and Our Art: A Call For Author Ethics

March 22, 2015 By Guest

Our guest today is Katharine Grubb—a mommy, homeschooler, novelist, baker, comedian wanna be, former running coward, author of a novel (Falling for Your Madness) and a book about how to write in very small increments: Write A Novel In 10 Minutes A Day will be released on March 26.

[pullquote]For more information about author ethics in relation to self publishing, please see this excellent post by WU writer Porter Anderson, where he discusses 8 Issues in Author Ethics. Porter was actively involved with ALLi in bringing attention to the issues of author ethics.[/pullquote]

Katharine was introduced to the topic of author ethics by friend Jane Steen, the author of the Authors Code of Ethics published by ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors). In 2014, she created the Facebook group called 10 Minute Novelists and during the month of February, author ethics were discussed. Katharine believes that not enough attention is given to good practices for writers. Independent publishing is rather new and has never been easier for authors, and she believes writers need to take their online presence seriously, love their readers, respect their art and hold themselves to an honorable standard as they promote themselves and their books.

Connect with Katharine on her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

How To Love Our Readers and Our Art: A Call For Author Ethics

Why do we write?

We write to wade through the chaos of the world and find a clear path. We write because the pain we’ve faced in the world is so great that we need to see the truth of it on paper so it no longer has any hold on us. We write so that we can explain to others that exact feeling, that heart breaking conflict or that comforting truth. We write because if we didn’t our own misery would consume us. We write because we love to have written, we love to have someone read our words and smile. We write because we know words wielded well are powerful and change minds, hearts and lives.

[pullquote]We retaliate against bad reviews. We make shady deals to have our friends review our books in dishonest terms. We manipulate our numbers to make it appear that we’ve sold more books than we actually have. [/pullquote]Because we hold words and our art so dearly, we may find it difficult to release our words into the world. Our words and our reputation (what some of us call platform or brand) are closely tied to our words. We’ve precisely controlled the words so letting them go can be frustrating.

Admittedly, some of us have no confidence in our readers. They are notorious for glossing over the important parts, for ignoring the nuances and for missing the point. At times, we may believe that we are superior to our readers because we were once gods. We created the world that they hold in their hands. That our reader can read completely in a few hours what it took years for us to create galls us. That our reader can find another book cheaply and easily infuriates us. We use this, perhaps, to cloak ourselves in artistic and moral superiority. When we do that, when we taint what was once meant to be a gift to the world. When we slip into anything less than love for our reader we turn the beautiful into the ugly.

When we are ugly, we are very ugly. [Read more…]

Provocations in Publishing: “Engineering Serendipity”

April 18, 2014 By Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson)

Coined by the British aristocrat Horace Walpole in a 1754 letter, [serendipity] long referred to a fortunate accidental discovery. Today serendipity is regarded as close kin to creativity — the mysterious means by which new ideas enter the world. But are hallway collisions really the best way to stoke innovation?

− Engineering Serendipity, April 5, 2013, New York Times, by Greg Lindsay

Here at the new PubSmart Conference, seated this week in an unseasonably chilly Charleston, South Carolina, the term “engineering serendipity” came up on a Thursday panel several of us were doing about discoverability.

Discoverability, itself, is not quite a word yet, according to my unabridged Merriam-Webster. But when I checked out this term engineering serendipity, I found that it has been with us for some time.

Not that any of us on the panel felt that engineering serendipity wasn’t useful. Kathy Meis, founder of Bublish (a serendipitous name if ever there was one) is one of the five main movers behind PubSmart. She gave us the term as she moderated our panel, which included NetGalley’s Tarah Theoret; Books I Love app’s Elizabeth Dimarco; the eminent Laura Dawson of Bowker and its SelfPublishedAuthor.com site; and me.

[pullquote]If you don’t find yourself naturally comfortable with workin’ it, you may not be tomorrow’s author material, no matter how pretty your prose. [/pullquote]

I’ll just point out that this conference is doing a great deal to rebalance gender representation on publishing-conference panels. Wednesday, I moderated a panel of five women. Thursday I sat on a panel with four women. More sessions have been all- or mostly women.

And as for serendipity and its engineers, I’ve been looking over my shoulder all week. Surely some wry creature, probably in a Citadel cadet’s dress whites, is there to get off a big wink at me. It’s an odd, if pleasant, thing to find yourself returned to your Deeply Southern hometown by a career that’s moved you as far away as Rome, Copenhagen, Bath, London.

I may still wear my white spring linen jacket to this morning’s conference brunch, damn it, despite the forecasts of only 66 azalea-cooling degrees today.

But this thing of engineering serendipity.

[Read more…]

It’s all about the cheesecake

November 24, 2009 By Therese Walsh

A food-inspired post in honor of the holiday…

So you work on a novel for, oh, let’s say six years, and you’re tired in a million ways. You’re wondering, Why would I ever, ever do this to myself again–besides the fact that you have to do it again, because you have a two-book contract. (You’re sure to throw in a little self-recrimination too, because you’re complaining and how many writer friends would want a two-book contract?) And then, a miracle happens.

People.

People like your book. They’re reading it–like, really reading it. And they’re enjoying it, or so they say. And it reminds you of making cheesecake–the hours you’d spend in the kitchen, bent over that cheesecake, babying that cheesecake, making the pastry crust and lining it with dark chocolate, and integrating the raspberry topping into the batter. It reminds you of the cheesecake because as you are dealing with the backache of making that cheesecake you are asking yourself, “Why, oh why, do I do this? This can’t be worth it!” But then, later, your brother-in-law, who requested the cake for his big 3-0 dinner, takes a bite and his face turns a million shades of happy; or a complete stranger approaches you at a party and says in a soft-serious mutter, “Thank you for making this. It is divine.”

I will write again, not because I have a two-book contract (oh, okay, okay, I will, but just listen a second); I will write again, because of emails like this:

I finished reading your book a few days ago and I wanted to tell you what I thought about it. I really enjoyed it and I’m so happy to have found it. It was the kind of read that kept me thinking for days- at work, at home, and in class. That is when I know a book is really good- when it keeps me thinking, when I wish I hadn’t already finished that novel.

That not only makes me happy, it provides me with fuel and makes me want to keep on keeping on. How about you? What motivates you to write?

Next week: How to build a Facebook Ad!

Photo courtesy Flickr’s adactio.