Taking Care of Business: Making Friends

Taking care of business and making friends may sound unrelated at best, but here's a secret: the dreaded term "networking" is basically just jargon for making friends.

Writing is a lonely business. You pull out your laptop, put on your headphones, and enter into a world that you created and no one else knows about (yet:  one day they'll be writing FanFiction in your world). If you're lucky enough to be writing full time (and don't all of us, somewhere, have that goal in the back of our mind?), that's pretty much all you do.

Write stuff: no human interaction required.

There are, of course, a few issues with that. For one thing, how do you write Deep Truth About The Human Condition if you aren't around other people? For another, writing is lonely. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's true. You write alone, you face writer's block alone, you revise alone, you read rejection emails alone.

Here's the thing: you don't have to. Making friends might be one of the key ways to keeping your sanity during the long and crazy process of writing and subsequently selling a novel. There are Twitter hashtags to follow (#amwriting is common; right now, #CampNaNoWriMo is a big one. And there's also #amrevising and #amquerying for other stages of the writing process); word sprints to join; and friends to be made.

If Twitter isn't your thing, writers love to blog. Search people out. Interact with writers on their blogs and through their Twitters, their newsletters, their Facebook groups... I do all these things, and I've made a lot of friends through the Query Tracker forum, too.

Besides keeping you sane and making friends from around the world (which should be all the motivation you need), making friends really is networking (which is a very scary word. Sorry about that.). Other writerly friends make great critique partners, ones who are willing to tell you, "You can do better than this. Don't take the easy way out." And you'll listen, and they'll read the revision, and they'll let you know they love it. You'll know they're sincere since they weren't afraid to tell you when they didn't love it.

When you get an agent, you'll want people to tell who understand what it means to actually have an agent. (I don't know about you, but this basically discounts my real-life family and friends.) When you go on submission, it's great to have friends who can send you pictures of cuddly animals to keep you sane and remind you that this, too, shall pass. And when you get the book deal you've always wanted? It's time to celebrate, and celebrations are always better with friends.

Twitter is full of now-published authors who have been friends since the days of querying. The most famous for their friendship is probably Susan Dennard and Sarah Maas, both now published successfully. And because they're writing BFFs, they get to blurb each other's books, and happily promote each other on Twitter, and collaborate on projects.

A quick reminder: Never treat someone like they're just a business deal waiting to happen, or befriend someone only because you think they'll help your career. It won't work. That's why I call it making friends, and not networking.

Befriend someone because you both have an undying passion for knee socks, obsess over Lizzie McGuire even though it's been off the air for 11years, and neither of you are sure what the big deal is about coffee. Oh, and you happen to both be writers. Maybe one of you rocks at dialogue and the other is excellent at filling plot holes. You'll make a great team, the two of you, with two books that both have killer dialogue, no plot holes, and obscure references to fancy knee socks.

You Really Want To Avoid This…

If you’re reading this post, it means you’re either aiming to be published one day or you already are. To ensure you have a successful writing career, here are some things you’ll want to avoid doing:

1.    Complain about agents or editors on Twitter (or Facebook). This could be specific individuals or about agents and editors in general. It’s not professional, and you never know who might see or share your tweet.

2.    Whine about your rejections on public forums when using your real name. Now, I’ll be honest. I used to love reading blog posts in which writers announced their rejections of the week (and the occasional requests). It made me feel better because, well, you know what they say about misery and company. But if an agent happened to check out your blog, because you queried him, and saw all those rejections, do you think he’s going to request the full? Probably not.

3.    Use social media to complain about a book you read (unless you don’t include identifiers for it). Especially don’t tear it apart in the worst possible way. If you do, you might inadvertently insult a potential reader for your book.

4.    Please don’t post spoilers on Twitter and FB about books and TV shows (e.g Games of Thrones). Not everyone will have read the book or watched the season finale when you did. You might annoy a potential reader for your book and she won’t pick it up. Yes, I was beyond frustrated when an author I followed on Twitter forgot everyone following her could see her tweets to another person and she tweeted a plot spoiler for a book that had just come out. I unfollowed her.

5.    Review books and give them a low rating. This is a controversial topic. Some writers don’t see what the issue is and wonder why they can’t give an honest review. First, your reviews should always be honest. If you hated the book but gave it a great review (as in 4 or 5 stars), it might come back and haunt you if it comes out that you lied in your review. But if you hated a book and give it a bad review, it could later hurt you if the publisher is one you submitted to, and they’re not impressed with your cutting review.  If you want to be able to review all books on your blog, and not just the ones with a 4- and 5-star rating, you can always review under a pseudo.

6.    Bad mouth authors and their stories while you’re on social media sites. It’s not professional.

7.    Once you have a book out, don’t argue with the reviewer if you disagree with something they said. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Publishing is a subjective business. If you do feel like arguing a point, it could go viral and you’ll be labeled a difficult author and that might lead to more negative reviews.

8.    If an agent or editor rejects your manuscript or query, it is never wise to email them back and rant how wrong the individual is. Same goes if you’re an author and ask another author if they will blurb your book, and they in the end saying no because they didn’t enjoy it. In that case, thank them for taking the time to read the story and move on.

9.    Spam all the social media sites you use…and only post spam. And while you’re at it, please avoid messaging people or sending DMs, asking individuals to buy your book and check out your Facebook page. Also, avoid using their Facebook page to post your spam. It won’t be appreciated by anyone, and especially not the page’s author.

Are there are any other suggestions you can think of that writers should avoid that could harm them later on?

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and can be found at her blog/website. She is represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person. Her debut New Adult contemporary romance TELL ME WHEN (Carina Press, HQN) is now available. LET ME KNOW (Carina Press) will be available Sept 1st, 2014.

12 Tips For Increasing Your Book’s Visibility (Even Before You’re Published)

There is a simple rule when it comes to selling your book. If the reader doesn’t know it exists, she won’t buy it. The solution is easy: make sure the reader knows about your book. Here are some popular (and not so popular) methods to increase your book’s visibility.


1. Run down the street naked with your cover painted on your chest. This will increase your book’s visibility (among other things), especially when you make it to the evening news after your arrest.


2. Create a website and list your current books and upcoming releases. Include the blurb and covers (when available). Make sure that all your social media sites are linked to it and are working. There is nothing more frustrating for a reader than to clink on an author’s link only to receive an error message.


3. Become involved in Facebook and/or Goodreads groups that pertain to your story. They can be genre specific (e.g. for New Adult authors or YA paranormal reads) or topic specific (e.g. breeding horses). Make sure you are actively involved. By that, I don’t mean annoy the members with spam. Read the rules of the group. If promotional activities are not allowed, then don’t ignore the rules and post your latest picture teaser. If you do, you’ll be kicked out faster than you can say your name. If promotional activities are permitted (e.g. cover reveals), make sure that you aren’t just posting promotional announcements and not participating in other discussions. Regular members tend to ignore promotional posts by individuals who only promote in the group. They are much more supportive to those individuals who regularly contribute to discussions.


4. Email everyone in your address folder (including people you haven’t talked to in years), and asked them to buy your book. Better yet, beg them to buy your book. And there’s no need to personalize the emails. Address it to ‘Dear Insignificant Person’ and CC everyone on your list. That is guaranteed to put your book on the bestseller list.  


5. Become active on the various social media sites. You don’t have to be a pro at all of them. Pick the ones most relevant to your target audience, and try to maintain a regular schedule. This might be as simple as blogging or using Tumblr once a week. The more often you’re on it, though, the more likely you’ll make friends with people who will love to help you out (e.g.  creating picture teasers or tweeting about your book).


6. Email total strangers, act like you know them, and tell them to buy your book.


7. Send DMs and Facebook messages to people who just followed or friended you, and tell them to check out your books.


8. Research and write an article related to a topic in your story, and submit it to relevant newspapers and magazines. Even if you can’t mention the title of your book in the article, you can list it in your bio.


9. Hire a blog tour company to help spread news of your book beyond your regular blogging circle. Even if you have a PR person assigned to you through your publisher, you can look at hiring outside help to increase your reach. The publicist might arrange to have your book mentioned on a few big blogs, but the more people who see your book the better. A reader usually has to see the cover three times before she decides to buy the book (or at least check out the blurb). With the number of new books released every day, it’s easy to forget about a book if you only hear it mentioned once.


10. Conduct a workshop. This could be a writer workshop, or it could be a workshop specific to some element of your story. For example, if you wrote a knitting book, teaching a knitting class will help increase the book’s exposure. Now, if you conduct a workshop on creating emotion in the story, the odds of attendees reading the book drops if they write genres different to your novel. But if your workshop is genre specific (e.g. new trends in YA), then you’ve increased the odds that attendees will check out your book. Make sure you don’t bore them by mentioning the title of your books every other sentence. They will quickly tune you out or leave the room if you try that. If you mention other authors’ books, as well as your own, you will gain credibility and will sell more books than the individual who talked incessantly about his book. I’ve seen this happen a number of times.


11. Create a street team. This is hard to do when it’s your first novel. You don’t have fans yet. In this case, you can start off small with friends who have read your book. As your fan base grows, you can add to your street team. Or if you know someone with a great street team, she might share them to help promote your book.


12. Tweet only about your book. Don’t waste time having conversations with other people (especially readers). Don’t waste time talking about anything but your book. Your goal is to spam, spam, spam.


As you may have guessed, not all of these are best practices when it comes to gaining visibility for your book. Unfortunately, there are many authors who do them and wonder why their books never sell (or don’t sell much). Can you identify the promotional no-nos*? What increases the odds that you will check out a book (i.e. read the blurb) or buy it?


(*1, 4, 6, 7, 12 in case you’re wondering)

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and can be found at her blog/website.  She is represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person. Her debut New Adult contemporary romance TELL ME WHEN (Carina Press, HQN) is now available. LET ME KNOW (Carina Press) will be available Sept 1^st, 2014.

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SAY NO TO SPAM! Twitter Messaging Do’s & Don’ts

Let me start by saying that I really don’t want to write this post. I don’t. I want there to be no need for it, because people are using their common sense and applying restraint regarding what they share in DMs. Sadly, this is not the case, and as the barrage of spam splatters my DM (direct message) box with increased fervor, I feel COMPELLED to write this post.

Okay, Direct Messages. Shall we start with the Don’ts?

DON’T... use autoresponders (DM greetings to new followers). All social media is about connection, and autoresponders are static shortcuts. Worse, they have become a misguided tool for promotion. “Thanks for following! Check out my Facebook Fan page!” or “Appreciate the follow! My latest release, Zombie Cowboys In Space is available HERE (link)” and even, “Are you looking for a MARKETING TEAM? Let us help you reach your customers (link).” Pretty much any link you put in an autoresponder makes the user think SPAM when they see it, so just...don’t.

IF YOU MUST use autoresponders, use it to start a relevant conversation. Ask a question that encourages them to engage, like: Thanks for the follow. I’m a big reader and like to discuss books on Twitter. What  genres do you read? and then of course, respond to people who answer to keep the conversation going. Don’t promote yourself or your books/business/expertise, just interact and get to know them better. Use it to show who you are, giving them a sense of your personality. 

DON’T...offer Unwanted Promotion.  Ever. A DM box may only allow for 140 characters, but that doesn’t make it any less an email box than your actual email. Direct messaging  is for reaching out to people in a PERSONAL way, not to talk AT them, especially to SPAM them about products or services. If people have asked to be updated via DM, that’s different. But just going through your contact list to let every follower know about a book release or sale...NO.

DON’T...send generic notes with a link. The fact is, twitter accounts get hacked. Then hackers like to send out DMs to people on the account’s follower list, usually a lame “Hey is this you?” note plus a link to a porn site, malware or something unsavory. So if you send a DM like: “Look at this--I totally LOLed + a LINK, the receiver will think it’s Spam and not open it.  

IF YOU MUST send a DM with a link, make sure your accompanying note makes it clear it’s you to the person you’re sending it to, and what the link goes to. 

All right, now onto the Do’s.

DO...send a DM if you’d like to find out more about someone, like if they are on Facebook, or if you can send them an email about something that those 140 characters just can’t cut. Connection, remember?

DO...send a DM if you want to offer a personal response to a tweet, rather than a public one. Sometimes you’ll see from someone’s tweets that a calamity has happened. Sending a DM to say, hey “I’ve been there too, and don’t beat yourself up about it” is a nice thing to do. Or maybe you have a private experience you’d like to share with them offline.  Those kind of DMs are totally fine. Of course if the person doesn’t want to talk about it, then respect their privacy. 

DO...send a DM if you want to find out more information about something. Maybe you caught a tweet exchange where people were discussing a resource but not the link. Or you found out someone’s doing a book signing in your city but need the time and date. It’s totally okay to DM someone to ask for info.

EXCEPT...if you’re just being nosy. If you get a whiff of gossip on the Tweet vine and want to know more, don’t pressure people to spill unless YOU KNOW they will be okay with it. A good friend who tease-tweets that he has some good news? Sure, ask about it in a DM, but respect it if he isn’t ready to share. But an acquaintance you don’t know well who is ranting and causing drama in tweets while not naming names? NO. Don’t DM them, prodding for details. When that person is thinking clearly again (twitter drama almost always leads to twitter regret) their opinion of you will lessen because you tried to milk them for information that didn’t concern you.

DO...send a DM when you haven’t heard from someone in a while and want to catch up. People like to feel valued. Reaching out this way shows you care. :)  

DO...send a DM to thank people for following if you like. Use their name in the DM so they know it’s you, not an autoresponder. 

DO...send a DM to someone if you want to help with a special project, but you don’t know them well enough to email. A simple, “Hey I saw on your blog that your book is releasing soon. If I can help in any way, let me know!” is totally okay. 

Honestly, I don’t think most folks want to SPAM other people. Likely, they are not even aware they are doing it. Maybe they see everyone else firing a Spam Cannon and think, Well, I guess that’s what I should do. Or maybe someone gave them bad advice on using twitter to reach their audience.

Do you have any do’s and don’ts to share? And if you’d like to apply some gentle “re-education” that will hopefully lead to less SPAM,  please share this post! 

ANGELA ACKERMAN is a writing coach and co-author of the bestselling writing resource, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression, as well as the newly released Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Attributes and its darker cousin, The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook and at Writers Helping Writers (formerly The Bookshelf Muse).

  

Giveaway ABC’s

When done well, giveaways are a great tool for building your platform. They can help draw attention to your website, your blog, your Facebook page, your book.

When conducting a giveaway, you have several options:

1. Ask participants to indicate in the blog comments if they are interested in the prize. It’s simple to do, but it comes with many downsides. For example, you might be giving away a book, and the person said it sounds great. Except, they might have said that to be nice and don’t actually want the prize. Or they might forget to leave their contact information, which isn’t ideal if they actually win.

Most individuals conduct giveaways because they want something in return. It could be more blog followers, more Twitter followers, more Facebook page ‘likes’. This giveaway format spells more work for you, since you have to manually check if the individual actually preformed the action (e.g. followed you on Twitter). It’s better suited for your current followers, as a way of saying thank you for following me. All they have to do is say yes they want to win the prize.

2. Have participants fill in a survey imbedded in your blog post. This one is fairly easy to do, but you still have to manually ensure the winner preformed the tasks she said she did in order to win the prize. Believe it or not, there are some people who lie about these kinds of things.

3. You can use Twitter and tweet something like this: The first person who favors this Tweet wins ALL OF YOU by @Christina_Lee04. The advantage of doing this, when you’re giving away another author’s book, is the author might retweet it to her followers. And you might end up with another follower or two. This type of giveaway is a great way of supporting friends and authors you admire.

4. Use the Rafflecopter and imbed it in your blog post. This is the best option for numerous reasons. One, Rafflecopter does all the checking (for the most part). You don’t have to double check if the person really is following you on Twitter or ‘liked’ your Facebook page. The all powerful Rafflecopter knows. It just can’t tell you if the person tweeted about your giveaway as often as she claimed she did. The Rafflecopter is easy to use, and will even add itself to your Facebook page. In case you didn’t know, unlike Twitter, Facebook has rules against advertising contests on your pages. You. Cannot. Do. It. BUT, you can have Rafflecopter add the Giveaway widget to your page. You just need to promote it through other means.

Tips for Giveaways

1. Establish a goal. Why are you doing the giveaway? Is it to gain ‘likes’ on your Facebook page? Is it to increase target audience awareness of your books? By establishing your goal(s), it will help you shape your giveaway so that you can benefit the most from it.

2. Based on your goals, determine the prize. If the goal is to increase your book sales, giving away a $50 Amazon gift card or Kindle Fire HD won’t do that. If your goal is to increase Facebook page ‘likes’, then that prize will help. BUT that doesn’t mean those individuals will buy your books, especially if they don’t read your genre. You’ll just accumulate meaningless ‘likes’. If your goal is to achieve ‘likes’ so that it appears as though you have an incredible fan base, then this prize will get you there.

If the goal is to increase book sales, giving away copies of your book will help. If the reader likes the book, she will hopefully review it on her blog, Goodreads, Amazon. This could translate into sales. The best form of promotion is word of mouth.

3. Make it simple. The more work the person has to do to enter, the less likely they will follow through with it. You will get more Facebook ‘likes’ if all the person has to do is click on that part of the Rafflecopter. You’ll get fewer ‘likes’ if they have to do some complex scavenger hunt that is a time suck. In that case, the prize had better be sweet.

4. Make it simple when it comes to prizes. If you’re giving away books (e-books or physical copies), don’t list 50 books (especially of various genres) and randomly hand them out to the winners. They might end up winning a book they’ve already read or are not interested in reading. Let the winners select which book they want to read from the list. This will make for a happier winner.

5. Promote the giveaway. But please don’t tweet about it every five minutes. This is spamming. The idea is to increase the number of people who are following you. The idea is to NOT annoy your followers with spam so that they UNFOLLOW you. A great ratio is nine non-promotional tweets for every promotional one. And only tweet about the giveaway two or three times a day. Also, give the individual who is entering the contest extra points for tweeting or blogging about it. Even better, make things easy for them. Using Click to Tweet, write a tweet promoting the giveaway at the end of your post. They just have to click on it and your giveaway is shared with their Twitter followers.

6. Share the Rafflecopter with friends. Instead of doing the giveaway on your own, enlist a few friends who would like to participate. This will help promote the giveaway to people who don’t follow your blog or don’t follow you on Twitter.

7. Do a test run. If you haven’t used Rafflecopter before, I suggest doing a small giveaway first. I did this recently. My goal was to see how it worked, and I’m glad I did. I discovered that for the option to have people follow you on Twitter, you just add your handle (e.g. @StinaLL). I used the entire url address and messed up that part of the form. I only realized this after the Rafflecopter went live. Fortunately I was able to fix it.

8. Have fun and be creative! Unless you’ve been living in the ocean with Ariel and her friends, you will have no doubt noticed how many giveaways are going on each week. Don’t stress out about yours. It’s just one small branch in your marketing plan. Learn from the experience and make your next giveaway even better.

Do you participate in giveaways (either in running them or trying to win things)? What is your favorite kind of giveaway? Do you have any other advice you would like to share?

Click the link to Tweet it! Share what you read today:

How To Run A Successful Giveaway 

The ABC’s Of Running Giveaways

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes Young Adult and New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and can be found at her blog/website.  She is represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person. Her debut New Adult contemporary romance, WIDE AWAKE, available Jan. 20, 2014 (Carina Press).