Authors Marketing Websites and Blogs

Regardless of whether you're published or unpublished, you need to make an impact on the Web. The difference in being published is that you want to make an instant impact to sell your books now.

Why then, are some websites so hard to find? How many times have you seen an advertisement with a URL address and think to yourself that you didn’t even know they had a website? Or how many times have you found something that looks really promising from a search engine description, only to find that there was little to offer when you got there?

The two largest mistakes include: 
1) Designing a really fabulous website and then only performing basic marketing measures to promote it. 

2) Hardly taking the time to build a well-designed website and promoting it like crazy. Neither technique will work. You must develop an online marketing plan and follow through with it. You cannot cut corners and skip chapters. It doesn’t work like that.

Do you even have a marketing plan? If you do, does it include online marketing? How old is your marketing plan? When was the last time you updated it? The answers to these questions could be the solution as to why you might not have the success you want.

Unfortunately, people look at marketing the same way they view fitness. It seems like too much work. Starting out we have great intentions, much like joining a fitness center in January because of a New Year resolution. We go full force with determination until we burn out or life gets in the way. Marketing isn’t something you can do for a while and stop. It isn’t a business fad, and it isn’t a business hobby. It is your business. Think of it as your house or rental payment. As long as you need somewhere to live, you will pay a mortgage or rent payment. Marketing is the same. As long as you are writing books, you will need to market your books to keep selling them.

Marketing plans are designed for a reason. When written effectively, updated appropriately, and followed consistently, they work.

Marketing plans fail because of three things:
1) They aren’t written and designed for you--to meet your writing needs and your schedule. You don't want a boilerplate template of someone else’s marketing plan. You need something that is realistic for you. Your writing pace, publication deadlines, family needs, obligations to other jobs and/or church are different from other writers. Therefore, your marketing plan should be realistic to other needs in your life.

2) Marketing plans are not updated consistently each year or proactive in taking advantage of new developments and technological advancements, as well as changes that take place in your personal life.

3) People don’t follow-through consistently with their marketing plan. Somewhere in the middle they want to make adaptations without proper planning and research, or they give up altogether. 

What about you? Have you fallen prone to one of these 3 situations? What steps have you taken to fix and/or improve things? 

Guest column by Terry's Client Linda Apple

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”~ E.L. Doctorow

Thirteen years ago I decided to be a writer. Little did I know what this decision would cost me. Little did I know how this decision would enrich my life.

I entered this world of words ignorant, hopeful, expectant, and maybe just a little bit cocky. It didn’t take long for me to be humbled. To my great astonishment, the world wasn’t waiting to hear what I had to say! I kept writing trying to find the right recipe, but most of my efforts failed.

Thank goodness for my writer friends who encouraged me to keep at it. However, I’ve found that words get into the writers veins and really, I couldn’t have stopped for long.

I’ve heard about writers who say they have to write because the stories in their heads demand to be told. I didn’t have such stories or demands. But what I did have was the desire to connect with people and encourage them. It took several years of writing to finally discover this was my niche, my voice.

The reason I’m writing this blog is for those of you who are just starting out. It is so easy to compare your writing experience, style, success—or lack thereof— with others. Let me assure you that there will always be someone more successful and always be someone less successful than you. That is the journey. As you write you will discover yourself, your style and voice, and just where you fit in.

Don’t get confused by other writers. At conferences you will hear a broad spectrum of advice, which is often contradictory. Treat this abundance of information like a buffet. Take what resonates with you and leave the rest. Take small steps until you feel ready to run. Then burst out and sprint. If you fall, that’s okay. This may be a sign to try a different path. Above all, be patient with yourself.

Explore, Learn, Write! 

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Linda has cut her writing teeth on short work publishing an amazing fifteen stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul books and stories in six anthologies. She is the author of two non-fiction books, Inspire! Writing from the Soul and Connect! A Simple Guide to Public Speaking for Writers. She has a great platform as she is a sought after speaker for workshops around the country and just served as President of the Oklahoma Writers Federation.

Would You Read On? hosted by Diana Flegal

Welcome to Would You Read On? 


This week's First Page is the opening to a Historical novel. We welcome your thoughts. Please comment below if you would continue reading on.  

Nicodemus, Kansas

Spring, 1885

      Some folks said he was crazy, others saw him as plain evil but most folks just avoided Gideon McCoy and understandably so. When he rode through a town it was hard to decide which held your gaze more, the man or his horse. Each distinctly seized your attention and together they made a remarkable spectacle.

     In this small Kansas town it was unusual to see a man so pristinely garbed wearing such an expensive white shirt and black trousers under a long black overcoat. His fancy gun belt trimmed in silver pulled your eyes to his pearl handle six shooter. More of an odd occurrence was for the man to be a recognized gunman and a Negro. With unashamed impudence he led his steed down the main street of the town.

     The horse was a fine-looking tannish blonde with a bleached colored mane and tail, equally eye-catching and rare. The animal’s legs were outstanding, long and thick with hoofs uncommonly sturdy. He was indeed a magnificent beast trotting with the same imposing dignity his rider exhibited. The pair moved unhurriedly down the street taking in the distant view of an endless blue sky and tall prairie grass swaying in the warm breeze.

     The extravagantly embellished saddle was not only quality leather but had the rider’s name inscribed across the back. There would be no mistaking he was the infamous Gideon McCoy credited with walking away from over fifteen gunfights leaving his opponents sprawled dead in the dirt.

Would you read on?

Last weeks brave author was Jessica Nelson. 

Please check out Jessica's book, Love On The Range  Love Inspired Historical and stop by her website for a visit. www.JessicaNelson.net

Your Dream Conference by Andy Scheer

If you could plan the ideal writers conference, what would you include?

That's not a hypothetical question. As part of my job as editor for a writers organization, I'll soon be planning a writers conference for early in 2014.

So here's your chance to help design the perfect conference. As a writer, what would you most like to see in a conference—something you've not been able to get at the ones you've attended.

Just a few guidelines: Please limit your suggestions to what's feasible. (Forget a free, all-expenses paid, two-week conference in Tahiti. Ditto kidnapping top editors of major publishers and not releasing them until they sign multi-book contracts.)

The location and dates are already set. The organizers envision meeting at a major hotel over four days: beginning Thursday evening and concluding by noon Sunday.

The other distinctive: This conference would focus on the needs of book authors (none of the usual classes for beginning writers on writing basics and how to break into magazines).

Your turn: Over four days, what do you most need to improve and expand your range of skills? You're helping invent the ideal conference for book writers. What does it look like?

Prologues??? by Linda S. Glaz

Just read a wonderful blog that emphasized getting to know your main character right away, creating empathy with him/her. I was told last year that I had to lose my prologue on a suspense novel because the reader didn't have enough feeling for the main character soon enough, and the critique was spot on. I dropped the prologue and the story came alive much sooner as we learned enough about the main character to care about her.

THAT SAID

How do we know when a prologue is necessary to set up a story or when it is simply taking up space because we, as writers, like what we're saying? I think immediately of Mary Higgins Clark who often sets up the entire story through a heart-pounding prologue, which may or may not have anything to do with the main character. But she is successful in that the entire story hinges on what happens to someone in the prologue.

What kind of experiences have you, as writers, as readers, had with respects to prologues opening a story?

Can you give an example of how a prologue intrigued you enough to have a read?

Is it absolutely necessary to have the main character in the opening chapter of the book?

On another note, does it make a difference in the genre you are reading? I can see romance needing the main characters right away, but what about suspense, thrillers, or a blend of suspense and romance--thriller and romance.

What do you like to see?

Or give us an example of a book that hooked you right away without there being even a mention of the main character in the opening.

Nearly time for ACFW by Terry Burns

It's nearly time for the ACFW Annual Conference. That is the American Christian Fiction Writers if you are somehow unaware of them.

This is a very large writing conference and will have hundreds of attendees. This large attendance makes for very strong programming and allows for an opportunity to do a substantial amount of networking. It is the strongest and most impressive conference that I go to, and I do on average a couple of conferences a month.

It is for fiction writers, but I know quite a number of people who write only non-fiction yet say they learn a great deal at the conference and that the contacts they make there work just as well for them.

But the size of the conference also presents some challenges that people need to be aware of. First, there will be so much content available that choosing what you want to go to and thus NOT go to is a definite challenge. Some people solve this by ordering recordings of the sessions they couldn't make. Also, some people who can't afford to go to the conference have found that they CAN order the conference recordings and that helps some for not being able to attend.

Another challenge presented by the size is the number of attendees makes individual contact with agents and editors very difficult. It holds the number of appointments an attendee can schedule to a bare minimum and puts a strong emphasis on casual contacts an attendee might have during the event. There will be hundreds of these casual contacts taking place and rising above the din takes skill and planning.

The primary tool for taking advantage of a contact at a meal, or a casual contact in the hall or an elevator (certainly not at their room or some place like a restroom) is your elevator pitch. You should have a short, interest garnering one sentence pitch prepared on your project that is polished and can be drawn like a gun to deliver at any opportunity. This may be invited by a comment like "What do you write?" or you may have to initiate it yourself by asking "May I give you my elevator pitch?"

Hopefully it will interest them and result in a proposal being invited. If not immediately forthcoming, ask "May I send you my proposal on it?"

The editor or agent is generally not going to want to take anything more than a business card with them. If you have a physical appointment with them, maybe a one sheet, but most don't even want that. They will want it sent to them. I very often don't make it home with things I have pressed on me at a conference.

Editors and agents are attending to learn of good projects, but the magnitude of this even makes brevity and conciseness a virtue. Launch into a long synopsis of your project and you'll see their eyes glaze over and see them edging away talking about how late they are to be somewhere. The process is simple, elevator pitch, ask for the sale (can I send a proposal?) and ask for their card to send it. I promise they will appreciate this solid, business-like approach.

I hope you are going to be at the conference and I hope with a little forethought that you will be able to make it work very well for you and know that you will be able to do a huge amount of networking.

Would You Read On? hosted by Diana Flegal

Welcome to Would You Read On? where we publish the first pages of brave authors books; fiction and nonfiction.

Today's submission is an Historical Romance:

Harney County, Oregon, 1918

Obsession was the way in which madness lay.

Despite that annoying truth, Gracelyn Riley couldn't stop scanning the train platform for Special Agent Striker as she disembarked. People bustled everywhere, stirring up dust. Nearby, a mother held her toddler close while passengers crowded around her. Boards groaned and voices rose as people scattered, looking for their luggage and rides.

The whistle shrieked a warning to those lagging on the platform. The train had stopped briefly at this desolate Oregon county station before continuing on to California.

Gracie had hesitated traveling to this vast and untamed land until she'd learned Special Agent Striker lived here. He was the only reason she could endure going to a place as dreary as this. Though her parents considered traveling alone unsafe, even in these modern days, the threat of influenza loomed larger than their worries and prompted them to send their only daughter west. Had the fear of grippe not been so severe, her parents would surely still have her strapped to their sides.

Once she'd learned Striker made his home here, her plans changed. She'd finagled the promise of a coveted position as a staff writer with the Woman's Liberator if she could procure an interview with the elusive agent. Sweet independence was within her grasp.

Unfortunately, she didn't see among the passengers anyone who looked dangerous enough to be the mysterious Striker.

She stood on the platform until the crowds thinned and the train rolled away on a cloud of steam. Squinting, she turned a slow circle. Though several wagons parked nearby, they all looked full and their drivers busy.

Where was her ride?

Gathering her things, she walked to a bench situated outside the station door and sat. Her trunks remained inside. No doubt when the driver arrived, he'd go in and retrieve them. In the distance, mountains jutted into a never ending sky. Sparse landscape surrounded her.

She shuddered and pulled Jane Eyre from her Dotty bag.

A shadow fell over her. "Ma'am, is this seat open?"

She looked up. The man beside her waited for an answer. With the setting sun behind him, the broad brim of his cowboy hat shadowed his face and hid all but his straight nose and strong chin.

Comment below and let us know if you would read on.

Last weeks brave author was Mary Netreba.
Thank you Mary for allowing us to review your first page.