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Best of the Blogs

Christian Editing Services | Best of the Blogs | 18 November 2017

We’re more than halfway through November already! For those of you attempting NaNoWriMo this month, how are you going?

I’ve flunked. But I have written and loaded a heap of blog posts, almost finished the visual rebranding for a group blog (we’ll roll that out over the Christmas break), and I’m currently doing two online courses with Lawson Writer’s Academy, one on writing craft, and one on marketing. The writing course has shown me how little I know my characters … which is why I’ve flunked NaNo.

Anyway, on with the news …

Writing

Theme

Michael Hauge asks What’s Your Theme? A novel needs an overall theme … but it’s something a lot of authors either skim over, or try and shoehorn in at the end.

https://www.storymastery.com/character-development/whats-your-theme/

What Are You Writing?

David Farland asks Are You Writing a Book, or a Movie? He goes on to explain the differences in point of view for novels and movies. As it happens, I’m currently writing a blog post on this subject, inspired by a course I’m taking through Lawson Writers Academy.

http://davidfarland.com/2017/11/writing-book-movie/

Publishing

Cover Design

Paul Barrett, Art Director of Girl Friday Productions, visits Author Marketing Experts to share Book Marketing 101: 10 Things Not to Do on Your Book Cover. There are so many bad book covers out there! Unfortunately, the authors don’t know they’re bad (because surely you wouldn’t deliberately allow your book to go out with an awful cover?).

I suspect that’s because many newbie authors can’t see beyond it’s a book! With my name on the cover!

They don’t know the principles of good design … and it’s something you need to know before you start designing your first book cover (actually, for many authors, that’s their first mistake. Designing their own cover).

https://www.amarketingexpert.com/10-book-cover-rules/

Fighting Piracy

Following Maggie Stiefvater’s blog post about her experience with book pirates, Jana Oliver visits Fiction University to share what she’s doing to fight the book pirates in Why eBook Piracy Matters.

Marketing

Branding

Belinda Griffin of SmartAuthorsLab visits The Creative Penn to share 7 Best Ways to Build an Authentic Author Brand.

https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2017/11/10/authentic-author-brand/

If you’re interested in learning how to build your brand from nothing, I have two suggestions:

1. Follow my blog. I have a blog series on branding coming up in February 2018.

2. Click here to sign up to my Kick Start Your Author Platform information list. I’ll be running the programme again in March 2018 … and there will be more information about it coming up soon!

Cross Promotion

Diana Urban visits the BookBub blog to share 14 Ways Authors can Cross-Promote Each Other’s Books. You will note none of them include commenting on blog posts (although that’s always welcome!).

Facebook Chatbots

Louise Harnby introduces Facebook Chatbots in How To Market Your Book and Build Your Author Platform Using a Chatbot. What are chatbots? Are they the next big thing in book marketing? Who knows? But they are currently underutilised, and if there is one thing I’ve learned about book marketing, it’s that it pays to be at the leading edge of the curve.

That’s my top seven posts for this week. What’s the best post you’ve read this week on writing, editing, publishing, or marketing?

Best of the Blogs

Best of the Blogs: 1 July 2017

Last week was all writing craft, and this week is marketing (well, almost all marketing)!

Marketing

Branding

First, two linked posts from Kristine Rusch on branding and discoverability. There are a lot of things that make sense in here (including a brief explanation of why non-fantasy readers like myself still love the Harry Potter series).

She quotes Lee Child on his Jack Reacher series (which I’ve never read, but apparently a stunning 70% of Child fans will buy his next book, because they know what they’re going to get:

There are two components of loyalty: one is the author and the second is the subject. If you like the author but you’re uncertain of the content of the next book, that’s an obstacle. It runs counter to the literary view of writing that values originality and growth. Jack Reacher is the same person in every book.

(However, she also points out that some readers will abandon the series for the same reason: that Jack Reacher is the same person in every book. The lack of character growth gets stale.)

She also quotes a Codex Group survey, which states:

consumers are willing to pay a 66% premium for a book by a favorite author over an unknown author.

This is why new authors often discount their first book (or make it permanently free): to attract the new reader in the hope their book turns that reader into a paying customer. It’s not platform: it’s brand.

Business Musings: Brand Loyalty 1 (Branding/Discoverability)

 

Brand vs. Writing to Market

Author Rosalind James expands on this idea, saying that if we brand ourselves as authors and write to that brand, we won’t need to get stuck in the “churn” of writing to market.

Facebook

First, do you have a separate Facebook author page? Social Media Examiner tells why you should.

BookWorks have a tutorial especially for authors.

If that’s not enough detail for you, BookBaby blog has a series. It’s older, but the steps haven’t changed.

http://blog.bookbaby.com/2011/06/facebook-for-authors-setting-up-an-author-page-pt-1/

http://blog.bookbaby.com/2011/06/facebook-for-authors-setting-up-an-author-page-pt-2/

Facebook Header Videos

What has changed recently is that you can now use video in Facebook headers. In An Exciting Opportunity for Your Facebook Author Page, non-techy author Jebraun Clifford shares the 8 steps she took to create her own video header.

She also got a shout-out from Chris and Becca Syme at the Smarty Pants Book Marketing podcast (listen to the whole thing for an excellent discussion on recent changes at Facebook, or listen from 20 minutes to hear them discuss video headers).

Writing

Yes, I know I said this week was all marketing. But I couldn’t resist including this excellent post from the Reedsy blog. Learn What Irony (Really) Is and How To Use It discusses three types of irony and gives examples of how they have been used in writing, cinema, television, and on stage.

 

What’s the most interesting post you’ve seen online this week?