First Steps Into A Secret Life

In my secret life I am taller, thinner, brainier and permanently aged 30. Of course, when I was 30, I was all of those things. I just wish I had celebrated it more...

Not a bad first line...a bit of pathos...a bit of thinking...line two and three follows on developing the theme...

Why am I looking at the first line....because Lisa Stiles has a great article on her blog about first lines and their power. She has some great examples and analysis on the first lines of the famous books.

If I am talking to anyone on the power of the first line I send them straight to any Dick Francis book. Pick any one. Read the first line and that gives you a huge clue as to why they are bestsellers.

Tahereh hasn’t been blogging very long but has made an impact with her witty blog. This week she posted a great list of what 81% of Agents would like on the first page. If you trawl around her site you will find other laugh out loud articles for writers. Tahereh is also graphic artist and she made up a spoof cover called Querypolitan. This has now morphed into reality as an online magazine (she is looking for contributors...)  which is as funny as her blog.

Angela Ackerman had a recent contest on her blog asking readers to nominate blogs they could not live without. She posted the extensive list divided up into Agents and Industry, Query and MS Tuneage and Writers, Authors and Writing. I have quite a few on my regular check list but I will be checking out some new ones based on this comprehensive list. My Twitter follow list will be getting a workout. 

Robin LaFevers and Mary Hershey together run The Shrinking Violets Blog. This blog is dedicated to Marketing for Introverts. As introverted children’s writers they have a wonderful handle on what it takes to step out and market your book in front of an audience. This week one of their readers, Jenn Hubbard has written a great guest post on how getting together with other writers to market your books can help the introvert writer. (Extroverts will like it too.)

Our collective writing group project is coming together and as part of the nuts and bolts of going live we all have to have a profile and pic on the website...I hate the camera and the camera hates me. You may have noticed that I have cool space pictures all over my social media presence. However with the help of some cool free software and my kids, I have an avatar pic, which wonder of wonders makes me look taller, thinner, brainer and permanently aged 30.  Who could ask for anything more? Check out the sidebar!

Over on Craicerplus (my Amplify page) there are links to articles on

The Literary Lab - Keep Your Middle From Sagging

5 Writing Super Powers I would like to have.

Children’s Book Apps get curiouser and curiouser.

Melvin Burgess’ Top Ten Books for Teenagers.

Big Publishers have reason to be happy about how the book market is evolving.

Maybe ET is calling but we have the wrong phone.

How to create Buzz before opening week(end).

Agents won’t survive just by charging a higher commission.

enjoy,

maureen

Author Websites and the Personal Brand....

I’m over rain...and yes I know we were all praying for rain two months ago when we were facing a country wide drought but all those collective prayers seem to have been answered this last week in constant downpours so that we are looking at floods.

So now that we are stuck inside, our attention turns to Social Networking sites...coz I’m researching them for a little project.

As part of your brand profile publishers expect you to be social networking as well. Now some authors engage with their readers very well on facebook but it is a time suck. After all the business of being an author is writing. So before you set up your facebook fan page, your twitter account, your blog, sit down and make up a profile plan. Where do you want to spend your time?

Dan Schawbel of Personal Branding Blog has written an interesting article that has been posted all over the web this week entitled R.I.P Facebook. He has some pertinent things to say about personal branding and one of them is devote your energy to YOUR website not someone else’s!

So with this in mind I am revisiting author websites.

What should an Author website do?

Bookmarketingmaven has a short post profiling some excellent author websites.

Yael Miller has a guest post on Tony Eldridge’s blog about good web design for authors.

 Publetariat has reprinted a page from Joanna Penn about a great example of an author website. Make sure people can buy your book!!! That is the big message but there are lots of other important little snippets as well...profile... engage readers...FAQs...flash stuff....

Writer Tools

Joanna Penn is a great source of advice. She has successfully self published three books and has a huge following for her blog and website.  On her blog, thecreativepenn, this week she has a guest post focussing on 22 websites every writer must use. It is a great list. There are some great new sites to check out. Two from the list are 3D Animated Avatars for your characters and an Emotion Thesaurus (this is a wonderful resource compiled every Thursday by children’s writer Angela Ackerman.)

Icyte is a great bookmarking site that takes bookmarking to a whole new level. Your bookmarked web pages are always available stored with your highlighted tags and comments so you can access them on other computers or servers. This is especially interesting if you are researching or working collaboratively on a project.

For more ideas on author websites check out my Marketing 101 series. 

In the Blogosphere this week.

B.E.A. (Book Expo America) is underway. Check out Alice, in the sidebar-she's blogging from it. 

Galleycat has links to hot topics at the Expo including  this little video where the CEO of Figment Publishing talks about their latest initiative to bring cellphone novels to American teens.

There is a lot of comment flying thick and fast over Neil Gaiman getting 40K to speak at a library.

Neil is bemused by it and his blog post on the subject is very interesting. I always knew he was a great guy!!! More power to him I say...(holding signed copy of The Graveyard Book close to chest and sighing...)

Over on Craicerplus (myAmplify page) I have links to articles on

The Konrath effect - Will technology ruin new authors?

Ask The Publishing Guru - Choosing a title for your novel. (This one started some interesting comment on facebook)

The Feckless Goblin - 9 unsavoury characters traits of real authors (ouch)

From Victoria Mixon – 7 reasons to be glad that you are a writer. (ohhhhhh)

George Orwell, Mills and Boon writer: Taking literary mashups to the next level (ideas for your next masterpiece)

Enjoy,


maureen

pic is the master himself... Neil Gaiman