P on the Brain...Promotion, Platforms, Pitching, Publishing and Phew...

This week has been ‘my can’t quite settle to anything’ week. 

It is probably due to changes in the family routine...Theoretically I should have more time...I wonder where it goes. 

I need to wrestle my house into submission and also my brain, which has been jumping around all over the place. I have a new story idea that I have been doing a little bit of research on, and thinking about on how to tackle the story...You know me, sucker for anything that needs research, also I don’t know why but I have to challenge myself in structure and style as well... Why can’t I just write a simple story? As my good Fabo Friend commented on Facebook recently  ‘Just write Maureen write!!!’

So in this week’s blog there is a mix of different ideas that caught my eye.

If you read last weeks post and went aaaarhgh. Social Media and Promotion and...It’s all doing my head in... then have a look at this guest post on Sia McKye’s blog. Janice Hardy takes a look at using your time wisely on promotion.

If you looked at last weeks post and thought Twitter aaaargh. Nicola Morgan has a good series of posts on using hashtags for searching within twitter. (good for research)

If you thought 'I can’t do facebook...'Take a look at this article on Fan Pages from Publetariat.

Nathan Bransford has a post looking at platform...which I have touched on before...If you wanted to know what an authors platform is, in terms of agents and publishers, read Nathans post.

This morning I had the good fortune to be able to chew the fat with some writer buddies (Hi Melinda) and we discussed last years conference. It has been a year since Spinning Gold...(I can’t quite believe it myself.) We discussed the success stories and the challenges of putting on the conference. The next conference, Spinning Tales, will be in Auckland at the beginning of April. Planning is underway with the Auckland team.

One of the topics in our wide ranging discussion was the changing face of publishing and also the speed of change. Jason Pinter looks at this in his Huffington Post article The 12 Game Changers In Publishing (and he doesn’t mention the tech companies....)

There will be pitching at Spinning Tales...so it could be timely to have a look at what happens to your manuscript when it gets requested. An agent tells....

Ingrid Sundberg has a good post on her blog recapping the agents panel at SCBWI LA last month. Great information about what some American agents want.....

Darcy Pattison has guest blogged about book trailers on The Creative Penn. If you have been thinking about book trailers and wondering if it is for you, have a look at what Darcy has to say.

Over on Craicerplus  (My Amplify page) There are articles on

Reinventing Book Marketing.

What Do The Most Highly Paid Authors Have In Common.

New Print Books Jump Off The Page With Digital Enhancements.

Speaking Loudly...(how Social Media got the word out for Laurie Halse Anderson when her book was banned in schools....)

5 Ways To Make Your Novel Unforgettable...(for those of us stuck in mid novel blues...)

MG vs YA...(brilliant post and nailed for me why I love writing MG)

I want to leave you with a great video that Rachelle Gardner posted on her blog.

The The Impotance of Proofreading.

And if you know a teacher... send them this....Absolutely Brilliant!


enjoy,
maureen

and the pic is not my kitchen sink.

It's A Dirty Job But Someone Has To Do It...

This week I have been contemplating promotion. 

Not for myself, but as an idea. It didn’t matter what I was doing, sooner or later some aspect of promotion ideology flitted through my brain because of a comment or an article or a question...It was everywhere.

The launch of the Fabo Story project...How do we promote it to kids?

The Wellington Children’s Book Association  AGM and panel event on Heroes...How do we promote it to the public?

Every good twitter link coming at me seemed to be on Promotion.

Then I got an email implying that we must have has PR and promotion experience to put on our very successful conference for children’s writers and Illustrators last year.

Actually No, however I did check out every book in the library to do with planning events and business management. This was an attempt to learn as much as I could about how we could get the word out and give the best conference we could, to people who were trusting us with their hard earned cash.

Promotion is part of being in business and business is what you are in if you are a writer.

Promotion is not a dirty word. It is a necessary word. 

You want an editor to look at your work so you must promote yourself as being professional, by writing the best story, presenting it well...clean pages, typeset, spell checked...

You want people to read your book...Telling readers about it, getting your name known, your author visits etc are all promotion for you.

Yvonne Perry of Online Promotion Made Easy has a good article to help you get started with building an author platform including a great set of links to overview articles.

Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn site has pulled together all the articles she has done over the year into one comprehensive links page on marketing. She covers everything from platform to podcasting.  She is a one woman university on the subject.

The Intern has five thoughts on book promotion, after her experience on a book tour. She is funny, ascerbic and thoughtful.  Her commentators agree that she is driving them crazy staying anonymous when she has a book to promote...Which does seem like the opposite of what she should be doing but you need to check out the blog to find out why....

Ali Hale has written one of the inspiring posts of the year with her article on writing bravely.

Has anyone recently told you how brave you are?

Probably not. The writing life doesn’t come off as requiring courage. In a normal day’s work, the worst danger you’re likely to face is a paper cut.

But if you’re a writer – if you’re taking ideas out of your head and turning them into words – then you’re sure as hell brave. Don’t forget that. Never let anyone convince you that what you do is easy or not a real job or even safe.

And that is just the beginning....

Elana Johnson stopped by on the blog this morning to comment on my shout out to the WriteOnCon team. I am in awe of their vision to create a conference for Children’s Writers around the world to participate in for free. What she didn’t know was that I planned to link to an interview with her fellow team member Jamie Harrington about how the conference came about. 

As you can stay at home and attend this awesome conference it is timely to look at the whole working from home thing. The workawesome site has 16 tips to boost your productivity if you work from home.

Over on Craicerplus (my Amplify page) I have articles on

5 Book Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

7 Reasons Why You Are Time Poor...(mea culpa)

How To Self Publish An E Book (This is so comprehensive....print it out)

5 Rules For Writing Y A

A brilliant article from Nathan Bransford on The One Question Writers Should Never Ask Themselves

How One Author Is Using Scribd To Find Readers

As an extra....Mike Shatzkin is on fire. This week he takes the publishers to task on ebook royalties. It’s a comprehensive article...be warned.

I noticed a few weeks ago that I had a large spike in my readers...when I did some investigation I found my blog had been mentioned by a family member on a discussion board for young mothers.  

The promotion was nice and unexpected and as I have tried to reward my blog promoters with a video just for them... I racked my brains to come up with something suitable....

And in shameless self promotion I entered myself in the Net Guide Web Awards for best New Zealand blog on a topic...so that’s one vote....as voting closes tomorrow (Friday 30th) I am expecting that there will only be one vote....snigger.... 

maureen