Welcome to the Author Marketing Toolkit, where you can learn from 20+ years of time-tested marketing and insights expertise, translated for authors. I’m Carol Van Den Hende, an MBA and strategist who’s known for bringing chocolate when I speak at conferences (surely, we’ll get back to in-person events one day!) I’m thrilled to be joining… Read more »
There’s nothing like the clean slate of a new year about to start—especially after a year as all around rough as this one has been. Time to cut free and start over! Along with that excitement, I’m a huge geek for resolutions and big, hopeful plans. Yes, even now. I cannot squash my new-year optimism…. Read more »
The pandemic has taken a lot from us. As authors, it has been a huge blow to our options for growing our community—events, libraries, book shops, conventions, festivals, workshops. I could go on. But it can’t steal your platform. I know: it’s hard. Even I, extreme introvert extraordinaire, have missed face time with readers and writers…. Read more »
Regardless of the type of work you do, when you present yourself as a writer, you put a part of who you are into everything you create. That level of vulnerability makes it all the more important that you take steps to protect your privacy while promoting your writing online. If you’ve never given much… Read more »
So, we’re a little more than halfway through the year. And holy moly has it been a year. A pretty tough one, and one that has upended just about all of our well-intentioned plans. How have you been doing with your author platforming goals through all this? Personally, social distancing totally took my March book… Read more »
So, you want to be a food writer, but don’t know where to start? You’re not alone! Scan the internet, and you’ll find everything from recipe blogs to featured magazine articles on a single ingredient. You may think: I love food, but I’m not “qualified” to write about it. Good news. You don’t need a… Read more »
Indie publishing offers a lifetime of lessons to learn, and fortunately, the self-publishing community also offers myriad colleagues and gurus willing to share their knowledge with you. But working in indie publishing is a lot like that transition from college to real life: you can do all the reading and take all the courses, but… Read more »
You’re an author! Congratulations! Arriving here, book in hand, you’ve joined a very exclusive club. Writing is vulnerable, sacrificial and truth be told, a bucket-list item that most will never check off. An incredible amount of work goes into writing a book: the research, the writing, the editing and various publishing tasks. These can take… Read more »
One of the things I hear from writers again and again is how much they dislike marketing. Any time the dreaded p-word (ahem, platform) comes up in a room (in person or virtual), you can hear the collective groan ripple among the crowd. Marketing, sales, and promotion do not rank high among writers’ favorite things…. Read more »
So, it’s been some weird times. For those of us who are lucky, it’s been a time of constraint, worry and adjusting. For others, it’s been a time of fear, uncertainty, even mourning. I hope you are doing alright through all this, and I write this with the understanding that not all of you will… Read more »
