As an author, when you’ve got a new book releasing, you want to shout it from the rooftops! These days, for all sorts of converging reasons, that increasingly means the metaphorical, digital rooftops of Instagram, Twitter, and other online forums. This requires a familiarity with book promotion graphics. By nature of what we do as… Read more »
I’m a Diasporican, a Puerto Rican living in a diaspora rooted in colonization and the trauma it brings. This reality has shaped my sense of identity and artistic purpose as a writer. Leaving my homeland at the age of five and living in the US for most of my life—with a chunk of time in… Read more »
Like most writers, I fantasize about being published. When I was writing my thesis for my MFA, I imagined getting a phone call. No, the phone call. I envisioned myself surrounded by family and friends—my phone would ring and it would be someone telling me my book was going to be on shelves. They would… Read more »
Greetings, speculators! I imagine you wondering whether this is a science fictional article, or a fantastic one. It’s both. And yet it’s neither. I’ll explain more, shortly. I’m heading in a more personal direction this time. The past 18 months have been challenging for all of us. Pandemic life is not kind, to say the… Read more »
As much as I’ve always wanted to be a writer, I was also fascinated with the business of editing. As a little girl, I would write for hours and fill notebooks with stories of my own worlds. I was convinced I would grow up to be an author. Until one magical day, I stumbled across… Read more »
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 »
Conference season is in full swing, and whether you are attending in person or virtually, conferences can be taxing on mind and body. But they don’t have to be. Here are things I’ve learned from attending conferences large and small that can help you become a conference guru too. Before You Go: Make A Wish-List… Read more »
If I told you Instagram can become a relentless, reader magnet machine for your author business, would you be interested? Because author, that’s exactly what it can be if that’s what you choose. In 2021, a few things are certain. You don’t need to be on everyone’s mamas internet to reach your readers, build community,… Read more »
Writers are odd creatures. For many of us, the ideal workday involves being shut away in a room with only a laptop, or pen and paper, rummaging around in our imaginations. Solitude required. Pants optional. So it seems like an undertaking uniquely suited to an extreme introvert. But there is more to this line of… Read more »
I’m the Operations Maven at DIY MFA. That role encompasses a lot of things, but the common thread—the thread I want to pick at in this essay—is my responsibility to build our community. One of the beautiful things about DIY MFA is how far-flung we are. As a community, we cover the globe. We are… Read more »
