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 »
Over a decade ago, in one of my first college writing workshops, I commented that a story’s eclectic vocabulary jarred me out of its narrative. The author’s suave, privately-schooled best friend was in our class, and he volleyed my critique back: “It would’ve taken seconds to look up aquiline on your iPhone.” I had a… Read more »
Happy New Year, writers! Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about ways to build and grow an author brand–primarily focusing on you (your website, your social media presence, ways to make sure you’re being as authentic as possible, etc.)–but today I want to talk about an aspect of your… Read more »
When I taught Comp I, I was always surprised by how many students deemed my class unnecessary. They would scoff and say, “I never write except when I have a paper.” But they do – we all do. We write tweets and Instagram captions and Facebook updates that are way too long. We write emails… Read more »
Since the start of our first COVID-19 shutdown in DC back in March of 2020, it’s felt like everything has existed in a constant state of freefall. Though I have tried for a consistent daily routine, I haven’t had a traditional 9-5 working schedule since leaving my communications job at the end of 2018. Prior… Read more »
Call them what you will. Nonwriters, Muggles, Philistines. Just kidding. We know them. We love them. They’re our parents, our friends, our partners and significant others. They’re the people in our lives with whom we share everything. But sometimes we aren’t always sure how to share this one thing with nonwriters. You know, one of… Read more »
A weird flex: I can lay claim to be as formally uneducated in our craft as just about any writer. I’ve never taken a creative writing class, any right-thinking MFA course would have discarded my application at first glance, and I remain unclear as to what a Writers’ Conference even is. Nonetheless, a memoir, a… Read more »
Hey, writers! Today I want to talk about authentic author brand building. In other words: how can you establish yourself as a real human being, rather than as a robotic, faceless business? An author brand boils down to a couple key features: what sets you apart from other authors and, more specifically, what readers love… Read more »
Does the idea of marketing yourself and your books make your head hurt? You are not alone! While writing books comes naturally to us, marketing seems so vague and complicated. And yet it’s a necessary evil that must be overcome if we want to be successful indie authors. We scour the internet, listen to a… Read more »
I have wanted to write for as long as I could remember. … No, that’s not really the truth. I’ve wanted to express myself for as long as I can remember. … No, that’s not it either. I’ve wanted. Now we’re getting somewhere. I want. Yeah, right there. Writing is another form of digging all… Read more »
