In Episode 3 of this column, I wrote about how I completed the manuscript of my first novel in the early days of the pandemic and despite the death of my son.

From the end of Episode 3: Ultimately, I decided to go the traditional publishing route. Being traditionally published is how I’d always imagined my life as an author. Plus, I had no interest in rewriting the script to fit whatever actual year was on the calendar. So, I drafted a query letter. I thought I was finally on my way! Then absolutely nothing went like I’d imagined it.

Premature Querying

When my oldest son was twelve, he passed all of his promotion exams and was granted the rank of Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. It was a towering achievement, a culmination of seven years of hard work. It was the top of the mountain, the cherry on the sundae, the end of the road. Right?

Nope. 

According to his teacher, Sahbumnim Ralph, it was just the beginning. “Now, the real work begins,” he told my son with a wink.

“Nah, I’m done,” my son said. And he meant it. He never took another class. Now he’s 28 and says he doesn’t know an ap chagi from a yeop chagi. 

Similarly, when I finished the manuscript I had written in 74 days and the revision I finished in another 60, I was sure I was done! All that was left was writing a generic query letter as a start and then finding the perfect agents for my book.

I spent hours researching agents who best matched with the genre and age range of my manuscript: a contemporary YA novel. I made a list of my favorites, put them into a spreadsheet, and highlighted all the agents who were interested in representing own voices or BIPOC authors, especially since I’m a mixed-race author who writes bilingual characters. My debut novel is written in 90% English, 10% Spanish.

Within a couple of days, I queried all seventeen agents on my spreadsheet. The evening that I sent the last email, I poured myself a glass of wine and fantasized about all the requests for a full manuscript that would surely be coming my way in the next few weeks.

From Pixels to Platform

As if I couldn’t have planned it any better, I was in the midst of DIY MFA’s Pixels to Platform course when I finished revising and querying. After sending off my queries into the ethernets, I was able to buckle down and finally start building my platform. 

I mean, with all those book deals surely coming my way, I needed to have some eager readers ready to celebrate with me, right?

I purchased my domain name and corresponding email address, downloaded WordPress, and paid for hosting. I was so grateful that I had completed all of the worksheets in the first few modules of Pixels to Platform because I used all of that information to create my own website.

It took a few days and a lot of trial and error learning how to use WordPress without breaking my site, but I finally achieved a balance between a basic form and rudimentary function.

The next step in my platform was building an email list. I signed up with ConvertKit and spent a day or so designing a landing page, creating a lead magnet and a welcome sequence for subscribers. I installed the ConvertKit widget on my website so my newsletter opt-in form would appear automatically for site visitors who hadn’t yet subscribed. I wrote a short article as my first blog post and made this the last email in my welcome sequence.

After pivoting my existing profiles on Twitter and Instagram from personal to professional, I posted a link to my website. A day or so later, I posted a link to my landing page (in case followers missed the link to my website), and a day or so after that, I posted a link to my blog. I also created an author page on Facebook and did the same there. 

The Sound of Silence

In the meantime, I hadn’t heard anything from the agents I had queried, but I reminded myself it had only been a few weeks. As I continued waiting, I focused on writing blog posts about lessons I had learned from challenging experiences in my life. 

As a high school teacher, one of my whys for writing a YA novel is to inspire young people to use their innate creativity and turn their trauma into art. I see the difference in young people who see themselves as artistic or creative, as compared to their peers who only see what they cannot do or who they cannot be. 

While my own creativity kept me hopeful for several weeks, the sound of silence grew louder. I had heard that many agents simply don’t have time to respond, so if there is no reply after 6 or 8 weeks, to take that as a rejection.

Soon, however, the replies trickled in. 

The Sound of Rejection

It’s not the sound of two hands clapping, that’s for sure!

One by one, I drew a pink digital highlighter through the line in the spreadsheet where I had typed that agent’s information. I wrote the date of the rejection next to each.

Many of the rejections were clearly a form letter, but surprisingly, a few agents gave me solid reasons why they weren’t able to go any further with my manuscript. One, a young Latinx agent, told me she really, really wanted to like my book but she couldn’t connect with my protagonist. Another agent gave me some very detailed feedback on the pages I had sent, which I was grateful for. 

With the consensus being that my book was not quite ready, I knew that I had rushed through the revision process and queried prematurely. Therefore, the next step should have been taking the suggestions of the agents who generously took the time to give me thoughtful feedback.

But that’s not what I did. Instead of getting back to work, I did nothing. 

Truth be told, I was over it. In my mind, I had already baked that cake and set it out at the church bazaar. The last thing I wanted was to take it back and fire up the oven again!

No. Maybe the truth, the real truth, was that I just couldn’t hack it. 

Maybe I just didn’t have what it takes to be a writer.

Stay tuned for Episode 5: Confessions of a Failed Pantser

Anita Ramirez is a writer and teacher who transforms dispassionate teens into lovers of books — one reader at a time. When she’s not teaching Hispanic/Latinx literature and composition to her high school students or linguistics at the college level, she’s revising her first novel, a YA contemporary featuring bilingual characters. She loves the poetry of Pablo Neruda, teen movies from the 1980s and café con leche. You can check out her website, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post Life of a Writer—Episode 4: Premature Querying and the Sound of Silence appeared first on DIY MFA.

In Episode 2 of this column, I wrote about how I completed the manuscript of my first novel in the early days of the pandemic and despite the death of my son.

From the end of Episode 2: Emotionally drained, I printed my finished manuscript and held it in my hands. The weight of 374 pages was heavier than I had imagined. I knew it wasn’t just paper and ink, but the bewildering contradiction of anguish and joy. Of smiles and tears. Of pride and guilt. I didn’t yet realize that the hardest part of finishing this book was still to come.

A Finished Manuscript. Now what?

After punching holes in my finished manuscript and putting it into a binder, I took a break from writing altogether.

For two weeks, I slept in, worked, read, watched tv, and spent time with my family. I felt proud of my accomplishment, but I wasn’t able to fully celebrate it because of everything that had happened.

It was also because I’d written enough academic papers to know that, especially since this time, with an entire novel, the real work was just beginning.

I had already signed up for Rachael Herron’s 90 Days to Revision course; I figured since she was a major reason I finally wrote my novel, she’d guide me through revising it too.

In the class, Rachael taught us her revision method. The longest step was reading through our manuscripts.

It seemed to take forever.

As I read through my finished manuscript, I began seeing problem after problem. The confidence with which I had completed writing it evaporated as I worried there were so many structural changes needed that it would need a complete rewrite. 

I shared my distress with Rachael.

“I assure you,” she said, “you did not break your book.”

Classmates reminded me to give myself a break, that I was a newly bereaved mother, and to not put so much pressure on myself.

Still, I was shaken. How could I not have seen all these issues while writing? Since I rarely lack confidence in myself, I wondered if perhaps I was blinded by overconfidence.

With Rachael’s support, I kept going. I moved parts of chapters to other sections of the book, rewrote entire scenes, and completely changed the ending. 

Once the structural issues were fixed, I did several revision “passes” (as Rachael calls them) to focus on specific things like dialogue, verb tense, descriptions, etc., one at a time.

I finished the entire revision in about 50 days, which was just over half the time we had in the 90 day class. I pressured myself to finish quickly because I wanted to shift my focus from the book to building my author platform.

Putting Myself Out There

With what couldn’t have been more perfect timing if I’d planned it myself, I came across the DIY MFA website and saw that the Pixels to Platform course was about to close registration.

Pixels to Platform is the only course for writers (that I’m aware of, anyway) that teaches you exactly how to build an author platform, from concept and design to execution of both the technical aspects and content creation. 

In only 8 weeks, and under Gabriela Pereira and her team’s excellent tutelage, I went from not knowing anything about how to make a website, what an email list is, or how to create and repurpose content across multiple mediums, to designing and creating my author website and brand, setting up my author social media accounts, starting and building an email list of readers, and creating content such as blog posts, a newsletter opt-in freebie (incentive), email newsletters, and pitching guest posts to other blogs.

Once I finished the Pixels to Platform course, it was time to start thinking about my finished manuscript again and how to turn it into a book. 

The Fork in the Road: Self-Publish or Go Traditional?

While I had always imagined getting a publishing deal and ultimately seeing my book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, I knew it wasn’t 1985 anymore. I would have to give some serious thought to how to best get my book into the marketplace.

The frustrating thing was no matter who I asked (Rachael, Gabriela, other writers) or where I searched for answers (writer websites, podcasts, and articles), everyone told me the same thing: “it’s really up to you.”

If I were to self-publish, there would be a steep learning curve. However, this really wasn’t a deterrent; after all, I learned how to do a lot of new things in a short amount of time in Pixels to Platform, and I was sure I could learn how to publish my own book.

Then again, in the Pixels to Platform course, I had help. I had Gabriela and her team’s expert lessons and the support of an entire community of writers! 

Still, I could probably teach myself what I would need to learn to self-publish. I just didn’t know how quickly I would be able to do it as a high school teacher on the cusp of a new academic year.

Aside from a lack of knowledge and time constraints, I knew that self-publishing requires more of a financial investment. Even though many traditionally published authors still spend money on marketing their book and paying an editor (if they don’t yet have a publishing contract), many self-published authors also pay professionals to design their cover, copy edit their manuscript, and perhaps even to format it correctly. 

Plus, if I were to self-publish, I would have to learn the ins and outs of Amazon Kindle or other online booksellers such as Bookbub, Kobo, etc.

Conversely, if I were to opt for traditional publishing, I would need to spend time researching literary agents, writing and polishing a query letter, and wait anxiously for 2-3 months for their replies. Then, if I were lucky enough to have an agent request a full manuscript, I would wait several more weeks to hear whether or not they would take me on as a client.

And, if they offered to represent me, it would take several more weeks or months until I had a publishing contract. After that, there would be an 18-24 month publishing process, including several more revisions. On top of all the waiting, I would have very little creative control and at the end of it, I’d be expected to sell enough copies (dependent on my own limited marketing skills, of course) or lose future publishing opportunities.

My head was spinning! 

Finally, after making a list of pros and cons, I wasn’t any closer to an answer. Unlike with a multiple choice question, there wasn’t a best option here.

The scary thing was, they were right: it really was up to me.

Ultimately, I decided to go the traditional publishing route. Being traditionally published is how I’d always imagined my life as an author. 

Plus, I had no interest in rewriting the script to fit whatever actual year was on the calendar.

So, I drafted a query letter. I thought I was finally on my way!

Then absolutely nothing went like I’d imagined it.

Stay tuned for Episode 4: Premature Querying: The Sounds of Silence (And Rejection).

Anita Ramirez is a writer and teacher who transforms dispassionate teens into lovers of books — one reader at a time. When she’s not teaching Hispanic/Latinx literature and composition to her high school students or linguistics at the college level, she’s revising her first novel, a YA contemporary featuring bilingual characters. She loves the poetry of Pablo Neruda, teen movies from the 1980s and café con leche. You can check out her website, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post Life of a Writer—Episode 3: A Finished Manuscript, Now What? appeared first on DIY MFA.

We are spending more time in front of computer screens than ever before. Writers are used to this, but everyone is feeling the effects of increased screen time with virtual events. Eye strain, headaches, and mental fatigue are part of sitting in front of a computer screen for hours. With online burnout, tired eyes create a tired brain, which disrupts the digestive system. Your brain and stomach are linked: when your brain is tense, your stomach is tense too.

The other factor in screen time is blue light. This high-frequency bright light promotes alertness, delaying melatonin production needed for sleep by up to four hours. According to the Institute of Medicine, 50 to 70 million U.S. adults have a chronic sleep disorder, leading to an increased risk of diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack, hypertension, and stroke.

Cutting back on screen time is tough. But here are five steps you can take to reduce the strain on your eyes and minimize the effects of blue light.

1. Adjust monitor settings

Check your monitor settings for ways to filter out the blue light. My monitor’s color mode is Adobe RGB, the brightness is 40, and the color temperature is 6500K during the day. In my Windows setting I have the nightlight feature turned on and set to 8:30 p.m. This setting displays warmer colors to help you wind down for sleep. You can also set your monitor to display warmer colors at sunset based on your location.

Another option is the f.lux app for Windows or Mac. It creates a custom lighting schedule based on circadian biology adjusted for where you live, when you wake up, and the time of year. As an added bonus it will coordinate with a home’s smart lighting system to warm up color temperature in preparation for bedtime.

2. Assess workspace lighting

Your workspace should have a combination of ambient light and task lighting. I installed an LED tape lighting system at 2,500 Kelvin with a dimmer that works really well at providing both. I keep the light low for ambient light and raise light levels for task lighting. When looking at LED lights, aim between 2,000K (gold) and 3,000K (yellow) for ambient lighting. Blue light starts at 5,000K, with 6,500K the color temperature of daylight for task lighting. A 40 Watt incandescent bulb gives a brightness of 400 lumens, which is good for ambient light. A 60 Watt bulb gives a brightness of 700 lumens, and is best suited for office tasks.

If possible, get some of your lighting from an outside source, such as a window. Focused work increased by 15% for workers with a window view.

3. Take eye breaks

For every hour of work, take a few minutes to reset your eyes. Change your focal length to give your eyes a rest. Look at a point in the distance and let your gaze go soft. This helps the muscles at the sides of your eyes relax.

Next, do some simple eye stretches right at your desk. Close your eyes. Look up, then down. Repeat. Look to your left, then to your right. Repeat. Rotate your eyes clockwise, then counterclockwise. Open your eyes wide, then quickly snap them shut. Slowly open your eyes.

4. Spend time with nature

Take breaks to look at nature. This can be a walk outside, looking at a plant on your desk or a picture featuring nature. Look for images that have soothing colors of blue and green. William James, brother of Henry James, theorized there are two ways of paying attention. Voluntary attention is for tasks that demand attention, such as work or driving. This creates mental fatigue. Involuntary attention is the kind we use in nature that comes to us effortlessly. The soothing sights of trees, birds in flight, or water allow our minds to wander and create mental clarity.

Fractal patterns (repeating patterns in nature) are scientifically proven to relax us. We process patterns in the natural world easily. Center your attention on the veins in a leaf or the branching of a tree for a few minutes until you feel relaxed.

5. Treat your eyes to a spa day

At the end of the day, give your eyes a spa treatment. Steep 2 bags of chamomile tea as if you were preparing a cup to drink. Gently squeeze the tea bags so they aren’t dripping. Place them on your eyes and rest for 20 minutes.  Remove the tea bags and lightly cup your hands over your eyes, being careful to not press down on your eyes. Close your eyes and relax for several minutes. This sends energy back to your eyes.

Be kind to your eyes for a happy, healthy, balanced writing life!

Ambre Dawn Leffler writes about communing with nature, loves trees, and is a total weather geek. Learn more about her work at https://ambredawn.ck.page/author-wellness, on Instagram @ambredawnleffler, and twitter @AmbreDLeffler.

The post #5onFri: 5 Ways to Be Kind to Your Eyes appeared first on DIY MFA.

Which is weird because if anyone should be awesome at marketing it’s writers.

As writers we are naturally skilled at several things that can make us excel at marketing and sales… we just have to get out of our own way. Here are some techniques that you have already mastered as a writer, and how to adapt them to your author platform.

1. Writers rock at empathy.

Empathy is an essential component of a writer’s work. In order to craft stories that ring true and resonate with readers, we have to be able to step into our characters’ minds and understand what it feels like to be them. Well, guess what? Lesson number one in any marketing course is that you need to know your audience.

Many marketers struggle with this. In fact, I’ve sat in on dozens of marketing webinars or conference sessions that essentially teach the same thing: how to put yourself in the mind of the customer. I’ve seen tons of techniques and exercises designed to help marketers get inside the customer’s head. I’ll admit that I often chuckle to myself because it’s what writers do all the time.

As writers we are already good at putting ourselves in another person’s shoes because we do it with our characters. For marketers, this type of thinking can feel like a stretch, like they’re operating outside their comfort zones. For writers, this is our happy place. We just have to apply this same approach to understanding our audience, our readers.

2. We know how to create (and follow) our own rules.

When we write stories, the bulk of act one is where we lay down the ground rules. We let our readers know who the main character is. If there’s any sort of narrative device—like alternating time lines or points of view—we establish how it will work. We also give our readers a sense for the story’s world and the central conflict. These are all “rules” that we determine and, as the narrative unfolds, we decide whether to stick to those rules or artfully break them.

In marketing and platform, we also need to set ground rules. When your readers first discover your website or newsletter, they’ll get subtle cues as to what they might expect from you. For example, if you have a blog and you post every Tuesday, your readers will come to expect those posts and you’ll likely see a spike in traffic every time a new post goes up. If you post infrequently or at random, though, it will be much harder to build traction because your readers won’t know what to expect from you.

As writers, we already know how to set—and follow—our own rules because we do this in our storytelling. We just need to translate this skill from our manuscripts to crafting content for our platform.

3. We laugh in the face of “writer’s block.”

Let’s be real, compared to crafting a novel or a memoir, blog posts and tweets are mere drops in an ocean of words. As word wizards we’re used to writing because that’s what we do. Muggles run screaming from a blank page. We look at that same empty canvas and see a world of possibilities.

Now don’t get me wrong, writing can be hard at times, and resistance can happen to the best of us. And there are times (like, say, in the middle of a pandemic) when we need to honor our reality and maybe give ourselves a hall pass on a difficult project. That said, if anyone can muster the internal motivation to get back in the swing of things, it would be writers.

Think about it: as writers, delayed gratification is part of our job. Novels don’t get written in a day and publishing moves at a slower-than-glacial pace. If we’re going to write, the motivation has to come from us. If we sat around waiting for external rewards, we would never write a single word. This means that the ability to motivate ourselves and do the hard work naturally comes from within us. If we turn that same relentless determination to building a platform that we put into writing our books, watch out world!

4. We are good at research.

Have you ever gone down the research rabbit hole? You know what I’m talking about . . . One time, I was writing a story about a family that had a pet Komodo dragon. I thought “Hey! Let me just look up some Komodo facts on the internet for just a second.” Three hours and ten pages later I emerged from that pit of totally unnecessary research.

While research can be a form of procrastination from our writing, it can be useful when it comes to our platform. Plus, as writers, we’re already adept at seeing how different pieces of information fit together. We need to combine research and information synthesis and apply these skills to our platform. This kind of research can even serve as a convenient break from our writing.

Things to research include:

• What other books out there are similar to yours?
• What other authors are writing work in the same vein as yours?
• What are people saying about those books and authors?
• Where do these readers hang out, both online and off?
• What do those similar authors  do in terms of their platforms?
• How do they connect with their readers?
• Where do these authors hang out on the internet?
• Are they on social media? Do they blog?

The possibilities are endless! So instead of allowing yourself to fall into that bottomless pit of procrastination, take a break from writing and do some research to help your platform.

5. We are natural storytellers.

I’ve been secretly working on a new project—something that takes DIY MFA to a whole new level. This project is a storytelling model that bridges the gap between writing and marketing. 

I believe story exists in a three dimensional space, where each dimension represents one of three essential elements: character, plot, and world. As writers we have an instinctive feel for these elements because we use them all the time in our writing. 

Marketing and platform also have three essential elements that run parallel to story. They are: brand (i.e. the character), the audience’s journey (i.e. plot), and the market or context where both the brand and audience exist (i.e. world). The same craft-related tools we use  to understand character, to structure a plot, or to build a world, also apply to marketing. Understanding story puts us miles ahead of the game when it comes to these fundamental elements of marketing. All we need to do is shift our perspective a little and channel that knowledge from our manuscripts to our platform.

Platform doesn’t have to be painful and you don’t have to sell out to sell books.

I’ll admit, I used to hate marketing. I dragged my feet for six whole months before I started this newsletter. I moaned and groaned about creating a website or joining social media. All the platform-related whining and complaining… been there. Done that.

Looking back, I realize that the reason I resisted building my platform is because I thought I would have to learn a whole new set of skills. I had this notion that platform and craft were two wildly different things—and it’s no wonder I thought this way, because it’s how most people in publishing approach marketing as well.

Now I know better and I’m on a mission to help writers get un-scared of platform and marketing. Just as there is a craft to how we put words on the page and write a beautiful book, there is a craft to marketing and platform. What is more, there are common threads between writing and marketing and, as we’ve discussed here, many of the skills we’ve been building on the page translate to our platform as well.

Want to learn how to build your platform the DIY MFA way?

Check out Pixels to Platform, a marketing course for writers and by writers.

Gabriela Pereira is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur who wants to challenge the status quo of higher education. As the founder and instigator of DIYMFA.com, her mission is to empower writers, artists and other creatives to take an entrepreneurial approach to their education and professional growth.Gabriela earned her MFA in writing from The New School and speaks at college campuses and national conferences. She is also the host of DIY MFA Radio, a popular podcast where she interviews bestselling authors and book industry professionals and author of the book DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build Your Community.

The post Writer Fuel: Five Marketing Skills You Already Have (and how to use them) appeared first on DIY MFA.

How’s it work? Stories allow you to pull series of posts and graphics together into a series that is viewed together. Even better, Stories are given priority placement on your home page. When you log into your account home page for either network, the most recent Stories are featured at a glance on the top right sidebar—no scrolling necessary.

Although Stories are only visible for 24 hours, this can bolster their impact, instead of harm it. Followers know if they don’t give it a look while they can, they’ll miss out forever.

But what use is all this to you as an author? Can an author use Instagram Stories to build a real platform?

Absolutely you can! Heck, it’s called stories. This is what we’re all about.  It’s just a different way to think about both posting and telling your audience about yourself.

Here are a few ideas to get you started and inspired:

1) Share your day at a book festival

Whether you are part of the festival programming, participating as a vendor to sell books, or just attending as a fan, a book festival is full of adventures and new bookish discoveries.

A Story can be an awesome way to share highlights of your experience—your table or presentation, the other authors you meet, the moments you get most excited about—throughout the day.

2) Promote your next book launch

A book launch is the time to pull all the stops! That should definitely include a Story if you are on Instagram or Facebook (or both).

What belongs in your book launch story? Many of the types of images you would already share in your posts are likely a good fit, from the cover reveal to review quotes to that first time you get to open up a box of your beautiful fresh ARCs—even a launch party invite or tour dates.

What other ways can you share your launch with visuals? Consider the book’s themes and go creative.

3) Celebrate an awareness day

The literary community has no end of calendar events to participate in throughout the year. Independent Bookstore Day! World Literacy Day! Hobbit Day! Your favorite authors’ birthdays! (Any excuse for a party, amirite?)

Pull together a few snapshots and/or graphics and join the celebration.

4) Show fans how to participate in a giveaway

The skim-and-slide format of a Story’s series of images makes it an accessible and fun way to share step-by-step instructions. So the next time you run a giveaway or other contest, try using a Story to break it down into easy steps.

5) Pick a theme, any theme

You don’t have to wait for an event or awareness day to try your hand at Stories! Make up your own excuse and start having some fun with it right away.

Your Story could focus on anything from “A Day in the Life” to a a spotlight on your creative process, or share a few funny and cute pictures of your pet or images of the books you’re inspired by. Readers love to get a glimpse behind the curtain and learn more about who the creator is.

Looking for more inspiration? Try following these Insta-brilliant authors for examples:

• Susan Dennard
• Marie Lu
• Tahereh Mafi
• Rainbow Rowell
• Angie Thomas

At time of writing, all of these authors had at least one Story in their profile.

Happy posting, authors!

By day, Emily Wenstrom is an author social media coach and content marketing specialist. By early-early morning, she is E. J. Wenstrom, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author whose debut novel Mud was named 2016 Book of the Year by the Florida Writers Association.

The post How to Use Instagram Stories for Your Author Platform appeared first on DIY MFA.

With so many platforming tools, your following is actually owned by the application you’re using. Consider: When you’re on Facebook, you have to play by Facebook’s rules. If they change their algorithm and say Page post reach will be reduced unless you pay for advertising to “Boost” it, you have no choice but to pay or be less visible. You can’t take that list of followers elsewhere.

But your email list is wholly yours. Even if you decide to stop using a specific email service, you still have that list and can do whatever you want with it.

This is awesome. And, well, it can also be daunting.

Once you have subscribers on your email list, what the heck are you supposed to do with them?

There are a lot of different answers to this question–as many answers as there are authors, one could argue. But I always find it helpful to know how other authors are doing things. So today I’m going to give you the grand tour of the monthly newsletter I send my own subscribers.

Application

Let’s start with the tools I use. I’m a MailChimp fan, and I feel it has served me well. It’s very user-friendly and, despite my being a total disaster at graphic design, I always feel confident that my newsletter looks great, because they make it easy.

However, as more competition to MailChimp crops up and my list grows, I have found MailChimp to be more expensive. I am currently exploring moving to MailerLite, which seems to function similarly and is less expensive.

ConvertKit is another great option, if you’re looking for something more sophisticated. 

Schedule

It is important to have a regular schedule for your newsletter. Being reliable is just part of any healthy relationship, and when readers know to expect your email, they’re more likely to open it.

Anywhere between weekly and quarterly tends to be just fine, depending on what you share in each email, but for me, monthly is the right balance between staying frequent enough to stay top-of-mind with my readers, without overloading myself or annoying subscribers by pinging them constantly.

Content

In my opinion, there is no “wrong” way to do your newsletter. Let your voice shine through, and share a little bit of yourself. Make it long enough to offer some substance, but short enough to be skimmable and engaging.

If you’re stuck, look to other newsletters you’re addicted to, no matter if they’re publishing-related or not. I adore Anne Friedman and the Skimm, which share a smart and snarky voice with a little quirk. So I’ve tried to offer a bit of my own quirk in my newsletter both in its voice and in its structure:

• Status: In this top section, I share three action-oriented one-liners about what I’m up to at the moment. This can cover anything from my binge of Orange is the New Black, my ongoing sleep deprivation, or what I’m writing at the moment. As long as it’s short, sweet and crafted to entertain.
• Update: This is where I offer a little more substance with a few brief paragraphs. I kick it off with any publishing announcements I have, and then move on to tease and link to my recent blog posts. This is also where I offer occasional subscriber-only bonuses.
• Around the Web: I close out with another “quick bites” section, where I link to my top five favorite science fiction/fantasy/geek life articles from the previous month. They’re easy to grab, I just refer to my Twitter posts.

Subject Line

I used to have fun with my subject lines by giving each edition a quirky title. For example, I used ‘It Smells Like Snow’ Edition” in December, right after the new Gilmore Girls season released, and “Cue Up Another 365 Edition” at the beginning of January.

But then I did some beta testing and found that subject lines that offer a specific teaser to the content performed way better. So now I use lines like “Grab your golden lasso | Every comic book I read | AI in Dubai.”

I still like the “editions” more … but not as much as I like seeing that high engagement rate in my stats.

AB Testing

Speaking of A/B testing, I’m almost always running one. The subject line is a great one for this, and so it the release time. I’ve become obsessed with finding the most optimal time and day to push my newsletter out. Mailchimp makes this super easy, so don’t be afraid to use it liberally.

Every newsletter is a little different, and the best ones know their own voice and offer true substance.

It’s great to peek over another author’s shoulder, and I suggest you do a ton of it–really! I welcome you to join my email list even if you’re never going to read a fantasy book in your life. Follow several other authors too. Pay attention to what you like and what you don’t.

But ultimately, there is no substitute for knowing your brand and listening to your gut. Start from where you’re comfortable, be imaginative about it, and pay attention to those test results as you go.

What do you include in your author newsletter?

By day, Emily Wenstrom, is the editor of short story website wordhaus, author social media coach, and freelance content marketing specialist. By early-early morning, she is E. J. Wenstrom, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author whose debut novel Mud was named 2016 Book of the Year by the Florida Writers Association.

The post Behind the Scenes of an Author Newsletter appeared first on DIY MFA.

One intriguing feature that Amazon has developed in the last couple years is the Amazon Follow button.

Part of Amazon’s genius has been that it finds ways that help it grow that also help authors to grow (if you follow all their rules). The Follow button is one of these wonderful, mutually beneficial tactics—and you don’t have to compromise by promising them exclusivity or anything for this one.

The basic concept behind is that fans of an author are more likely to buy more books from that author if they are connected to that author. Thus Amazon created a way to connect to authors. Easy peasey.

That said, I didn’t quite understand the value of the Follow—what the heck does an Amazon Follower do for me, as an author? I had no idea. So I did some research. Here’s what I learned.

The Claim Your Name PSA

Before we even get to the Follow button, a quick reminder of a foundational principle of marketing: Claim your name everywhere.

In this case, we’re talking about your Amazon Author Page—you can’t use the Follow button without one, and it exists (for free) if you have any type of published work available on Amazon.

There is a lot out there already about how to set up your Author Page (and frankly it’s very similar to setting up any online profile anywhere) so we’re going to move straight to the Amazon Follow feature.

What is the Amazon Follow button?

You probably know this, but let’s just start at the beginning. The Amazon Follow button is literally a button that allows Amazon users to follow you through the Amazon network—as one would on a social media site.

When a reader clicks the “Follow” button on your author page, they give Amazon permission to share updates that you share on their site.

What does that look like in practice?

Despite the Follow being much like a social network, there is no actual posting or feeds on Amazon (because it is in fact not a network, but a store). So this is where it started getting confusing for me.

There are only a couple of perks, but they’re pretty helpful ones. There are two incentives for someone to Follow an author on Amazon:

• Receive alerts when the author releases a new work
• Receive messages from the author
• Receive alerts when the author releases a new article

In short, this is one more way for you to build a relationship with readers where they already are.

How do I get Follows?

This was a much easier question to me than why Follows matter (always a good question to ask if you’re putting time, effort or budget into something!).

There are a few ways to gain Amazon Followers:

• Be famous/a bestseller—Not to be snarky or anything. But this is a great way to collect follows.
• Release frequently—A lot of self-publishers follow this model, and it’s the best substitute for true celebrity. (If you can write fast enough—alas, I cannot.)
• Ask your following elsewhere—Asking is one of those funny things we forget to do, or don’t think we need to do, but makes a huge difference. It’s as simple as a side bar box with a link on your website.
• Do an Amazon Giveaway—This is my new favorite. For the low low cost of a single copy of my ebook, Amazon will promote my book for me to completely new readers. The setup is very similar to a Goodreads Giveaway. Get started with the “Create a Giveaway” button on your book’s Amazon page (while logged in).

Final Word on Follows

Because there are so many voracious readers on Amazon, the Amazon Follow can be a great way to expand your overall following and sell more books over time. I recommend using some of the tips above to grow this following consistently, with a very low time and financial cost.

However, be sure to but the emphasis in that last sentence on “very low.” Never forget, when you build a following on someone else’s property (in this case, Amazon’s site), you are subject to their whims to change the game—and Amazon has an established history of this. It’s always best to prioritize growing a following that you can own, such as through a newsletter.

By day, Emily Wenstrom, is the editor of short story website wordhaus, author social media coach, and freelance content marketing specialist. By early-early morning, she is E. J. Wenstrom, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author whose debut novel Mud was named 2016 Book of the Year by the Florida Writers Association.

The post The Value of an Amazon Follow appeared first on DIY MFA.

It can already feel like a lot when you attend a conference, book festival, book signing or other publishing or promotional event. But if you follow these steps consistently, you can take major headway for your online platform at each event you attend.

Know your goal

You’ll get the most from your efforts to grow your online platform if you go into your event knowing what your top priority is. This is the key starting point, and should drive the tactics you use.

For me, that goal is usually building my email list. So I print out a branded signup sheet beforehand, and lay it out at my booth with a sign promoting the free novella you get when you sign up.

But for you, maybe it’s something else. If you want to grow your Twitter following, be sure to tweet using the event hashtag all day. If you want people to visit your website, make sure you post to your blog about attending the event that morning. And so forth.

Gather your materials

Now that you know your goal, you know what materials you need. For me, as mentioned, this includes my email list signup sheet and a sign promoting my freebie. But often, this is as simple as creating a business card or a promotional piece about your book. Whatever it is, make sure that all your social media details are on it!

I strongly recommend getting a pro to design these materials for you. You will only be taken as seriously as the image you project—but well done materials can contribute to the memorable impression that will prompt people to follow up.

Also, make sure your branding is consistent between your in-person materials, your website, and your social accounts. Make it easy for new followers to say, “oh yes, that’s her!”

Work it

The last crucial element to in-person platforming is your lovely self. You can’t connect later with people you don’t meet while you’re there. I know it’s every authors least favorite thing, but you’re going to have to plaster a smile on that face and ask a stranger some questions about themselves. Network, as they say.

However, personally, I have found networking with other writers to be a lot less painful than in other life situations. These are my people! And they’re yours too! We all love the same thing here, so there’s plenty of chatting to be done.

Be yourself, be fully present, and when you say goodbye, hand over one of those nice cards you got designed so you can keep in touch after the event.

Network-Growing Networking

A good online platform still consists of the same foundational elements— a website, social network, and a consistent posting presence. But don’t overlook the opportunities available at in-person events. It’s a great way to magnify your efforts, and can be the perfect place to take those new introductions you just made and turn them into longer-term relationships.

So don’t post to social media in isolation—get out there in the real world, too. The richest momentum you can get to build your overall brand and author career will actually come from the synergy between those efforts.

By day, Emily Wenstrom, is the editor of short story website wordhaus, author social media coach, and freelance content marketing specialist. By early-early morning, she is E. J. Wenstrom, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author whose debut novel Mud was named 2016 Book of the Year by the Florida Writers Association.

The post How to Grow Your Online Platform In Real Life appeared first on DIY MFA.

What are the next steps for your online author platform? No matter where you are in the process, I strongly recommend taking advantage of the energy that comes with the New Year and determine just one next step to take in 2017.

Looking Back

Before you decide where you’ll go next, take stock of where you are now. What have you done for your platform in 2016? Take a few minutes to write down everything you have tried, and how it has worked out for you. What was effective? What was sustainable? What did you start with high hopes, but find impossible to keep up with over time? Why?

Also, take a look at your social media and website statistics to see how your platform has grown. Where were you at the start of the year, compared to where you are now? What types of posts have gotten the best responses? What goals did you accomplish this year? Were there any you didn’t reach? Write down your reflections.

Looking Ahead

Now that we know where you have come from and what worked for you in 2016, let’s look ahead. What are your goals as an author for 2017? How can social media help you reach them? What needs to change?

Here are a few great goals to set, to get you thinking:

1) Increase your post frequency

Perhaps you have been posting to Twitter ones or twice a day. That’s not bad! Way to be consistent. But Twitter is among the most transitive of social networks, so each post has a very short life before it is bumped too low in the feed to be seen.

For 2017, how about trying to post three times a day? It’s a small day-to-day investment that can have tangible payoff to grow your following. If you need a little help setting the habit, try adding a reminder to your calendar.

2) Use a post scheduling tool

Have you struggled to keep up with your accounts consistently this year? Or, maybe you’ve done just fine, but this year you want more time to write, and constantly checking into social media is going to hold you back. That’s where post scheduling tools come in.

Even better, a lot of them (like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck) are free. My personal favorite is Buffer, but they are all pretty similar. These tools will let you queue several posts at once and schedule them for later, so you can check in less frequently and put your brain power toward other things.

3) Follow a new hashtag

Whether you want to reach more readers or get noticed by an agent, the right hashtag can help. The key is to know your goal, and then do a bit of research.

Take the time to listen first, to get a sense of how the community uses the hashtag. Then, start engaging by liking, retweeting, responding and posting to the hashtag feed! Try to check in regularly for the best results—once a week is a good goal for a beginner.

4) Participate in a digital event

If you haven’t tried a digital event before, there is no time like the present. Online events are becoming ever more common, and can be a great resource to improve your craft, engage the publishing community, and a lot more. For bonus points, use the event hashtag to post about the event while it’s happening. You’ll connect with other participants!

5) Learn a new platform

One really awesome way to expand your platform is to set up an account on a totally new platform. Don’t be scared! Everyone has to start at the beginning, but the more you pay attention, the steeper your learning curve will be.

Start slow, taking the time to follow others and watch what they’re doing. But then, dive in and just have some fun! Set a low posting goal to get yourself started—you can increase it over time, but sustainable action wins out over bursts and flurries.

New Year, New Challenge for Growth

Are you ready for a New Year yet? What will your platforming resolution be? The perfect resolution will challenge you to stretch yourself, but be manageable enough to keep up long term.

For me, the goal is to conquer Instagram. I am a terrible visual thinker so this one has been a challenge for me, but I finally signed up a couple months ago, and feel ready to really dive in.

Now let’s go conquer the Internet together. Happy New Year!

By day, Emily Wenstrom, is the editor of short story website wordhaus, author social media coach, and freelance content marketing specialist. By early-early morning, she is E. J. Wenstrom, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author whose debut novel Mud was named 2016 Book of the Year by the Florida Writers Association.

The post 5 Great Social Media Resolutions to Grow Your Platform in 2017 appeared first on DIY MFA.

And that’s total nonsense.

In fact we can know more about what marketing and advertising is doing for us than ever before, thanks to all sorts of technology. In addition to metrics reporting tools, we also have sophisticated strategies we can implement that are known to get results over and over again. So there is no excuse for not knowing what your advertising is doing. But the spirit of this quip feels familiar, doesn’t it? I hear authors say things like this all the time:

• “I blog every week, but people aren’t clicking through to my Amazon page.”
• “I know I ‘have’ to be on social media … but it doesn’t sell books.”
• “Awards are nice, but they won’t pay off in sales.”

I imagine you’ve heard statements like these about as many times as I have. Luckily, no matter how witty the popular advertising saying above seems at first glance, the mentality behind it isn’t at all true. In fact, I’ve got something much better for you. Not only is it a smarter approach toward marketing, but it will help you understand how things like awards and social media fit into a plan to grow your readership and get books into hands, even if they don’t directly correlate to sales.

It’s called the Seven Points of Contact.

Seven Points of Contact

The seven Points of Contact is a marketing and sales theory that has been tried and tested quite a lot. It applies to everything from online plat-forming to business-to-business sales. In short, this theory states that a person needs to be exposed to a brand or product (or author) seven times before they are motivated to make a purchase.

Some may wonder: Why would a person need to be exposed to something seven separate times before buying it? If a book is good, won’t people just buy it when they see it? Why would their opinion change just by seeing it multiple times? The truth is, our brains just aren’t wired that way. The Seven Points of Contact theory accounts for two important truths about people and how they relate to new brand:

1. Repetition breeds familiarity
2. Familiarity breeds likeability

What Seven Points of Contact Looks Like

Theories are great, but they only matter if they can be put into practice. What do seven points of contact look like for an author? Let’s take a look at how I came to love one of my favorite authors.

I first heard about Rainbow Rowell because I just happened to be living in Omaha at the time. She also lives in Omaha, and writes a column for the Omaha World-Herald, so there was a lot of buzz locally from the start. I paid attention to the announcement about her upcoming book launch immediately, because here was a writer, right here in my own town, on the “other side” of the success I dreamed of getting some day—she had a publisher.

After I discovered Rainbow Rowell, and because it was easy to learn more about her by reading her Omaha World-Herald column archives, I did. Later, I caught more announcements about her here and there as her launch date neared. Then, I got curious and checked out her website. I could relate to her author identity, and her novel’s promotional copy intrigued me. So to stay up-to-date on her launch, I followed her on Twitter.

We had some shared interests like comic books, and that led to some interactions between us on Twitter. Which led to some major geekouts on my part—a published author was talking to me! So by the time I arrived at her book reading event, I was already sold on purchasing her book. Then, when she signed my book, she (amazingly) recognized me from Twitter. She signed my book “To Emily, whom I enjoy very much on Twitter.”

With those nine words she won a lifelong megafan. I don’t even usually read romance, the genre of her debut novel.

Creating Your Seven Points

How did you come to love your favorite authors? Many of your stories are likely very similar to mine. Sure, we all have the serendipitous moments where we discover something awesome randomly off the shelf … but most of the time, it’s a more gradual process. A few things to notice about my Rainbow Rowell story:

• At no point did I feel marketed to—when I wanted more, I sought it out
• What I was seeking was always available for me and easy to find
• It took a while for me to go from basic interest to active engagement
• What won my loyalty was not her book, but her engagement with me as a reader

If the idea of creating seven points of contact for your readers sounds exhausting, I get it. But don’t hyperventilate just yet—it’s not as hard or as complicated as it sounds.The bottom line to taking advantage of this theory is simply to reach out to readers multiple ways. It does not even have to be seven different ways—just a few. These outreach methods could include:

• A website
• Blog posts
• Guest posts for other websites
• Account on a social media site
• Local media interviews
• Book reading/signing events
• Facebook ads
• Book on a store’s shelf or an online list of genre titles
• An announcement for an award you won
• Participating in a panel at a reader convention
• Emailing your subscriber list
• Goodreads book giveaway

That’s twelve different options right there, and that is hardly a complete list. Get creative! You don’t even need to be using seven different methods of outreach; you just need to be consistent in those efforts. Over time, those points of contact will add up.

If you take nothing else away from this post, remember this: Even when your social media posts or blogs or other outreach efforts don’t seem to correlate to sales, they are helping you engage readers and rack up those points of contact. Every engagement matters.

Focus on Being Persistent

Don’t stress yourself out weighing your time on Twitter against direct clicks from your account to your Amazon page. That’s not how readers are earned.

The lifelong fan is worth so much more than the impulse buy that gets thrown in a never-ending stack of TBRs—so focus on earning those relationships by reaching out persistently and in a variety of ways. Help readers get to know you and your work, and pay attention to them when they reach out to you.

As hard as it is, when you shift your focus from sales stats to reader relationships, it’s a game changer—maybe not right after your next Twitter post, maybe not tomorrow or next week, but over the long tail of your career as an author.

By day, Emily Wenstrom, is the editor of short story website wordhaus, author social media coach, and freelance content marketing specialist. By early-early morning, she is E. J. Wenstrom, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author whose debut novel Mud was named 2016 Book of the Year by the Florida Writers Association.

The post Marketing Magic: The Seven Points of Contact for Authors appeared first on DIY MFA.