Outside of social media, would you walk up to people you don’t know while grocery shopping and say, “I love your shirt.” Here’s what I ate for breakfast.” I traveled to Paris too!” “I’m reading this book now. What are you reading?” You wouldn’t. And yet that is what you essentially do on social media…. Read more »
So, is Twitter dead? Just try Googling it—the headlines aren’t pretty. For writers, the agonizing decline of our digital public square hits hard. The #PitMad pitch competitions were excellent for getting agent attention. You could have real conversations with publishers and famous authors. It was a place to create genuine #writingcommunity, breaking down the high… Read more »
Whether you are a novice writer or an experienced author, branding yourself—preferably early—will help you in the long run. This may be challenging at first. As there are so many facets of you, it is sometimes difficult to decide what knowledge, character trait, or wisdom could help you reach your ideal target audience. If you are… Read more »
In this column, Life of a Writer, every 8 weeks or so I will share the next episode in my journey as a middle-aged woman who finally gets serious about her dream of becoming a published author. In Episode 3 of this column, I wrote about how I completed the manuscript of my first novel… Read more »
No stone should remain unturned when it comes to finding ways to stand out in your industry. The digital world presents ample opportunity to claim your business’s rightful place in the professional world, especially on social media. Establishing your presence on social media can take many forms, but livestreaming is increasing in popularity. It is… Read more »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Posting and browsing the feeds on social media is fun, but if you’re working to build a professional platform for your author career, you need to do more. For that, you want to keep an eye on your analytics. And when it comes to analytics, no matter what social networks or other digital channels you… Read more »
