Category: Promotion

Posted in Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, The Writing Path, Webinars

Webinars…Maybe I’m Catching up with the Millenium

Posted on by beckylevine

Can you see me? Feebly waving an arm at you all, while I prop myself up against the wall? No, it’s not that bad! 🙂

I’m just being silly. I feel pretty great, actually, because I just sent the first (of two) chunks of The Critiquer’s Survival Guide off to my editor at Writer’s Digest. Happy Dance! But, yes, it’s a bit of a wimpy Happy Dance, because I am feeling just a tad brain fried. I was on deadline without any problem, but I did hit that adrenaline high that comes along with any “Do it NOW!” kind of focus. And I did stay up just a tiny bit late a night or two along the way.

So you’re not getting much of a blog today, but I did want to point you over to Jane Friedman’s post from last Tuesday. She’s talking about the series of “Webinars” that Writer’s Digest is starting this year. She lists the ones that are coming soon and gives a brief description of what you can do if you sign up for one.

This is the one I liked:

  • “Ask the presenter questions in real time”

Why am I interested, you ask? Besides the fact that these sound very cool? Well, because the current plan is for ME to do one of these webinars for the critique book. I’LL be the presenter that people can talk to. VERY exciting. Me, who has only been out of the morass of dial-up connectivity for a few months!

Anyway, check them out. I’ll be thinking and planning about all this, after I finish writing.

Posted in Marketing, Promotion, Social Networking

Social Networking: GoodReads

Posted on by beckylevine

Last month, I put up a post about various links to people “talking” about social networking. Included in the list was Martha Engber’s post about GoodReads, which included a brief discussion on how authors can use the site to market their books.

Right after I blogged about this, I signed up for GoodReads. (You can see the button to my GoodReads page over there on the right–it took me WAY longer to add that button than to complete my GR profile, BTW!) I admit, signing up was, for me, sort of an exploratory mission. I’ve never been one to catalog my books in any ways, and I was just stepping out of a review job and was looking forward to NOT writing up my opinions for a while.

Well, of course, I found myself having fun. I do like listing the books I’m reading, and I like checking out the updates I get about my Friends. I haven’t started using the site as a source for my own to-read list, but that may be because I’m knee shoulder deep in reading research books for The Critiquer’s Survival Guide right now.

The other thing I haven’t yet dug into is the marketing/promotion aspects of the site that Martha talks about.  I’m curious, though, so I spent a little time today browsing the web to see what other people think about GoodReads. The overall consensus seems to be that it’s a wonderful sort-of online book group, but there isn’t that much talk out there about using it as an author, not just a reader.

I did find a few links, in addition to Martha’s, for you to check out.

I also took a first step and browsed the GoodReads Help pages for info about the author’s program. The best thing I saw is that, yes, it’s free to set up your own page, if you’re a published author. Always a nice feature. You can list all your books (or just the ONE that’s coming out next fall!),  put up an excerpt of your writing, add y our schedule of events, and run book giveaways. 

Here are a few links to GoodReads information about how authors can use their site:

Finally, just so you can take a look at a “final” product, here’s the GoodReads Author page of one of my favorite mystery writers, Dana Stabenow.

Are you on GoodReads? How do you use it–for fun as a reader, or promotion as a writer? (Or both?) Or do you belong to one of the other book-based social networking sites–LibraryThing or Shelfari? What do you think of them? I’d love to hear your take on these sites in the comments!

Posted in Blogging, Promotion, The Writing Path

Why Blog?

Posted on by beckylevine

Last week, around the time that Martha Alderson guest-posted over here, she and I were talking about blogging in general–why to do it, how to do it “right,” how to make your blog useful, to its readers and to yourself.

So I thought I’d talk about it a bit here. Just a bit, and then I’m going to give you some links to other people’s take on it.

I first started blogging for fun and to connect with other kids’ writers. I still have this other blog, where I talk more about my own projects–the ups and downs–and just silly life stuff.  This blog totally met its objectives–I’ve “met” such wonderful writers there (and even met some of them in person, too). I get support and education about writing for kids. And, honestly, I just have fun blogging.

Then I got the contract with Writer’s Digest to write The Critiquer’s Survival Guide, and I started thinking about promotion. Frankly, it’s a bit tough to think about blogging to promote your book, or yourself, but—equally frankly, it’s the smart thing to do. In my first blog entry here, I talked about what I wanted to do with this new blog. My overall goal is to provide truly helpful, supportive information about writing, marketing, and–yes–critiquing. I hope the blog becomes something just as important for my readers as it is for me.

And, yes, I want to keep having fun with both blogs.

I browsed around the web and found out a bit more about blogging–different reasons for doing it and some good ways to make your blog helpful. Take a look & see what these people have to say.

And let me (and everyone else!) hear from you. Do you blog? Why? What’s the best tip you’ve ever received about how to blog? Feel free to drop the URL to your blog in with your comment!