Quick Link: Adjusting your Vision: Linking Author Identity and Author Brand

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Clay Gilbert posting at Writers And Authors has some great thoughts on how to improve your brand. This is especially good reading for new authors trying to get established, although more experienced authors will find some good information they just might have missed.

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Adjusting your Vision: Linking Author Identity and Author Brand

by Clay Gilbert

When my first novel was published in 2013, all I knew was that I wanted to tell stories for a living.  I’d grown up seeing Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and Anne Rice do it, and, having gotten paid $25 for the publication of a short story in Scholastic magazine when I was still in middle school, I’d had a little taste of doing it myself.  But I had the idea that what my readers were most interested in was the story I was telling, and that they didn’t really care about ‘the man behind the curtain.’

In today’s literary world, that kind of thinking is wrong.

Readers today are inundated with choices and competition for their attention, and for their money.  If you’re a new author today, taking your first steps into the publishing marketplace, you’re competing not only with thousands of already-established authors, many of whom have best-selling reputations, but also with word-of-mouth and Internet buzz about other new writers as well.

Read the full post on Writers And Authors!

The Secret to a Powerful Author Brand

This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 9/28/15.

Last time we talked a little about our author brand and why, these days, our brand is almost as important as the books we write. It is an awesome time to be a writer, but also a scary one. Why can’t it be like the good old days when all we had to do was write the book?

Because that world no longer exists and, frankly, it wasn’t all that great to begin with.

Granted, in the pre-digital publishing world we authors didn’t need to tweet or blog or be on-line, but it was also a world with a 93% failure rate. According to the Book Expo of America, as late as 2006, 93% of all books (traditionally and non-traditionally published) sold less than a 1000 copies. Only one out of ten traditionally published authors would ever see a second book in print.

These days, anyone can be published. This is good and bad and we can talk about that another time. But with more titles than ever before and bookstores becoming an endangered species? Our brand is our lifeline. Whether we decide to self-publish or traditionally publish is a business decision only we can make, but we still must have a viable author brand if we hope to sell books.

So What is a Brand?

 

Read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

David Foster Wallace and the Perils of “Litchat”

This article by Laura Miller originally appeared on The New Yorker on 9/8/15.

I knew the late David Foster Wallace a very little bit—not much to speak of, really, but I wrote about his work often. An interview that I did with him during the book tour for “Infinite Jest,” in 1996, achieved a surprising longevity. I reviewed his essay collection “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” for the New York Times Book Review, and his last short-story collection, “Oblivion,” for Salon. Until he committed suicide, in 2008, when anyone asked, I’d say that he was my favorite living writer, a statement that was typically greeted with astonishment and skepticism. So while I was barely acquainted with David Wallace the man, his reputation was another matter.

These two things aren’t the same, not in the case of any writer: a notion that many people would agree with in principle but that everyone has a hard time bearing in mind on a daily basis. Even the reputation of a reputation is subject to distortion. That Wallace was not widely regarded as a “great” writer during his lifetime is quickly being forgotten. Of course, a writer’s reputation changes over the years—that’s to be expected. Literary works grow or shrink in significance as the moment in which they were created recedes and as new readers bring new sensibilities to bear on them. But our memory of a reputation’s evolution itself changes, or at least that’s what seems to be happening in the case of Wallace. As more than one critic has observed, Wallace’s death, and the private suffering that it revealed, has led to the formation of an iconic posthumous public image that some of his friends have taken to calling “Saint Dave.” The critic Christian Lorentzen wrote in New York that Saint Dave is David Foster Wallace “reduced to a wisdom-dispensing sage on the one hand and shorthand for the Writer As Tortured Soul on the other.”

Yet even Lorentzen himself isn’t entirely immune to this sort of drift. In his review of “Purity,” the new novel by Wallace’s friend, Jonathan Franzen, he contrasts Franzen’s reputation for “being kind of a prick” with Wallace’s. Although Franzen had remarked upon the lack of “ordinary love” in Wallace’s fiction, Lorentzen writes, “The paradox was that Wallace’s readers felt loved when they read his books, and in turn came to fiercely love their author.”

 

Read the full article on The New Yorker.

 

How To Build Your Own Self-Hosted Author Website In Under 30 Minutes

This post by Joanna Penn originally appeared on her The Creative Penn site on 8/13/15.

Your website is one of the most important things to get sorted if you’re taking your career as an author seriously.

It’s your home on the internet and the hub for your books.

It’s how readers, agents, publishers, journalists, bloggers and podcasters judge how professional you are.

It’s where you can start to build an email list of readers.

A free site is not good enough if you want to take your author career onwards and upwards.

But your own site doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s not expensive and it won’t take long to set up.

In [a video on the linked page below, written transcript also provided there], I take you through why having your own site is important, how to get a hosting account and set up your wordpress site, as well as using an example theme and how to start your email list.

 

Read the full post on The Creative Penn.

 

Everything You Need to Know to Set Up Your First Twitter Chat

This post by Matt Diederichs originally appeared on the Hootsuite blog in 4/15.

You see the hashtags on Twitter every week: #SBizHour, #MediaChat, #CMGRHangout, and on and on. These tags refer to Twitter chats, one of the best examples of community building on Twitter. Using a shared hashtag, users meet at a pre-determined time to discuss issues of community relevance. These chats generate tons of conversation, and build deep connections between the people partaking and brands who host.

That kind of engagement has benefits for brands and personal brands alike. A successful Twitter chat community builds advocacy, loyalty, and community with participants. You’ll grow the social following of your accounts, generate valuable discussions and feedback, and show thought leadership with an outspoken audience.

Could you host your own Twitter chat? It’s not as simple as you’d think, but we’ve got your back. Here’s your step-by-step guide:

 

Before Your Chat

As tempting as it is to just jump in, you’ll need to build a plan. We recommend you consider well thought-out answers to the following questions:

Why am I hosting a chat?

 

Read the full post on the Hootsuite blog.

 

Author Websites, Blogs, and Book Sales Pages

This post by Joel Friedlander originally appeared on his The Book Designer on 5/11/15.

Last week Stephanie Chandler invited me to do a presentation for the Nonfiction Writer’s Conference, an online event featuring lots of speakers on topics of interest to self-publishers and nonfiction authors.

The topic was “Essentials for Author Websites, Blogs and Book Sales Pages” and it was designed as a 40 minute teleconference presentation, so no visuals or slides like we would rely on in a webinar or live presentation.

(Stephanie also interviewed me last month for the Nonfiction Writer’s Association blog, and I got pretty personal in the interview. You can read it here: Expert Interview: Joel Friedlander)

For the last several years I’ve been giving talks, keynotes, and presentations to a variety of book industry groups and, to be honest, it’s one of the more enjoyable parts of my own platform building efforts.

But that’s a subject for another day.

Today I wanted to share with you the some of what went into this presentation, because thinking through your online strategy is never a bad idea. Because I use mind mapping to prepare many of my presentations, I’ll use the mind map for this event to illustrate the main points I wanted people to walk away with.

 

Read the full post on The Book Designer.

 

My Haters, Myself: Mastering The Art Of The Haterbrag.

This post by Amanda Hess originally appeared on Slate on 4/13/15.

Jennifer Weiner has sold millions of books, spent a combined five years on the New York Times best-seller list, and amassed 109,000 followers on Twitter. Last week, she descended into the basement of New York City’s Ace Hotel to share a handful of her self-promotional secrets. The talk, sponsored by the PEN American Center, was titled “How to Be Authentic on Social Media,” but its true subject was how to promote your book on the Internet without making everyone hate you. Weiner advised authors to tweet about the things they love (for Weiner, it’s the reality TV romance competition The Bachelor); to tweet about the authors they love (Roxane Gay and Gary Shteyngart are two of her favorites); and to tweet about their own projects “sparingly, carefully, modestly, thoughtfully, and absolutely as little as possible”—and let their now-loyal crew of social media followers spread the word. The talk was a handy primer, charmingly delivered. But it referred only obliquely to Weiner’s true social-media innovation: Co-opting her haters into her personal brand.

 

Read the full post on Slate.

 

Social Media is a Waste of Time for Writers—Hmmm, Think Again

This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 1/20/15.

We’ve been talking a lot about social media lately and I am always grateful for your comments and thoughts. This kind of feedback not only helps me improve my blog, but my also books, because I get a glimpse of your worries, weaknesses, fears, loves, and strengths.

As a teacher/mentor/expert, it’s my job to address those fears and put you at ease or reinforce when you’re headed the right direction and give you tools and tips to take what you’re doing to another level.

There’ve been some comments that have piqued my attention lately. Namely this notion to give up on social media completely to write more books (out of vexation for the medium and the task).

Oh-kay….

Social Media is a TOTAL Waste of Time

Write more books instead of tweeting or blogging. Social media is a giant time-suck better spent writing great books.

I don’t know how to answer this besides, Er? *screeching brakes* Personally, I can think of no larger waste of time than researching and reading and spending countless hours crafting a wonderful book of 60,000-110,000 words and then?

No one knows the book exists so few people ever read it, enjoy it or are changed by the author’s story.

It’s like spending six months to a year on an oil painting to hang it in an attic.

 

Read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

Why Copyblogger Is Killing Its Facebook Page

This post by Erika Napoletano originally appeared on Copyblogger on 10/17/15.

Have you ever stared at something, knowing you’re doing everything right, but it still won’t … freaking … work?

That’s how Copyblogger has felt about its Facebook page for quite some time.

As of today, the page has 38,000 “fans,” but Copyblogger’s presence on Facebook has not been beneficial for the brand or its audience.

Just over three months ago, Brian Clark reached out to me for some extra help on the page.

He thought that, given the success I have with my own Facebook page, several others I’ve managed for clients over the years, and the rapidly growing Your Boulder Facebook page I manage for him, maybe I’d be able to bring some life to Copyblogger’s Facebook presence.

Yep, I said. Let me at it.

Well, today I’m here to tell you that we’re deleting the account. This is the last day you’ll see the Copyblogger Facebook page.

If you’ve ever been frustrated with an aspect of your social brand presence, you’ll want to keep reading — because there are countless reasons why Copyblogger is killing its Facebook page.

 

Read the full post on Copyblogger.

 

An Author's Field Guide To Internet Trolls

This post by Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton originally appeared on her Indie Author blog on 6/8/09 and is reprinted here in full with her permission.

‘Author Platform’ is the buzzphrase of the moment. If you’re doing a good job of creating and maintaining that all-important communication channel between yourself and the public, it’s only a matter of time before the web trolls descend upon you to ruin things for everyone. Herewith, I present a relevant excerpt from Ms. Gertrude Strumpf-Hollingsworth’s “Encyclopedia of Annoyances, Bothers and Frustrations”, which provides a valuable natural history lesson in the identification and management of the species most likely to darken an author’s virtual doorstep.

Introduction
The Internet Troll (webicus infuriatum) is a hardy, highly adaptable family of parasites with established populations all over the web. Most leading Techno-Naturalists classify it as a viral organism due the fact that it reproduces by infecting members of targeted populations. Once exposed to webicus, susceptible individuals soon display the aggression, vitriol and boorishness which are the identifying hallmarks of all Trolls.

Hiding behind a pseudonym, webicus will quickly become the dominant element in any online ecosystem which provides it with a steady supply of attention and argument. In fact, webicus is so skilled in monopolizing these resources that it frequently drives off larger, but more peaceable, local populations. While all Trolls are destructive, there are perhaps none so pernicious as the subspecies which target author websites and online writer communities. Armed with a voluble nature and much larger vocabularies than other Trolls, these are particularly troublesome.

 

The Queen Bee/King Drone (lordicus cliqueium)

Behavior: Lordicus begins by befriending charter members and site owner/administrators alike with its initial friendliness and offers of assistance. With favors banked and loyalties established, lordicus reveals its true nature when another community member voices a dissenting view, or becomes as well-liked as lordicus. In either case, lordicus and its followers close ranks to attack or freeze out the other member, claiming to speak on behalf of the entire community.

Control: The only effective method of lordicus control is a strongly-worded email from the site owner or administrator. Lordicus’ response is invariably a dramatic, martyred leave-taking from the site, after which it will continue to lurk and foment dissention among other members via off-site communications.

Identifying Call: A shrill, “Who do you think you are?”, sometimes followed by a low-pitched, “Nobody cares what you think, anyway.”

 

The Puffed Pedant (self-importantia verbosia)

Behavior: Self-importantia is known for its lengthy, patronizing deconstructions of other members’ writing, in which it takes great pleasure in pointing out every broken rule of grammar, plotting, characterization and the like, regardless of whether or not said rules were broken intentionally, as a stylistic choice. Given that s.i. is never a published author in its own right, one might expect other community members to routinely disregard its remarks. However, s.i. posts with such smug conviction that it effects a sort of Jedi Mind Trick on the least experienced and most gullible members of the community.

Control: Since s.i. doesn’t technically overstep a site’s Terms of Service, there’s little the site owner/admin can do to put a stop to its antics. It was once thought that exposing the Pedant to the works of Kurt Vonnegut or Anthony Burgess would humble and silence the creature, but field studies have proven it will merely label such works “the exception that proves the rule” and emerge both unscathed and uneducated by the experience. Depriving s.i. of the attention, argument, and writing samples it craves usually proves more effective.

Identifying Call: A repetitive, clucking, “Do your homework.”

 

The Prickly Recluse (hypersensitivium rex)

Behavior: This species is known for its uncanny ability to incorrectly interpret the tone or meaning of any other member posts, regardless of how innocuous those posts may be, invariably choosing the most negative or insulting meaning possible and taking that meaning entirely personally. From there, hypersensitivium will repeat and repost its incorrect interpretation in an effort to rally support and sympathy for itself.

Control: First-time victims generally interpret the Recluse’s behavior as innocent misunderstanding, and will usually attempt to resolve the matter with an apologetic, clarifying post. However, since hypersensitivium will misinterpret the palliative post as well, such efforts are destined to fail. A warning post or email from the site administrator will generate one last, self-pitying post from the Recluse, followed by several weeks of absence from the site. It is from this latter behavior that the Recluse gets its name.

Identifying Call: A sharp, striking, “How dare you!”

 

The PubPro Mimic (wannabeum knowitallia)

Behavior: This type of Troll masquerades as a publishing industry professional with many years of relevant experience, yet never offers any proof of its claims and simply ignores all requests for such. Nevertheless, using its supposed trove of expertise as bait, wannabeum easily attracts a cadre of insecure writers looking for a “secret handshake” or other insider knowledge that might give them an edge in getting published. Since wannabeum lacks the expertise to which it lays claim, its haughty assertions about writing, getting an agent, publishing and bookselling are largely false. Even so, any attempt to correct the Mimic directly, or even to merely post an alternative viewpoint, will backfire in a firestorm of belittling recriminations from the Mimic, which will rely on its claimed expertise as all the support or proof its posts require.

Control: Catching wannabeum in a resumé lie will cause it to immediately vacate a site, but this is nearly impossible since wannabeum never posts under its real name and is careful to keep the identifying details of its claimed career experience vague.

Identifying Call: “If you’d worked in the publishing business for as many years as I have, you’d know how ridiculous you sound.”

 

The Equalizer (evenus stevenus)

Behavior: Evenus is the self-appointed score keeper and referee of any community it inhabits. Evenus keeps constant track of who has shared good or bad news, who has posted congratulations or sympathy, and whether or not such congratulations or sympathies are adequately effusive and timely. Anyone failing to pass the Equalizer’s test is subjected to the same kind of freeze-out favored by the Queen Bee / King Drone, but unlike that species, the Equalizer keeps the impetus behind its attack secret for as long as possible. Often, Evenus deprives its victims of this information for so long that another member of Evenus’ circle is ultimately the one to reveal it.

Control: As with the Puffed Pedant, since Evenus doesn’t technically break any site’s Terms of Service, little can be done to discourage it. One can either ignore Evenus or strive to steer clear of it.

Identifying Call: frosty silence.

 

The Sock Puppet Master (bittera duplicator)

Behavior: Perhaps the most pathetic of all the Troll species which favor author communities and websites, bittera creates its own support network by setting up multiple user accounts. It uses these accounts to create negative or attacking posts about others and their work, then uses its other accounts to second its own opinions in a masturbatory fashion.

Control: No specific action is necessary. Bittera will eventually reveal itself as a fraud by losing track of its various aliases, posting in the tone or style of one persona while logged in as another. Once exposed, this Troll will immediately delete all of its past posts, close its many accounts and move on to a new site. It may reappear months later to set up a new collection of accounts and aliases, but only when it’s sure its past activities have been forgotten.

Identifying Call: mockingbird-like repetition of, and agreement with, anything posted under any of its many aliases.

 

The Fake Friendly (condescendiosa passive-aggressivium)

Behavior: This Troll openly attacks and insults authors and their work, and when called to account for its unacceptable behavior, claims its remarks have been misinterpreted and it meant no offense. For example, in a thread about the merits of giving away free ebook copies as a promotional gambit, following the post of a member extolling the virtues of free ebook copies, it may post, “If your book was any good, you wouldn’t have to give it away.” When the other member responds with understandable anger and offense, the Fake Friendly will defend itself by retreating behind a response along the lines of, “I didn’t say your book actually is no good, I’m just saying that you deserve to be paid for quality work.”

Condescendiosa can keep this back-and-forth dance of insults and re-interpretation going indefinitely, but its most maddening behavior is its penchant for claiming the moral high ground by recasting its abuse as simple, well-meaning honesty, which it says others can’t tolerate on account of being overly sensitive.

Control: Much like the Sock Puppet Master, this type of Troll is always the cause of its own undoing. As it slashes and burns its way through the community, systematically training its disingenuous focus on member after member, condescendiosa eventually finds it has more enemies than cohorts and vacates the premises.

Identifying Call: “You’ll never make it as a writer if you don’t develop a thicker skin,” and “I don’t know what you’re so upset about.”

 

15+ Ways to Create New Content from Old Content

This post by Kim Garst originally appeared on Boom Social on 12/5/14.

As a busy business owner, you likely don’t have time to create new content at the rate at which your audience demands it. Yet, with content marketing now being the #1 driver of search rankings, you can’t afford not to be constantly publishing new content.

Fortunately, there are ways you can take your existing content and feed it to the content marketing beast. With a little bit of elbow grease and some creativity, you can edit and re-use what you already have, and turn it into something your audience can’t get enough of!

 

1. Create a ‘Best Of’ blog post:
This one is great, both as a way to repurpose old content and as a way to boost your search engine rankings. Create a blog post that lists all your other blog posts or articles on a particular topic. Name it “The Ultimate List of _________ Resources”.

 

2. Turn a blog post into a Slideshare:
Take key points from a popular blog post and convert them into a powerpoint presentation or PDFs. Upload to Slideshare for free and potentially reach a whole new audience! “15 Ways To Create New Content from Old Content” for example !

 

3. Quote yourself on social media:

 

Read the full post on Boom Social.

 

Finding Your Genre: An Epiphany

This post by Christa Allan originally appeared on Jamie Chavez’ site on 12/22/14.

If you’re not from New Orleans and you find yourself plopped in the Big Easy one day, it’s likely one of the first questions you’ll hear is “Where did you go to school?”

Here’s a “quirk alert” that will navigate you through this disarmingly simple question. If you answer with the name of a college or city or state, we’ll know you’re definitely someone who lives outside the greater New Orleans area.

When locals ask that question of one another, we respond with the name of our high school. You may have attended Harvard, been selected as a Rhodes Scholar, or graduated from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. To us, those distinctions provide little, if any, information about the real you.

But a high school? Say a name and we’ll know if it’s public, private, religious, the demographics of the neighborhood in which you were raised, where you shopped and ate, your friends … For the most part, our high schools defined us and were reference points for those who didn’t know us well. And there were anomalies, like the kids awarded scholarships to private schools or the ones who transferred to schools whose football teams won championships.

So finishing my first novel and being asked about genre was as disarming as a tourist being asked about school.

 

Read the full post on Jamie Chavez’ site.

 

Facebook's Like Affair With Brands Is Over

This post by Will Oremus originally appeared on Slate on 3/24/14.

Facebook is ending the free ride, wrote Valleywag’s Sam Biddle in a post that has been greeted with widespread alarm. No, it’s not forcing ordinary users to pay for its service or to share pictures of their babies. Rather, the claim is that it’s deliberately bringing an end to the era of free advertising for businesses via their Facebook pages.

Citing an anonymous source, Biddle reports that Facebook is in the process of slashing brands’ “organic page reach” to just 1 or 2 percent. That means only a tiny fraction of the people who have liked a business on Facebook will see each of its posts in their news feed, unless that company pays Facebook for wider promotion. The organic-reach squeeze would affect “all brands,” Biddle writes, from corporate behemoths like Nike to local merchants like New York’s Pies ‘n’ Thighs restaurant. He casts this as a cruel bait-and-switch on Facebook’s part:

Facebook pulled the best practical joke of the Internet age: the company convinced countless celebrities, bands, and “brands” that its service was the best way to reach people with eyeballs and money. Maybe it is! But now that companies have taken the bait, Facebook is holding the whole operation hostage.

That’s one way of looking at it.

Here’s another one: People don’t really like seeing a bunch of ads in their news feed.

 

Read the full post on Slate.

 

3 Vital Questions to Build Website Impact

This post by Donna K. Fitch originally appeared on D’Vorah Lansky’s Build A Business With Your Book.

Why do you have a website? What a silly question. We have websites because we’re supposed to. Everyone else does, right?

But a website without thought behind it, without intentionality, may be doing you more harm than good. Professional web designers ask their clients a series of questions before they do any design work. Improve your website by asking yourself these three questions:

 

1. What do you want to accomplish with your website?

It’s so tempting to pile cool widgets and generic text (“Welcome to my website, I hope you enjoy it”) on your site without considering the purpose. Besides overwhelming the site visitor, the items may be sending mixed messages—or give the impression you’re not sure what business you’re in. If you aren’t sure what you’re trying to achieve, you won’t know when you’ve arrived.

 

Read the full post on Build A Business With Your Book.

 

37 Reasons Why You Should Write A Book

This post by John Kremer originally appeared on his Book Marketing Bestsellers site.

The sooner your write a book, the better (for you and your business). You can certainly write a book within the next 60 days!

Here are 37 reasons why you should write a book.

 

Make money. You can make money not only by selling your book, but also by selling all the ancillary products and services you can offer.

Money is often the key motivator for many authors, but it certainly isn’t the only reason why you should write a book.

 

Change lives. Books can enlighten, educate, inspire, inform, and entertain. They can and do change lives.

Everyone has at least one story of a book that changed their lives. What book changed your life? Now, write one to change other people’s lives.

 

Sell a product. Use your book to help promote another product, whether a real world product or an online information product. Books can help you sell all your other products and services. Seed your book with the stories of your other products and services. Include case studies, success stories, examples of failure and success.

Books can sell your products and services faster and easier than anything else. Books allow you to showcase what you do, how well you do it, and how your customers benefit from what you offer.

 

Build a career. There’s no better way to build a career than to start by writing a book. Books open doors. Books get respect. Books get you promotions. And books get you job offers, again and again.

 

Boost your credibility. Nothing establishes your authority better than a book. Your book instantly boosts your credibility as a doer, as an expert, as a celebrity, as an authority. Of course, it has to be a good book, a great book, an extraordinary book. The more extraordinary, the more your credibility will grow!

 

Read the full post on Book Marketing Bestsellers.