Gearing Up to Revise

I have to admit. I told my accountability group that I was going to revise my early middle grade novel, Three Rivers Robotics. But really? I just wasn’t feeling it. 

Ever since Barnes and Noble changed their stocking policy to limit hard covers to only best-selling authors, there has been a lot of angst and anxiety among middle grade authors. Then Ingrams limited the backlist titles that they list. Can we say more angst and anxiety? 

It made it really hard to get myself to work on this particular book, but I powered through the first draft. Now that it is time to revise, every time I go online someone says the middle grade market is dead. That is not exactly the thing to keep a writer motivated. 

But the last three weeks I’ve been too busy to check social media.

Sure, I pop on occasionally and like my husband’s Facebook posts. After all, I do want him to empty the drier. But I haven’t been reading all those other discouraging posts.

I’m not going to give up reading altogether. So I’ve been reading a new middle grade novel. It has taken me just over a week which is really slow for me. But I love the characters. The setting is so real that I can tell you exactly what town inspired it. And the plot hooked me from the start. This book, The Secret of Moonrise Manor by Stephanie Bearce, is a must read if you want to write middle grade fiction. 

What does this have to do with my own motivation?  As I was reading, a thought popped into my head. My main character can still be my main character, and his sidekick is fine too. But other than that? Sorry. Everyone else has got to go. Or they at least need to seek new employment because my setting is no longer Three Rivers Robotics. It is now a science makers space for tweens. Which means there will be a whole new group of secondary tween characters. Of course, all of this means that my plot will need to be adjusted. 

I liked my plot in the first version, but the secondary characters? I never liked them. And I do mean any of them. But I pushed myself through because I just wanted to finish a draft.

I’m glad I did because now I’m thinking about how to improve it. And I’m taking my inspiration from an amazing middle grade book. 

Anxiety is easy to come by right now. And that can make it hard to get deep into a project. My advice to you? Don’t look for inspiration on social media. Instead, pick up something written by an amazing author. Not sure who that would be or what to read? Ask and maybe someone else reading this can help you. There is always someone here reading the most fantastic book that I’ve never heard of. 

--SueBE

• To find out more about her writing, visit her site and blog, One Writer's Journey.  

• Click here to find her newsletter.

Sue Bradford Edwards' is the author of over 60 books for young readers.  

She is also the instructor for 3 WOW classes which begin on the first Monday of every month. She teaches:

• Pitching, Querying and Submitting Your Work 
• Research: Prepping to Write Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults 
• Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults 

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4 comments Inspiration, middle grade fiction, revision, social media, Stephanie Bearce, Sue Bradford Edwards, The Secret of Moonrise Manor

Testing a Book Idea on Social Media

Not long ago, Deidre, a writing friend, posted a photo showing the wonky way she cut her daughter’s sandwich. In their household, a sandwich is never simply cut symmetrically in half. The cuts are always off-center or otherwise varied. She couldn’t believe the enthusiastic response to her photo and how everyone played with various names for the innovative cuts. The response was so strong that you can know buy Deidre J. Owen’s The Sandwich Cuts Book online. 

The week that she announced her plan to create the book, I was playing around with a graphic. I periodically add text to photos to make graphics for social media. If this is well received, I thought, I could make a book like Deidre’s. 

How was the response? Crickets, people. Nothing but crickets. 

My idea? I love languages, especially when phrases don’t translate exactly. What do I mean? In English, a book lover is a book worm. In Spanish, the person is a library rat. In Danish, the phrase is reading horse. A book swallower is the phrase in Welsh. No, I don’t think this is robust enough for a print book but perhaps an ebook of some kind. A freebie. At least that was my thought. Ah, well. 

But this illustrates why it can be a good idea to test things out online. Some people blog their book before actually creating the manuscript. Others, who are doing something more graphic, create posts for other forms of social media like Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.

 
Previewing your book can be a good idea. It saves you the time of creating a full manuscript if there is no interest. But this assumes something. Are the people you normally interact with the audience for your idea? If not, you can’t expect much of a reception.

 
This is also a good way to get feedback. Not sure if readers would be more interested in a chapter set in Miami or Milan? Just ask. Of course, there’s a downside to this. You are definitely going to use one of these two locations. You’ve decided that. But everyone wants you to use where they live, where they were born, or the location they just saw on the Travel Channel. 

There is also the matter of balance. Post something online and it is published. Are you going to be able to interest a publisher at this point? Maybe if your readership is large enough or if you can expand on what you’ve posted, making it bigger and better. 

Posting about things you really want to do can be discouraging. Why is everyone commenting on another cat clip and you can’t garner any interest? 

Maybe the best way is to do what Deidre did. Post about what is going on in your life and jump on what gets a strong response. 

Fortunately, I have enough ideas that I can’t pursue them all. Besides, I’m a devoted library rat/reading horse/book swallower and I have another book to read. 

--SueBE

• To find out more about her writing, visit her site and blog, One Writer's Journey.  

• Click here to find her newsletter.

Sue Bradford Edwards' is the author of over 60 books for young readers.  

She is also the instructor for 3 WOW classes which begin on the first Monday of every month. She teaches:

• Pitching, Querying and Submitting Your Work 
• Research: Prepping to Write Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults 
• Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults 

Read More »

1 comment blogging, publishing online, social media, Sue Bradford Edwards, testing a writing idea, writing ideas

Ennui: Not So Boring After All

I was talking to a friend the other evening and she was annoyed with herself: “I always thought if I had the time, I’d work on my calligraphy, clean out the garage…”

Welcome to the World of Pandemic Ennui, y’all.

I love that word “ennui.” It’s one of those words you don’t hear much anymore, but when I do think of it, I picture a woman reclining on a chaise longue (also a word out of fashion), a hand resting against her forehead, while the other arm falls to the side, fingertips grazing the floor. Or there’s Libs, when she’s not being a Tiny Terror:

The short definition for ennui is boredom, but it’s so much more than that:

noun; ennui
a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

Doesn’t that just about sum up where many of us are at right now? And though the world is slowly starting to open again, it will be in phases, and so we have days of ennui ahead of us still. But that doesn’t mean we can’t lie around and entertain our thoughts. Like what matters to us as writers.

I’m thinking about skill sets; the ones I have and the ones I want.

Take online communication. Like blogs, for instance. You may have noticed an uptick in blog tours lately. Which makes sense when you can’t get out and travel to bookstores and libraries; you have to bring the book to where people are. Blogs have always been an important “distribution” tool for writers, but I suspect they’ll become even more integral in marketing/promotion. And there are other tools to consider…starting a newsletter or (re)building a website. What’s going to work, career-wise?

And of course, online communication includes social media, which has been a boon to creatives during this shut-down time. At last, we all have a day (or twenty) to take a look around at ALL that’s out there in the virtual world. Media beyond YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. Maybe TikTok? We have a minute now to do some browsing among writers we like or writers like us. It’s a great opportunity for a little comparison shopping, if you will, to see what’s a good business fit.

Perhaps this is the moment you—and by you, I mean me—have been waiting for, the chance to get a long-postponed project done. Like making a powerpoint presentation. Of course you—and again, I mean me-- know how, but are you stuck in the basics when you could add so much more pizazz? Or create a book trailer! Or learn photoshop! There are classes that can teach you, me, all of us, EVERYTHING—and at a price for any budget.

Finally, whilst we’re stuck in our ennui, perhaps it will occur to us that there’s a good reason that we’ve never quite got round to what we thought we always wanted to do. Namely, that we don’t really want to do it.

Who wants to clean out a garage? And maybe we haven’t signed on with Instagram because we have our hands full with trying to cook any kind of meal much less one that’s picture-worthy?!

Ahem. The point is, we can be productive stretched out on a chaise longue in the drawing room (or in my and Libby's case, wherever). All it takes is a little thought to what we do want to do, how we want to spend the precious gift of time we’ll have.

One day, when the world opens wide its arms and welcomes us back.

~Cathy C. Hall

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4 comments blogs, Cathy C. Hall, marketing, newsletters, pandemic thinking, promotion, social media

Even Lincoln Needed Likes

Recently I came across an interesting tidbit about Abraham Lincoln.

There’s a collection at the Library of Congress of the contents of Lincoln’s pockets on the day that he was assassinated. Naturally, I had to read all about the handkerchief, a couple pair of spectacles, a sleeve button, and even more items. But what struck me most was the eight newspaper clippings that were found in his wallet.

And not clippings about the war, which was what I expected; these clippings contained “complimentary remarks about him written during his campaign for reelection to the Presidency.”

“Wow,” I said, sitting at the table, reading the paper out loud to Youngest Junior Hall who happened to be within earshot. “How odd is that?”

He usually doesn’t pay any attention to my interesting tidbits, but this time he responded. “I guess Lincoln wanted to remind himself that people appreciated him. Kind of like “Likes”, you know?”

I think Junior Hall was on to something. Over a hundred and fifty years before social media came along, there was the President of the United States needing validation. Granted, those were dark days in 1865 and Lincoln was unpopular with half the country but still, it’s something to think about, this human need we have for approval. I can’t help wondering if, on particularly hard days, Lincoln opened his wallet and pulled out a clipping to read. Maybe he was able to carry on with the difficult tasks at hand, knowing that someone had written kind words about him; someone, at least, liked him.

I bring this up today because so many writers have a love/hate relationship with social media, myself included. I recognize the need to promote, for me, for my brand, and for my work, but it wears me out sometimes, getting through all the chatter, the firestorm threads, the back-and-forth vitriol that might start with a seemingly innocuous remark. And I worry that I might say the wrong thing and ultimately, I wonder if social media is worth all the time and trouble.

But also recently, I jumped in with a bang for a Twitter pitch contest—(Google “pitch contests for writers 2020” to find both adult and kidlit opportunities)—and though I didn’t have a publisher or agent “heart” my pitch, I did get a handful of perfect strangers complimenting my manuscripts. And in a business full of rejection, that validation felt pretty swell.

And that made me think about Facebook, and how when I share news, I invariably get an outpouring of support, whether the news is good or not-so-good. So I suppose the bottom line here is that social media can be and mostly is a positive force, in both my personal and professional life. But like Lincoln, I try to stick to the complimentary stuff, the social media that makes me feel appreciated, supported, and liked. Maybe that's the trick to the value of social media traffic: stay in the positive lane.

Oh! And one more thing! Instead of falling into a rabbit hole of wacky videos and/or toxic arguments out there on the interwebs, check out the Library of Congress website. It’s so much more than books (though it’s quite a whopping collection!)

There are free images, blogs to read, teacher resources, and fascinating photos, plus music and other recordings to immerse yourself in. The Library of Congress is a dream come true, whether you’re a serious researcher or just a person looking for interesting tidbits. And it’s free!

And while you’re perusing the LOC, check out Abraham Lincoln’s collection from his pockets. He was just like us, Lincoln. A regular guy who needed a “Like” now and then.

~Cathy C. Hall

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2 comments Abraham Lincoln, Cathy C. Hall, Library of Congress, Pitch contests for writers, pros and cons of social media, social media

Throw Kindness Around Like Confetti !

Hey, it's me again...the goofy girl who loves to write and read, the one who takes pictures of the sun and food as well as cows and pigs. Me, the girl who is not and never will be considered normal. Today I bring you a story about parent teacher conferences and this super cool painting on the wall. If you make it to the end, there's also a worthwhile tip for cleaning scuff marks off your floor without bending over, so stick with me!

I spend my Wednesday mornings at the elementary school with the most absolutely wonderful group of children (some of them are mine, but most of them aren't). Our younger children look forward to my visits and our time together. The teachers seem to appreciate the extra adult in the room. I've done this for each of our children, but by the time they get to middle school it's not cool to have your  mom hanging out with your friends. My time at the middle school is limited to parent teacher conferences.

During last week's conferences, I found this amazing painting on the wall (see above) and I had to take a selfie in front of it. I wasn't sure if my husband was amused, but I was super excited! The confetti you see in the background is the thumb prints of the students who helped put this message here for all to enjoy. This is a great reminder how we should all be kind. As an avid reader, I've been told that the kindest thing we can do as readers is to share the books we love. I do this all the time and I'm not sure if my social media followers love it or hate it, but I figure whether or not you like the confetti, you're bound to get some on you from time to time and you just have to deal with it. If people can share political posts on social media then we as readers should feel comfortable sharing books and kind words, right?

If you are an avid reader, let me ask you this:

Do you take time to write book reviews on Amazon, GoodReads, a personal blog/vlog, or other platforms? Why or why not?

Do you go one step further and share a link to your review(s) on your social media accounts? Why or why not?

What's stopping you from throwing your thoughts around like confetti? Don't you want to spread that kindness?

Now that I've barged into your space with my questions and goofy confetti throwing ideas, as promised here is something else I learned at parent teacher conferences at the middle school:

If you attach a tennis ball to the end of a stick or dowel, you can use it to clean scuff marks off the floor. No more bending over with an eraser or cloth! Mind blown!

And the moral of today's story is spending time at the middle school has a lot to offer! Thanks to you lovely reader for making it to the end and thanks to my children for teaching me things each and every day - may you always remember to throw kindness around like confetti!

Hugs,
~Crystal

Crystal is the office manager, council secretary, financial secretary, and musician at her church, birth mother, Auntie, babywearing mama, business owner, active journaler, writer and blogger, Blog Tour Manager with WOW! Women on Writing, Press Corp teammate for the DairyGirl Network, Unicorn Mom Ambassador, as well as a dairy farmer. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their five youngest children, two dogs, four little piggies, a handful of cats and kittens, horses Darlin' and Joker, and over 250 Holsteins.

You can find Crystal milking cows, riding horses, and riding unicorns (not at the same time), taking the ordinary and giving it a little extra (making it extraordinary), blogging and reviewing books here, and at her personal blog - Crystal is dedicated to turning life's lemons into lemonade and she has never (not once) been accused of being normal!

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5 comments being kind, book review, book reviews, helping authors, kindness, parenting, social media

It May Not Look Like Work...

Have you ever wondered if all that time spent on social media or even sallying forth to make actual live connections makes any difference in your writing career? I mean, here you are, hard at work, but does it matter? Really? And then I have a couple of weeks that feel like a genuine pat on the back.

The other night I spoke to a women’s group about my writing life and the circuitous journey I took to becoming the writer I am today. So I brought a lot of my Chicken Soup for the Soul books because my life stories are shared in those books. And I sold every last book!

But I wouldn’t have been at that meeting if a friend didn’t read my blog posts regularly and had the thought that I’d make a fun speaker for her group. And she wouldn’t haven’t seen my blog posts if I hadn’t shared them through my social media networks. I often tell people that I stay on my social media networks for work and they look at me funny, like “Come on, Cathy, we know you’re just there for the singing dogs.” Well, of course I’m there for the singing dogs. But I’m also there, working.

And then a few weeks ago, when my SCBWI region appeared at the Decatur Book Festival, I worked in our tent for promotion and hobnobbing and eventually, cleanup. A friend gave me a handful of big bottles of bubbles we didn’t use and asked me to take them to my church preschool.

So I dropped by to see the preschool director, an old friend and co-worker of mine, to give her the bubbles. And we talked about children’s books, naturally, and that mine were for Korean kids. But, I told her, my friend (the one who donated the bubbles) had a board book. “Give her my card,” she said. “We’d love to have her.” And my friend will be doing a story time in the next week, and will probably sell lots of books, too. So there we all were, connected in a friends-helping-friends way. But we were also working.

Also a few weeks ago, a writer friend was coordinating a panel presentation of kidlit authors and illustrators. But all she had signed on were picture book creatives. And I remembered that a friend of mine—a YA author—had recently moved back to my area. How did I know? I’d seen all her comings and goings on social media.

We needed a published author of novels and my friend was happy to help with the panel because she needed to get back in the writer swing of things. She had been using social media to let her friends know she was home, but yep, she was working, too.

So you never know, right? It might look like piddling around, being out there on social media. Or it might look like a long lunch with friends, or a delightful happy hour at a conference. But that’s work, y’all. I can’t help it if it looks like fun.

~Cathy C. Hall (Hard-at-Work)

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2 comments Cathy C. Hall, conferences, networking, social media, speaker gigs, writer promotion

Don't Ignore YouTube Just Because You're Not 8 to 16

So the other day on my Facebook business page, I posted this meme:

Parents and grandparents of elementary school kids should be nodding (and laughing, come on--it's funny) along with this hysterical meme from Debi Downer on Facebook (which you should follow by clicking that link because she is super funny!) because you understand the YouTube craze like no other, I'm sure. My daughter who is 8 sometimes watches YouTube on our Smart TV instead of Netflix or Hulu--instead of Disney! (gasp) And she watches people play video games or do slime challenges or play "games" where the kids switch clothes with each other. She wants to talk about slime and create her own challenges all the time, and I will admit that I'm often not tuned into the conversation because I just don't understand. 

But this "blasted" YouTube is where kids are. This is where teens are. This is even where adults are--finding TED talks, how to change their oil, or how to make themselves look better through Photoshop. Recently, when I taught the School Visits and Author Talks class for WOW! (next one is in October!), even I used YouTube videos as part of my material. Authors are making videos of their presentations online, so that interested schools can view them and see what the authors' speaking styles are like. And I used these videos as examples for WOW! students on how to create engaging and interactive presentations for kids. 

Recently, I was listening to the Jen Hatmaker podcast and her guest was HEAVEN TAYLOR-WYNN from MediaWise, a media literacy project that aims to teach 1 million teens how to sort fact from fiction online by 2020. (This really does have to do with videos and YouTube, just bear with me...). During the interview, the following exchange took place:

Jen Hatmaker: One thing I know as a mom of five teens and just post-teens is that... they are inhaling videos. That is absolutely how my kids are getting their information. Is this what you're seeing?

Heaven: Yeah, well like you just said, it's hard for not just teens but for adults as well—it's so much content, so much information coming at us all the time. But some new research just came out recently from Common Sense Media, and they concur with what you're finding. Teens are getting most of their information from social media and from YouTube. 

So, in the class I just taught, I suggested to WOW! students that making a YouTube video of yourself presenting or speaking or even reading your books is a great idea. If you're a young adult author, you should be making videos and posting them to Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Twitter. (Teens are not on Facebook. Facebook is for us old people.)

Look, I am giving this advice, and this is how many videos I have made: 0.

But V-I-D-E-O is written up on my dream/goal board now, and I know it's something that Angela and I have talked about for social media: Instagram stories and FacebookLive and more. So many videos and information are free out there; and if you want people to pay for your books or your speaking or your class, then you're probably going to need to give them a taste of what you're like because you can be sure that some other author is doing that already.

I'll be honest--this video craze scares me--I'll have to shower and put on makeup!  But we've all heard the quote from Dune about fear being a mindkiller, so join with me and let's try to make some videos and further our careers.

The YouTube addict is pictured above...:) 

The next School Visits and Author Talks for Children’s and YA Writers and Illustrators starts on October 16 and ends before Thanksgiving and the crazy holiday season. If you are a children's or YA author, giving these talks is a must for your marketing plan. Sign up here. Find out more about Margo on her site.

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6 comments children's authors, making a video, marketing, school visits, social media, YA authors, youtube

Make Someone Happy

Remember that old song, “Make Someone Happy” by Jimmy Durante?

Okay, I said it was old.

The point is, I love that song. Not necessarily for all the romantic stuff. I love the last bit of the song, the part where Jimmy reminds us that if we make someone happy, we’ll be happy, too. And I’ve found that’s pretty much the truth. Especially when it comes to writers.

The year may be quickly winding down but it’s not too late to make someone—make just one writer someone—happy in 2018:

BOOK REVIEW

You can’t beat the book review for the author on your list. Look over your Books Read and choose a couple to review. And don’t worry about writing a long, literary treatise on the book. A simple paragraph (or two) is enough to make your point and help an author. Throw up the review on Amazon and/or Goodreads, maybe even your blog if you have one.

SPREAD THE WORD

But maybe the book review just isn’t your thing; takes too much time, too much effort. Or (yikes!) you just didn’t like the book and you don’t want to give someone a lousy review. You can still make an author happy when you spread the word in just a few lines. Use Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to post the cover of the book with a brief, “Do you see what I see?” And if you did like it, add a nice recommendation, an “I LOVED this one! Your kid (or sister or dad or dog…whatever) will, too!” Oh! Another thing…it doesn’t have to be a book, either. Do you have a writer friend who has an essay out there? A short story? A poem? Post a link to it, or leave a nice comment at the site. It’s so easy to spread the word and make someone happy!

BE A SHOULDER

And don’t forget to make someone happy when that someone is going through a tough time in the business. Be a shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic ear, a friend in need. The thing is, we all go through tough times in our jobs, but when you’re a writer, you work mostly alone. It’s such a solitary career, this writing business. So when an agent drops you or a contract falls through, when an editor passes on a pitch (after requesting the article!) or when that 47th rejection pings in the Inbox and throwing in the writing towel seems like a very good idea, then be there. Sometimes a few words of encouragement or a nice long lunch just to listen is enough to make someone happy.

And you know what? It may be an old song, but it still sounds good to me. Make someone happy and you’ll be happy, too. (Happy New Year’s, y’all!)

~ Cathy C. Hall

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

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3 comments book reviews, Cathy C. Hall, Jimmy Durante, social media, Writer support

Transparency: How Much of Yourself Do You Put Out There?

When my son entered high school, the principal had a talk with the students and their parents. “Be careful what you put out there,” he said. “A photo of you drinking at a party can cost you a scholarship down the road. Anything you put on social media can come back to haunt you.”

I’ve been wondering lately just how many writers worry about this. We post about attending protests and knitting hats. We share and forward and tag - #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t put these things out there. If you look at what I write, it is pretty clear where I stand in terms of politics.

I write books about race and social justice. I also write about evolution and for a prayer blog. Those things are all out there and anyone can find them pretty easily. So I do post about politics and religion both, but I don’t post every time I write a letter to my congress person or sign a petition.

There are a lot of other things I don’t post about. My personal life is personal. I may drop a bit of info here and there but there’s a lot I don’t talk about online.

Other people are much less circumspect. This morning I was reading an interview with one of my favorite writers. She told the interviewer that she and her spouse have an open marriage at least in theory. Why only in theory? Because with the progeny in tow it is really hard to have an open marriage in practice.

Can I just say eww? That may be the thing you let your closest friends know. Maybe even your Mom. Heck, I don’t know that type of relationship you and Mom have. But really? I did not need to know that. In my opinion, a little mystery between writer and reader is perfectly acceptable. In this case, it would have been preferable.

Am I old fashioned? Quite possibly. I am a historian.

What you reveal in an interview is very different from what you post on Facebook. But there are similarities. Once the information is out there, it is out there for all to see. Is this the kind of thing that can hurt future sales? It may depend on what you write. But it is something to think about when a simple search can reveal what you had for breakfast as well as details about your would-be sex life.

--SueBE

To find out more about Sue Bradford Edwards' writing, visit her blog, One Writer's Journey.  Sue is also the instructor for Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults. The next session begins July 9th, 2018.

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5 comments privacy, social media, transparency

How to Use Facebook Groups to Market Your Book

One marketing strategy that may work for anyone who writes for an adult audience, especially female, is to create a Facebook group for readers. A Facebook group is different than a page, which most authors already have. I've recently seen some innovative uses of a Facebook group. You may be wondering: why do I have to keep up with a Facebook group too? Why isn't my page good enough?

It all comes down to that wonderful, old Facebook algorithm and how seldom people, who like your page, will actually see posts in their news feed, unless they choose to see your notifications first or often. Most people don't realize this or even think about it, and so you may be posting the most wonderful content ever on your page, and only about 1/4 of your fans are seeing it.

With a group, there are usually fewer members and anyone can post and discuss. You can add members to the group without their permission (although they can also remove themselves, if they don't want to be there). In the groups I'm in, when anyone posts, I get a notification from Facebook, and it also shows up in my news feed. But groups should be used with a strategy, just like any marketing on social media.

Your page is for anyone to like. Your group can be for special readers, helpers, book parties, and more. Here are two different, creative ways I have seen groups used lately to promote books.

1. Creating a "street team" for a book release: My friend, Camille Faye, who writes the Voodoo Butterfly series, created a Facebook group for her street team, which is a group designed to help her promote online the release of her second book Emergence. She called the group Social Butterflies and had various tasks for us to do throughout the week, such as post about her book on social media and make her book cover our profile photo. She gave instructions and had discussions in the group, which was a brilliant use of this Facebook tool with 112 members in her group!

2. Several authors in the mystery genre joined together to create a closed group on Facebook for mystery authors and their readers. To launch the group, they are having an online Facebook party in the group. Each author will take over the group for a while and post about their books, giveaway prizes, and have fun with fans and other writers. This is a great idea because it's authors helping out each other; and as I posted about last time, some of the readers may find new authors because they followed a favorite author on to the group. If you love reading mysteries, then ask to join this Facebook group today. 

As social media evolves, so do authors' great ideas for marketing. Some authors make it a privilege to join their Facebook group, like a fan club, where the most devoted readers can get access to the author and new releases first. There are all kinds of ways for creative authors to use Facebook groups. But remember, this really works for authors whose audience is in their late 20s to 60s because that is the highest population on Facebook, and female readers tend to join more groups and participate in parties than male readers. As I keep saying, marketing is not one-size-fits-all.

We would love to hear how you have used Facebook for your marketing.

Join my new marketing class! says Margo Dill, who wrote this blog post! Margo's marketing class will help authors in all genres figure out individualized plans and learn from working authors in the trenches marketing their books. Editors with their own businesses will also benefit from the class. Check it out here--it's being offered in July and September.

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13 comments book marketing, facebook groups, Facebook page, Margo L. Dill, social media