When did you last blog about your book?

Do you blog about your work in progress so potential readers can learn about your book; creating desire to purchase and read it.

It is easier to let readers know what to expect if you keep them informed about the progress, a hint about the subject, and a possible availability date.

Blogging about your work in progress is not about hype, but a journey with your followers, capturing new followers, and growing your list of potential readers organically, the only way to grow a real list of followers.

Building a growing list of legitimate followers over time is part of marking and promoting your book to people who read. You are trying to grow interest in what you do, write.

Unfortunately, social media is becoming a den of iniquity with people on almost every platform wanting to sell you followers.

When or if an agent searches you on Google, is he going to see real followers, or is he going to see fake followers, which will be a detriment to your reputation?

There are no short cuts to building a following; it requires work and time to establish a following organically.

Even working with traditional publishers, authors need to market and promote their work. What better way than building a following or people waiting for your book.

All authors need some type of platform for building a following of readers following along the journey from concept to publication.

The point is to build a large list of potential purchasers and readers for your book. One way to do this is by blogging. Another is with an author’s page, a website, or some other platform used for building a following for your books.

For any author to succeed in publishing books, authors need to publicize their books, find readers, promote the book, marketing the book, and schedule signings.

As an author, blogging about your book’s progress is a way to engage readers to follow you, while they learn more about your book, and when they will be able to purchase a copy.

Author
Robert Medak
Freelance Writer, Blogger, Editor, Proofreader, and Reviewer learning ethical Marketing
follow the author at http://xeeme.com/RobertMedak

If you need help making your copy better or have any questions, please use my contact form and we will work together.

Writers should be Lifelong Learners

Why should writers be lifelong learners?

First, writing is an ever-changing business. Yes, writing is a business just like any other business that requires flexibility in the businessperson to adapt to changes.

Many changes have occurred in publishing, and publishing changes almost daily. This requires you to keep up with these changes, even if you plan to self publish your book.

Publishing has changed so much that even household named authors are opting for self-publishing. Do think they do their homework with regard to the publishing business? More than likely, the answer is yes.

After working hard on your story, the last thing you need is, not having an author platform plus a marketing and promo plan. Guess what; even traditional publishing houses require a marketing and promo plan plus what you’re willing to do in marketing your book.

As part of your writing business, the time to begin marketing your book is before it’s completed. Companies offer preorders for upcoming products as part of their marketing. Your book is a coming attraction that needs marketing and promotion just like all upcoming items to build interest. If potential purchasers aren’t aware of your book, will they know you’re writing it, or when to begin looking for it online or bookstore shelves?

Second, without building a following, how will readers know about you? The Internet is today’s Yellow Pages. More people search online to find what they’re looking for.

Without a platform, how are readers to know you exist? You have to learn how to build and maintain your platform. For people to find your platform it must be dynamic, not static to achieve search engine ranking.

Writers, it’s up to you to learn what’s necessary to engage your readers, and build a following.

 Followers are your readers, and readers properly engaged are book buyers.

Continue to learn about your craft, publishing, and your business. 

About the author:

Robert Medak is a retired Communications Technician turned freelance writer, blogger, editor, proofreader, and reviewer learning marketing.

He was born in southern California, and lived in Kansas until moving to southern West Virginia with his wife and their cats and dogs. While in California, he and his wife Connie ran an animal rescue where Robert wrote job descriptions, flyers, and was treasurer.

To Self Publish or Not

Whether to self publish or vie for traditional publishing is a question brought to the forefront because of the direction publishing is moving.

With fewer traditional publishers, more books written, and fewer readers, many traditional houses aren’t willing to work with unknown authors.

Authors need a platform with followers, a book marketing plan, and more laid upon the shoulders of authors, many authors feel that self-publishing is the way to get their book into the hands of readers.

If you self publish your book, how traditional will look upon your book if you decide to vie for a traditional publishing house in the future is a question only the publishing house can answer. Experience from some writers is that self-published books are akin to what we used to call vanity press books, pay money and they will publish anything as Amazon found out with blatant plagiarism of many titles that Amazon published, and then had had to remove when they finally knew it. Amazon’s reputation was hurt, and rightly so.

Why have reviewers been complaining about the quality of self-published books?

The complaints range from editing to grammar. Publishing houses once employed editors to clean up these problems for authors; this is no longer the case. Self-published book editing is now the purview of the author, and authors need professional editing. Don’t rely on software like spellcheckers and grammar checkers to find the errors.

A literary agent may cost writers thousands to have their book shopped to publishers. Many authors can’t afford these costs, and opt for self-publishing.

Ultimately, it is up to the individual author how to publish their baby. First, is to hire an editor that has no interest in the book other than making sure that they edit for typos, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, redundancies,  over use of words like “and”, “or”, and “but”. Editors will notice these because they have no stake in the book other than making it the best book for the reader.

If an author such as James Paterson, David Baldacci, or Orson Scott Card wants a book published, most traditional publishers will take a chance, but are probably not willing to take on self-published authors or unpublished writers. Authors need to find creative ways to convince publishing houses to take a chance. One creative way is to create a well-written, well-edited book. Don’t forget a well-crafted proposal.

Robert Medak

Freelance Writer, Blogger, Editor, Proofreader, Reviewer, Marketer

http://rjmedak.wordpress.com

http://xeeme.com/RobertMedak

Why you need to backup data

Aside from having to rehab my right shoulder after rotator cuff surgery, my newest computer crashed and I no longer have access to my passwords on the numerous site I frequent.

Rebuilding my password list is a royal pain, not to mention time consuming.

My WIP is on the newest computer also, which means I have to start over from scratch on my book until I can afford to repair my computer.

I have been working with computers since the 1990s without a problem, along comes 2012 and I am in deep trouble.

Please be forewarned.

Back up your work online somewhere with a strong password that only you know and remember.

Robert Medak
Freelance Writer, Blogger, Editor, Reviewer, Marketer
http://rjmedak.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/freelancewrtr
http://www.facebook.com/robertmedakfreelancewriter

How Many Hats Does a Writer Wear?

Let me say it is many more than just writer in today’s publishing culture.

Traditional publishers are no longer in the business of correcting multiple errors in manuscripts.

Acquisitions editors are looking for a minimum of errors and as close to print ready manuscripts for publication.

What does this mean for writers?

Writers will have to do much of what traditional publishers use to do. Writers will have to build a follow using social media, network marketing, blogging, creating video book trailers, and create a marketing plan at the minimum. Publishers will be requiring this and possibly even literary agents.

There are two ways for writers to accomplish this, DIY or outsourcing. Outsourcing is ideal if writers have the money. If a writer doesn’t have deep pockets, the only alternative is DIY.

Writers need a blog to garner interest in their book and build a following of interested potential purchasers. Writers will need a well-written proposal letter to get past the gatekeepers at traditional publishers, hence the growth of self-publishing and the bemoaning of the quality of self-published books..

There are many authors self-publishing that reading web sites and blogs lead to a backlash because of the quality of many books.

As a reviewer, I’ve seen this in many books for review. Writers need to find a professional editor for their work, and should never try to edit their own work. A professional editor looks at a piece of writing from a different perspective than he writer does from an objective point of view and distance from the work, while the writer is so close that they may miss simple errors.

Writers should make sure that their project is as print ready as possible before submitting it for publication. Writes also need to have marketing, PR, and promotion plans in place when submitting a manuscript to a traditional publisher.

Writers need to wear the hats of publicist, blogger, marketer, social media manager, book promoter, network marketer, web designer, retailer, bookkeeper, and shipper unless they have the capital to outsource these actions. To outsource this could run into thousands of dollars.

With work, writers can DIY. All it takes is some willingness to learn some simple techniques, writers don’t need to master these only have a good working knowledge of the techniques required.

Welcome to the fact that publishing has changed.

Freelance Writer/Blogger/Editor/Proofreader/Reviewer/Marketer

http://www.authorsden.com/robertmedak

http://rjmedak.wordpress.com

http://twitter.com/freelancewrtr