RonVitale

How to Go Beyond the Book and Engage Readers with Your Author Brand

I would like to welcome guest blogger Dana Sitar to my blog. Dana is a freelance blogger and author of A Writer’s Bucket List: 99 things to do for inspiration, education, and experience before your writing kicks the bucket. In the following post, she's shared some great ideas for writers looking to engage readers in this ever-changing publishing world. Let's read on and I do hope you enjoy her post!

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Regardless of whether you’re a novelist or a non-fiction author, when you share a book with readers, it becomes much more than just a single book.

A book can be the central piece that represents your brand as an author.

Your book will catch readers’ attention much more quickly than you as an author will. To many readers, your book is who you are, how they identify you, why they pay attention to anything else you do. That’s okay -- just make sure the book represents you the way you want to be represented, and use the attention it gets to your advantage. For example, you might be able to easily get readers interested in a book titled 12 Quick and Easy Ways to Make Money Online. But if your brand is actually focused on writing and publishing fiction, that book will send the wrong message and attract the wrong readers. Write the book that appeals to the readers you want, and figure out how to draw those readers to it.

Rather than build a community of followers and try to sell them your book, build a community around your book.

You don’t have to wait until you write the book to do this! In fact, you shouldn’t wait. Once your book is in production, begin building your audience around it. You can do that blatantly -- for example, by sharing your process with readers, posting samples of the story, revealing the cover, etc. Or, you can do it subtly, by shaping your brand around the central idea of the book and drawing readers into that. Choose what works best for you, but in general, I recommend the blatant approach for fiction and the subtle, brand-based approach for non-fiction.

How to use your book as a catalyst to engage readers with your brand

1. Create action prompts based on the book. Whether your book is fiction or non-fiction, figure out what your readers love (or will love) about it, and take that beyond the book. Create activities, discussion, or games around it. For A Writer’s Bucket List, one thing readers say repeatedly is that they love how the book prompts them to try something new when they need motivation or inspiration. To that end, I created A Writer’s Bucket List Action Team, a writers group where we discuss the tasks in the book, and members get an action step every week to work toward crossing items off the list. We’ve also got a monthly Twitter chat to discuss various aspects of the writing life.

2. Engage readers with your main characters and themes through social media. If your book is fiction, you can pull out non-fiction themes to guide discussion groups and activities. Or you can engage readers with the main characters through social media! Make them speak through your Twitter feed and Facebook page, and create related boards on Pinterest for readers to get to know them. For non-fiction, ask questions to get readers talking about the information and issues in the book. For example, I draw on the “forge your own path” theme in A Writer’s Bucket List to engage readers on Facebook and Twitter with questions like, “What’s the biggest barrier you face to following your writing dreams?”

3. Make your book the central theme of your blog. Through your author blog, share your process, your successes, lessons learned, and updates on the publishing and writing process. You can also share excerpts from your work-in-progress to tease readers with your upcoming book. Or, like I’m preparing to do with A Writer’s Bucket List, launch a blog on the theme of your non-fiction book. Use blog posts and conversation with readers to expand on the ideas introduced in your book.

4. Go beyond the book; build a brand. Few authors make their living as authors. The income from books, even when it’s steady, is usually too low. If you want to make money as a career author, you’ll probably have to find other ways to expand on the themes in your book. You can be hired by others as a speaker, teacher, or consultant. You can build a business around your book by creating webinars (or old-fashioned live seminars and workshops) and courses on the topic, or selling related products like workbooks. If you’re a fiction author, your focus may be on helping others write fiction -- offer your services as a publishing coach, teach writing classes and workshops, etc. Or, maybe you can build a brand around the real-life issues in your book -- like one of my favorites, Jody Lamb, has done with her YA novel Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool and the issue of alcoholism in the family.

Use your book to launch your career as an author.

Some writers will spend their whole lives perfecting just one book, writing, polishing, and publishing it, and praying it succeeds. That’s a lot of pressure on a book! Think of your book as an important piece in your brand, rather than the be-all and end-all of your writing dreams, and you can launch a rich writing career that does far more than offer just a bit of entertainment or information for a few readers.  

About the Author

Dana Sitar is a freelance blogger and author of A Writer’s Bucket List: 99 things to do for inspiration, education, and experience before your writing kicks the bucket. Buy the book for Kindle this week, and get a bonus bundle of 6 free ebooks for writers!

5 Tips for Better Networking

I attended Social Media Marketing World this week and learned some great tips on how to network better, engage readers and achieve success in your career. If I could sum up all that I've learned into one nice tidbit, I'd say that how the world sees you is critical to your achieving your goals. Often we tend to look into ourselves and focus on that, projecting out our hopes and dreams.

But here are five great tips on how to look outside ourselves and to network better:

1. Ask people: How Can I Help You?

Try to figure out how best to help people. Larry Benet is a master at networking. When networking with people, instead of focusing on what they can do for you, ask them how you can help them. Listen. Truly listen to what people share with you and if you can't help them today, you never know when they might be able to help you in the future. By focusing on listening and being receptive, you'll make a bigger impact on that person and set a strong foundation to your relationship.

2. Relationships are Key.

When networking, be sure to show people how you can be valuable to them. Give to people, share with people and build up your connection currency. Often people go up to people they don't know and drop a huge ask on them: Can you review my book? Can you help me get published? Instead, share an article with fellow writers, put one writer in touch with a cover artist that they were looking for and look for opportunities to help connect and help people. Sounds simple, and it is, but in the long run it'll make a difference because you will have earned people's trust and they'll want to help you in return.

3. Know the Right Questions to Ask

If you only have a few seconds with someone, focus on an emotional connection with someone. Larry Benet gave some great tips and had the entire session stand up and practice. Have these simple questions in your back pocket to help you in networking. All you have to do is to ask these questions, listen and then return in kind:

• What are you passionate about?
• What accomplishment are you most proud of?
• What is at the top of your bucket list?

These questions are easy to remember and a great way to break the ice with someone you haven't met before. Find any commonality between you and the other person and listen, truly listen, to her answers.

4. Follow Up Afterward

Once you've made a connection with someone, reach out to her and send her a note or a tweet to stay in touch. This is a great opportunity to share an article and to show that you were listening during your time together. What's important here is that you focus on remembering what you learned from that person and reach back out to help them. That's critical because networking isn't simply about clicking a "follow" button or adding someone to your LinkedIn account, but to make a real difference in that person's life by remembering their answer to the question: How can I help you? 

5. Tie It All Together

Larry Benet gave some great examples in his talk. He mentioned that he had been involved in the taping of "We Are the World 2" and later had an opportunity to meet President Clinton. When he did so, he asked the former president if he would like to play saxophone on the recording and in mere seconds he had received President Clinton's personal contact information. He was able to leverage the networking experience he had in being involved with the taping of the song with a few seconds he had with President Clinton.

Now our daily networking might never have us in such circles of power, but we could have daily opportunities to help people in ways we might not have thought of and that's a key point. Networking isn't about collecting people's business cards, but in getting to know people, listening and trying to help them. In return, you'll be able to share your story and what you needing help with and be helped in the future.

Networking can be intimidating for those introverted like myself, but practice, practice and more practice will make you better at it. And fear not: With today's social media platforms, it's even easier than ever to help people. Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn are fantastic tools to allow us to not only network but really help people. So gives these few tips a try and you'll see how easy it is to really make a difference and bring true value to people.

 

A Cautionary Tale: Write Away

I read Why Jessica Lawlor Gave Up Her Dream of Writing a Novel (For Now) and wanted to share a different perspective. I have reached the mid-career point and thought I would share my experiences as a counterpoint to Jessica's excellent article. When I finished school back in 1996, I had dreams of being a novelist and then the reality of my school loans hit home. I made a conscious choice, very much like Jessica's, to put my novel writing on hold. Many years passed until I decided to write and actually publish my books.

Define Your Goal and Work Hard

Early in my career, I realized that I needed to make a decision. The reality of life had set in. I wanted to write novels, but needed money to pay my bills. Choosing to put fiction writing on hold, I worked full-time and opted to write freelance articles on the side. In my best year, I brought home $1,900 in writing and then needed to reassess my goals. I still had not made time to write a book and I saw many of the markets that I sold my freelance articles to go out of business.

I again decided to focus on my full-time job and dropped writing. Yes, I wrote blogs and the occasional article, but my fiction writing languished. I had neglected to set a goal for myself and stick to it.

Be Honest with Yourself

When I look back at my early 20s, I now know how unprepared I was for the challenges in life. I skirted around the big question that I believe is essential for every writer to ask him/herself:

Why do I want to write a book?

If the answer is to be famous and make lots of money, I would advise you to give up now and save yourself the heartache. Yes, some writers make it big and find success, but for every Amanda Hocking there are thousands of people who are unknown.

We can all dream of making it big, but that could take years and there are hard decisions to make:

• Do you wish to have a family?
• What is your financial risk tolerance?

They are all difficult questions that only the individual writer can answer. I chose to have a family and opted for stable income. For me, that meant that my day job would be my main career and that writing would be secondary.

Never Give Up the Dream

Once I made the decision to work full-time and focus on my career, years passed and I came up against the big 40th birthday. I realized that my life could be more than half over and I had not seriously begun to write. I had taken the safe route and worked really hard on everything in my life except writing the books that were in me.

I realized that now had to be the time. The secret to writing a novel is that no matter if you're single or married with children there will never be enough time to write. It took me more than a decade to figure that out. And that's my cautionary tale: I wish I would have thrown caution to the wind and started working on my books when I was younger so that I could focus on my craft as a fiction writer. I found it extremely difficult to adjust from writing freelance articles to planning and writing an 85,000 plus manuscript. The skillset is different and the challenges and need for persevrance are worlds apart.

Change Starts Today

One day I woke up and made a promise to myself. I would write my next book. It didn't hurt that I had an idea that just wanted to burst out of me. Lost: Cinderella's Secet Diary took me 18 months to write and publish whereas the sequel took me 12 months. Practice, dedication and failure helped fuel me. Now when I ask myself: Why do I want to write a novel? I know the answer. I simply must because I have stories that I want to share with readers.

I regret that I didn't forcus more on novel writing during the lost years, but I'm making up for lost time. I have less free time now than I did then, but priorities have changed. And that's made all the difference to me. My advice to people who want to write a novel is to embrace it now. With the industry changing so dramatically, not only will you need to hone your writing skills, but you'll also need to learn the business of writing and that takes years.

My Word Is My Bond

There's a lot of talk about branding being important for writers. But what does this exactly mean? With the publishing world all in a tizzy these days, indie authors struggling to be noticed, and free books flooding the market, what's a new author to do? The answer is easier than you think: Write well. But the execution around that and promotion of your writing is extremely difficult.

Brand = Who Are You?

I've been struggling with this question for many years now. If you were to look me up online, you would see that I'm not only a young adult novelist who also likes Magic: The Gathering and ran a podcast for more than five years, but I'm also the father of two who is a long distance runner and works at a major east coast University as their Director of Electronic Communications. That's a mouthful. Over the years, I've struggled along the way, trying to learn how much to share of my private life and how much to share with the public.

When I look at my life, I think back to what my counselor told me when I was in my early 20s:

"What you do will change over time, but who you are will remain constant."

And, for me, branding is simply that: Who I am. For a long time, I've been hiding behind a virtual shell of myself, hoping that my books would simply speak for me and that their themes would find an audience, but I now know that in order to find more readers there is more to it than that.

The struggle is that it's hard enough to make time to write well when you work full time and are raising a family, but then there's my fear of reaching out and connecting with people online. If I could boil down to a succinct paragraph who I am, I would say:

I fight for the underdog and believe in working hard for what's good in the world. I advocate for women, being forever blessed that women (my mother and grandmother) taught me to be the man I am. I listen and want to connect with people on an intimate level about what it means to be alive and to find one's true self. I allowed my father's abandoning me when I was young to hold me back for a long, long time from being someone who is not afraid to shine. I write about the struggles of young women, learning to find their way (yet make mistakes), but pick themselves up and find that being complete is not in someone else, but in loving themselves. I am true, passionate, honest and forthright--sometimes to a fault. I am me.

My one line summation is:

I write for those who have felt lost, abandoned and unloved to share with my readers that there is always hope.

That is my brand.

I believe it's essential to find out who we are and to be true to that online and off. I'm not playing a part. I'm living and sharing that with the world and my readers. This balance is not easy, but I believe in my art. I do not get up so early in the morning to write so that my books can live in obscurity, or worse, in a drawer where no one would ever see. I have chosen to break out of my cocoon and fly. Yes, that will mean that I will fail sometimes and my work will be called horrible names by some, but that's okay.

Finding Your Niche

Once you find your brand, you need to interact with people--everywhere. In all the circles I travel, I have a chance to meet new people and to help them, listen and make new connections. In my recent past, I often hid and was more of an introvert, but slowly (very, very slowly) I have come out of my shell. What I've learned is that, I have the ability to talk and connect with an audience. The challenge is finding the right group to connect with and share with them.

I've stumbled across a small readership for my books, but I need to keep working on finding more people to talk with and connect. Social media is the key. Twitter is simply one of the most amazing tools I have stumbled across. If you're not on Twitter and really using it, then why not?

To find that niche, simply search for hashtags that similarly minded people are using and join the conversation. Again, it's that easy, but hard to execute because of the time commitment. Some writers believe that you can just write books and they'll magically be found by the all-mighty mystical algorithm oiling Amazon's engine and you'll hit the jackpot. I've heard from enough writers like me who aren't having that success. Other writers believe that there needs to be a balance between writing and engaging people on social media. I fall into that camp. Without engaging people online, I would not have met some of my biggest fans or learned how to successfully convert my novels into eBook formats (thank you Guido Henkel).

Coming out of my shell and meeting people and really being me has not been easy, but it's opened many doors for me.

Learn How to Ask

I listen to podcasts, read blogs, books and anything I can get my hand on, but it's the magical serendipity of discovery that I stumble upon on social media that I love so much. Recently, I saw a post by Ksenia Anske on Facebook that moved me: She had posted a TED talk link to Amanda Palmer talking about "The Art of Asking."

I watched the short talk and could really identify with it. I'm a writer and cringe each time I have to sell myself to the world. I always thought that I would write a book and it would just sell. But that doesn't happen. It's a lot of hard work to get your name out there and be discovered. And how do you ask for people to support you?

Tweet: "Looking for a good book? Try my latest release 'a, b, c'."

Does that work? No, it doesn't.

Palmer's TED talk gets to the heart of my problem: I'm ashamed to ask for money for my book. I'm afraid that if you read my Cinderella's Secret Diaries series that you might not like it and want your money back. I've been afraid to stand out and say: "I am a writer." Instead I've been hiding behind my day job and I "write on the side."

I think that many of us feel this shame about asking for money for our works and that it's related to our fears that people just won't like our books. We send ineffective tweets, press releases and blog posts out into the ether and then wash our hands and say: "Phew, I did the marketing thing and now I'm done." But we're not really selling ourselves the way we should. The connection part is missing. And that's what Palmer hits a homerun on. It's about making a connection with our audience (no matter how small) and being true to who we are. That will not sell books because we're begging, but we're finding people who truly like our work.

Finding Success

Writing + Being Ourselves + Connecting with Like-Minded People = Success.

Amanda Palmer's TED talk might be an extreme example of opening up and putting ourselves out there, but it's a symbol of sorts: Granted, I doubt any of us would have the courage to strip down and be naked in front of our fans and ask them to graffiti on us, but isn't that what we're doing when we write? I know that's what I do. I bare the darkest and innermost parts of my soul to the reader and they get to see how screwed up and scary I sometimes see the world, but then rise up and struggle to be better.

As a writer, I would ask you:

• Why do you write?
• What are the themes that you write about?
• Who are the people like you?

If you can answer these three questions truthfully, write and then work your ass off, then you'll find success. Will that be enough to pay the bills? It all depends. Making lots of money writing fiction isn't so easy. If you expect to get rich, maybe writing isn't for you, but some will make enough money to pay a mortgage. Your mileage will vary, but one thing is true: You'll know your brand and will have done your best to create amazing works of art. You'll never know until you try.