Platforms, What They Are and Why You Need One By Denice Whitmore

New authors often hear that they need a platform in order to sell their book. This is often a new concept. What is a platform? Your platform is how you present your expertise on the topic you write about. Say you write a book on budgeting. Do you have a degree in finance? Are you sharing how you overcame your budgeting mishaps and now live a debt free, frugal life? What in your experience makes you qualified to give advice on this topic?

A platform is not just your experience in a field; it’s how you present your expertise to the public. Do you have a website with thousands of followers? Do you write a weekly blog? Do you have a YouTube channel with videos? How much social media do you do in relation to your chosen topic? All these things get your name out there and lend to your experience. They give people a reason to listen to your advice. When you have established your online presence as an expert in your field, you have built a readymade audience for the book you want to write. If people already follow your blog, follow your tweets, join your Facebook group, they will be excited to buy your book.

This works for fiction as well as non-fiction. On July 15, 2018 NewLink Publishing released Ghost of a Chance: a SEEK Team Investigation, By Sharon Day. This book is about a team of ghost hunters led by a psychic. Sharon has a website dedicated to ghost hunting, Bigfoot searches, and all things paranormal. She writes a blog, has self-published books in the past, and we are excited to release her first traditionally published book. She has built a ready-made audience for her new book release. She has put a lot of time and effort into building her platform and it is paying off. Check out her website at www.ghosthuntingtheories.com.

So, before you think about writing a book, think about getting your name out there. This pre-marketing strategy could even help your book get picked up by a reputable publisher. Give it some thought. Build your platform and get your name out there. It will pay off in the long run.

Keep writing!

Three Ways to Raise Your Novels Ability to Entertain by Janelle Evans

Writing a book is hard. Writing a book someone else would actually enjoy reading is even harder. Trust me, my love of reading has led me to many a stinker. Some of those were supposed to be New York Best-Selling, so not even well-known authors are immune to bad story telling. In hopes to improve writers everywhere, here are three things that keep a reader captive.

1.      Don’t start your story with giving the readers a ton of backstory. It’s a mistake that will have readers closing a book faster than anything else. Yes, all characters have a backstory, but SO WHAT! People in real life have backstories, too. People don’t generally go around wanting to here another person’s history without spending some time with them first. So, give your reader a character in an opening scenario that grabs their interest.

2.      Keep your sentences tight. This goes way beyond the passive verbs “was” or “to be.” Crazy long sentences with flowery descriptions or lists drags the pace of any story. Stick to the point, and as I’ve said a thousand times, build the world around your character as you go. Not every inch of a place has to be described, only the parts pertinent to the story.

3.      Don’t make your reader wonder who is speaking. Snappy dialogue can go a long way in keeping a reader interested. But if they have to reread sections twice just to figure out who’s speaking, you will lose them.

Remember, your goal is to achieve a seamless effect, where your story is so easy to read and understand, it’s as if the words on the page disappear. Great writers aren’t searching for praise on their word choices and sentence structures. An author’s ability to write is self-evident by the enjoyment others get by reading their work. 

Promotional Memes by Janelle Evans

My latest novel, Stuffed Souls, released a month ago. While this is my fourth published novel, the anticipation for it to launch was just as nerve-racking as the first three. Every author wants their work to be well-received. A cover that strikes a desire in the hearts of millions to buy your book immediately wouldn’t be too bad either. But a successful promotion doesn’t end with the book release—nor is it really the beginning.

I spent hours preparing promotional memes before the release date. Now those memes have to be trickled into the many forms of Social Medias and other ad campaigns to get the word out there. Remember, there is a sea of new books being launched every day. As authors we need to do all we can to get ours noticed. You worked too hard to just let it sink to the bottom. The more you prepare and research your advertising options ahead of a launch can greatly affect how well your book will sale. So remember…

The Importance of Understanding Your Audience by Janelle Evans

As an author, understanding your audience is paramount, at least, if you want to sell books. That may seem callused and calculating to what really is a creative process, but you’re not spending all these hours clicking away on a computer for mere self-fulfillment. It’s for others to read and enjoy. So today I will be talking about three audience factors I always consider while writing novels.

First: the age group of my target audience. I write for young adults so I don’t fill my novels with uncommon word choices. Let me write that statement using different words to illustrate. I compose for young adults so I don’t dominate my narratives with infrequently used terms. The sentence means the same thing as the first statement but let’s face it, it’s harder to read, especially for my target age group of 12-18. If you write for an older audience go ahead and elevate the vernacular, but I like to caution all writers of fiction. If your audience has to keep pulling out a dictionary to understand you, they will stop reading. Your goal when writing fiction isn’t to show your audience how smart you are. Entertain them and I promise they will come back for more.

Second: the age of the protagonist in the story. It is best if the main hero/heroine of you story is close in age to your target audience. Other sub-characters can be older or younger as needed, but if the character is going to be a love interest, they should also be close in age. Yes, in society we see age gaps between couples, but it is not as common as it used to be. For example the Victorian age of Jane Austen’s novel Emma. In the story, Emma is sixteen and her eventual love interest is thirty-two-year-old Mr. Knightly. Yeah…that’s probably not going to work in today’s society. You don’t want an ew factor to happen with your audience and your character’s budding relationship.

Third: the all-important ending. Since I write for young adults my goal is to give them satisfying happy endings. It’s what this age group expects and likes the most. Now if you’re a writer that despises happy endings, young adult fiction probably isn’t for you, but again I would caution you in whatever you write. All endings should satisfy your audience. That doesn’t mean it has to end happy, but there should be clear resolve to the conflicts in the story. If it is a series, not all conflicts have to be resolved, but give your reader something uplifting to cling to before you make them wait for that next novel to be released.

Like and As by Richard Draude

Which of these sentences are correct?

1. Winston tastes good like a cigarette should. (This is a famous ad jingle?)
2. He spends money like a drunken sailor.
3. He lied on the witness stand, like one would expect a guilty person to do.
4. My cousin looks like Greta Garbo.
5. Robert likes to run his company as though he were a dictator.

Only sentences 3, 4 and 5 correctly employ the word "like."

Remember these two rules when considering the use of "like":
Rule 1: "Like" can be either a verb or a preposition but not a conjunction. Thus, we should not use
it before a subject-verb combination (a clause).

In sentences 1, 2, and 3, we should use the conjunction "as" or "as if" in place of the word "like"
because in each case "like" is followed by a clause. In these corrected sentences, we have
bracketed the clauses and capitalized the subjects and verbs to highlight the grammatical
structure:

1. Winston tastes good [as a CIGARETTE SHOULD].
3. He lied on the witness stand, [as ONE WOULD EXPECT a guilty person to do].

Rule 2: We should use "like" either as a preposition to demonstrate a resemblance between two
things or as a verb to express a preference.

In sentence 2 the comparison of spending money. In Sentence 4, "like Greta Garbo" is a
prepositional phrase. In sentence 5, "like" is the verb in the main clause, and "as though" is the
conjunction launching the subordinate (dependent) clause.

Of course, in casual correspondence or in conversations we have more flexibility. In many
idiomatic expressions using "like" are perfectly acceptable even though they do not follow these
rules. Consider also the expression "It looks like rain," which employs a perfectly acceptable
idiom for the highly formal statement "It looks as though it is going to rain."

The bottom line: in formal contexts, we use "like" only as a verb or a preposition and never when
we mean "as," "as if," or "as though."

Do any of these sentences correctly use the word "like"?

1. Like a man walking a tightrope, he teetered on the brink of financial ruin.
2. It looks like Arthur could become the next unit director.
3. He acts like he owns the world.
4. He carried an umbrella, like everyone should do on a rainy morning.

ANSWERS:

1. Like a man walking a tightrope, he teetered on the brink of financial ruin. [Correct because we
are making a comparison.]
2. It looks as though [or as if] Arthur will become the next unit director.
3. He acts as if [or as though] he owns the world.
4. He carried an umbrella, as everyone should do on a rainy morning.

Blogging—Another Way to Promote by Denice Whitmore

Ah…blogging. We’re told as authors it’s a great way to stay connected to our fans, but it can still be overwhelming to many writers—adding one more thing to the endless promoting we’re supposed to do once we are published. I know. I’m right there with you. Here are some tips to help ease the blogger’s plight.

1.         As an author you should already know your audience. This is also key when blogging. If your novels aren’t written for the politically savvy, keep politics out of your posts. If you write for young adults, the adult-ish struggles of your life may not interest them. Yes, as the author of your blog, it’s going to be your opinion you are expressing. But—and this is a big but—be careful what you write. The written word is a powerful thing. It can draw people in or it can cause them to reject you completely, which gives me the perfect segue into my second tip.
2.        Do all you can to keep your posts positive. Negative words seldom ever bring positive results.Unless you are the author of some polarizing subject with many followers, leave the bashing of persons, places, or things out of your posts.
3.        Keep your posts short. It’s a blog not another novel. Simple and snappy posts are most effective. People are busy, be considerate of that and they’ll be more inclined to click again when your next post pops up. I try to keep mine to no more than 300 words.
4.        You don’t have to blog every day. I only blog once a week, but that post happens at the same time and same day every week. The number of times you blog in a month is up to you, but be consistent. It shows you care about your fans and take your work seriously.
5.      My final tip—have fun with blogging. This is a great opportunity for your audience to get to know you. Blogging about my hilarious screw-ups in life have been some of my most responded to posts. So let’s get out there and blog our way into recognition. 

Social Media by Janelle Evans

Social media is one of the ways we as writers can spread the word about our past and upcoming books. Ranging from free to a fairly inexpensive way to promote your work, every author should strive to be savvier in this area of promotion. 

One way to strengthen your social media presence is create memes with images of your work. Here are a couple of examples I have made to promote my own.

I use canva.com to create all my advertising artwork—from posters to memes. It’s user friendly with tons of layouts and text settings. Not everything is free at this site, but since they allow me to download my own images and create my own layouts, everything I do from this site is free for me. How is that possible?

• Tip #1: Use a google or Bing.comsearch to find pictures for your background. If they don’t have a watermark covering them, you don’t have to pay royalties to copy and download them to Canva. The rose picture you see I found by typing (winter, rose). The other picture I found by typing (rippling water). Yes, it’s time consuming to go through pictures. I set aside a few hours every Saturday just typing in random words and seeing what pictures pop up. Anything that jumps out at me I save to Canva, even if I don’t know what I’ll use it for at the moment.
• Tip #2: You want to look for wallpaper sized pictures. They don’t tend to pixelate, or get burry, when you try to enlarge them as often as other pictures do. I usually use the word wallpaper in my search also just to help weed out some of the thousands of free pictures out there.
• Tip #3: There is an option on canva.com to make the picture you create as a link to other webpages. Don’t use it. Social Media sites don’t support it. When you upload these memes, write those links in the subject bars instead. Then your customers will have a working link they can click on to buy your book after being amazed by your eye-catching artwork.

The last thing I would like to mention about promotion is that it is time consuming. So, I also use a web platform that helps me look like I spend more time on social media than I actually do. Hootsuite.com enables me to schedule posts and comments across all of my social media accounts. From this website I can view comments and drip in posts, up to 30 per month. If you want unlimited accesses for scheduling it will cost you a yearly fee, but so far I have found 30 schedule posts per month to be more than enough.