Category: Blogging

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Authors

by Maria

7 habits of highly successful authors to get published

But first, the stories worth reading this week:

A Former Book Publicist’s Advice to Traditionally Published Authors (Andrea Dunlop on JaneFriedman.com): “What’s true now is that you don’t have to so much as leave your couch to help your cause. Get your head around social media, web analytics, bloggers, all of it—there are a million resources out there to help you help yourself, and there’s no excuse for you not to be an integral part of your book’s promotion.”

Brews and Books: Beer and Book Pairing Recommendations (Aram Mrjoian for Book Riot): “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, books and beer are a perfect match. Trust me, if you need a legit fix for a lousy day at the office it’s the best medicine. Here are some new recommendations for pairing books and brews.”

The Biggest Marketing Mistake an Author Can Make (Amanda Luedeke, MacGregor Literary): “YOU HAVE ALREADY CREATED SOMETHING. You created your book. Now is the time to step out of the world of creation and into the world of relationships and networking. Get in front of the people who would typically read your book (and no, your author friends don’t count). Engage them. Befriend them. Let them know your book exists. THAT is marketing. And THAT will sell your book.”

Neil Gaiman Shares Writing Advice to Fans on Tumblr (Kristian Wilson on Bustle Books): If you’ve ever wondered how the pen behind Sandman and American Gods keeps writing, you’re going to want to pay attention.

Pinterest for Authors: A Beginner’s Guide (Kirsten Oliphant on JaneFriedman.com): “Finding the balance between actual writing and all the online promotion is a real struggle for writers. Lately I’ve heard many voices saying that writers need to be on Pinterest. With all the platforms to choose from, is Pinterest really an effective platform for writers?”

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Authors

This week I’m over on She’s Novel, a great writing website run by the lovely Kristen Kieffer. I first came across Kristen’s site through Pinterest (yes, Pinterest is chockfull of writers), and I loved that she had totally nailed her branding and built such a vibrant platform—as a fiction writer!

I know I promised everyone a post answering that big question—do fiction writers need platforms?—but I thought it would be much more interesting to have Kristen tell you herself why she found platform-building worth her time, even when it means less writing time.

So next week I’ll be sharing a conversation between Kristen and I, as well as some of her on-the-ground advice for balancing writing time and platform time.

Until then, let’s talk about the simple habits that any writer can start building now to lock-in their success later…

Remember that earmarked book from the 90s that was supposed to teach us how to be highly effective people? I think we need one for publishing. Raise your hand if you agree!

Everyone wants to be highly successful. And we all know who the highly successful authors are: they get all the sales, all the reviews, all the fame and fortune. But how did they get there, and how do they stay there? Is their success the perfect confluence of writing skill, platform savvy, and maybe some pure, dumb luck?

Yes and no.

Yes, there is an extraordinary amount of whacky, weird luck in the publishing world. (Lookin’ at you, adult coloring books.) But there are also some underlying principles—an operating system, really—that runs on autopilot for these successful authors. They know how to do the right things, because they’ve done them over and over and over again.

When I started out in the publishing world as an editor, I didn’t know a foreword from a preface. I had a full tank of enthusiasm and an empty skull, waiting to be stuffed to the brim with publishing wisdom. At the time, I was pretty sure I knew nothing about publishing.

And I was pretty right. But what I didn’t realize was that I did, actually, have a few things going for me. (Other than a knack for pestering the heck out of people until they would give me interesting work.) I had four things:

  • An obsession with following up and deadlines. (This from a brief stint as a paralegal at a law firm.)
  • A stubborn desire to be over-the-top nice so that every single person would like me. (This is not always a good thing, let me tell ya.)
  • An annoying amount of curiosity about how publishing worked. (I think I abused the “any questions?” prompt more than anyone can reasonably forgive me for.)
  • No other options.

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5 Must-Follow Authors Who Can Show You How to Market Authentically

by Maria

how to market a book authentically for authors

But first, the stories work reading this week:

Follow the Influencers: Social Media Stars 2016 (Alex Palmer for Publisher’s Weekly): “The books that succeed, editors and publishers say, are those that are approached as something more complex than a typical online post or promotional tool.”

How to Get Started as a Professional Speaker (Michael Hyatt): “Public speaking is a tremendous way to: discover what resonates and why, build your personal brand, promote your products, and monetize your content. Most important, it is one of the best ways I know to influence people: to expose them to new ideas, motivate them to take action, and creative transformational experiences.”

7 Simple Steps to Building the Structure of Your Nonfiction Book (Chad R. Allen): “A lot of people have some scattered ideas about what they’d like to write about, but they really don’t know how to take those jumbled thoughts and organize them into book form. … [This is] a proven way to take your untidy ideas and organize them into book form.”

Why Indie Authors Need a Business Hat (Helen Sedwick on The Book Designer): “Many writers who dive into self-publishing are surprised to discover they are running a business. They have questions about incorporation and business licenses. They wonder what to do about sales taxes. They fear hiring editors, designers, and other freelancers.”

5 Must-Follow Authors Who Can Show You How to Market Authentically

Two weeks ago I talked a lot about the psychology and emotion of marketing, and why so many authors struggle to do it in a way that doesn’t feel fake and sleazy. I also shared a 3-step process for how to learn what authentic and effective marketing really looks like. (Hint: If it feels icky to you, don’t do it!)

But when you think about it, marketing is all around us, and we can learn so much about it just by watching closely. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel–we just need to pinpoint the people who are doing it well and learn from them.

Think about the last nonessential purchase you made online, and why you made it. For me, it was a gorgeous art print from Jones Design Company for my gallery wall. The thought process behind that purchase was absurdly simple (as really most of my thought processes are, ha!).

It was something like: “I like her. I like that art print (or book, or course, etc.). I will now buy it.”

See? Those are the deep, insightful thoughts that happen up here. It is really hard to keep up with myself.

But if you look more closely at it, that thought process is actually the distillation of authentic marketing:

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Book Deal News: The Once Upon a Chef Cookbook by Jenn Segal

by Maria

jenn segal once upon a chef book proposal

Here it is, the first announcement day of 2016! This time congratulations are in order to Jenn Segal of Once Upon a Chef, who will be publishing a beautiful cookbook with Chronicle Books. Here’s the official deal listing from Publisher’s Marketplace:

publisher's lunch book deal jenn segal once upon a chef

I’m so excited about this book for two reasons (well, actually it’s more like two trillion reasons, but I’ll spare you the exhaustive list):

Reason #1.

Jenn is such a success story and a great inspiration for anyone who’s on the journey of building their platform. Jenn’s big dream was always to write a cookbook. After graduating from college, she went to culinary school at L’Academie de Cuisine and began working in the kitchens of fine dining restaurants like the L’Auberge Chez Francois. But, as she wrote in her proposal:

“Not only was I the only woman in a hot kitchen full of big, sweaty men, but I was also not at all right-sized for the massive equipment that surrounded us. At 5 foot, 2 inches, I had to get lifts on my shoes just to reach the plates. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to cook in a restaurant kitchen, just imagine trying to juggle multiple orders in your head and cooking on four different burners with food in the oven at the same time. Plus flames, sharp knives, hot pans, and an incessant stream of orders. It was terrifying!”

I love this story because it shows how not every food job is the right fit for everyone, no matter how passionate you are about food. I’m 5 foot, 2 inches, too, and I can tell you that the restaurant world is just NOT designed for the slight of stature. But you know where height doesn’t matter? In the writing and blogging world.

So when Jenn gave birth to her son and decided to stay home with him, she hung up her chef’s whites, picked up her apron, and went back to that cookbook dream. The problem was, she needed a platform.

And a platform she built. Over many years—one recipe and one blog post at a time—Jenn built a wonderful, engaged, and highly active community at Once Upon a Chef. She now has over 4 million page views, an email list of over 100,000, and a real connection to the people she’s helping. That right there—a close sense of knowing your readers and being dedicated to serving them—is the real purpose behind platform-building.

Lucky for us, Jenn has graciously agreed to share a few bits of advice about what it was like building the platform that got her the cookbook deal of her dreams:

What one thing worked best for you to grow your audience and increase traffic?

In the beginning, contributing to larger blogs, like HuffPost, Parade and Serious Eats, exposed me to a broader audience and drove lots of traffic to my site. (Reach out to the editors; sometimes it’s not as hard as you think to become a contributor). More recently, I moved away from the typical blog format/design and invested in a custom site redesign, which increased my numbers dramatically.

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Cacio e Pepe Recipe from Rose’s Luxury & HarperCollins on Why Emails Sell Books

by Maria

Cacio e Pepe Rose's Luxury Recipe 1

Are you ready for the simplest fancy recipe you’ve ever made?

Meet the Cacio e Pepe Pasta from Rose’s Luxury in DC.

In case you haven’t heard of Rose’s Luxury, it was named the best new restaurant in the country in 2014 by Bon Appétit. So I’d say it’s pretty darn good.

We went to Rose’s for the first time last December for my birthday and stood in line in the freezing cold for an hour, waiting for them to open. They don’t take reservations and had just made the best new restaurant list, so we were not the only fools twiddling our gloved thumbs on the sidewalk.

When we finally made it in in, we ordered just about everything, but as usual, my favorite thing was the simplest thing. It was this Cacio e Pepe Pasta.

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