Category: Business

Read, Eat, Drink–Link Roundup, a Mint Julep Video, and Not Derby Pie Bars

by Maria

Read:

How to find a literary agent

Guys, there are so many good things to read this week. I feel like I’m drowning in content, in a good way. As Jarrett would say “MOAR CONTENT!!” (And now he’s the happiest person in the world because an MGOblog joke finally made it on to here. Sigh.)

Here’s a roundup of everything worth reading on the interwebs this week:

  • How To Find a Literary Agent for Your Book (Jane Friedman): One of the most accurate and comprehensive guides to finding a Literary Agent that I’ve seen.
  • 6 Actionable Social Media Strategies from Successful Brands (Liz Dennison at Buffer): “Being great on social media isn’t always intuitive. Sometimes the best way to learn is to get inspired by what others are doing.”
  • What To Do When You Absolutely, Positively Must Know If Your Content Will Rock (Brian Clark at Copyblogger): “The audience decides what’s worthy across the board — in film, music, books, and any other form of content that’s produced by the imagination of a determined individual or group. It’s always been this way, but now the relationship is direct thanks to the Internet.”
  • How I Used Twitter to Find a Literary Agent, Grow My Business, and Fall in Love (Alexis Grant on The Book Designer): It’s true–Twitter is awesome, especially for fiction writers. But here’s why Twitter might not be right for all authors.
  • Build a Killer Conversation Strategy With Nothing But Time and Empathy (Brad Tiller at Unbounce): A good reminder that at the end of the day, building your platform is really about helping others.
  • The Story Grid Book is Here. (Shawn Coyne): I started reading this book last night and am deep obsessed already. An essential read for the writer who wants to figure out why their story isn’t working and how to fix it.
  • Sweet House Alabama premiering on HGTV on Sunday at 2 EST! (Shaunna West of Perfectly Imperfect): I was Shaunna’s editor for her book, The $50 Home Makeover, and so I’m thrilled to see that she now has her own show on HGTV! Watch the ridiculously adorable trailer here.

Drink & Eat:

Garden and Gun Mint Julep

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Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Pinterest vs. Instagram: What’s Right for Authors?

by Maria

best social media for authors

There is a grand battle royale going down between social media networks, and writers and bloggers are caught in the middle of it. The boundaries are constantly shifting, the pros and cons of each platform are always changing, and no one ever seems to be able to decide where in the heck they should be.

So, which social media networks should you be on? Where can you get the best bang for your social media buck?  I get this question all the time, and like the Twitter-specific question from last week, the answer is complicated. Because really, choosing a network depends on what kind of writer or blogger you are and what areas of your author platform you need to bolster.

The one thing that applies to everyone? You can’t (and shouldn’t) build your numbers on all of them. You will drive yourself straight loony-tunes if you try to keep up with all of them, and your social media campaign will be less effective if it’s not focused. It’s worth it to find your social media soulmate–that one platform that will not only grow your platform but also be actually enjoyable!

Ready to choose? Here are the candidates:

  • Facebook: The big kahuna. I’m still of the belief that every single writer should have a professional Facebook page, and this is for one simple reason: sheer numbers. Facebook has 1.35 billion monthly active users. The other networks lag far behind—Instagram has an estimated 300 million users, Twitter has an estimated 288 million users, and Pinterest has about 70 million users. Facebook is still where everyone and their grandma is, and even though it’s been changing its algorithm to limit the reach of posts (more on the changes to Facebook’s algorithm and what it means for authors here), it’s still the best place to reach the most people. Facebook also allows you to integrate all mediums–text with no character limits, images, videos, GIFS, etc–so it can work for you no matter what your strengths are. I consider a professional Facebook page to be one of the foundational elements of building a platform.

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What Does It Mean to Have an Engaged Audience, and Why Does It Matter?

by Maria

 

how to make readers more engaged

Engagement. It’s a buzz word in both blogging and publishing, but what does it actually mean? Is it the next “synergy”–my favorite marketingspeak word that I love to hate?

As I wrote about here, a lot of my process of sorting through potential clients involves looking at hard numbers—traffic stats, social media followers, subscribers, etc. But in reality, what I’m looking for underneath all of that is simply engagement. Does the potential author have a highly engaged audience? Do they already have a large group of fans who would fork over their hard-earned cash for a book?

This could be an audience of millions, in which 10% of the people are engaged enough to make a purchase, or it could be an audience of 50,000, where every last person would gladly exchange $21.95 for your book. The size of the total audience matters to a certain extent, but when it comes down to it, it’s really the conversion rate that means the difference between a bestseller and a flop. (I wrote more about the “stickiness” factor of engagement and conversion rates here.)

Conversion rate can sound like more empty marketingspeak (one of my writing pet peeves!), but it’s really a simple concept that boils down to this: how close are you to your audience? Think of this closeness like you’d think of your real-life social circles, where you have varying levels of familiarity with everyone from your spouse to your mailman. Here’s what that usually looks like:

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The Most Important Paragraph of a Query Letter

by Maria

Desktop-and-flowers

Query letters are not fun for anyone. Writers hate writing them, and agents are so inundated with them that it can be hard to churn through the onslaught, day in and day out. But as with most painful things in life, they are necessary and unavoidable. A query letter is still the best way to concisely tell agents who you are and why your book is exciting.

Everyone has a different system for reviewing and processing queries—some agents automatically route them to a query inbox and review them en masse, while others only review projects that have made it past the first barrier of assistants.

My method is probably a little weird. I have all queries sent to my main inbox, and I try to review and file every last one of them by the end of the day. This works for me for two reasons: 1. I am a little OCD about keeping my inbox manageable and filing things correctly; and 2. It means I never have a fantastic project languishing in a rarely-checked inbox for months.

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