Category: Writing and Publishing MM Romances

I know I have mentioned the term relational marketing before, because it’s at the very core of what I do. A crucial element of that approach is the tone of every message to readers, in whatever form: a conversational tone. Today for Writer Wednesday, I want to talk a bit more about mastering a conversational tone, because I think it’s super important…and easy to get wrong. Continue reading “Mastering a Conversational Tone in Marketing”

I just returned from a conference in Vegas for self-published authors, and it was a wonderful experience. Three days of full-time lectures was absolutely intensive, but I learned tons.

There were various speakers, all with expert knowledge in several areas pertaining to indie publishing, like running ads, cover design, the business aspect of being a self published author, and more. Not all of these lectures were equally interesting to me, and as usual, there were definitely some weaker ones, but the overall experience was a positive one. I mean, I have about twenty-five pages of notes, so that says enough. Continue reading “How to Realize Real Growth as an Author”

The writing business has a steep learning curve, especially for newbie self published authors. There’s so much to learn, both in terms of writing as in the publishing, marketing, and business side. A lot of is is stuff that’s relatively easy to find on Google, but you have to know to look for it in the first place (trust me, I’m still learning a lot with every single release…). Continue reading “Your X-Factor: The Biggest Challenge for Authors”

In school, many of us have learned about logic in a more or less formal way. We learn how to build an argument or how to defend a position, using  logical steps, methods like inductive or deductive reasoning. It’s how we were taught to write our essays and papers. My son recently had to write an essay about why he wanted to be a safety patrol in his school, and his teacher complimented him on his structured five-point approach.

In writing stories, this kind of reasoning isn’t really helpful. That doesn’t mean we can abandon all logic, however. In stories and fiction books, we need a different kind of logic. We need causal logic. Continue reading “Writing With Causal Logic”

We’re continuing our series about author websites. So far, we’ve looked at why you need an author website, how to set it up, and essential elements. In that last post, we already covered some of what to post on your author website, but I wanted to address that in more detail. Out of all the essential elements we covered in that post, we’ll focus on the content aka news part today. For new authors especially it can be tricky to come up with something to share. Continue reading “What To Post On Your Author Website”

In the last two weeks, we’ve talked about author websites. In the first post, we discussed why having an author website is crucial and last week, I shared some tips for how to set up your site using WordPress. Today, I want to look at the essential elements of an author website.

Before I share my list, I want to impress this crucial thought upon you all: always remember who your website is for. That would be readers, in case you forgot. Your website is not primarily for other authors (though they certainly can be readers as well), or for publishers, or for anyone else, but for your readers. Always keep that in mind in what you write, share, and post. Continue reading “Essential Elements of an Author Website”

Okay, now that we’ve established the need for an author website, the question is how to go along with creating one. This sounds a lot harder than it is in reality, but I agree that if you have little or no experience with building a website, the whole process can seem daunting. So, we are going to take it step-by-step to make sure you got this part. Continue reading “How To Set Up Your Author Website”

The next few weeks for Writer Wednesday, we are going to talk about author websites as part of building an author platform. We’ll be covering a lot of practical details on how to create an attractive and effective author website, but before we get into the question of how to build an author website, let’s first discuss if you need one and why.

While for some authors building an author website is the most logical thing in the world, others wonder why they should bother. With all the social media they’re active on, why would anyone visit their author website? Especially if you are not blogging regularly, what’s the point of even having a website? These are all good questions that deserve a careful consideration. Continue reading “Why You Need an Author Website”

In the first post, we covered what a Facebook reader group is exactly and what the underlying marketing principle should be. For this Writer Wednesday topics post, we’re gonna go a little more into the practical details.  Continue reading “Building a FB Reader Group (2)”

This week and next week, I want to talk about building a reader group on Facebook. But before we go into that, I need to reiterate something I said when I started this series on Writer Wednesday topics. I write this series specifically for authors in the gay romance genre. Continue reading “Building a Reader Group on Facebook (1)”