A writer's journey...

We've all heard of the term "branding", but what does it really mean to an author? The simple answer--everything.  As authors, we need to know our target audience. For example, we all know that those who love the horror genre are not likely to pick up a romance novel.  Utilizing this mentality, if we wrote horror novels, we wouldn't make our website in a floral-themed motif anymore than we'd have dripping blood and guns on a site geared to a romance audience. How can we use this to help market our books?  When I was at the Bouchercon writer's conference one of the panels discussed branding our image.  This "image" involves all aspects from ourselves as a person, author, as well as branding each specific book. For branding to be effective it has to encompass every part of marketing--whether it be social media, or in person. First the easier aspects.  Your website and your blog.  Take a long, honest, and objective analysis of them. Do they...

When we pick up a good book, we escape into it. Our own world, our problems, our stresses fade to the background. Our concerns transfer to the character, what they undergoing and how they will overcome their situation. Very rarely do we even consider the author who created these people, or how their life experience factored into what we are reading. Then there are others of us who want to know about the person behind the book. For some a picture and a brief biography will suffice, but others want to know their favorite author more intimately. At great expense, they follow them to book signings, and/or writer’s conventions. Do these authors let it go their head? I found in my experience at Bouchercon that even among some of the larger names out there, they were very sweet and down to earth people. They were willing to let others into their life whether it be by sharing their experience, or telling us what they typically do on a Sunday morning. I found this level of intimacy, or...

Isn’t it true as soon as that first book goes out, as authors we’re immersed in a new world? Not only are we excited that our work is out there for people to read, but we quickly realize it takes time and effort for it to be noticed. I know when I first published I had no idea what was entailed. All those hours I used to spend writing and plotting had been encroached upon by other necessities. After all, I didn’t spend all the years polishing my manuscript not to have people read it. Yes, I had an idea of what I was getting into, and it had actually factored into my choosing the self-published route. I realize it’s harder for first time authors to get the large publishing contracts, and there is very little, if any, money spent on their promotion. In my eyes, and from my research, it seemed I would be left to do all the promotional labor on the side anyhow. So I reasoned, why I would give them a cut of my earnings? I mean if I was doing all the work, I should reap all the...