Pin It! Why Authors Shouldn’t Ignore Pinterest Marketing with Elena Dillon OCC.RWA Online Class
January 23, 2019 by Linda McLaughlin in category Online Classes tagged as Elen Dillon, OCCRWA Online Class, Pin It!, Pinterest MarketingI’m excited about the first OCC/RWA online class for 2019, Pin It! taught by Elena Dillon, all about Pinterest marketing.
About the Class by Elena Dillon:
There are so many marketing platforms available to us as authors that it can be overwhelming. The most common comment I hear when I discuss social media marketing with other authors is:
“I don’t have time for one more platform. I can barely manage what I have.”
I understand that, I really do. As authors today we have to do so much to do on top of writing books it can be overwhelming.
But I have a few questions for you before you decide you don’t have time for Pinterest:
Can you afford to ignore the one marketing platform that comes in 2nd only to Google?
What if that platform will market your book for free?
What if that platform continues to work for you for years into the future?
And what if I told you I would make it fun? And fast?
Can you find time for it then? I thought you’d could!
Pinterest is an amazing free marketing tool that once you get going you will be amazed at the work it does for you with a small amount of effort in the beginning and some upkeep as you go along.
This class will be taught in short video format on the teachable platform.
We will be covering:
- How to create effective boards, pins, and descriptions.
- Building a following: Do you need one?
- Hashtags
- What do I pin?
- Visual Storytelling
- Group Boards/Tribes
- Tailwind
- Analytics
- Ads
- Batching Content
- Strategy
- Branding and more…
I’ll have a private Facebook group just for us where we can discuss the class and support each other on the journey.
Hope to see you there!
About the Instructor:
Elena Dillon is an award-winning Young Adult author. When she’s not writing, she enjoys helping her author friends with technology and social media. She’s taught classes in Social Media, Visual Content Marketing for Authors, Pinterest Marketing, Scrivener Basics and spoken at numerous conferences, chapters and groups about social media, productivity, visual content and indie publishing. She also runs the Confused and Terrified Writer.com blog geared toward helping authors, aspiring and published, to achieve their goals.
The rest of the time she’s a wife to her husband of twenty-eight years, mom to three grown kids and servant to a high-maintenance English bulldog, while waiting, not so patiently, for grandbabies.
Enrollment Information:
This is a 4-week online course that uses email and Groups.io. The class is open to anyone wishing to participate. The cost is $30.00 per person or, if you are a member of OCCRWA, $20.00 per person.
To sign up or for more information, go to the class page at the OCC/RWA website: http://occrwa.org/classes/online-class-two/.
Linda McLaughlin
OCC/RWA Online Class Coordinator
Book Review: One Taste too Many by Debra H. GoldStein A Review by Veronica Jorge
January 22, 2019 by Veronica Jorge in category Book Reviews, Book Reviews by Veronica Jorge, Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as book review, Cozy mystery, Debra H Goldstein, first in a new series, Veronica Jorge
One Taste Too Many (A Sarah Blair Mystery)
First in a new series!
by Debra H. Goldstein
Kensington Publishing Corp. 2019 ISBN 9781496719478
They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. It’s also an effective way to take him out—permanently!
Every clue points to Emily, a chef on the rise, and it doesn’t help that the dead man is Bill Blair…her twin sister Sarah’s ex-husband. Throw a third woman into the mix, Jane, the woman Bill was seeing who claims that Bill’s family inheritance belongs to her, including Sarah’s cat, and you’ve got a recipe for murder.
In the midst of a major Food Expo and fierce, (shall we say deadly?), chef competition aspiring careers will be made or broken. Emily’s lawyer Harlan, and Peter the police chief, all life-long friends, match evidence and wits to discover the identity of the real murderer and get Emily off the hook.
In One Taste Too Many, Debra Goldstein will put your sleuthing skills to the test. If you think you can run with the best of the pack; whether Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Agatha Christie, or Jessica Fletcher of the television series, Murder She Wrote, Debra will throw you for a loop each time you think you’ve solved the case.
Intriguing and entertaining, you will bury your nose in the book trying to pick up the scent of each new clue. But like a sophisticated recipe, you won’t be able to guess the secret ingredient. And like the expert storyteller that she is, Debra will keep you turning the pages until she reveals the culprit. It’s not who you think!
P.S. I tried the killer recipe included at the end of the book (‘killer’ as in taste, not the one that did poor Bill in. That’s why I’m still here). I didn’t get it to come out the way it was supposed to, but it’s light, refreshing, and delicious. And if I might add…one taste is to die for!
See you next time on February 22nd.
Veronica
My Kingdom for the Right Home
January 20, 2019 by Meriam Wilhelm in category A Bit of Magic by Meriam Wilhelm tagged as magic, Something new, The Witches of New Moon Beach, Witches
If you’ve read any of my books, you know that I write about witches—nice witches thrown into every day dilemmas where their magic sometimes is and sometimes is not very helpful. Recently, I’ve had a new story buzzing around in my head, just ready to pop out. I can see my characters and yes, they have paranormal powers, in fact they’re all witches. I may throw in a warlock or two, although I’m not yet sold on that inclusion. I have a sense of where I want to take my characters, what conflicts they’ll meet along the way and even who my villains might be.
But I thought I’d try something different this time, something I’ve never done before. I thought I’d start with a house. Not just any house, but a place with its own personality. A house capable of hosting all sorts of exciting, mystically challenging; paranormal activity. The exact house to function as the hub of my story.
With this in mind, I went in search of the perfect abode for my witches to call home and that’s where I ran into my own dilemma . . . which house to choose? I combed various neighborhoods, searched the internet, looked through real estate sites and visited a historical site or two on a quest to find the right domicile. Once committed to a place, I think the rest of my story will naturally unfold itself.
I’m down to four houses scattered throughout Europe and the U.S.A. and I would love your input. Not only which house would you choose, but why? I chose each house for a different reason and I’ll be curious to learn which house captures your imagination.
One more thing, if you are curious about the stories I’ve written, you can find The Witches Of New Moon Beach in a new boxed set right now on Amazon and Smashwords. Take a look and let me know what you think.
Oh, and those of you who have been following my travels/struggles towards my sixty-fifth birthday – I’ve managed to complete every goal but one. I sadly have not lost my twenty pounds. However, not one to give up, I’m still working on it, including walking 45 minutes a day!
Happy New Year to you all and I can’t wait to hear from you!
SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS by Jenny Jensen
January 19, 2019 by Jenny Jensen in category On writing . . . by Jenny Jensen tagged as credibility, editing, Editors, self-publishing, typos
The Indie Revolution is the most exciting innovation since Google; it’s more refreshing than the demise of the mullet. It’s such a grand opportunity! It’s so… democratic. Anyone with the passion and discipline to write down the stories that live in their head can offer their work to the world. There are no subjective, judgmental, economic barriers blocking the way. Every avid reader can troll the newest book offerings looking for that next great discovery. When I find a fresh new voice with an exciting sense of drama, fascinating characters and a unique tale to spin it’s like winning the lottery (at least I imagine it is, having never won myself).
And we all know what they say about opportunity—it’s something to make the best of. That’s why I am so amazed how many Indie books contain errors of the sort that any good set of editorial eyes would have found and corrected. It’s a message to me, the reader, that I’m not important enough to make the book right. Or worse, the author thinks so little of me that I’ll accept any error, that I won’t notice or care.
How can I not care when DCI Stewart, ruggedly attractive in a wry funny way (this narrative already has me considering Book Two) has just gone through XXI chapters of intriguing madness to finally find the decisive evidence and as he lifts the shredded ribbon from the debris of the broken vase he cries, “Waa La!”. What!? Waa La? I’m out of the moment now, jerked rudely from the mounting tension. DCI Stewart is no longer clever or ingenious; he’s an idiot. Give the poor man a “Viola!”. I can’t bear to look at any more.
It’s a different kind of awful when the whip smart heroine finally descends the grand staircase to face her treacherous half siblings and the room falls silent, “the rustling tool of her elegant gown the only sound”. This instantly conjures hysterically unintentional images. Yikes, it’s toile. I want to scream. The story has lost all credibility. I can’t get my reading mojo back. Why didn’t this author care?
It’s one thing to accept a typo or two, even a few missing prepositions are forgivable (just remember all those reviews that say it would have been a 4 star except for the typos) but it’s a lot to ask your audience to overlook faulty word choice, a change of voice in mid-chapter, a glaring hole in the timeline, a nonsensical plot point or character traits that shifts mid stream.
Such errors are forgivable in any draft—that’s where the author gets the story down and who cares if a character proclaims it’s a “mute point”. Under the fresh, critical eye of an editor it will become a moot point. This is the stage where an objective eye sees what the writer has missed by staring so long at the trees. Maybe the story arc lags, maybe the narrative or characters are inconsistent, a good editor and the writer can fix it. Doesn’t the writer want it perfect?
Indie publishing is such a golden opportunity and writing a good book requires so much personal investment to get to a good draft it’s sad how many writers just blithely publish, warts and all. Take the extra step and work with an editor. Your book and your readers are worth it. We editors can to save you from shooting yourself in the foot.
GUTS
January 15, 2019 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster tagged as choices, writing
A few days ago my mom had a lunch, an affair to show off her Christmas decorations before she started taking them down. There were seven of us munching on layered Jell-O salad, finger sandwiches, and clam chowder. Over coffee, one of the ladies said:
“Tell us again how you started writing.”
I won’t bore you with the story, but my start involved a dare, a lot of hours of butt in the chair, no expectation of ever getting published and absolute terror and self-doubt once my first book went to contract.
When I was finished with my tale, she said: “Wow, that took guts.”
I wanted to tell her that, no, writing my first book didn’t take guts, staying in the industry did. If you’re reading this, and you are writing, you qualify as gutsy.
Every day you make decisions that will change the course of your career: you dig into your own pocket for advertising and public relations, are faced with tough demands from publishers and hard creative choices. Currently, there is a decision many of you will face and that is whether or not to sign a traditional publishing contract that contains a morality clause. Such clauses are included by houses like Simon & Schuster and Penguin Putnam and, if enforced, will void a contract (often asking for advances back and always removing books by the offending authors) because of past, present or future behavior that they consider immoral. ‘They’ – the judge and jury – are the publishers or public outcry on social media or anything that, in the publisher’s opinion, makes your work less saleable.
Morality clauses were nothing new, but in years gone by there were strict codes of morality based on widely accepted public mores and religious guidelines. In this day and age a moral transgression can be determined by a fashionable whim, a person who frivolously points a finger, or a trending Tweet. Today Oscar Wilde would not be considered immoral, yet in his time he was arrested and jailed for homosexuality. Still, his work was published and it was the public that decided whether or not to read it.
There are many questions about clauses like this, not the least of which is this: does such a clause infringe on free speech? Even more concerning is tying morality to salability, a bottom line, money. This space is too small for such a big debate, but here’s my bottom line: a publishing contract is a rare thing and, when offered, it will take guts to reject it because of a morality clause. It will also take guts to accept it and live with the knowledge that you, personally, and not just your work, could be deemed immoral at any time for any reason.
There’s a lot to think about in 2019 and one of those things is to ask yourself if you have the guts to be a writer.
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