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Guest Post: Author Photos: 6 Tips for Taking Flattering Bio Pics You’ll Actually Like
Your bio picture holds a lot of power. It will become one of your most-prized assets in a book cover, website, or marketing materials. In this article, we’re sharing tips for taking flattering bio pics you’ll actually like, and that can best represent your writing style and genre. Bio pics should be realistic yet memorable. With some research, preparation, and proper equipment, you can have several professional-looking bio pics that can speak to your target audience and gain new readers. 1. Identify Your Message An author brand consists of a book cover, book description, author biography, and bio picture that showcase your personality, tone, and genre. Since this picture can…
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Who Is Your Fantasy Book’s Audience? Reddit Can Help
Have you ever tried researching your genre’s audience? Just Googling fantasy readers? You won’t find a lot. Most of the content is usually dated or you can’t vet them. I’ve tried using those databases you can only access through your school or local library. Even then, it’s difficult to find genre market research data. Why do I need to do market research? Everyone can enjoy my book. Plenty of posts have addressed this topic. Everyone is not your audience. There is no book out there that everyone likes. No product that’s for everyone. Even the bestsellers. If finding data on your audience is so difficult, how can you do market…
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The Fantasy and Sci-Fi Week in Links 5/17/19: Game of Thrones, Batman, Black Mirror
Welcome to the Week in Links, a roundup of the latest articles for fantasy, sci-fi and horror readers and writers. Not a lot of Marvel chatter this week. Most, my feed was all about Game of Thrones. A little secret, I don’t watch it. I don’t walk into stories knowing there’s going to be on-screen rape. I can barley handle heavily implied rape. Anyway, Robert Pattinson may be the next Batman. I don’t see that working out. But, who knows… Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi Awesome Sci-Fi 3D Scenario by Marcos Torres Watch the First Trailer for Hereditary Director Ari Aster’s Midsommar This Week’s New Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books: A Lush Historical Epic, Humanistic…
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Author’s Guide to Creating Infographics (And Fantasy Power Inspiration)
Why would authors even care about infographics? They look complicated to make and most of the information isn’t book related. Why would you bother? For a couple of reasons. Book Promotions It would be nice if I could hire a designer to create character and land artwork. But, I can’t. I don’t have the funds for it. The next best thing would be an infographic. I created this to introduce some of my characters. I was actually surprised how popular this was. You could use infographics to describe characters, interesting facts about your world, some history…any information you think readers would want to know. Repurpose Content Naming Your Fantasy World…
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The Week in Links 11/16/18: Stan Lee, Detective Pikachu, Harry Potter
Welcome to the Week in Links, a roundup of the latest articles for fantasy, sci-fi and horror readers and writers. Writing and Book Marketing Writing Tips: The 4 Stages Of Writing A Book From First Draft To Publication 12 Easy Tweaks that Could Lead to Outsized Improvement in Your Content and Writing 10 Creative Ways to Beat Writer’s Block Fast A NaNoWriMo Survival Boost 6 Tips for Writing Social Media Ad Copy That Converts Writing for Audiobook How to Conduct Research for a Book Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi Haunted House Board Game Betrayal Legacy Takes 13 Thrilling Hours To Play Game of Thrones season 8 will premiere in April First Trailer For Harry…
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The Week in Links 4/27/18: Avengers: Infinity War, George R.R. Martin, Venom
Welcome to the Week in Links, a roundup of the latest articles for fantasy, sci-fi and horror readers and writers. Note: I’ve included some Infinity War reviews for those who are interested. I haven’t read them. I usually don’t read reviews before I see the movie. Some say spoiler-free, some don’t. Read at your own risk. Writing and Book Marketing Self-editing tips for authors 10 Ways Authors Can Grow a Facebook Group What Does #OwnVoices Mean for Authors and Readers? — Guest: Bran L. Ayres Confused About Your Twitter Header? Here Are 10 Tips 5 ways to sell your ebook so you double your profits Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi Horror Movie A Quiet Place…
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How to Get 1 Million Monthly Viewers on Pinterest
Not too long ago, I noticed my Pinterest account gets 1 million monthly viewers. This isn’t like Twitter where I have 4,000 followers but only like 5% of people visit my blog. Pinterest has been magic for my blog. It’s not perfect. I still have a lot to learn. Certain posts do better than others and I haven’t figured out why yet. I know the image plays a part. I’ve been going through my posts and changing some of the images to make them more Pinterest friendly. It worked well for this post. This hasn’t translated into book sales yet. At least, not a lot. You can’t really tell with book…
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Social Media for Authors: What Works and What Doesn’t
Time for some social media auditing. Sounds dull. It really isn’t. Time to look at my accounts and see what’s working and what’s not. This is not about what’s selling books because honestly, none of them are. Well, actually, you can’t really tell that. One or two social networks might be. I wouldn’t know. I’m looking at which ones have the most engagement, the ones that drive traffic to my blog. Pinterest Pinterest is king. About 80% of blog traffic comes from that site. I have Tailwind, the Pinterest scheduling app, to thank for that. One post, Writing Magical Battle Scenes, got thousands of pageviews all because of Pinterest. That’s…
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Social Media Blogs For Authors
Social media is always changing. You can’t use the same marketing technique year after year. What worked on Facebook 5 years ago may not work today? Same with Twitter and Instagram. What if you know you’re supposed to be on social media but you don’t know where to start. These blogs will help start a social media campaign and keep you updated about any new techniques: Social Media Examiner “Social Media Examiner® helps millions of businesses discover how to best use social media to connect with customers, drive traffic, generate awareness, and increase sales.” If you follow my Week in Links series, you might’ve noticed I usually include one or two articles…
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8 Image Ideas to Boost Your Book Marketing Campaign
I’ve noticed photos/images do a lot better on Facebook than links. They have a higher reach and engagement. Now, when I want to share a link, I upload the image first then add the link in the write-up. I don’t let Facebook add a link preview. On Twitter, posts with images catch my eye more than ones without. Images work but writers often have trouble figuring out how to use images in their marketing campaign. We work with text. You need some way to say, “buy my book” without actually saying it. That’s where blog posts and images come in. Here are some ways you can use images to promote…
