Blogging and Facebook Tips and Other Updates

Uncategorized

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig20150826_192136

Sometimes I spend so much time thinking about really big ideas that I forget about some of the small things we can do to either gently promote ourselves/get our names out there, or just make life easier online.  Here are a few of those things…and a sort of interesting note at the end of the post on something Wattpad is doing.

Gravitars.  Gravitars, Globally Recognized Avatars, are basically avatars that are used to identify us online (primarily blogs and web forums).  I was having coffee with my author friend Lauren de Lanier and she mentioned that she would likely spend more time commenting on blogs if she had a more personal way of appearing on sites, particularly WordPress sites.  This is one of those things that we can quickly take care of through
WordPress (you’ll have to sign up for WordPress in the process, but you’re not setting up a blog, only a profile).  This WikiHow will lead you through the process if you’re not sure how to do it.Continue reading

Raising Questions in Our Stories

Uncategorized, Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigCxkakh5p

One thing that can trip up even experienced writers is giving everything away in the story too quickly.

It’s always a temptation for me.  I tend to want to reveal things too quickly in my story.  I want to explain everything as it happens so that readers won’t be confused.

But when I reveal too much, I end up halfway through the story without enough material to make a full-length novel.

Areas where it may help to raise questions:

Questions about character behavior. Sometimes character motivation isn’t clear.  But as long as that character  is behaving consistently, readers will want to learn why the character is acting that way.Continue reading

Twitterific Writing Links

Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engineBlog (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 30,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

How to Write a Fantasy Series:  http://ow.ly/QZpXq @nownovel

Who’s Afraid of Reader Analytics? Data on where readers stop reading:  http://ow.ly/Re5B4 @Porter_Anderson

Tricks for Writing in Public:  http://ow.ly/QZqKf by Tina Jens

Different POVs for Part 1 and Part 2?  http://ow.ly/QZqz7 @glencstrathy

A Simple Landing Page Strategy for Increased Newsletter Subscribers:  http://ow.ly/QZqlm @HennekeD

Money matters for writers:  http://ow.ly/QZrxR @mikemartinez72           Continue reading

Demographics on Wattpad

Business of Writing, Tools for Writers

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’ve had a profile and books available on Wattpad for over a year.  Wattpad is an online reading platform.  It’s a social way to share stories, with readers commenting on chapters as we release them.  I’ve written about getting on Wattpad and my thoughts on the platform.

Wattpad is free for readers.  I have enough books available for sale that offering something for free for exposure isn’t a concern.  And it is all about exposure: there are over 40 million users.

Wattpad Post 1

To access this feature, you’d go to your book page and click on the graph icon right next to “edit story.”Continue reading

Marketing and Publishing Updates

Business of Writing, Uncategorized

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigD2D

A few odds and ends and updates: 

Draft2Digital:  I’ve used Smashwords since I started self-publishing.  It’s been convenient for me to upload one file there for distribution to multiple retailers.  But I’ve experimented lately with Draft2Digital, a similar distributor (these distributors are paid a percentage of our book sales for our convenience).  I really like its user interface: it’s a nice, clean look and the site is fairly easy to navigate.

I’ve found I especially like the email updates they send that let me know when my book has gone live on the different retailers or when my price changes go through on the various sites.  It’s also nice that I can make my book free on Nook through Draft2Digital…that seemed to make Amazon move very quickly to price match when my book was free on the Barnes & Noble site.

I’m also paid more frequently with Draft2Digital than I am with Smashwords (payment is quarterly at Smashwords). ebook - JPG format - Race to refuge - Liz Craig

Pen name tidbit: Apparently, my readers got an email from Amazon about Race to Refuge, which I wrote as Liz Craig.  I did list myself as the publisher, but didn’t put myself as a contributor in the author section on the KDP dashboard.  I’m thinking the reason readers received emails is because I linked to the book on my Amazon Author Central.  I guess, since Liz is a nickname, there was no trouble claiming it.  I never had such luck with my Riley Adams series for Penguin, which has a different Amazon Author Central page. Continue reading

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