Advice to aspiring writers

My own advice to writers who are on the brink of a writing career is to rely on a mixture of old-fashioned good manners, personal integrity, and modern cyber-street wisdom.

In other words, follow your dream with your eyes open.

Friends and Buddies
Know that your best friends are authors a rung or two above you on the career ladder. Follow them, don't try to clamber over them or knock them out of your way. Look to the example of NASCAR and aerodynamics: leader and follower both go faster when they work together.



For 25 ways to be a good friend to another author, see my "Buzz" list on my website.

Check out Linnea Sinclair's post on "mentoring" on http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/buddy-system.html ... in fact check out all the articles on this long running teaching blog which I started with 6 colleagues long before expert-author-group blogs were popular.

Other great sources of advice from PR experts would be the free newsletter from Penny Sansevieri found at http://www.amarketingexpert.com, also the weekly articles posted by authors, radio hosts, publishers and more on http://1stTurningPoint.com.

If you belong to LinkedIn.com, follow me, and join all the groups to which I belong, especially Romance Authors Helping Romance Authors (you don't have to write Romance, but you do have to write, and you may not post self promo). If you are published in any kind of speculative fiction, join http://iwofa.net It's free, reciprocal, and great promo. There's an iwofa group on LinkedIn too.

If you are a GoodReads.com member, check out the groups. "Tips for Self Promotion, Sales, and Advertising" is a great group of authors in all genres who help one another.

You'll notice the same names cropping up again and again. Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Jacquie Rogers, Charlee Boyett-Compo, Brenna Lyons, Deborah Macgillivray, Linnea Sinclair, Margaret L Carter, Lillian Cauldwell, Todd Fonseca, Pauline Baird Jones, Lynn Crain, Cindy Spencer Pape, Sandy Lender (and many more) are among authors who help others.

Contracts
Be aware that contracts are written to favor whoever wrote that contract (Publisher, Printer, Online Bookseller, website designer etc). Read every word. Understand what the contract says before you sign it. Get help from EPIC or SFWA or Authors Guild, or Preditors-and-Editors if you don't.

Act on the assumption that most contracts can be negotiated. No one will think less of you for asking, as long as you are polite and professional about it. Moreover, know your limitations and be upfront about them. An editor may ask you to write a book every six weeks, but if that is not realistic for you, say so. Most editors would much rather schedule you for one book a year and have you deliver (top quality writing) on time.

Be honest with your agent, your editor, your reader, and anyone else with whom you do business. Including the IRS! (And... beware of those interview questions that might cause the unwary to declare the hours they work and the other uses they make of their home office.)

At the same time, be aware that others won't be honest with you. Once you register a copyright or trademark or domain name, you will receive all sorts of documents that look like invoices. You will also be offered awards and listings in catalogues of "distinguished" or "famous" people… but you will only be included if you purchase your listing.

Whatever you spend on your writing (and it will add up to much more than you imagine!) keep records of all your expenses, all your contracts, all your promises, all your sales, all the prizes you promised to give away. Follow through.

If you absolutely must give away an ebook as a prize, number it. Personalize it... that way, if it turns up on a pirate site, you and your publisher's legal department will know who "shared it" in violation of your trust and your copyright.

Never defame anyone, no matter the provocation. Never write a bad review. Never write a good review of a book you did not enjoy. Never infringe on anyone else's copyright (artist's, model's, photographer's etc).

Never "cheat" your reader or potential reader. Never assume that someone will want to read your book simply because "you" wrote it, or because "you" say they will enjoy you.

Secure your domain name before you become published. If you wait, a spammer might squat on it in hopes to either profit from your good name, or to extort money from you if you are desperate to buy it back. You don't want your website to be: http://theofficialmynameauthor.com

Keep doing what you love for as long as it makes you happy, and as long as your pursuit doesn't hurt or cause you to neglect those you love.

Do the very best you can, every day. And, say "thank you" often. Thank you for reading this.

Rowena Cherry

Penny Sansevieri explains Anchor Text

As you know, I receive Penny Sansevieri's Author Marketing newsletter, and there's usually something I'm passionately interested in.


Featured Article - Savvy SEO: What is Anchor Text and Why it Matters
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If you ask any Search Engine Marketing Expert they will tell you the importance of anchor text. So what is this exactly? It's the hyperlinked text that you click on to follow a link. Most people overlook this text, using words like "click here" or other nebulous terms. If used correctly, anchor text can really help with your site ranking. It's not that difficult to implement really, you just need to understand a few basic concepts.

First, anchor text should be descriptive. It should describe the link you're sending people to using keywords that reflect the page you're recommending.

Second, if you know the high traffic keywords for your market you can use those as well to describe the link (but only if the keywords relate to the page you're sending visitors to).

Third, knowing where to use anchor text is almost as important as the text itself. All external links should be anchor text, but often web designers forget internal links (i.e. links leading to pages within your site) although they are equally as important. Your home page is also critical for anchor text links. If you have a blog (and you should) make sure that any article, web site or blog you reference has anchor text in the hyperlink.

Creating these hyperlinks is easy, especially if you're using them in a blog. Most blog software has some very simple one-click anchor text creation widgets.

So take some time and go through your site, make sure that anything you have hyperlinked is anchor text. Stay away from nebulous terms like "click here" or "follow this link" because you won't get picked up by search engines that way. Make sure the text is focused and specific. How long can anchor text be? It doesn't have to be long, but if need be, it can be multiple words. Keep in mind that as long as the words are relevant to your topic, the anchor text verbiage is all that matters.


More Social Networking Sites
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If you're ready to collaborate with some local businesses in your community, you'll love biznik.com. You can also find local events here related to your market. Their tag line is: business networking that doesn't suck. You gotta love that!
Fastpitchnetworking.com lets you create a profile, blog and listing for your products. They also have some opportunities to participate in virtual trade shows.

Marzar.com: another neat little networking site that lets you connect with other business owners and promote your product and services.


Reprint permission
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You are welcome to reprint any items from "The Book Marketing Expert Newsletter." However, please credit us as a source with the following paragraph:

Reprinted from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

Thank you, Penny!

Rowena Cherry

Guest Blog: THE CUMULATIVE EFFECT

THE CUMULATIVE EFFECT

My name is Joe Konrath. Under the name JA Konrath, I write a series of thrillers featuring Chicago Homicide cop Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels. The sixth book, Cherry Bomb, is being released in July. Under the name Jack Kilborn, I write horror novels. Afraid, which might be the most frightening book ever written, is being released March 31.

Over the years, I've done my share of self-promotion. I even have a blog dedicated to the subject, called A Newbie's Guide to Publishing.

One of the things I'm just starting to figure out, after six years in the biz, is the cumulative effect.

Advertising knows that repetition leads to sales. People have to hear a product's name time and time again before it begins to stick in their minds. They also have to try a product repeatedly before they become brand loyal. That's why successful brands like Coke and McDonalds continue to advertise even though everyone on the planet knows them; they want to stay at the forefront of their customers' minds.

Books, like hamburgers and soda, are products. It is in a writer's best interest to make as many people aware of their books as possible, and to turn as many of those people as possible into fans.

We do many things to try to make this happen. Besides writing good books, we spend a lot of time meeting librarians, booksellers, media folks, and fans. We spend a lot of time on the Internet, blogging and keeping up with social networks. We spend a lot of time writing stories and articles for anthologies, magazines, and websites, getting our name out there.

The cumulative effect comes into play when our previous efforts begin to compound our current efforts. It's easy to compare self-promotion to working out on a Stairmaster--we work our butts off just to stay in one place. But the fact is, it's more analogous to mountain climbing. And like mountain climbing, it seems like we might never reach the summit.

But each step does bring us closer to that elusive summit. Just as everything we do to self-promote can build upon the previous thing.

Every book you sell can lead people to you. If a stranger buys a book, reads it, and becomes a fan, that's great. But that stranger can also tell others about you, leading to more fans. Libraries and used book stores mean each book sold can reach several, perhaps hundreds, of new readers. The more books you have in print, the more chances readers have to discover you. If they discover you early in your career, they can follow you. If they discover you later in your career, they can go back and find your previous books.

Every short story, review, article, and interview you have in print can lead people to you. Anthologies and magazines are a great way to spread name-recognition and brand awareness. They allow you to reach new demographics.

Everything you do on the internet lasts forever. A good portion of people reading this are doing so soon after it was posted. But some of you found your way here weeks, months, maybe even years after these words were written. Whenever you appear on the net, you leave footprints that people can follow to where you are now. The more footprints you leave, the greater your chances of being found.

Events lead to events. A successful speaking engagement will be talked about, and can lead to requests for more speeches. Doing a good job on a radio interview can lead to others. The more you get out there, the more you get out there.

Little steps lead to big accomplishments. If you set minor daily goals, they become major accomplishments over time. Adding five Facebook friends a day means you'll have 1825 by the end of the year. But you'll actually have more than that, because people will find you and ask for your friendship. Collecting email addresses for your newsletter, blogging regularly so more people follow you, networking and linking to peers--this all begins to pay off and eventually snowball.

But for that snowball, you have to follow the Four Stays:

Stay in Print. The more books you have that are available to the public, the better off you are. The more stories and articles you sell, the more people you reach.

Stay Current. Make sure your website and social networks are up to date, and that you're constantly putting new content on the net.

Stay in Touch. Keep networking with fans, peers, librarians, booksellers, and the media, and make sure you're easily accessible.

Stay Open-minded. Without a willingness to try new things, you'll probably get stuck in a rut, and you'll definitely miss out on hot trends.

The key here is to survive long enough to catch on with the general population. The longer you survive, the likelier it is you'll be successful. It may take years. It may take decades. But if you keep building an audience, momentum will eventually take over and your audience will start to build itself.

That's how you climb mountains. One step at a time.