Word Witch Wednesday - more on marketing

Just when you think you know the general rules of marketing your work, something else comes along. If you're like me and don't have a lot of time to stay on top of every little thing, it helps to have other people give you a head's up. Here are a few new things that have come up this year that authors need to know.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Some of you might have heard about this. It may be a European law, but it affects all businesses including writers. These regulations will better protect people's information online. It will help it from being used for purposes other than what they have given permission for.

If you have a newsletter, you will need to have readers resubscribe to give you explicit permission to email them. Yes, this is only for Europeans at the moment, but it is good if you have all readers do so.

Update: If you wish only to have your European readers resubscribe, but you don't know which ones are in that region, Mailerlite will be releasing new tools later this month that will allow you to see what country your subscribers are from. I hope other email marketing sites will do the same thing.

Amazon reviews. Oh, Amazon. Always messing around with rules about reviews. The newest one is that a review will be deleted if it states that person received a free copy of the book in exchange for a review. I've recently posted a few reviews which included that, and my reviews have not been taken down. Yet.

More links for you:

18 exciting book marketing predictions for 2018.

Top Facebook marketing trends for 2018.

8 new graphic design trends for 2018.

12 book marketing mistakes.

Do you have any news on author marketing? Please share with us in the comments below.

Word Witch Wednesday - three marketing myths

It's one of our responsibilities as writers to research things. Not just stuff we'll need for our stories, but marketing, websites, covers, etc. There are a wide range of things we need to keep on top of to remain marketable. And it can be exhausting.

Many articles tell us the things we must do. But as I've cruised around the internet, I am reminded there is nothing we must do. There are things we should do, but every writer's journey is different. What works for one person might not work for others. We each must try out various strategies to see what works for ourselves. It's frustrating there's no magical formula, but if you're determined, you'll find a way.

Here are three marketing myths I've discovered in my research adventures:

1. "Create an author tagline." I've heard again and again this is essential in branding yourself. It does help in letting readers know your genre, but what if you write in more than one genre? It doesn't work for you. Many of the bestsellers' sites I've visited do not have author taglines. The majority of them have "New York Times Bestseller" to accompany their name on site banners. It says nothing about their genres. They use other aspects of their sites to let readers know what they write, and you can too.

2. "The newsletter is the new, big thing. Every writer must have one." Nope. Not essential if you have another way you're connecting with readers. Newsletters are bigger with some genres than others. Romance readers love them. Horror readers, not so much. Most bestsellers have newsletters, but they maybe send them out twice a year. I've signed up for ones that I have never received an email from.

3. "If the story is fantastic, it will sell your books." There are so many amazing stories that get buried under the millions of other books out there. What helps is to have a professional cover. It tells the reader what kind of genre it is at a glance and what to anticipate in the story. While I've seen authors that sell well with simple covers consisting only of text and maybe a symbol or an object, they usually already have an audience. A gorgeous cover can draw readers to you even if they don't know your name.

Don't exhaust yourself trying to figure out your marketing formula. Trust me. I know from experience how maddening it can be. Do what you're comfortable with. Do what you enjoy. Because if you lose your joy, you might lose you drive to write. Marketing has chased many aspiring writers away. Don't let it crush you.

What marketing myths have you discovered?

#IWSG for March 2018

The Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) is the brilliant idea of Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the group is to share doubts and insecurities and to encourage one another. Please visit the other participants and share your support. A kind word goes a long way.

This month's awesome co-hosts are: Mary Aalgaard, Bish Denham, Jennifer Hawes, Diane Burton, and Gwen Gardner!

This month's optional IWSG question: How do you celebrate when you achieve a writing goal / finish writing a story?

For the longest time, every book I've finished, I've celebrated by making cookies. When I get near the end of a book, I'll buy the dough and let it sit in the fridge. It's great motivation to keep me chugging through to the end.

If I'm having a tough writing day, I will motivate myself with a chocolate or two. 500 words and then I get that candy! Yes, I'm easily trained.

I think celebrating reaching your goals is so important. It doesn't matter how you do it. Writing is hard work, and sometimes there's no one else around that knows how tough it is or to cheer you. This is why we must celebrate ourselves. Bonus: when you're feeling happy, you get all those happy chemicals released in your brain and you feel even more inspired!

My insecurities: My current WIP keeps getting bigger and bigger. While this is thrilling in a way, I do wonder if it will be too big and thus lose all its power with that size. Am I putting too much time into things that won't matter at the end? But it all goes together... somehow. I think! Hopefully when I finish it and send it along to my CPs, they'll let me know if it is too long.

IWSG newsletter news: Have you subscribed to the IWSG newsletter yet? We have helpful articles and links, and a featured industry guest each month. For March, we have Janet Hise who is a writer that helps other writers achieve their goals.

If you're an IWSG member and you have some news you'd like to share with the group, drop me an email at christinerains.writer@gmail.com and I'll put it in the newsletter.

#IWSG for February 2018

The Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) is the brilliant idea of Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the group is to share doubts and insecurities and to encourage one another. Please visit the other participants and share your support. A kind word goes a long way.

This month's awesome co-hosts are: Stephen Tremp, Pat Garcia,Angela Wooldridge, Victoria Marie Lees, and Madeline Mora-Summonte!

This month's optional IWSG question: What do you love about the genre you write in most often?

I write urban fantasy most often. I love the myths and magic, and then placing those in our modern day world. Finding out how supernatural beings fit in our society, how they work, the secrets, the adventures. Our seemingly cold technological world doesn't need to be without magic.

My insecurities this month: I'm writing the final book of my trilogy. Right now, I'm in love with the second book. It's as fantastic as the first. But this third one, I don't know. Will it be as good as the first two? Will it be a spectacular ending to the trilogy? Or will it flop?

I'm trying not to think about those things as I'm writing, but those doubts creep up on me. It's not an unusual thing. I always wonder if the book I'm writing will be better than the last. It should be if I'm learning and growing as a writer. But what if it isn't? What if it all sucks?

IWSG newsletter news: Have you subscribed to the IWSG newsletter yet? We have helpful articles and links, and a featured industry guest each month. For February, we have Lisa Cron (author of Wired for Story and Story Genius). I'm so excited!

If you're an IWSG member and you have some news you'd like to share with the group, drop me an email at christinerains.writer@gmail.com and I'll put it in the newsletter.

#IWSG for August 2017

The Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) is the brilliant idea of Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the group is to share doubts and insecurities and to encourage one another. Please visit the other participants and share your support. A kind word goes a long way.

This month's awesome co-hosts are: Dolarah @ Book Lover, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Yvonne Ventresca, LG Keltner, and me!

Before we get to this month's question and my insecurities, let me tell you about this super fun event!

Show Us Your Writer Insecurity! 

Are you proud to be an insecure writer?

Then show us! 

On Wednesday, October 4 (IWSG Day), post a photo of yourself (or your alter ego) with any of the IWSG swag or with the IWSG logo. Then leave a comment that day at either the IWSG website’s post or the IWSG Facebook post directing us to your photo. (All blog, Facebook, Goodreads, and newsletter members welcome, but photo must be posted on a blog or Facebook to qualify.)

The IWSG site admins will visit each one and pick the top three. Why? Because there are cool prizes involved:

Third place – EBook of A Change of Mind and Other Stories by Nick Wilford, eBook of The Remnant by William Michael Davidson, eBook of Cling to God by Lynda R. Young, eBook of Already Home by Heather M. Gardner, and eBook of Dragon of the Stars by Alex. J. Cavanaugh.

Second place – The entire eBook collection of the Totem series by Christine Rains, eBook of Princess of Las Pulgas by C. Lee McKenzie, audio book of CassaSeries by Alex J. Cavanaugh, eBook of Black and White by Nick Wilford, and your choice eBook from J.L. Campbell.

Grand prize winner - IWSG website interview, IWSG newsletter spotlight, IWSG pinned tweet for one week, C. Lee McKenzie's Featured Follower for the month, the IWSG Goodreads book club eBook for October/November, a short chapter critique, and a pair of IWSG erasers. 

We have some great IWSG swag – pens, mugs, magnets, erasers, etc. Proceeds go to fund the upkeep of the IWSG site. 

You have two months to prepare – show us your best insecurity!

This month's IWSG question: What are your pet peeves when reading/writing/editing? 

I have a lot when reading. Bad grammar, huge plot holes, poor characterization, sloppy formatting, etc. Being a writer has made it more difficult to get past these things, but I do save myself time by putting down books I don't enjoy and moving on to something else.

When I'm writing, it's usually things in the environment that annoy me. Noise, people interrupting, cat interrupting, and if it's too hot.

My insecurities this month: I'm a new admin for the IWSG. I'm so excited about it. I've been a part of the group for a while. I've received such great advice, encouragement, and support, I'm happy to give back to the community. But, of course, I worry if I'll be good enough and be able to keep up with my responsibilities. What if I mess something up? I don't want to disappoint anyone. The admin team is incredibly organized, smart, and creative. I hope my contribution will continue to make the IWSG such an awesome group.

You all can help me with the newsletter. You can do this by sending me your news. I want to hear about new releases, events, and exciting news. Please send an email with "IWSG - news submission" in the subject line to christinerains (dot) writer @ gmail (dot) com. Thank you!

One more awesome announcement I want to share with you about the newsletter: On August 24th at 2:00 pm EST, Chrys Fey will be participating in a LIVE YouTube interview with Evan Carmichael, an entrepreneur who she'll be interviewing about his book Your One Word and getting some great advice for IWSG members. You'll be able to watch the interview live HERE. You can set a reminder if you click on the link, or you can watch it later. The video will be uploaded in the August 30th IWSG newsletter issue.

Sharing a little bit of excitement!

Guess who I met on Saturday at Sci-Fi Central?

I met the awesome Tara Tyler!
She did wonderfully on her panel about sci-fi films and books. She's one fun and smart woman.

There were tons of people dressed up and lots of Star Wars stuff. My little guy had tons of fun exploring the museum. (Yes, the convention was in the children's science museum!) Tara had a table beautifully set up. I got her to sign my copy of Broken Branch Falls. Did you know the sequel is coming out in a few months? I've been lucky enough to read Cradle Rock already. Check out my review on Goodreads!

* * *

Only two weeks until the release of Dark Dawning (Totem #1)!

If you've subscribed to my newsletters, you've been getting Totem tidbits, excerpts, and giveaways! You can subscribe right now by popping your email address into the handy little widget on the right there. I'll continue to share all these goodies through to the release of the third book in November.

Pre-order Dark Dawning now!

Taking on a Newsletter - guest post by Alex J. Cavanaugh

Taking on a Newsletter 

This month, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group launches its very first newsletter. It’s been a long time coming, but all of the elements had to fall into place first.

For those who don’t know, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group began September 2011 as a monthly blog hop. A comment by a fellow writer prompted my reply that he needed such a support group, and the idea for one stuck. So, I created a sign-up list, outlined the purpose and rules, and opened it up to others. We’ve been blogging the first Wednesday of the month ever since with 250-300+ blogs participating each time.

It was incredibly successful and rewarding, and I started thinking of how I could help other writers beyond the monthly blog posts. That’s when the idea of establishing a website hit me. I knew I couldn’t do it alone and enlisted six amazing writers as admins. They not only helped put together the website but established the Facebook groups as well. We built up the database of writing information and started inviting guest authors to join us in the weekly posts.

A newsletter was at the back of my mind, but since I’d never started or run one, I had no idea what to do. When the IWSG’s three-year anniversary date rolled around, we celebrated by inviting our members to submit to a writing book that would be free to all. It was a lot of fun to put together and gave us another way to help writers. (Links to download it HERE.)

I was still considering that newsletter last year. And still lost as how to do it. So instead, we held our first IWSG Anthology Contest. From the entries, ten stories were selected by a panel of agents and authors and Parallels: Felix Was Here will be released this May from Freedom Fox Press.

So now we had a monthly blog hop, a website, two Facebook groups, a free writing book, and a yearly anthology contest. Even our own t-shirt – but no newsletter! So after the New Year, I got serious. We had to start a newsletter, one that would benefit to writers and not be something just thrown together. It would require dedication and effort. All of the IWSG admins had their duties already, myself included. (Plus I didn’t know how to run a newsletter.) How could we make it happen?

Then it hit me – bring on another admin!

With the support of the other admins, I reached out to author Chrys Fey, and she agreed to run the newsletter. I got the MailChimp account set up and the newsletter header, and then Chrys and I planned the content. There will be an article from an industry leader, one from an IWSG admin, and one from an IWSG member. Plus, we’ll have helpful links, a member spotlight, news, and the upcoming IWSG blogging information. Our first issue goes out February 24 and you can sign up HERE.

So, after years of wanting a newsletter, we finally have one! Big thanks to Chrys for taking on such an important project. Now the idea of a newsletter no longer haunts me.

Still like to make the Writers’ Digest List of 101 Best Sites for Writers. Next year!

About Alex J. Cavanaugh: He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and works in web design, graphics, and technical editing. A fan of all things science fiction, his interests range from books and movies to music and games. Online he is the Ninja Captain and founder of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. He’s the author of Amazon Best-Sellers CassaStar, CassaFire, CassaStorm, and Dragon of the Stars. The author lives in the Carolinas with his wife.

Find Alex: Blog * IWSG * What are the kargrandes? * Twitter

Friday Five for January 22, 2016

1. It's Friday already? Where did my week go? I had two days to myself this week between MLK Day and snow days. I haven't been that productive, but I do have some big news... which I'll share soon. Subscribers to my newsletter will hear it first. So if you aren't already a subscriber, all you have to do is put your email address into that little widget on the right and click!

2. I haven't managed to get more than a few hundred words of writing done, but I've been keeping up on my critiquing for one of my critique partners. I do love getting to read new awesome stories before everyone else!

3. The Paramours Tour is just over a week away, but I'm going to do less touring this year with my books. What I want to try to do is have guest posts on blogs more often. Spread out the dates throughout the year. Keep myself out there without the fuss and stress of touring. I also wish to welcome other authors to guest post on my blog. I'll host them on Mondays, and I'm open to a variety of topics. If you'd like to write a guest post for me, please email me and we can work out the details. As you might have noticed, my most popular posts on my blog are guest posts.

4. Adorable kid moment of the week: My son had his 100th Day of School yesterday, and he wanted to dress up for it. He wore a button up shirt and tie with a Superman t-shirt underneath.

5. Finally, an awesome and easy Meme Blog Hop! I'm happy to host this with the terrific Tara Tyler and C. Lee McKenzie. We're giving away ebooks and gift cards. The rules are simple: post your meme and visit others and smile. I'll be reminding you of this again very soon! Sign up here.

Wicked Wednesday - reviewing the numbers

I always find it interesting to hear how other authors are doing on social media. Do they focus on one or two sites or a bunch of them? How many hours do they put in? What are their marketing tactics? To give you an idea of what I do, here are my numbers from last year.

Start of 2015:
Facebook: 332
Twitter: 4796
Blog: 523 (GFC)
Newsletter: 18

Last year, I had my first books published with my publisher. This brought me to a new audience. Did it help on social media? I don't know. I'll break each of the four main tools I use down individually.

End of 2015:
Facebook: 409

I don't use Facebook (FB) much for promoting. I post maybe three times a week on my author page. (Mostly I use my personal page to put up pictures of my kid and cat!) I'm not a big fan of FB. My numbers did go up. They rose with my giveaways at the beginning of 2015 when one of the entries was to like my page.

Twitter: 6101

I made the most changes to how I handle Twitter. I promote my books less - only two or three times a day. I used to do it at least a half dozen times. I interact with people more, talking about all sorts of things beyond books. This has helped and has made Twitter more enjoyable to me. I unfollowed all the inactive followers, the spammers, the bots, and the ones just selling stuff. I'm following less people than are following me.

Blog: 522

I always say my blog is my number one tool. I still believe it even though it doesn't seem the number has changed much at all. I can only go by the number on GFC. It has gone up to 528 and dropped to 519 over the year. It's stable. I do know I have new readers following in other ways because they comment. Sometimes people will do so on the blog, but they also email and comment via Twitter or Goodreads. I always do my best to return comments on the blogs of people who comment on mine.

Newsletter: 156

This is the biggest jump. The one that made me most excited. I know exactly where over 120 of these new subscribers came from too. Back in September, the marvelous Graeme Ing posted 35 free ebooks on his blog and the response was astounding. Here's the post in case you want to get yourself some awesome free ebooks! Within the first week, I had over 50 new subscribers. If you have a newsletter, you know it's super tough to get people to sign up for it. I offer a free ebook to new subscribers, but that alone didn't draw in a lot of readers. Graeme's post was the key.

My 2015 review and sales numbers were, well, not even worth reporting. Not a good year. Except I still don't know how my Paramours series has done since they came out in the final quarter, and my publisher has no sales ratings on their site. That check will come to me in a few weeks.

2016 will be a fun year to watch the numbers. I hope to start releasing my newest series, Totem, and it will sing to the 13th Floor fans. (I do wish I kept track of my numbers in 2013 when I was releasing those books!) I'm going to try a few different marketing strategies that don't involve me wearing myself down every time I release one of the books.

Do you keep track of your numbers? What tactics do you use for your social media tools?

Friday Five for September 4, 2015

1. Work is going at a steady pace for my new project. There is a lot of talking going on. I keep reminding myself that it is the base for a nine part series, so I have to make it solid. It's going to be one of those cases if the characters keep yammering at each other, I'm going to send the bad guys to them!

2. I had a fantastic time co-hosting the IWSG. I visited over 120 blogs. What a surprise they gave us! It's a wonderful opportunity. I'm going to try to think of a story idea for the contest. Who else is entering?

3. No short story news this week. This is the first week in a while I haven't received a rejection. I still have six stories in submission. I need to send out a few more, but I haven't found the right venues for them yet.

4. It's the long Labor Day weekend. Yay! We don't have any plans except a playdate tonight and maybe going to the apple orchard at some point. It's going to be super hot, though. Might have to refill the backyard kiddie pool.

5. Join me on Monday for my big news! My newsletter subscribers have already heard. If you want to be the first to hear all the exciting stuff, please subscribe by typing your email address in that widget on my sidebar. You'll get a free ebook!

Friday Five for August 14, 2015

1. For those of you who missed Wednesday's post, this month is the one year anniversary of my newsletter, Geeks, Freaks, & EEKS! I'll be sending out my newsletter later today and subscribers will have a chance to win some swag including a unique Christine Rains dice. PLUS, if you subscribe, you get a free ebook. You can have your choice of The 13th Floor Complete Collection or Of Blood and Sorrow.

2. I'm getting lots of writing done with my son in school. I'm finished a novelette last week and I'm over halfway done with the second novelette in the trilogy. I hope I don't get so excited with all this writing that I burn myself out before the month is out!

3. Tomorrow is the monthly meeting of my local critique group. The flash piece I wrote this month for it was tons of fun. Funny how I keep going back to the monster under the bed, but this time, I put a horrific sci-fi twist to it.

4. I've been trying to think of an original wondrous item for Paizo's RPG Superstar contest. Every time I think of something, I look it up and it's been done! I don't get to play tabletop RPGs much any more. I'd love to game more, but it's difficult getting our friends together at one time. Maybe if I start thinking about an item now, I might have something for next year's contest!

5. The only thing on my schedule for the weekend is my critique group meeting. I do love not having anything to do. But then that sometimes leads to this conversation that can last for hours itself:
Me: "Let's go do something."
Hubby: "Okay. What do you want to do?"
Me: "I don't know. What do you want to do?"
Hubby: "I don't know. Not much is open."
Me: "Yeah, and it's raining. What can we do?"
Hubby: "I don't know. What do you feel like doing?"

Have a terrific weekend!

Wicked Wednesday - examining newsletters

One of the most handy tools a writer can use is the newsletter. You can promote your new book, share a contest, and tease your readers with a new project. Newsletters are a special tool in our arsenal because they're all about the readers. Or, at least, they should be.

My newsletter - Geeks, Freaks, & EEKS! - is one year old this month. It was intimidating when I started. I use MailChimp, and it took a little while to get the hang of it. Now it's easy to piece together a bulletin when I've decided what I want to say.

I worried that no one except a few friends would sign up for it. I pointed readers to the little widget on the sidebar of my blog and website. All you have to do is put in your email address. So simple! I was right to worry. Very few people subscribed.

Why? How could I entice readers to sign up? I offered contests just for my subscribers and a couple more folks added their names to the list. When I toured earlier this year, I gave the most points on my raffles to those that signed up for my newsletter. It attracted another dozen readers.

Now that I've reached the anniversary of my newsletter, I'm re-examining what I want to do with it and how to draw new subscribers. I've done a bunch of research, and here is what I have planned:

1. I will be sending out my newsletter quarterly instead of every month. (And for special events like book releases.)
2. There will be something in each newsletter exclusively for subscribers that won't be released anywhere else until at least two days after the newsletter has been sent.
3. I'll be attracting new subscribers with a free book.

Oh yes. You read it right! New subscribers to my newsletter will receive their choice of either The 13th Floor Complete Collection or Of Blood and Sorrow. (Sorry I cannot give away my Dice & Debauchery books.)

I'll be sending out my anniversary newsletter this Friday (August 14th). One lucky subscriber will win some swag including one of my special Christine Rains dice. So if you do sign up, you'll not only get a free book, but you'll have a chance to win some more cool stuff!

It's all about the readers.

Do you have a newsletter? If you do, what tips can you share about how to attract subscribers?

Friday Five for August 22, 2014

1. This week, my son went back to preschool and he's loving it. I'm loving the fact I get to spend my mornings writing. I promised myself only to write and not surf around on the internet. It's blissful. I missed regular writing time over the summer. I'm in a better mood and feeling more like myself again.

2. I'm still waiting for the okay to share my news, but my newsletter subscribers were let in on the secret. If you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, just pop your email address into the little widget on the right side of my blog. My subscribers get all the good news first!

3. I have my local writers critique group meeting tomorrow. This time I sent in a contemporary flash piece that I hope to create two very different emotions with. I do wonder if I succeeded.

4. I've submitted a few horror short stories this past week. It's that time of year when venues are looking to fill up October slots. I have one that is a twist on the Sleepy Hollow tale told from the horseman's point of view. He's not really that bad of a guy. Well, okay, maybe he is, but it's fun to get his side of the story!

5. I cut my finger on the saw of my tinfoil box the other night. It bled a lot. As I was nursing it, I wondered how I managed not to do that before. I'm often lost in my head, so I tend to get bumps and cuts, but never on the tinfoil saw which seemed really weird to me in the moment. What's the strangest thing you've ever cut yourself on or bumped into?

Have a wonderful weekend!

Friday Five for July 18, 2014

1. I think I've been outsmarted by a chimp. A Mailchimp. Is it really that easy to use? I didn't find it to be. Setting up the newsletter itself was simple, but the whole setting up a list and subscribers thing was not. I'm crossing my fingers. So... TA DA! I created an author newsletter which I have named "Geeks, freaks & EEKS!" You can subscribe to the newsletter by typing your email address into the handy little box on the right side of my blog. Subscribers will get all my exciting news before anyone else. Plus there will be special giveaways, previews, and excerpts.

2. Sorry, I can't share the secret I've been bursting to tell you yet. This contract business is slow-going. I really, really want to tell you, though.

3. My website is still under construction. You'll see the old one if you click on the link. I wanted a minimalistic and clean look, but maybe it's too bare? I don't know. My husband is slowly working on it.

4. Click on over to Untethered Realms for the monthly news post. We're having a huge giveaway celebrating reaching 100 followers on our blog, and some of us are participating in Smashwords' July sale. Find out which books are half off or free!

5. The weather has been mild here all week. My son and I have been out most days enjoying this lovely summer. My husband and the boy are going to do some backyard camping this weekend. I hope to enjoy some quiet writing time, and at night with my husband outside, I will joyfully hog the entire bed!

Have a great weekend!