Monday, April 28, 2008
Why An Author Needs a GOOD website
I recently finished two books by the same author, in different genres, and they were both fantastic.
ohmygosh!!! I felt the fangirlishness descend upon me. How could I find out more? Will she let me on her newsletter so I'll know when I need to rush out to buy her books? Seriously. I am not kidding. I sat down at my iMac to summon the power of Google to me. Google did its work.
Answer to both those questions: Good Luck and Not Hardly.
I guess I should have known there was trouble when her website didn't come up anywhere near the top ten Google results of a search on her name. In fact, I got to her website by copying and pasting a link from another search result. Authors, when you Google your name, if your website isn't the Number One result you have a problem. If your website isn't even on the first page of results, your website sucks.
I was determined, so I did make it to her website. This author has a marginally attractive site; I've seen worse, believe me. But her website had exactly three pages. The Home Page. A page about her books (incomplete and completely different in look and feel from the home page) and a News page which was sort of a blog, maybe. That's it. No newsletter. There were no links to buy her books. The "links" on the home page which were her book covers went to larger images of the covers. Oh My Good god Of Author Website Badness!!! I was ready to buy all her books. All of them.
But I'm crying with frustration that she doesn't have a newsletter. I wanted to be on her newsletter list! Whah!!!
So tell me, if your author website sucked that bad, would you be offended by a polite letter explaining why you should have a better one? Because I'm seriously thinking of emailing her about it.
Labels: bad marketing, marketing, websites that suck
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007
This N That
Galley Cat on one of my favorite authors
Chinua Achebe.
Things Fall Apart was my intro into African literature. Mind opening.
Interesting blog post about
imprints from a publisher who always has interesting insights into the business.
Even more interesting blog post about
imprints. I TOTALLY agree with this. Readers just don't care about imprints. File this under the publishers should be doing market research...
Physicists blog about
Being in Love. Read it. You'll be surprised.
Saving myself 15 years of bad luck. Maybe. I was
cough cough mumble on mySpace cough working hard when I came across this, which unlike most horoscopes, seems to describe me exactly. Please read the foregoing and following, with no sense of being serious at all, okay?
TAURUS: The Freak in bed
Aggressive. Freak in bed. Rare to find! Loves being in long relationships Likes to give a good fight for what they want. Extremely outgoing. Sexy as ...u no!..... Loves to help people in times of need. Outstanding kisser. Very funny. Awesome personality. Stubborn. Sexual as ......... Most caring person you will ever meet! One of a kind. Not one to fuck with. Are the most sexiest people on earth! 15 years of bad luck if you do not repost.
In writing news, Magellan's Witch is going okay I think. I got to chapter 10 this time before I had to massively rewrite and that only took a day. Last night I got through a lot.
And now, I really do have to go work hard.
Labels: Authors, Magellan's Witch, marketing, publishing
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Sunday, June 10, 2007
Catching up and falling behind
I'm at Starbucks right now (alas,the local coffee shop closed its doors) having just finished doing work for the day job. I have to hang out for a bit to make sure every thing's OK. It's been a crazy week. I attended my son's 6th grade graduation on Thursday -- he won a President's Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence (the Secretary of Education may need some remedial lessons there, but whatever). And a school Outstanding Citizenship Award. Both were unexpected and of course I was proud as anything. Friday was the graduation party for him and my nephew.
All week I've been trying to get organized for my son's birthday party for his buddies, yesterday. Today is my nephew's birthday party, so I'm hoping I get out of here in time. Oh my gosh. So, this week I did not get as much done as I wanted to. I went to my local RWA chapter meeting Saturday morning because they had a bookseller's panel and I wanted to know that kinds of things a writer can reasonably and effectively do (besides writing a good book). Most trinkets are a waste of time and money. And even for the few that were clever or cute, I didn't hear anyone say that made them buy more books. Things that work;
- Bookmarks. Put the release date on them. Sign them.
- Coming in to sign stock (see below)
- Sending ARCs - at least 2 mos in advance of release
- Mail a copy of your newsletter to chains - Borders stores don't have internet access. Only limited email
- Make your own shelf talkers. The width of a book, about two inches long below the fold -- too long and it hangs too low. Include title, author, blurb.
- If you have a pseudonym, let booksellers know.
Regarding signing stock, it's not true that signed books don't get stripped for return. Sorry, that's a myth. It might keep your book around a little longer, but it doesn't prevent returns. However, signed books always sell before unsigned ones.
I got home from the chapter meeting and worked frantically to get in some edits on Magellan's Witch before it was time to get over to Scandia and the party location. Made it by the skin of my teeth. I was able to get some work done. Not much, but some. Home from the party frazzled and tired by 7:30.
At 8:30 I went to bed with my MS and fell asleep. I woke up at 9:00 (the binder was poking me) and decided it was better to just turn off the light and sleep. OK.
Anyhoo -- As mentioned before, I ran into trouble at chapter 7 on the last read through and had to stop reading to fix that. I ended up adding two new chapters. Next week it has to go out to some other readers. I've just realized that RWA is early this year and my agent will be there and, naturally, unable to read MW for me so, well, whatever. Right now, I just need to keep working on it. I hope to get past chapter 7 this time, but now I'm thinking it's just boring.
Sigh.Labels: Magellan's Witch, marketing
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Saturday, March 10, 2007
Today I accosted total strangers
Long day today. I went to my local RWA chapter meeting which is always enjoyable. After that I went to a book signing at a nearby Borders with several other authors. They didn't have Shards of Crimson, which was a bummer and kind of worrisome, but A Darker Crimson was there. I sold some books, so that was good. Then we started compiling stacks of everyone's bookmarks and giving them to people in the store. That brought people to the table, and even generated some sales. And, several of us ended up giving out all our bookmarks, so accosting total strangers is actually a good strategy it seems.
I haven't gotten any writing done today, but I did manage to reorder my chapters last night after the brainstorming re-org with my prof. I'm trying to decide if I should print out another paper version or do a read through. I'm leaning toward a read through.
And, I'm enjoying MySpace in really unexpected ways. I've been able contact some neat people. I'm an art lover and I found an artist,
Rachel Tribble whose art I really, really like. I figured there's no way I could afford anything by her, but when I checked her website, au contraire. I love
Cattails and when my tax refund comes in, I may well indulge.
OK. Off to work.
Labels: art, marketing, writing
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