<![CDATA[Tell -Tale Publishing - Writing Blog]]>Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:36:15 -0600Weebly<![CDATA[How to Promote Your Book With Online Social Networking]]>Fri, 06 May 2011 02:02:54 GMThttps://www.tell-talepublishing.com/writing-blog/how-to-promote-your-book-with-online-social-networkingNotes for this video presentation are available below.
Social Media; or, Marketing Your Book

Marketing requires branding, whether developing a tagline or a logo.  It’s about connecting, not projecting: it’s a deliberate presence you want to establish—this creates your reputation, the public perception of you.  If you don’t do it deliberately, you may not like what others think of you and/or your work.

Your personal (social) relationships help influence your brand.  Social Media Networking is how you engage your readers/fans, as a community at large.

How to decide on your brand

1.     What distinguishes you?

2.     What distinguishes your book (s)?

3.     How does your book reflect you and your personal brand?

4.     Who would want to buy the book or engage with you?

5.     Why?

6.     How is your book unique? Why is your story uniquely informed?

7.     This is your target audience and where you should engage with potential book buyers

8.     Even if they wouldn’t buy it, they may recommend it

Personal VS Product

You need to develop a brand around you, but a first-time author may need to start with the Book Title.

What a brand is:

·       A promise to your reader

·       The reader’s loyalty is with the author—providing you live up to your brand

·       With or without a certain brand, you will eventually attract a certain kind of reader

Benefits of Branding

·       Opens avenues for blogging and other forms of writing—faithfulness to author rather than single title type of writing

·       Increases your audience reach through partnering opportunities with other like-minded people, companies or organizations

·       Your brand is your calling card, your readers feel they know who you are and can connect with you

·       Once they feel connected they are more willing to buy, recommend and share your book—you can’t just spam if you want to engage your audience, to connect on a personal level

Online Preparation:

1.     Develop a short bio that you can consistently use across multiple platforms—keep your branding in mind.

2.     Use the same photo-or similar, from a series, as your personal logo

3.     Make sure you create full, descriptive, unique personal profiles on social media—after all, you’re a writer!

Understanding Internet-Based Marketing

Search Engine Optimization: meta data, calls to action, updated content, internal linking

Pay Per Click: Paying for site sponsorship

Social media: Social Media Specifics

·       Connect with like-minded individuals that you genuinely enjoy hearing from and sharing with

·       Don’t be a PEST!

o   Engage—the goal is interaction, not spam--so ask questions, ask for help or opinions, and help those in need

o   Provide a value: give tips, post links, inspire others!

Newsletter—electronic version of direct mailings

Minimally, You Should Create a Presence Online

1.     Your Own Website

2.     Blog

3.     Facebook

4.     Twitter

5.     Linkedln

6.     Youtube

Website Essentials

·       As soon as you have a confirmed title for your book you should have a domain

·       Your website is the hub your entire internet-based marketing feeds to

·       One of the easiest is WordPress.  You have full control and can create pages and post your blog

Software for Twitter: TweetAdder, Hootsweet, TweetDeck

<![CDATA[You Write to Publish, So Why E-Books?]]>Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:15:04 GMThttps://www.tell-talepublishing.com/writing-blog/you-write-to-publish-so-why-e-booksThe market for wireless digital text reading devices has skyrocketed.  They have become competitive, which means a niche market demand exists.   Companies are rushing to be first in line to meet that demand.  With better portable handheld e-book readers and competitive marketing, prices are dropping and consumer attention is going up. Santa stuffed plenty of stockings with e-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle, Sony Reader and Barns & Noble Nook, along with other handheld portable devices capable of reading digital text, like high-tech phones, palms and music video devices.  They provide consumers with immediate electronic access to both the newest and now most diverse print text available.

Amazon is the largest online book seller in the world.  Recent sale figures suggest that 1 in 3 Amazon book buyers owns a Kindle.   Of the top bestsellers sold on Amazon, about as many Kindle copies as paper copies are sold.  It is estimated that over three million Kindle eBooks were sold on Amazon just during the last week of December in 2010.  There are between 5 and 10 million Kindle reading devices in the U.S. alone.

E-book has easy accessibility and reasonable costs, which makes it a perfect medium.  Owners of book readers can also choose to have a man or woman’s voice read the text to them.  To capture trendy consumers, e-book reading devices also offer software that allows them to listen to music, log onto the Internet, do Google searches or communicate on their electronic social networks.

Unfortunately, in the swirling midst of all this media text frenzy, a bevy of predators surfaced.  Electronic pirates pillaged everything from instruction manuals to underground cult favorites.  In 2009, the Kama Sutra was the most pirated text--which supports the fact that erotica e-publishers, without the need for plain brown wrappers, turned the highest profits.  Pirating is the most frustrating and frightening  deterrent to e-book publishing for most authors.  However, as Neil Gaimon said in the Comics Alliance,


This is why we encrypt our files and do everything in our power to keep from having our files pirated, but we still feel it would be a foolish oversight of the market not to make our publications available in e-book sales as well as Trade Book texts. 

So what can a publisher such as Tell-Tale Publishing Group offer its authors?  We provide proofreading, text conversion and format, cover design and custom illustrations, issuance of ISBN number, registration of title in the Ingram database, submission of Copyright application, registration of Library of Congress forms, marketing and promotion.  We advertise with Amazon/B & N, Facebook, Twitter, Websites, Google ads, reviewers, book club reviews, Book Trailers, Press releases, Print ads and networking used in PR.

<![CDATA[A Hero's Journey by Elizabeth Fortin]]>Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:18:04 GMThttps://www.tell-talepublishing.com/writing-blog/first-postWriters have talked  about Goal, Motivation and Conflict since bards were poets and stories were memorized.  By no surprise these are universal elements within a H/H's mythical adventure.  

The Hero/Heroine starts out in the real world, is motivated to seek a high stakes prize which requires going on a chaotic adventure,  and finally overcomes the conflict, achieves his/her goal and returns to share their prize or boon with the original world.  Sounds like a cover blurb, doesn't it?  For good reason.

 In the beginning of  H/H quests, the protagonist  lives in the real world (whatever that is according to the creator of worlds).  The author establishes a setting and situates the H/H within it.   Then the main character receives a call to adventure (motivation).  They usually say no.  This is when a mentor or guardian appears to make them an offer they can't refuse, usually to help solve a sudden crisis.  The conflict  revealed may be  the H/H against themselves, nature, or against a villain. 

The H/H must decide whether or not to answer that call (to pursue a
goal).  This is the opening of an adventure tale, be it screenplay, mystery, thriller, fantasy, paranormal, YA, or  romance, etc.  The Jonah, Luke or Alice who answers the call  steps over the threshold (into the belly of the whale, across the universe, or down the rabbit hole) and sets forth on a hero/heroine’s journey.  It is a journey that may be literal, psychological, or both.  

The events and character development are the stops along that journey, and though they may not be linear or strictly chronological any good storyteller's goal is to make them interrelated and consistant, thus logical.  For example, if you are writing about a psycho, the fact that they do not think or behave in what is considered to be a logical or rational manner would seem realistic, right?  To a lesser degree, most "real" people are sometimes confused, have a hard time making up their mind, or even change their mind--usually because another event or circumstance is revealed to motivate this change. 

These are the plot twists of a story.  The hero/heroine can make mistakes, but sooner or later they must learn from these mistakes in order to grow as a person and this is
character development.  The H/H may have helpers and fellow travelers that are encountered on their journey (supporting characters), but the main characters will be the protagonist (hero/heroine) and the antagonist  (villain).  It is their search for the holy grail, their encounters with the Green Knight that make up the universal themes that resonate within the reader's psyche. 

But before the story can end there must be a
climax, a point where the hero/heroine comes to a pivotal moment of personal and significant importance.  This is a flash forward when the action takes a definitive turn for the worst.  It is the point where the reader should be holding their breath in anticipation, rooting for the hero/heroine to succeed even though it seems they have just been fitted with a toe tag.  They recover of course, hoist themselves back up that cliff face, at the last seemingly irresolvable  instant.   

The conclusion is not the second at which the H/H resolves the conflict and achieves their goal, at least not precisely.  The hero/heroine of an adventure tale  follow their bliss into a dark, mysterious cave.  For the story to end, the H/H must be reborn as the normal everyday firefighter, balerina, detective, surgeon, vampire or even serial killer they were in the beginning. 

Protagonists must do this in order for them to fulfill the obligation they agreed to when accepting the call to adventure: returning with the prize.  This chalice provides the psychological closure, the moral realized, the maturity evident or at least implied to the reader, who also lives in this universal "real" world.  The awarded trophy can be a murder solved, an injustice righted, a true love found, or an emotional trauma overcome.  Whatever.  It can be the fact that the moral dilemma has no one right solution.  The point now is the sharing of the boon.  The reader must realize the life lesson, the
universal theme  that promted the storyteller to write.  Only after the circular plot has completed a full cycle is the story over.  The end.

Recap of what you know and why you love it.
A hero/heroine’s journey:
  1)    The real world
  2)   The call to adventure
  3)   Turning down the call (not yet ready or convinced)
  4)   The mentor/guide  (an offer they can't refuse)
  5)   Accepting the call (crossing the threshold)
  6)   Encountering trials and enemies (character
  7)  The hero/heroine’s journey (events and          
        circumstances that influence the
        protagonist’s goals)
  8)  The climax (transformation, character development)
  9)  Obtaining the boon
10)  The journey home
11)   Rebirth
12)   Sharing the boon with mankind