We’ve talked about why you might want to add short fiction to your author’s bag of tricks. Your next challenge: promoting short fiction in today’s slightly wobbly and ever-shifting marketplace. While Smashwords’ Mark Coker says that the highest selling novels on his site come in at about 100K, other industry professionals are all over the map about book length. On one hand, they point to recent successes like Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (775 pages), but then they blame our culturally reduced attention spans for the desire for shorter books. Continue reading “Promoting Your Shorter Fiction”
Author: Laurie Boris
Laurie Boris is a freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and former graphic designer. She has been writing fiction for over twenty-five years and is the award-winning author of four novels. She lives in New York’s lovely Hudson Valley. Learn more about Laurie at her website and her Amazon author page.
Is Scribophile For You?
I’m lucky to live in an area where you can’t throw a Kindle without hitting a writer. Not that I recommend you do that; it makes them cranky and it hurts the Kindle. But it does offer the opportunity to find a face-to-face critique group. If you reside off the beaten path or if the circumstances of your life don’t permit easy travel, gathering a roomful of writers can be more challenging. Social media can provide you with an online writing community, but this doesn’t work for everyone. You might want to keep your social media separate from your actual writing process. Rather than go without fresh eyes on your work, it could be worthwhile to try an online critiquing site like Scribophile.com. Continue reading “Is Scribophile For You?”
The Long and Short of Short Links
You’ve no doubt seen URLs that are practically as long as a Harry Potter novel. A long link can look sloppy, especially if it’s breaking over two lines on an email or in your newsletter, but it eats up characters on platforms like Twitter when you want a short message — real estate better spent enticing readers to check out your cat videos or, you know, your books and stuff. A short link can also hide your affiliate code so you’re not immediately broadcasting that fact to potential readers or customers. Short links do have their disadvantages, however. Some websites refuse to publish short links because a few shady types have used them as a cover for spam. Short links are not necessarily permanent, either, despite the claims of the provider. If the utility’s site goes extinct, there go your pretty little URLs.
But hundreds of link shortening utilities are available now. How do you know which URL shortener is best for you? Here’s a run-down of some of the major ones that could be handy for the indie community. Continue reading “The Long and Short of Short Links”
How to Make an Author Media Kit
You have a new title out, or you’ve been asked to do a book signing or an interview, maybe participate in a panel discussion — a brilliant opportunity for some publicity. And then someone asks you for a media kit. Gulp. You don’t even know what that is, let alone how to put one together. The good thing is that you probably have all the ingredients for a media kit sitting around on your computer, your website, or floating around on the interwebs. Let’s hunt them down. A quick note first: What I’m walking you through here is only one possible version of a media kit, which is sometimes called a press kit. Your actual mileage may vary.
Mine is divided into two main sections: Information about me, and information about my books.
For information about you, you’ll need… Continue reading “How to Make an Author Media Kit”