Author: RJ Crayton

RJ Crayton is a former journalist turned novelist. By day, she writes thrillers with a touch of romance. By night, she practices the art of ninja mom. To learn more about her or her books, visit her website or her Author Central page.

Now is the Perfect Time to Plan Out Your Author Year

author goals for the new year paper-3042645__340 (002)It’s the new year, so we always hear a lot about resolutions around this time. While I’m not going to talk about resolutions, I do think the new year is a great time for authors to think about the year ahead.

“The whole year?” you ask. Yep. The entire year.

“But I don’t think like that,” you say. You’re a pantser and you like to see what happens.

Well, even if you like to be a pantser with your writing, it’s a good idea to look back at what worked last year, and plan ahead for the coming year. When I say plan ahead, I don’t mean you have to plan out every detail of your year. I do mean, you should jot down a sort of authorial blueprint that will help you accomplish what you want to get done this year.

What might your blueprint include? Continue reading “Now is the Perfect Time to Plan Out Your Author Year”

The Social Media Scheduling Free Ride is Over

scheduling social media posts for authors mobile-phone-1917737_1280Companies like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Dlvr.It are done letting you schedule a ton of social media posts without paying up. I was scheduling promotional tweets this month when I suddenly got a message saying I’d reach my limit of ten scheduled tweets.

I’d never seen this before. I tended to schedule a daily tweet that promoted at least one book, and I tended to, around the first weekend of each month, schedule tweets for the entire month (roughly thirty). I’d also schedule a few tweets for the week of interesting articles or quotes. I don’t like the idea of someone checking out my Facebook or Twitter accounts to find I haven’t posted anything in months, so scheduling allowed me to look active, even if it didn’t include high levels of engagement. (And don’t get me started on the importance of engagement. That’s for another article.) Continue reading “The Social Media Scheduling Free Ride is Over”

Author Hack: Keeping Your Back Matter Up to Date for both Amazon and Wide Titles

author hack fantasy-2763693_960_720One of the great things about writing multiple books is that readers have several points of entry from which to discover your work. One of the pain in the rear things about having multiple books is that each time you publish a new book, you have to update all the back matter for every other book you have published.

What is back matter? It’s exactly what it sounds like: Continue reading “Author Hack: Keeping Your Back Matter Up to Date for both Amazon and Wide Titles”

Should Authors Use Chapter Titles?

book chapter titles texture-1362879_1920I ran across this question recently in a Facebook group, and noted there was a lot of opinion on it. Some authors are vehemently opposed to using chapter titles, while others adore them. So, what’s best?

Well, the simplest answer is that it’s entirely up to the author. However, chapter titles do tend to be more prevalent in certain genres, so if that’s one you write in, you may want to adopt them. Continue reading “Should Authors Use Chapter Titles?”