Ideas for Guest Blog Posts about your novel #MondayBlogs #AmWriting #Marketing

D. E., thank you so much for posting these wonderful suggestions for blogging posts! You are a life saving for many of us bloggers that are writing novels too and find time is a precious commodity.

D.E. Haggerty

I try to blog three times a week, but sometimes I can’t come up with a blog idea for the life of me. And then there’s those blog tours that want guest blog posts. Of course, I’m a glutton for punishment and also offer to write blog posts for other blogs to promote my books. Help! Calgon take me away!

calgon take me away

I don’t have a bathtub so Calgon is never going to take me away. Instead, I’ve developed a list of ideas to use for blog posts about my book. And because I’m super supportive of my fellow writers (but mostly because I couldn’t come up with an idea for today’s blog post), I’m going to share my list with you. Here goes:

Character Interview. Tried and tested. Never fails.

Five Things You Didn’t Know About (Protagonist). I find this one more fun than doing a character interview.

10 Items…

View original post 274 more words

How to Jumpstart Book Reviews for Self-Published Books!

BY JOEL FRIEDLANDER ON JANUARY 15, 2018

It’s never been a better time to be a self-published author, and there have never been more book reviewers available to the writer who decides to go indie.

Book reviewers help spread the message about your book by publishing a review to their own network. But if you’re new to publishing, you have to figure out how to get those book reviews that can bring you more readers.

First, Get Your Kit Together

Before you go hunting for reviewers, make sure you’ve got the essentials you’ll need. At the minimum you should have:

Either a PDF or an ePub of your book, or both. Include the covers, and also have the cover available as both a high-resolution (300 dpi) and low-resolution (72 dpi) graphics, preferably in JPG format

For print books, plenty of copies and mailing supplies. If you’re publishing via print on demand, order enough books to respond to reviewer requests, since you’ll need to add your marketing materials to the package.

Press release about the launch of your book. Try to make it sound like a story you would read in the newspaper.

Cover letter. This should be a brief introduction to you and your book, but keep it short.

Photos of the author. Again, you’ll need both high- and low-resolution images if you’re approaching both print and online reviewers.

Author biography. This is a good place to show your qualifications, particularly if you’re a nonfiction author.

There are lots of other things you can put in a press kit or a reviewer package, and you can find more about that here: Media Kits for Indie Authors

How to Find Reviewers

There are literally thousands of book bloggers online, and most of them review books even though they aren’t paid. Nevertheless, many are thoughtful reviewers and good writers, and have a significant following.

There are also reviewers offering paid reviews, and over the years this has become much more acceptable in the indie community. It’s one of the ways we get word out to readers about our books.

Paid reviews might work for completely unknown fiction authors, who have little chance to get exposure when they get started. Otherwise, use free review sources at first, it will be a long time before you run out of them.

Here are some recently updated resources that will help you locate reviewers:

Midwest Book Review welcomes self-published books, and their website is bulging with targeted information about book reviews and reviewers.

Indie Reader invites authors to submit their books for review, and they have become a trusted source for reviews. The site is run by authors and writers.

The Indie Author’s Guide to Free Reviews is an updated article from Publishers Weekly by By Daniel Lefferts and Alex Daniel with lots of excellent resources.

Indie View keeps an updated list of hundreds of reviewers.

Self-Publishing Review has been reviewing books since 2008 and also has lots of information about book marketing in general as well as an archive of great content.

Don’t forget the many reviewers who post on book-oriented sites like Goodreads, where you can also find genre-specific groups, too.

Reedsy has built an excellent list of Best Book Review Blogs of 2017. Authors can search by genre and filter out blogs that do not review indie books.

The Book Blogger List is another searchable curated list of online reviewers.

A recent interview with Jason B. Ladd, How To Get Book Reviews As An Unknown Author, with a great outline of the process of getting reader reviews.

For print reviewers, consider the programs run by the Independent Book Publishers Association. These mailings of books for review go to over 3,000 newspaper and magazine editors and reviewers.

There are an almost endless list of blog articles and books on this subject to research, too. Getting reviews is a standard part of book marketing, and you should plan on spending

Here are some recently updated resources that will help you locate reviewers:

Midwest Book Review welcomes self-published books, and their website is bulging with targeted information about book reviews and reviewers.

Indie Reader invites authors to submit their books for review, and they have become a trusted source for reviews. The site is run by authors and writers.

The Indie Author’s Guide to Free Reviews is an updated article from Publishers Weekly by By Daniel Lefferts and Alex Daniel with lots of excellent resources.

Indie View keeps an updated list of hundreds of reviewers.

Self-Publishing Review has been reviewing books since 2008 and also has lots of information about book marketing in general as well as an archive of great content.

Don’t forget the many reviewers who post on book-oriented sites like Goodreads, where you can also find genre-specific groups, too.

Reedsy has built an excellent list of Best Book Review Blogs of 2017. Authors can search by genre and filter out blogs that do not review indie books.

The Book Blogger List is another searchable curated list of online reviewers.

A recent interview with Jason B. Ladd, How To Get Book Reviews As An Unknown Author, with a great outline of the process of getting reader reviews.

For print reviewers, consider the programs run by the Independent Book Publishers Association. These mailings of books for review go to over 3,000 newspaper and magazine editors and reviewers.

There are an almost endless list of blog articles and books on this subject to research, too. Getting reviews is a standard part of book marketing, and you should plan on spending some time doing this for your own book launches.

5 Key Tips for Getting Book Reviews

Now that you have your materials together and access to lots of reviewers, you’re ready to go. Here are my 5 best tips for getting book reviews, whether online or off:

Pick the right reviewers. This is the single most important thing you can do to help your review program. Find out what kind of books the reviewer likes to review, and only select appropriate reviewers. Don’t just spam your contacts or people you know in unrelated fields. I do few book reviews on the blog, but I constantly get pitched by romance novelists, thriller writers, and just about everyone else. Save everyone time and effort by aiming your review requests in the right direction.

Query the reviewers. Check each reviewer’s requirements. Some want you to just send the book, but many ask for a query. Some review e-books, many do not. Conforming to their requirements saves both of you time. Check out this query letter tutorial.

Send the book. In your query make sure to offer both as many versions as you can of the book. You can use a PDF, an ePub or Kindle format, or a print copy. Let the reviewer decide how she wants to receive it.

Follow up. Don’t stalk or harass the reviewer, who is probably doing this in her spare time. But if you haven’t heard anything after a few weeks, follow up to see if they still intend to write the review.

Thank the reviewer. It’s common courtesy, but it also shows you appreciate the time and effort someone else took to help bring your book to the attention of more people. Every reviewer has an audience of some kind, and every audience can create network effects that spread the word about a book that really stands out.

Book reviews can be very effective in spreading the word. Nothing sells books as well as word of mouth, and you can get people talking about your book if you can bring it to their attention. Book reviews will do that for you. Consequently, an aggressive, ongoing book review program is one of the best ways for self-published authors to get attention for their books.

Something to Add?

In addition to the resources mentioned in this article, do you know of others for finding book reviewers, and particularly identifying top reviewers in your field? Any tips to share? Please let us know in the comments.

 

 

DANGER WALKS HERE!

It happened in a small farming community in the northwestern part of Connecticut that also included a large forest preserve, a once glacial river, now a bubbling brook, a lake, and a spring-fed pond. The community’s roots began in 1680, as The Salmon Brook Settlement that was also home to Native Americans like the Tunix, the Massaco, and the Mohegan.

It was a perfect summer day. The morning was cool and the sky was a brilliant Periwinkle blue. The deep, dense forest was a monolith of wonder for elementary school age kids.  The ancient woods that the Salmon Brook flowed through provided the Native Americans with all kinds of fish, fowl, and river animals, like beavers.

Evidence of their inhabitation lingers still in the form of arrowheads, pathways, in meadows that were once crop producing fields, where they once grew tobacco, beans, squash, and corn, as well as middens of shells like clams, mussels and turtles were eagerly searched for in the forest.  There were plenty of bones to find too, mostly animal, but sometimes, human bones that would be exposed as they washed up on the rocky river banks.

On this beautiful summer morning, a small band of kids, having traversed deeply into the forest, smelled smoke and considered it to be a fisherman on the river or the nearby lake.  At first, nothing much was thought about it. The smoke seemed to be coming from some distance away.

Taken aback by what she was seeing, one of the older members of the group of five children, yelled out, “FIRE!”  All heads turned to the leader of the group, who stood mesmerized by the yellow-orange fingers of flame surrounding a giant oak tree, that appeared to touch the sky it was so tall. The forest fire was closing in around them, silently sneaking up on them, until it roared like a lion.  The fire then leapt among the tree tops, high into the sky, turning the blue sky into a purple twilight, billowing with fire.

Like deer, caught in the headlights of an on-coming car, they froze in fear.  Suddenly, they ran, following their leader to an old wagon wheel road where giant, thick oaks lined the road, that was little more, now, than a pathway.  They ran and out of the corner of their eyes the watched the fire explode into the giant oaks behind them. As they ran, animals of all kinds joined in their fierce desire to escape the flames that were now, 40, 50, 60, 100 feet high in the air, and animals ran alongside the five children. The leader was shocked to find a black bear keeping pace at her side and deer leaping everywhere. Wild Turkeys, Foxes, Porcupines, Skunks, Woodchucks, all, ran with the humans, side by side on the narrow path, until the path widened as they reached an open field. Ahead of them was Canton road and fire trucks with long hoses and a helicopter overhead. The parents of the children were kept back by officers and firemen.

The children emerged, blackened with smoke, wild-eyed with fear, and the animals took off in different directions, some crossing the road to the other side where safety could be found, unmindful of the crowd gathered on Canton Road. The children, now at the point of exhaustion, collapsed into their parent’s arms as the firefighters dosed them with cool, clear water.

This was a day the five children would never forget. I will always remember the black bear running by my side. I remember how we looked at each other, the black bear and I—with a look that was “will we get out of this alive?”  It was as if we saved each other and we were a team. It was amazing. I will always remember the look he gave me as he turned to run into the safety of the tall bushes and another part of the forest, he turned and stopped for a moment, like he was saying, thank you and nodded his head.

By K. D. Dowdall

***I wrote this sometime ago and I had not proofread it before publishing. I have now made grammatical changes. A mistake, hopefully, I will not make again.

A Review of The Starling by Author Kathy Lauren Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

This dystopia novel, The Starling, is a fantastically exciting foray into a world, our world, that may exist in the future. The author, Kathy Lauren Miller, uses real scientific possibilities that are on the drawing board of technological advances as we speak.
She carefully crafts two characters, like Jamie, a young girl in an emotional crisis and, by a twist of fate, is transported through time to earth’s dystopian future where humans are dominated by a malevolent AI and various degrees of terrifying humanoids. Jamie is used as bait to draw out free humans who live like Outliers on the hidden fringes of society.
Quinn is a male humanoid, whose internal program has been manipulated by a secret group inside this dystopian world, to make him a little more human. What happens between them defies logic but creates in its path a different way of thinking and hope for the future.
The Starling novel is a fantastically exciting foray into a world that may exist in the future. The writer combines great characters in a futuristic adventure with intrigue, danger, romance that is so realistic you begin to believe this will be our future. It is exceptional because the writer uses real scientific possibilities that are on the drawing board of technological advances. I highly recommend this exciting novel.

THE GIRL IN BLACK

The Girl in Black

The Girl in Black” by Kathy Lauren Miller, is a hauntingly taut murder mystery as well as an awesome page-turner! The mystery begins with high school senior, Kate Mckenna who happens to live in an old Victorian manor that is also the Mckenna Memorial Funeral Home. Her father, Dr. Brendan Mckenna, happens to be the county’s Chief Medical Examiner.  Shy Kate, whose social life as always been nearly non-existent until she is thrust into the limelight when the promiscuous prom queen, Ashley, is found tortured and murdered.

Accusations run rampant in Kate’s High School concerning several male students that were involved with Ashley.  To make matters worse, Ashley’s remains now reside at the funeral home where Kate lives. Kate and her best friend Cooper, a computer nerd, and Kate’s unattainable heartthrob, handsome Shane, all become involved in Ashley’s murder.  Suddenly, Kate finds herself in the cross hairs of the sadistic killer and the vengeful ghost of Ashley, the murdered prom queen. What happens next is beyond Kate’s worse nightmare.  The Girl in Black is a fascinating and terrifying murder mystery that will keep you guessing until the end. I highly recommend this book.

 

 

 

Hug An Author!

Gallery

This gallery contains 16 photos.

Originally posted on Novels by Jennifer Hinsman:
It only takes a minute, not even a minute in some cases! If you enjoyed a book please leave a review.  Books make time travel possible, they make magic happen, they take us…

AMAZON’S TIPS FOR WRITERS & AUTHORS & BLOGGERS

 

From the of author of a dozen thrillers, use these tips from entrepreneur Mark Dawson suggests:

 

  • 1. have at least one free book on offer;

 

  • 2. build a loyal following via interaction;

 

  • 3. have a well thought out and researched marketing plan before you begin to spend your budget.

 

From the Founder of the Alliance of Independent Writers, Orna Roberts suggests:

 

     4 . develop your own email distribution list as one of your key pillars in your marketing plan,

 

      5. speed up your operation by using a database manager like Mail chimp and

 

6. don’t start spending money on advertising until you have at least three books out there.

7. So far, there have been two other Amazon Academy events on this side of the pond: one previously in Dublin and this one in London. And there will be one more in Newcastle coming soon! After that, Amazon will review feedback to see if they will do it again.

8. And I, for one, hope they will.

 
https://karendowdall.com/tag/young-adult-reading/
karendowdall.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-17
129419
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:366MHV65PKL5V22X356A3XMACRXXTSB6
<urn:uuid:54827b86-9e97-4a3b-a8ee-38d3ae043c58>
2018-04-19T19:05:11Z
192.0.78.24
text/html
sha1:7G4DAJ5NZTXKVPKYZFSEP6XYXUHCQLAT
<urn:uuid:6fd677b3-4208-4e96-a309-3f2c71996db2>
https://karendowdall.com/tag/young-adult-reading/
length
response
<urn:uuid:f152607d-7122-4456-bafa-1bd36b932365>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-142-209-235.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-17
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2018
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf