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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Free Website and Social Media Feedback for Authors!"Thursdays with Amanda: Free Website and Social Media Feedback for Authors!
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent.
I have a few workshops I offer, in which I discuss many of the topics that I’ve touched on here at Thursdays with Amanda. One is a “Writing for Social Media” class. The other is a broad look at the digital world and how it pertains to authors.
After each of these classes, I always get people coming up to me, wanting me to take a look at their webpage, their blog, their facebook group. I can give them all the theory, all the practical application, all the ideas in the world when I’m standing up front, lecturing, and still, you’ll have those people who don’t know where to start. They want to be told what to do in a way that applies to them specifically. They want a bit of hand-holding.
So for all of you hand-holders, this one’s for you!
Just like those people come up to me after class, I want you to do the same. In the comments below, post links to the social media or website pages that you want some feedback on. Then, the coming weeks will be spent going over each submission. You’ll get my two cents, and probably a lot of other valuable feedback from the wonderful people who read my posts.
Sound like a plan?
If you’d like to participate, just leave a comment below with some links to the social media or website pages that you’d like feedback on the most. It’s that simple.
I hope to hear from you!
If you’re new to Thursdays with Amanda, the archives is a great place to get caught up.
UPDATE: We’re getting lots of comments, which is great. I won’t
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Promoting Yourself at a Conference Part 4"
Thursdays with Amanda: Promoting Yourself at a Conference Part 4
You have your career focus. You have your brand. So how do you maximize time at a conference and make sure to come away from the event with more readers than when you went in?
As usual, I’ve got a smattering of ideas…
How to Promote Yourself at a Writer’s Conference
1) Go all-out with brand. So let’s say your brand involves wearing purple shoes…that’s how people are going to remember you, and it’s fitting, since you write romantic comedy. All your materials (your business cards, one-sheets, web addresses, web sites) should support this brand. This is because people aren’t going to come away from the conference, thinking I really liked Halee Matthews. They’re going to think, I really liked that writer with the purple shoes. And they’ll dig through their stack of cards/one-sheets/odds and ends LOOKING for those purple shoes. If they don’t see them, you’ll disappear.
2) Meet people. As writers, it’s easy to latch on to one or two people at a conference and call it a day. That’s because most of us are introverts. But if you’re serious about getting people on board with your writing (whether you’re published or unpublished), you need to branch out. Sit at a different table every meal. Form relationships with the people sitting next to you in workshops. Attend the parties and the late-night gatherings. It will be exhausting, but it’s exactly what you need to do to spread awareness.
3) Talk about yourself. I don’t mean force people to listen to your book premise or your publishing history. I’m just talking about having some rehearsed and appropriate ways of bringing your book up in
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Continue Reading "Summer Sabbatical – It’s a Very Good Thing"
Summer Sabbatical – It’s a Very Good Thing
Sandra Bishop, MacGregor Literary, Inc. Agent, shares her reflections on a rare thing indeed for people in the publishing biz–time away. Sandra represents fiction and nonfiction authors in multiple genres. Each of the past few years as summer approached, I’ve told myself it’s what I would do. Slow down. Lay low. Say no. Cultivate my inner life. Spend undistracted time with my family. Reach out to friends. Remember what – besides work – brings me joy and satisfaction.
I’ll be honest, if I hadn’t been forced this year to stop completely and take time to heal from surgery, I don’t know that I would have actually done so.
It took me a full ten days before I was not schlepping around in my PJ’s at least part-time, but once I started feeling well enough to do more than sit around with my feet up all day, I began to enjoy the gift of just “being.” And I gave myself permission to take a full month off. Now that I have, it’s something I plan to do again next year – and something I recommend everyone do if possible. Not the surgery part, of course, but the taking of a good stretch of time away to rest, recharge, and remember what you love to do – besides work and write.
It sounds easy – the notion of taking time away – but for those of us who are driven to produce, it is no small thing to stop and really enjoy the simple pleasure of taking each day as it comes. After being immersed in work day in and day out for years, it took me some time to relearn what I enjoy most in life. I’ve been a bit surprised that it really, really is the simple things that matter most.
I’ve grown increasingly grateful for God’s lavish blessings in my life. In addition to understanding what a privilege it
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Continue Reading "Let’s Recap: Putting Together a Great Proposal"
Let’s Recap: Putting Together a Great Proposal
People have been writing in with questions about proposals…
Elizabeth sent me this: “My writing is great, but my synopsis is awful. What should I do — just send it as is and hope the editor looks at the writing first?”
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. If it were me, I’d get some help creating a better synopsis. As an agent, I occasionally see an author who has spent two years creating the manuscript, and two minutes creating the synopsis. I’m the type of agent who doesn’t care that much about the synopsis initially (I always look at the actual chapter first), but eventually I’m going to get around to exploring the overview of your story. And let’s face it — if your synopsis is terrible, that’s going to color the way I view the rest of the book. Why risk that? Make sure your synopsis reflects the strength of your writing.
Amy said, “I was thinking of doing something creative with my proposal, just to make it stand out. Does that sort of thing help?”
True story: I once received a woman’s romance proposal wrapped inside a lacy thong. Apparently the author thought it would make the project stand out in my mind. It did… I assumed the author had lost her mind. My job is interesting enough as it is; I don’t need to add “touching someone else’s underwear” to my to-do list. This sort of creative thing can seem downright weird unless you explain it. So no — I don’t think these types of extra bonus things help very much. Ultimately it comes down to the idea, the writing, and the platform of the author. If you do a good job with those three things, you’ll be way ahead of everybody else.
Jennifer asked, “Is it really important to include comparative titles in my book proposal when I first send
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Continue Reading "Amazturbation and Other Perils of Publishing"
Amazturbation and Other Perils of Publishing
Lisa McKay is a psychologist and the author of the award-nominated novel My Hands Came Away Red. A memoir, Love at the Speed of Email, will be released in June 2012. She lives in Laos with her husband and infant son. To learn more, visit www.lisamckaywriting.com.
When my first book, My Hands Came Away Red, was published, I fell prey to an addiction that afflicts many authors at some point during their publishing career. It’s a behaviour I now call amazturbation – obsessively checking your own Amazon ranking to see how your book is stacking up sales-wise against the hundreds of thousands of other books that Amazon sells.
I visited Amazon to check the rise and fall of this number first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
I checked it when I was feeling glum and when I was feeling all right.
I checked it at work and I checked it home. I even checked it on my phone.
I checked that number at breakfast and I checked it at lunch.
I checked that number a whole, whole bunch.
My Amazon addiction started the way most addictions do – with a rush. Right after the book was released I was in Ghana, traveling for work. When I got access to the internet for the first time in a couple of days I dropped by my Amazon page to see if anyone had left a new review, and was amazed to see that my sales ranking was way higher than it had ever been before.
After an exhausting and stressful week of leading workshops on trauma, seeing that happy number was a huge rush. And I wanted more of that feeling.
Understandable? Yes. Dangerous? Also, yes.
We authors have never had so many ways at our disposal to track and quantify our own popularity. We can find out Amazon sales rankings as well
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Continue Reading "We’ve made the switch to WordPress!"
We’ve made the switch to WordPress!
Okay, after months of having people tell us that we need to update the blog, we’ve finally made the change to WordPress. All the old posts have transferred over (though not all the comments have yet), and we’re going to have a whole new look soon. Thanks for reading — Writers Digest again named us one of the top 101 writing sites on the web!
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Continue Reading "Introducing Erin Buterbaugh"
Introducing Erin Buterbaugh
Erin Buterbaugh was the kind of child parents wanted their kids to be friends with, in hopes that her extensive vocabulary and love of books would be a good influence. Consequently, she was also the kind of child whose friends called her a nerd and ridiculed her for reading at slumber parties.
Despite her less-than-literary-minded peer group, Erin grew up to embrace the “word nerd” persona, graduating from the renowned Professional Writing program at Taylor University. Upon graduation, Erin completed an internship under the great agents at Alive Communications, where she first entertained the idea of a career in literary representation.
Erin spent several years working as a freelance writer and editor (as well as dance teacher, choreographer, actress, director, and bluegrass band member) before becoming the in-house writer and editor for an up-and-coming curriculum publisher in her home state of Colorado.
In 2012, Erin was invited to join the MacGregor Literary team as an agent, which pretty much amounts to her dream job, minus an office in Disneyland. Her areas of interest include children’s, middle-grade, and YA fiction, as well as women’s fiction, suspense, and non-fiction.
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Continue Reading "Marie's Favorite Book…"
Marie's Favorite Book…
While Chip is vacationing in Hawaii, look for posts from the rest of the MacGregor Literary staff. Not surprisingly, “Favorite Books” is the topic of choice for our crowd of book lovers. Don’t be afraid to chime in with your thoughts on these top picks.
I was about halfway through Randy Alcorn’s novel Safely Home (Tyndale, 2001) when I concluded this book deserved to be on the privileged “best books I’ve ever read and always recommend” shelf. Happily, I’m in good company. Safely Home received the Gold Medallion Book Award and an anniversary edition was released last year.
A persecuted Chinese Christian, Li Quan wakes up with a daily question: Is this the day I die? This concept poked my conscience, even stung. As a Christian living in the freedom-filled USA, I related far more easily to Ben Fielding, the 40-something college-educated corporate ladder-climber whose faith shows only when it is comfortable and convenient; this too was an uncomfortable discovery.
Though I was aware of persecution, Safely Home sheds great light on the struggle Chinese Christians face each day. Li Quan’s father and grandfather were martyred, and he expects the same end for himself. What I take for granted, many have lost their lives for. Can any of us imagine having to ride a bicycle under cover of darkness at 2 am to attend worship service, knowing that at any moment, armed police might threaten jail or beatings? The stories we hear on TV of China “opening up” and of government-run churches don’t describe such situations. And what about the freedom to quietly read the Bible in our own homes?
The man held up the Bible. He put it up to his nose and smelled it. “This is the book of God. Nothing is more precious. Last week I delivered twelve of these to a church of one thousand. Until I arrived, they had only five in the whole church.
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Continue Reading "Can you ever lie to tell the truth?"
Can you ever lie to tell the truth?
Lisa McKay is a psychologist and the author of the award-nominated novel My Hands Came Away Red. A memoir, Love At the Speed of Email, will be released in June 2012. She lives in Laos with her husband and infant son. To learn more, visit www.lisamckaywriting.com.
In January I listened to a This American Life episode called Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory, which was excerpted from a monologue called The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs by Mike Daisey. The monologue described Daisey’s encounters with workers from the Foxconn factories in China that make Apple products.
Like many others, I was deeply moved by this story. It hit particularly close to home because, as I’m living in Laos, the factories he describes lay only one border away.
The episode became the most downloaded podcast in the 16-year history of This American Life. It launched a thousand editorials. It inspired a petition—signed by more than 250,000 people—demanding Apple guarantee ethical treatment of its workers. And last week it became the first show This American Life has ever retracted.
It turns out that Daisey didn’t actually witness some of the most egregious conditions he describes, such as workers as young as twelve and those poisoned by neurotoxic chemicals.
TAL explains:
“As best as we can tell, Mike's monologue in reality is a mix of things that actually happened when he visited China and things that he just heard about or researched, which he then pretends that he witnessed first hand. And the most powerful and memorable moments in the story all seem to be fabricated.
Some of the falsehoods found in Daisey’s monologue are small ones: the number of factories Daisey visited in China, for instance, and the number of workers he spoke with. Others are large…He claims to have met a group of
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Continue Reading "Can you ever lie to tell the truth?"
Can you ever lie to tell the truth?
Lisa McKay is a psychologist and the author of the award-nominated novel My Hands Came Away Red. A memoir, Love At the Speed of Email, will be released in June 2012. She lives in Laos with her husband and infant son. To learn more, visit www.lisamckaywriting.com.
In January I listened to a This American Life episode called Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory, which was excerpted from a monologue called The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs by Mike Daisey. The monologue described Daisey’s encounters with workers from the Foxconn factories in China that make Apple products.
Like many others, I was deeply moved by this story. It hit particularly close to home because, as I’m living in Laos, the factories he describes lay only one border away.
The episode became the most downloaded podcast in the 16-year history of This American Life. It launched a thousand editorials. It inspired a petition—signed by more than 250,000 people—demanding Apple guarantee ethical treatment of its workers. And last week it became the first show This American Life has ever retracted.
It turns out that Daisey didn’t actually witness some of the most egregious conditions he describes, such as workers as young as twelve and those poisoned by neurotoxic chemicals.
TAL explains:
“As best as we can tell, Mike's monologue in reality is a mix of things that actually happened when he visited China and things that he just heard about or researched, which he then pretends that he witnessed first hand. And the most powerful and memorable moments in the story all seem to be fabricated.
Some of the falsehoods found in Daisey’s monologue are small ones: the number of factories Daisey visited in China, for instance, and the number of workers he spoke with. Others are large…He claims to have met a group of
