Author Archives: fictorians

Celebrating Milestones and Birthdays

The Writing Life No Comments

You can’t celebrate what hasn’t been done.

We all have dreams – to write well, to be published, to have an awesome web presence, to reach and engage readers – that’s what our lives are about. How do we achieve those dreams? One step at a time by making a plan, setting goals and executing them. And sometimes, you do it with a little help from your friends.

When the Fictorian bloggers first discovered each other at the Superstars Writing Seminar, we learned that we had the same dreams, one of which was to establish a web presence where we could blog, grow as writers, share information with other writers and reach our audience. Alone, the task was daunting; together we’ve created a dynamic presence with wide ranging topics and experiences.

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY FICTORIANS
collectively we’ve achieved what we couldn’t do alone

Our greatest MILESTONES:
*  we’ve become great friends who support each other through our ups and downs;
*  in our first year, we’ve posted  over 165 blogs on topics from craft, to the writing life, to understanding  the publishing industry; and
* superstar authors and industry professionals are blogging with us.

In his guest post, Brian Hades talked about the need for a virtual presence, how social media is like cocktail party and hiding in the corner means no one notices you. If you’re unsure about etiquette rules at the social media party, check out Mignon Fogarty’s post. At The Fictorian Era, we are hosting the party, inviting interesting guests, serving a buffet of tools for writers and most importantly, we’re having fun doing it!

Why did we choose to host a party together rather than go it alone?

Because we knew that in the act of learning and supporting each other we would grow as writers, establish connections we couldn’t do on our own and we’d have a supportive social media presence. One Fictorian summed up a common sentiment, Fictorians for me are amazing friendships formed from a common goal.  And it is an amazing alliance with bloggers and guest bloggers from the USA, Canada and Australia. Our broad backgrounds and experiences give our readers many perspectives on issues and varied content.

Most importantly, we’ve all had some special mentor or have read an awesome blog which has helped us in our writing journey. That’s also why we’re together – to give back what we’ve received. Helping others as we’ve been helped.

But really, it’s fun to work with a group of dedicated writers who have a joint sense of purpose. That’s the bottom line. We’re together because we want to be.

Writing your novel or short story maybe a solitary endeavor but the writing life doesn’t have to be. Form a writing support group or join one. Form a blogging group. Form a virtual support group which sets goals and challenges you to meet them. Do whatever you need to keep your writing career on track. We did. And now we’re celebrating!

Happy writing everyone!                                                                                                    Hey, who ate my piece of cake?

 

Brian Hades: Are You in the Business of Being YOU?

Guest Posts The Writing Life 4 Comments

I’m BULLISH on today’s marketing and publishing environments.

It is certainly NOT the time to own a newspaper, be an advertising executive, or deal with the vagaries of the worlds’ economic climate.

It is the best time to be an author/publisher/media personality/entrepreneur…

Why?

You do NOT have to rely on traditional media to grab some attention. By being creative you can get a LOT of exposure and sell yourself to the world virally — and for free.

How?

Simply by using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. With your limited time and resources (it’s a problem for all of us) the return on your investment in paid print ads (newspaper or even magazines) would pale by comparison.

If you spend, on average, an hour every day updating your Facebook, Twitter, and social media profiles it won’t take long for the world to know about you, what you’ve written, and what you’re currently working on.

It won’t happen overnight.  You need steady and strategic postings to make it happen. Prior to Facebook and Twitter, networking and referrals were your best methods for making connections. Social media is networking on steroids.

But you must remember that networking — in person or on social media — is like going to a cocktail party.

If you walk in the door and all of a sudden you’re in everyone’s face selling, and yelling “buy me me me,” people back away and avoid you. In social media, you get deleted and reported for spam.

If you post a profile on Facebook and never visit it again or close off your wall for postings, it’s like standing in the back corner of the live networking event with your back to the room, as if to say: don’t talk to me.

Today it’s all about building RELATIONSHIPS.

You only need to post what you want people to see, but if you post nothing personal, then people may not engage you. Today, people want to know who they are talking to. If you are interesting and engaging there’s a good chance your social media profile will be checked out. If you post nothing about what you do or how to reach you, people will move on to the next person.

There are two must-have books if you want to know how to navigate marketing in 2012 and do so successfully to the growing number of people who get their content exclusively online:

  1. Socialnomics by Erik Qualman; and
  2.  The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott.

Be sure you only look at books that were published after 2009. A lot has changed since then. The Kindle and iPad did not exist. Those two platforms alone have impacted how people see you. But that’s another post.

Brian Hades, publisher
EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
www.edgewebsite.com
403-254-0160

Mignon Fogarty: Social Media Mistakes That Make You Look Like a Newbie

Guest Posts Publishing The Writing Life Writing Tools 2 Comments

 

A guest post by Mignon Fogarty

Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ can be great tools for marketing your book, but you can also look like a tool if you make these common mistakes:

Don’t Jump in Without Exploring

Don’t join a network and immediately start posting. Take a couple of weeks to poke around, watch the experts, and see how things work. Every network has its own quirks.

In general, your goal should be to make friends genuinely. Answer people’s questions. Respond to their posts. Build relationships so people begin to recognize your name. If the first post I see from you is promoting your book, all I will remember when I see your name again is that you only care about promoting yourself.

Don’t Send Direct Messages to People You Don’t Know

Unless you have an exceptionally good reason, don’t send a direct message to someone you don’t know. You don’t need to thank people for following you, you shouldn’t send them an “introduction” link to your site, and for God’s sake, don’t ask them to check out your book or like your fan page.

What does it mean to know someone on social media? If I see your message and feel happy to hear from you, we know each other. If I see your message and wonder who you are, we don’t know each other.

Don’t Promote Your Book Without Giving People a Reason to Care

If you’re asking people on social media to take action (e.g., review your book, like your fan page), give them a reason. There are at least two reasons people will care:

1) Make it worth their while. Have a contest or give away a prize. A prize can have cash value (e.g., an e-reader), be something only you can provide (e.g., a personal thank-you video, a 30-minute critique, naming rights to a character in your book), or simply the glory of winning a contest of skill (e.g., a limerick contest).

2) Let them share your journey. Kickstarter works because contributors feel like they are helping you-joining you-on your journey. You can apply the same techniques to social media promotion.

To bolster people’s participatory feelings, you need to explain your purpose. In the book, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, the authors explain that if you follow a request with a “because clause”-a reason you are making the request-people are more likely to comply. If you want people to review your book because good reviews increase online purchases, tell them that’s why you want the reviews. If you want people to buy your book this week because it will help you make the bestseller list, tell them that’s why it’s important this week.

It’s also helpful to give updates. Once you’ve made people aware of your goal, tell them how it’s going. Don’t go crazy and update Twitter every ten minutes, but when you’ve reached a significant milestone, announce it.

In the end, it’s simple: nobody likes the new guy who shows up at a party and immediately starts hustling everyone to buy his product; but if an old friend has an exciting new project he’s eager to tell you about, you’re happy to listen and help. Social media is the same. Become the old friend.

Guest Writer Bio:
Mignon Fogarty is the author of the forthcoming book 101 Troublesome WordsYou’ll Masterin No Time. Preorder the book now so bookstores see there is a healthy demand, and stock it when it launches in July.

Superstars Week, Day 3: Confessions of Repeat Offenders

Clancy Metzger Classes & Seminars Conventions Interacting With Professionals Leigh Galbreath Living Deliberately Motivation Nancy Greene Networking Publishing Starting a Career Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life No Comments

Hello, intrepid readers, this is Leigh, and I’d like to welcome you back to the Fictorian Era’s Superstars Week! For the last two days you’ve gotten an idea of what you can gain by attending the Superstars Writing Seminars, but today, Nancy, Clancy, and I will be telling you why we felt the need to go back for more. Yes, all three of us are Repeat Offenders, having attended both previous seminars.

So, why return to a seminar you’ve already attended?

For me, there were a number of reasons, but today, I’m going to talk about how, by returning to the Superstars Writing Seminar, you’re not just revisiting something you’ve seen before. The seminar is dedicated wholly to learning the writer’s place in the publishing industry. And let’s face it, people, that place is changing fast. This seminar is a true insiders look at what any writer looking to make a career publishing can expect, and the options available to get there.

As an example, in the first Superstars seminar, we had the core five authors, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, Brandon Sanderson, and David Farland. Across the board, they said that traditional publishing was the way to go. Then, Amazon unveiled their e-publishing program. Self-publishing wasn’t the pariah it previously was. The next seminar dedicated an hour to self-publishing and e-books. As part of that panel, Moses Siregar, a previous Superstar attendee, had a heated discussion with Eric Flint over e-publishing, and David was heavily leaning toward self- publishing. Since then, David’s written a post on this very site stating that he believes self-publishing to be the future of the industry, and this year, Superstars has brought in Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, two vocal authors on indie publishing issues. Clearly things have changed, and Superstars is keeping pace.

Yet, as with any seminar, there are portions that are repeated every year, but as Clancy will tell you, even that can be a good thing.

*              *              *

Clancy here. And here’s why I’m a repeat offender: I signed up for my second Superstars seminar unsure if I would hear much that I hadn’t learned the year before. But I wanted to meet Sherrilyn Kenyon (a guest speaker) and see my alumni buddies, so I decided to go. Color me surprised me when I learned as much, if not more, as I did the first time. During the year between the two events, I had changed. Where I was with my writing and my career had also changed, and I was hearing different things even though much of the content was similar. My mindset tuned into completely different points made.

I wanted to give you an example, but I can’t think of one.  I know… challenged.  Anyway – I remember sitting there during a presentation that I’d heard before and thinking to myself, I know they discussed this last year, but I was hearing the content through a different filter and what caught my attention were not the same things that did the year prior.  I wish I had an excellent example to share.  Just know that it was a profound ‘a-ha’ like realization.  So, I wish I could go again this year because I know I would, yet again, learn more and different things than I have already.

Read on to see why Nancy is right and the contacts and friends I have made during both seminars are still with me, still in contact, and are still impacting my life in ways I will forever be grateful for.

*              *              *

Nancy Greene, on the issue of “Contacts and Kismet”: We attend conferences to make contacts including the conference speakers, vendors, and participants. I confess to being a Repeat Offender at Superstars Writing Seminars for all the reasons you’ve heard about over the last few days and for the people I meet.

Approximately 20-30 attendees at the 2011 Superstars were Repeat Offenders. I’d guess the number is about the same for April’s session. The Superstars crowd isn’t cliquey. We go out enmasse. The “we” is the Repeat Offenders, one or more of the speakers, and anyone we can convince to join us. Dinner and late night drinks at the hotel bar are similar affairs. Because we’re a social group, there’s a lot of extra time with the speakers, which is something that often doesn’t happen at other conferences. The social aspect’s a great way to forge long-term friendships. After all, we’re all writers, and can help each other after the conference ends.

I’ve written about the benefits of writers helping writers before in the Benefits of Holding Hands on this blog. Because of Superstars and the friends made there, the Fictorians have:

(1) Participated in this blog (all members are Superstars attendees),
(2) Received weekly encouragement and accountability checks,
(3) Received advice and critiques from some of the presenters,
(4) Edited or beta read novels written by the presenters,
(5) Assisted other Fictorians in getting short-stories published,
(6) Been introduced to other fabulous connections, including agents and publishers, and
(7) Advertised or promoted the other writers on the site.
The list contains the things I can think of off the top of my head. There’s more.

The writing industry is small. The way to “break-in” is to have a great product, and an even better network. We might have made the contacts and achieved the same results without Superstars, but the process would’ve probably been years longer.

Kismit happens.

But you have to ensure you’ve done your work and made the contacts you need to be “in the right place at the right time.” Superstars is an excellent place to make those contacts, and it’s why I’m a Repeat Offender.

So, if you’re a Repeat Offender, feel free to let us know why you keep going back to Superstars. And everyone should stick around for tomorrow and Friday  for a two part interview with two of the founders of this fantastic seminar, David Farland and Kevin J. Anderson. See you in April.