What should authors blog about? Kayelle Allen @kayelleallen #MFRWauthor #amwriting

What do I blog about? What am I supposed to say? Shouldn't I be writing a book instead of blogging?

Let's start with that last question and work back to the first. You blog because it's a way to keep your website fresh. Having a blog on your website means your information is constantly updated. This means search engines (like Google) will find new activity, which will raise your site's importance in search results. A site that hasn't updated in a year will fall out of sight, whereas one that changes weekly brings new readers.

Why do you have a website? For readers to find out about you and your books. You can also use them to obtain readers for your newsletter and to blog. In fact, a blog should be an organic extension of your books. Your posts can provide reasons to read your books, information about your characters, sales and special events, blog hop posts, and much more. A great way to get that information out is to blog.

What do I blog about?

So what can you talk about? What keeps readers coming back? Here's a list you can use for ideas. (download the PDF of this at the end)

Talk about the benefits provided by your book

• Learn
• Laugh
• Thrill
• Pleasure
• Experience
• Good cry

Inspiration behind writing the book

Protagonist info so readers get to know them

Antagonist info so readers know what to expect

Prologue to the events of the book

Short story in the past or future

Events which relate to the book

The world of the book

Hero's home

Heroine's home

Profile the evil leaders

Related story including a secondary character

Create an entirely new character from the world

Lists related to things featured in the book

Maps of the world

Photos taken by you (conventions, etc.)

Trees on this world

Topography and land area

What is it that drives you to write

Graphics you create

Videos and Podcasts

By adding videos or podcasts, you can bring a whole new level to your website. Download Audacity (a free program) to create your own readings. You can use the microphone on your computer to record your voice.

Illustrations and drawing

Trailers

Do a video reading

A podcast reading

A podcast of names and how to say them

Podcast of the language

In short, anything and everything related to your book is fair game when creating a blog post. Start a list of items mentioned in your books and talk about them. Do you write historical novels? How were hairbrushes different back then? How did people dress? What was the main meal like each day? If you write science fiction, how is your world different from ours? What are the rules regarding social interaction? What is day-to-day transportation like? Most of the questions for historical or sci fi can be interchanged.

Look for ways you can share the world of your book and open the eyes of readers. Don't give away the plot, but do entice them with snippets and details. When you start making a list, you'll soon find you have more things to blog about than you ever imagined.

About Kayelle Allen

Kayelle Allen writes Sci Fi with misbehaving robots, mythic heroes, role playing immortal gamers, and warriors who purr. She's a US Navy veteran who's been married so long she's tenured.
https://kayelleallen.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/kayelleallen
Facebook https://facebook.com/kayelleallen.author
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Download the pdf: https://marketingforromancewriters.org/media/what-authors-blog-about.pdf

Looking for Romantic Read find #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg Suggestions from @MFRW_Org

It's Retweet Day for MFRW on Twitter. All Marketing for Romance Writers are invited to set up tweets for their books.

Go into Twitter and create a tweet. Make sure to use #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg You can now share up to 280 characters per tweet -- twice as many as before.

Once the tweet has been posted, click anywhere in the white background of the tweet. This will open it and allow you to highlight and copy the URL.

Now, navigate back to here and paste the URL in the comment section of this post.

Remember to visit the blog on Second Monday of the month. You can post your tweet until Wednesday of the same week.

Retweet Day is on the second Wednesday of each month. Retweet everyone on the list.

To help people find your tweet, click the the white background and then the down arrow (found on the right side). Choose "Pin to Your Profile Page." This will keep it at the top of your Twitter feed so more people can find it.

Retweet Day Rules

1. Have #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg in the tweet. (This retweet day is to promote each other and our group.)

2. Do not use profanity or sexual explicit graphics. Keep it for all age groups.
3. Please do not use adult topics for your blog post. Keep it general for all ages.

4. Return on Retweet Day and click each link in the comments.

5. Click the heart on the tweet and then the retweet symbol and the Retweet button.

6. Click the G+ symbol on the comment so you can see where you left off, and to add a little more visibility to the post.

7. Limit hashtags to three (3) per post.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle

Tina Gayle enjoys writing contemporary romance and stories featuring strong women, as well as tales that touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created stories to put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dream.

Find her at www.tinagayle.com or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Author Interview Checklist: What You Need to be Ready @KayelleAllen #MFRWauthor #Author

Imagine your book is coming out and you want to line up interviews for the release. Or you're scheduled to appear on a blog to talk about one of your characters. Perhaps you set up an interview months in advance and now the date is looming. How do you prepare?

Some things will be part of every interview. You can have those on hand and be ready at a moment's notice. Use this checklist and you'll have a marketing or media kit that will support any endeavor.

Fill in the following and keep it handy. You'll be able to copy/paste this into forms online and into interview forms you download.

Author Interview Checklist

This checklist is in three parts; author, book, and marketing.

Author Checklist

Author name

Author bio

Website

Blog

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

Instagram

Snapchat

Goodreads

Amazon Author Page

Newsletter

Instafreebie

Bookfunnel

Book Checklist

Book title

Series title

Genre

Heat level (Rating)

Blurb (full length)

Mini-blurb (100-150 words)

Tagline (1-3 sentences)

ASIN

ISBN

Publication date

Link to downloadable excerpt or excerpt online

Word count

Page count

Affiliate link (i.e., Amazon associate or Smashwords affiliate link for book)

Shortened link (bit.ly, etc.)

Publisher (name)

Buy Links

Publisher 

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

iBooks

Kobo

Smashwords

Books2Read (universal link) 

Marketing Checklist

Six hashtags (use no more than three per tweet)

Three  tweets (up to 240 characters each)

Three  Facebook posts

Six excerpts (4 short, 2 long)

(if you write spicy romance have both hot excerpts and family friendly ones)

Image Checklist

Cover in three sizes: 200x300, 500x750, 1800x2700 (or close equivalents)

Banners (memes) - good rule of thumb is 3x wider than tall or 3x taller than wide (i.e., 200x600 or reverse) or 2x taller than wide (450x900 or reverse) or square (fits any social media format)

Author bio pic (headshot)

Banner with one or more books together

Pictures of author with book

Other images that help reveal your story

Book video or trailer

This author checklist is far from exhaustive, but it will get you started. I create one for myself as an author and keep book info separately, with one document for each book. Each book helps sell the one released before it. Having this material on hand will ensure you are always ready to share the stories of your heart.

What types of things do you have ready? Are there tried and true items you find valuable when preparing a media kit? Please share them in the comments.

RT Spring into a #Romance Stories from #MFRWauthor #MFRWorg and Follow @MFRW_Org

It's Retweet Day for MFRW on Twitter. All Marketing for Romance Writers are invited to set up tweets for their books.

Go into Twitter and create a tweet. Make sure to use #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg You can now share up to 280 characters per tweet -- twice as many as before.

Once the tweet has been posted, click anywhere in the white background of the tweet. This will open it and allow you to highlight and copy the URL.

Now, navigate back to here and paste the URL in the comment section of this post.

Remember to visit the blog on Second Monday of the month. You can post your tweet until Wednesday of the same week.

Retweet Day is on the second Wednesday of each month. Retweet everyone on the list.

To help people find your tweet, click the the white background and then the down arrow (found on the right side). Choose "Pin to Your Profile Page." This will keep it at the top of your Twitter feed so more people can find it.

Retweet Day Rules

1. Have #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg in the tweet. (This retweet day is to promote each other and our group.)

2. Do not use profanity or sexual explicit graphics. Keep it for all age groups.
3. Please do not use adult topics for your blog post. Keep it general for all ages.

4. Return on Retweet Day and click each link in the comments.

5. Click the heart on the tweet and then the retweet symbol and the Retweet button.

6. Click the G+ symbol on the comment so you can see where you left off, and to add a little more visibility to the post.

7. Limit hashtags to three (3) per post.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle

Tina Gayle enjoys writing contemporary romance and stories featuring strong women, as well as tales that touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created stories to put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dream.

Find her at www.tinagayle.com or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Authors: How to find your book's URL on Amazon @KayelleAllen #MFRWauthor #Author

Want to know how to get readers to find your book on Amazon or another bookseller? Need to know how to make a "buy link" for your book? Here's how.

Your book's URL

When you go to a bookseller online like Amazon or Barnes and Noble to find your book, how did you get there? The first time, you might have gone to the home page of the store and typed in either your name or your book's title. When you found the book, you clicked on the link and navigated to its page.

If you copy and paste that URL into a document, clicking it will bring you right back. But how long is that URL and what does all that gobbledygook after the title mean? Is there a way to clean that up and make it look better?

Here's one of mine from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Romance-Christmas-Kayelle-Allen/dp/1502962403/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Notice the part in bold? It doesn't come like that -- I made it bold so you could easily see it. When you see the letters REF in a URL, it means "referral". That material isn't part of your book's true URL. It's code telling the site how you got to the page. You can safely delete it and everything to the right.

Here is how the true URL will look:

https://www.amazon.com/Romance-Christmas-Kayelle-Allen/dp/1502962403/

All that other code at the end is a way for Amazon to know got there. It can get really long if you've bounced around a long time.

I went to Amazon and searched "romance for christmas" allen. Here's the URL I ended up with on the book page.

https://www.amazon.com/Romance-Christmas-Kayelle-Allen-ebook/dp/B00OSD716G/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1511405487&sr=1-3&keywords=%22romance+for+christmas%22+allen

All that bold text is just a way for Amazon to know how you got to the page. In reality, on Amazon, all you need is this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OSD716G/

B00OSD716G is the ASIN (Amazon Standard Information Number) Amazon needs to find the book. If you copy that number and paste it in the search bar on Amazon, the book will come up. Try it!

When you send a reader to your book's page, you don't need a long URL that is really how you personally got to the page. You want them to have the book itself. Otherwise, Amazon will get misleading info about who is clicking on your book and how they got there.

URL Tip

I keep a document with info for my book and the URLs for its various sites. Each one has the book title, blurb, tagline, page count, word count, date of publication, ASIN, ISBN, and buy links. Anytime I want to enter info for my book anywhere online, I can pop open that document and voila! Everything is right there.

Now you can make a clean URL for every book and send readers right to a page to buy it. Do you have a tip for getting readers to click a link? Please share it in the comments.

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Kayelle Allen writes sweet Christmas romance, but also Sci Fi with misbehaving robots, mythic heroes, role playing immortal gamers, and warriors who purr. She's a US Navy veteran who's been married so long she's tenured.
https://kayelleallen.com