10 Ways to Make Readers Happy by Kayelle Allen @kayelleallen #amwriting #MFRWauthor

I host 350+ authors every year on my Romance Lives Forever blog. I'm the founder of Marketing for Romance Writers. Authors talk to me. I hear a lot of stories about readers who are unhappy and about ones who are ecstatic. There are some things in common. Here are ten of the best ways to make readers happy. Some are from personal experience, many from other writers.

1. Write well. If you don't do this, it doesn't matter what else you do. Triple check your spelling. Punctuate properly. Readers today have been exposed to a wide variety of writing due to the internet and have learned to be discerning. A poorly written, misspelled book will be passed over in short order. For blog posts, spellcheck and/or use a site like Grammarly or SmartEdit. For books, hire an editor.
2. Use proper formatting. Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, Lulu, CreateSpace, etc. each has its own requirements for formatting. Follow them to the letter. Whatever the requirements say should be done -- do it. These services know what the programs will do and what it takes to make them work best. Follow their advice. A hard to read book gathers no interest.
3. Along those same lines, when posting quotes to the web, in email, on Yahoo Groups, and so on, never use "curly" or "smart" quotes (the type that curl toward words on the left, and away on the right). Many programs, blogs, and sites cannot read the code that word processing programs use for these, so they substitute code to try to make sense of what they see. Instead of your quoted text appearing as: "I didn't do it." The reader sees:  tm&*I didn#@*$t do it.98cm&  Imagine an entire page of this. Trust me, this does not make reaaders happy. Go into the autocorrect features of your word processing program and turn off these types of quotes (and look at all the tabs -- they are in more than one place), then, using the Replace command on your editing toolbar, replace all " to ", and ' to '. It will look no different to you in the replace command dialog box, but the computer will change all the codes and the formatting on the other end will come out right. Your readers will thank you.
4. Use only a simple serif or non-serif font (like Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri.). Readers who do not have a special font loaded on their computers will see plain text (such as Courier) because their machines will substitute the fancy font for a default one.
5. Provide good content. If you have interesting information to share with your readers, they will come to you. Whether you use blogs, Facebook, Twitter, or other services, content is the number one reason people will follow you. "Getting your name out there" is a byword. Everyone wants to know how to do it. How do you gain friends on Facebook and so on? How do you get people to read your book? The answer is to give them solid content, well written.
6. When promoting your book, provide a "set up" -- a few lines so people know what the scene or excerpt they are about to read is about. Help them understand the characters, so they don't feel they walked in during the middle of a conversation.
7. Share your work on more than your website and your blog. Yahoo groups, Facebook, other authors' blogs, Goodreads, and other places are good sites to share your material with readers.
8. Use Twitter to generate interest in your books by sharing tidbits and snips of dialog or scenes. Believe it or not, there are Twitter accounts that post entire stories, each less than 140 characters long. Try delivering your hero or heroine's lines in successive tweets. Not all of them, mind you -- just a few to create curiosity.
9. Share promos with other authors. If you and another author have similar books (say vampire romances) hold a contest together. You promote your book and hers to your readers, and vice versa. You will both gain. I've done this with friends over the years and gained not only readers, but best friends who will promo with me at the drop of a hat. You can't beat that.
10. Tell people you meet that you're an author. Carry your business cards or bookmarks. When I'm at a bookstore, or looking at books at the grocery store, I invariably start talking to the woman who's standing next to me. Especially when she picks up a book I already own, or am about to buy. Or she's buying an author I've never heard of before. I ask questions. Somehow it always leads to sharing my own story. I hand over my card. I once got an email from someone who said she'd met me in a doctor's office several years before, and wanted to let me know she'd bought one of my books and loved it. Made my day.

If your goal is to make readers happy, show them you are a wellspring of stories to whom they can go. If you can meet that need and do the things above, you are well on your way.

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Kayelle Allen is a best-selling American author. Her unstoppable heroes and heroines include contemporary every day folk, role-playing immortal gamers, futuristic covert agents, and warriors who purr.
Homeworld/Blog https://kayelleallen.com
Join the Romance Lives Forever Reader Group Download four free books and get news about books coming soon. You can unsubscribe at any time. 

Who’s Your Target Audience? Do You Know? #MFRWauthor #WriteTip #Writers #Authors

It’s been a while since I posted. I’m sorry for disappearing and apologise for the incredibly long absence. Life got in the way, but I’m back now and ready to help you to level up!

I remember when I first decided to pursue a writing career; one of the first aspects I had to understand was who my audience was. Of course, I immediately thought: easy-peasy. My audience is the same as every other romance author out there. Women between the ages of 18 and 100. If she is able to read, she’s my audience. Rich or poor, it doesn’t matter, so long as she enjoys reading romance. Nor does it matter where she lives. Romance is world-renowned and everyone loves it, right?

I’m betting some of you have boiled your marketing aim down to that same wide margin. What would you think if I told you you’re looking at this thing all wrong? My light bulb moment came once I realised my target audience wasn’t who I thought it was. If you don’t know who your readers are, you can’t effectively market to them. How are you going to target everyone? Impossible. And here’s the rub—not everybody will love your amazing, beautifully written story. What? Yep! So you need to know your audience. Take the time to figure it out. It’s like trying to understand your main character’s internal conflict—you need to dig deep.

Your real audience.

As an example, my target audience looks a little like this. Yes, I have readers who are in their

Created by Crystal Swan

early twenties and readers who are well into their seventies. These are the ones I know of so I will say my readers are between the ages of 20 and 80. Notice I say readers and not women because there are men who also enjoy romance novels; I have a few of those, too! So that’s the age and gender of my readers.

S/he has Christian views. Most of them go to church and read the Bible, but are not religious. They love God and have a strong relationship with our Saviour. Abhors profanity, blasphemy, and gratuitous sex and violence. But while this is the case, my target audience are open-minded and enjoy the gift and pleasures of lovemaking with their husband/wife. Yes, lovemaking is in the Bible and not only Song of Solomon. Read the various books and see for yourself if you don’t believe me. Anyway, back to my target audience. They are gentle-minded and long for a world filled with love and not hate. S/he prefers the lighter side of life and loves to laugh. So fun, feel-good, saucy stories are perfect for them. 

My stories are not marketed as Inspirational or Christian romance, but my characters believe, pray and even go to church off stage. If you look at my author brand, you’ll see I market my books as sweet ‘n’ spicy romantic comedy. That’s because they’re like the sweet romance, but the bedroom doors are wide open. You won’t find foul language, but you will get super-spicy love scenes. And my audience will enjoy my brand of emotional conflict and humour. 

You can't please everyone.

In the same way that we don’t all enjoy the every book, not everyone is our audience. It’s our job as authors to pinpoint our readers and market our books to them. Do you know your audience? Tell me all about it in the comments section below.

Until next time, write with clarity and style!

Monique xx

Monique DeVere is a full-time author of Sweet 'n' Spicy Romantic Comedy and Contemporary Romance. She also writes Christian Supernatural Suspense movie scripts. She is married to her very own strong-silent-type hero and has four children. When Monique isn’t writing or spending quality time with her family, she likes to armchair travel to distant and exciting parts of the world and considers herself to have the best job on earth. 

You can visit her at moniquedevere.com where she invites you to join her exclusive Sweet ‘n’ Spicy Readers Club packed full of goodies for her members. Monique loves to hear from her readers, do contact her at monique@moniquedevere.com.

When Seasons aren't Seasonal #MFRWAuthor

HOT HOT

On Easter Sunday I had to leave the Agility practice area after ten minutes because it was so oppressively hot. Practice time shifted from 10 AM to 8:30 AM since summer was obviously here. The next weekend it was damp and chilly and no thank you I’ll stay home this Sunday. The weekend after that I watched snow pile up around my new plantings. After that Easter Sunday I washed my heavier sleeping sweats and put them in totes to store for the next few months. Back out they came since these are also my go to writing clothes.

Welcome to Spring in New Mexico.

Kinda Cold

Why am I blathering on about climate anomalies? Don’t we all from time to time have to deal with weather oddities? Of course we do. Since we generally know at least a few days in advance we can prepare by opening or closing windows, and by wardrobe awareness. This time of year I keep my furnace turned very low but not completely off, to maintain at least minimal comfort in the house. All these adjustments address immediate needs and can be handled pretty much in the moment. The same as we can adjust our writing to reflect a new plot idea, a new turn of phrase.
The early spring, after a milder winter, followed the pattern of no real pattern one becomes accustomed to in the Southwest high desert. One deals with it by being flexible, prepared with a wide range of clothing options.Yes there is a parallel to our writing world. We dress to the immediate need, not automatically to the calendar. In that same fashion, we write, or should be writing, the story we need to share. Not the story we think people might want to be reading in six months and certainly not the story people are reading now. That would be similar to pulling out your bikinis (yours, not mine, I gave up on those a long time ago) because by glory the calendar says May even if the sky says gotcha and do you want snow or hail or both? We can’t know for sure purple aliens in chain mail will still be popular by the time our book is done. And do we really want to write about chain mail purple aliens?
Write your book. Not anyone else’s.
BICHOK, y’all

Pretty Much Perfect

Mona Karel, list moderator

Mona Karel is the writing alter ego for Monica Stoner, who gave up life in Southern California to

retire with her husband to New Mexico. Not a great sacrifice except between the sunsets, the gardens, and the Salukis it's harder than ever to find time to write! Her Stormhaven series is set in New Mexico, telling about strong men and the women who understand them. A Question of Faith

It's Retweet Day with #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg

Retweet Day for #MFRWauthor - Join the fun

For this month's Retweet Day on Twitter, we'd like to invite all Marketing for Romance Writers to set up tweets for their books.

Go into Twitter and create a tweet. Make sure to use #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg

Once the tweet has been posted, click the ... (three dots) in the right hand corner.

This will give you the option to (copy link to tweet). Copy the link and put it in the comment section of this post.

Remember to visit the blog on the second Wednesday of the month and retweet everyone on the list.

Also in an effort to help people find tweets to share of yours, click the ... (three dots) again and pin your tweet to your profile page. This will give you an easy way to find and count how many people retweeted your post.

Don't forget the 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. Return on Retweet Day and click each link and share everyone's post on Twitter.

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

5. No more than 3 hashtags in a post. Any more than this and Twitter might believe it is spam.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle
www.tinagayle.net
free read
https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Join us at #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg It's Author Retweet Day

Retweet Day for #MFRWauthor - Join the fun

For this month's Retweet Day on Twitter, we'd like to invite all Marketing for Romance Writers to set up tweets for their books.

Go into Twitter and create a tweet. Make sure to use #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg

Once the tweet has been posted, click the ... (three dots) in the right hand corner.

This will give you the option to (copy link to tweet). Copy the link and put it in the comment section of this post.

Remember to visit the blog on the second Wednesday of the month and retweet everyone on the list.

Also in an effort to help people find tweets to share of yours, click the ... (three dots) again and pin your tweet to your profile page. This will give you an easy way to find and count how many people retweeted your post.

Don't forget the 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. Return on Retweet Day and click each link and share everyone's post on Twitter.

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

5. No more than 3 hashtags in a post. Any more than this and Twitter might believe it is spam.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle
www.tinagayle.net
free read
https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x