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
Join the Romance Lives Forever Reader Group Download four free books and get news about books coming soon. You can unsubscribe at any time.

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.

---

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

RT Day for #MFRWOrg with an #MFRWauthor 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

4 Common Questions Authors Ask About Self Published Books @kayelleallen #MFRWauthor #Author

I am often asked about self publishing. Since I have 13 self published multiple books, it's easy to see why. I also lead Marketing for Romance Writers, so I get certain questions on a regular basis. Based on my experience, here are the answers to four of the most common things authors ask.

Should I put my self published ebook in print?

Definitely. You don't have to pay to have your book printed. Use CreateSpace which will allow you to make POD versions (Print on Demand). This way if you need 10 copies for a book signing, you can get just 10 copies. CreateSpace costs you nothing. They make money when you sell a book. Because it's digital until it's ordered and printed, they can afford to keep books "in print" far longer than a traditional publisher would. The biggest reasons to have your book in print: 1) some people will only read print books, 2) The difference in price between a print book and ebook often drives sales of the ebook. If you can get an ebook for $2.99 or a print book for $8.99, which would you buy? 

How should I price my book?

Amazon suggests a range depending on your book. When you go to your book's detail page on KDP, look at the pricing section. Click the link and read everything. It's helpful. If you charge under $2.99 or over $9.99 you will get 35% royalty. Between those ranges, you get 70%. The BEST way to determine your price is to study the competition. Look up other books in your genre and see what the top 10 are doing price wise. CreateSpace will give you a minimum price - the price which they must charge to cover their costs. I make my print books as low as possible. For every print book I sell, I sell 500 ebooks. Print is nice, but it's not what sells and they are extremely expensive to pre-print and distribute. If you use CreateSpace, you can match it to the book on Amazon and sell it there too. 

Should I use social media?

Social media is for being social. You can meet people on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest etc. that you would never meet otherwise. People buy from people they know. Be on social media to be seen, not to sell books. Yes, you should post about book stuff. But share other material as well. Offer things of interest and people will follow you. The goal is to reach more people, not sell books. If people know and like you, they will buy your books. 

Do I need to buy an ISBN?

The site you upload to (Smashwords, Amazon, CreateSpace) will provide one at no cost. Save your money for more important things, like marketing. All the ISBN tells people is a number for your specific book and which service you used to print/publish it. They are a legacy of the old publishing system. The Libary of Congress uses them, but since you can get one for free, why spend a fortune? They are not cheap. Here's a good FAQ page from the only place where you can buy an ISBN. They own the system. http://www.isbn.org/faqs_general_questions

If you have questions about self published books, please leave a comment below. I'll do my best to answer or to point you toward someone who can.

---

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
Join the Romance Lives Forever Reader Group Download four free books and get news about books coming soon. You can unsubscribe at any time.

RT - Find #Romance Ebooks with #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg 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.net or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Advice for Authors Doing Blog Tours by @KayelleAllen #MFRWauthor #Author

I host over 350 authors a year on Romance Lives Forever, and I have hosted many blog tours. I currently have about 2k viewers a day on RLF, and to get them, I use good content, good formatting, and consistent posting. I also amplify my blog's reach with Triberr (more about that in an upcoming post).

Purpose of Blog Tours

Blog tours are primarily used to get your book in front of readers. When you launch a new title, it's an efficient way to show off the cover and the blurb and tease readers into pre-ordering or buying.

Blog tours should allow readers to see how original you are as a writer. Having different subjects for each post can help. If you have 10-12 posts, each with an identical title, it's a bit boring. Change it up by using new titles on each site.

Use solid hashtags in the title. Yes, in the title. Why? Hashtags are search programs. When you click one on social media, it shows you other tweets or posts that used the same topic. When people share your post on social media, that title becomes a tweet or a Facebook title. If it has a hashtag, your chances of being seen shoot up exponentially. Even more if your Twitter name is in the title. Search Twitter for the hashtag #RLFblog to see this in action. To know if a hashtag is worth using, search it on Twitter or for faster results, try a site like RiteTag.

However, do not use your Twitter name as a hashtag (#yourname). If you're the one sending the tweet, your name is right there in the sent info. If you're a guest somewhere, give them your Twitter name to use as a mention (@yourname). Readers on social media can click the @name and easily follow you. The hashtag is going to take them to a search program. Use your name to get followers and pull them to your homepage, not to send people on a search.

A bonus of the @name versus a hashtag is that Twitter will pull those mentions into your notifications page. They will not show you who used the hashtag. You're on your own finding those.

I've seen something lately that I hope dies a quick death. People are writing "Book Promo" or "Book Blitz" somewhere in the title. This is a big red flag that screams "Advertisement" or "Commercial". Readers don't want to be bludgeoned with ads and commercials. Please don't do this, especially on blog tours where you will be producing multiple posts. Please put those old fashioned words away and let them die in peace. They will kill your sales. I do not permit this type of wording on RLF.

 

When you use blog tours properly by setting out new posts, good hashtags, and snappy titles that draw attention, you are well on your way to a successful book launch.

New from Kayelle Allen

Bringer of Chaos: Forged in Fire

When the immortal Pietas is marooned on a barren world with no food and few survival tools, he knows it could be worse. He could be alone. But that's the problem. He's not.
Half a million of his people sleep in cryostasis, trapped in their pods and it's up to Pietas to rescue them. Before he can save his people, he must take back command from a ruthless enemy he's fought for centuries. His brutal, merciless father. Immortals may heal, but a wound of the heart lasts forever... 

Amazon and in print. Free on Kindle Unlimited
http://amzn.to/2ABIcCI

Kayelle Allen is the founder of Marketing for Romance Writers. She writes Sci Fi with misbehaving robots, mythic heroes, role playing immortal gamers, and warriors who purr. She's a US Navy veteran and has been married so long she's tenured.

https://kayelleallen.com  / https://rlfblog.com 

RT Day Join the #MFRWauthor Retweet Day #MFRWorg #Romance 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.net or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

RT Retweet Pay it Forward -- Holiday Version #MFRWorg #MFRWauthor

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

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

5. 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.

6. For best results, 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.net or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Thankful for #MFRWauthor #MFRWorg #Author Retweet Day

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 the link to the tweet. Copy the link and put it 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 the month.  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 sexually 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.

Remember to make sure to retweet everyone on the list.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle

Writing contemporary romance, Tina Gayle enjoys writing stories that have strong women fiction elements as well as touching the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created stories to help put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dreams. 
Find her at www.tinagayle.net  or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Celebrate #MFRWauthor with Retweet Day - #Authors Promoting Authors @MFRW_ORG

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 #MFRW_org

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

This will give you the option to copy the link to the tweet. Copy the link and put it 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 the month.  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 #MFRW_org 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.

Also, if you did it last month you might want to check that you retweeted everyone. Some people do it near the end and are not being retweeted.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle

Writing contemporary romance, Tina Gayle enjoys wring stories that has strong women fiction elements as well as touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created storied to help put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dreams. 
Find her at www.tinagayle.net  or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Good Keywords for Author SEO by Kayelle Allen @KayelleAllen #author #tips

Authors need good keywords for blog posts, books, marketing, even writing newsletters. SEO, which means Search Engine Optimization, is all about writing and content searchable by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. After all, if no one can find you, what good will it do to write material anyway? To be found, authors need good keywords and good SEO.
Included in this post is a shot of the Yoast SEO Wordpress plugin used on my personal site. I use this plugin on each post. This is one I used for a post called How to Leave A Review (which I'll mention again below).

A focus keyword.

For ex, a phrase that includes the genre, book or character name, or a descriptive phrase. On one of my posts, titled "How to Leave a Review" I used "leave a review" and repeated it in the title, url, H2 heading, and the body. By the time I'd finished it was there 13 times total. Anyone searching for info on how to leave one, when to leave one, where to leave one, etc. would be likely to find it.

Slug

The slug is what the words at the end of the url are called. Mine was leave-a-review (after the kayelleallen.com/ ) Making it the same as the focus word strengthens the SEO.

Meta Title / Meta Description

I use Wordpress, and a plugin called Yoast SEO allows me to choose the meta title and description. When you Google something, you know the words in bold that come up and show you a title? That's the meta title. The words beneath it are the meta description. If you can't specify, then Google (and other search engines) pick up the post title and about 150 characters of the first paragraph.

Yoast SEO shows a green line (meaning good) when a title is more than 54 characters but no more than 94 characters. For the meta description, use a minimum 120 characters but no more than 156 characters. Remember, if you don't have a program that will provide this info for search engines, write posts with this type of information right up front.

More SEO for Authors

Title and hashtags

I try to match the focus keyword and then research the best hashtags on https://ritetag.com/

H2 Header

Match your focus keyword somewhere on the page in an H2 heading.

Video

Because it owns YouTube, Google loves videos from there. Use the focus word in the description and/or header of that.

Call to action

Generally, I plan my call to action first, and then write the post to showcase that. I want people to leave a review of my book, so I pulled it in as examples in the entire post about how to leave a review. Then I asked if they had left one no matter who's or where, to share the link. It got a ton of views, but no comments. Typically, I get far more views than comments, so it wasn't a surprise.

Image alt tags

On my personal site, I highlight the title of the post and paste that into the alt tag line of each image in the post.

Featured Image

In Blogger, you usually see the first image when you post a url on Facebook or Twitter. With Wordpress, you can pick the exact image you want, even if it isn't in your actual post. When the meta title and description go up on Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc., that is the image that goes with it.

Other minor things to watch:

Use one category only. This is like the folder in the filing cabinet. It can only go in one at a time. Exception: On RLFblog, I use two categories when the author does an interview. One for the type of interview, and one for the type of book. This lets readers search for both.

Use keywords that are genre specific, book specific, topic oriented. Keep keywords simple so readers can easily click the tag and find everything in the topic. For ex, don't use the word book plus the word books. One or the other.

That's pretty much what I do. It's working very well.

If you use Wordpress, get the Yoast SEO for Wordpress plugin. It will teach you these very things. If you do them, your article is going to be much more findable by search engines. Use the checklist, and write good content that contains information people want to find. It's that simple.

About Kayelle Allen

Kayelle Allen is the founder of Marketing for Romance Writers. She writes Sci Fi with misbehaving robots, mythic heroes, role playing immortal gamers, and warriors who purr. She's a US Navy veteran and has been married so long she's tenured.

https://kayelleallen.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/kayelleallen
Facebook https://facebook.com/kayelleallen.author
Join the Romance Lives Forever Reader Group Download four free books and get news about books coming soon. You can unsubscribe at any time.

A #RetweetParty at #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg - Find New Authors

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 the link to the tweet. Copy the link and put it 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 the month.  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

Writing contemporary romance, Tina Gayle enjoys wring stories that has strong women fiction elements as well as touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created storied to help put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dreams. 
Find her at www.tinagayle.net  or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Join the Fun Retweet with #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg

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 Second Monday of the month. You can post your tweet until Wednesday of the same week.

Retweet Day is 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

Writing contemporary romance, Tina Gayle enjoys wring stories that has strong women fiction elements as well as touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created storied to help put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dreams. 
Find her at www.tinagayle.net  or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

10 Reasons Why Not to Read Romance @kayelleallen #humor #romance #MFRWauthor

After careful consideration, and much placing of tongue in cheek -- no, not French kissing, get your mind out of the gutter -- I have decided that Romance books are not good for me and have decided to give them up. (yeah, right!) Here are ten reasons why.

1. Reading Romance might lead women to believe men can be more sensitive and caring, and this unrealistic expectation could lead to unhappiness. I might think that I could find a perfect love and have a happily ever after, and that isn't realistic. Just ask a psychiatrist.
2. In fact, living happily ever after probably isn't good for the economy. You wouldn't need anti-anxiety medication or drugs for depression, and since this is a huge market in the United States, living happily ever after could actually cause a loss of jobs in the pharmaceutical industry.
3. Realism is better for the world. The sooner we face the fact that life is tough, the better we can deal with it. Best not to get your hopes up.
4. Women are in danger when reading these books. I read that "...marriage therapists caution that women can become as dangerously unbalanced by these books’ entrancing but distorted messages as men can be by the distorted messages of pornography." (Shaunti Feldhahn quoting another source)
5. If I read Romance novels I might end up being dumb. According to at least one blogger, these kinds of novels are children's stories with adult themes, and don't deserve any real attention anyway. They are not "true literature." (referenced tongue in cheek by Leia Shaw, on Susan Hanniford Crowley's blog)
6. Romance books about ménage partners, same sex partners, and other non-one woman/one man Romances might destroy the fabric of America. I mean gee, aren't those kinds of stories somehow wrong? (don't look at the books I write, by the way. Just go with it. *cough*)
7. Women have better things to do than sit around reading Romance books. There are kitchens to clean, floors to scrub, and there is laundry to be done. In fact, reading anything other than cookbooks or articles about child-rearing and being a good wife is probably just a waste of a woman's time.
8. Taking a Romance novel to the beach to read might lead me to make bad choices. (Eryn Brown, LA Times quoting Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care)
9. Hunky male models on the cover of Romance novels might make me less than satisfied with my own husband. I might be unable to differentiate between a photo of a man on the cover of a novel and a real man who's sitting beside me.
10. While we're talking about hunky male models, looking at the covers of Romance books with hot models on them might cause me to engage in lust. *crickets chirping* Okay, you got me. That one's true!

I hope no one has taken any of this seriously. Please do not write letters, folks. This is humor, okay? Thank you. :) So... do YOU think Romance is bad for you? Please tell me about it in the comments.

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Kayelle Allen is a 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. When you're immortal, Romance Lives Forever.
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.

When We Self Sabotage #MFRWAuthor

I met her in the Sprout's parking lot, the Summer sun blasting down on me. Intense heat and I are not the best of friends but I would face even worse for what she was bringing me. My heart beat harder as

 I took the package, covered in a plain brown bag, end stapled shut. At last, I could satisfy the craving she had created in me.
Mushrooms, folks...what the heck did you think I was blathering on about? Oyster mushrooms, to be precise. So much flavor, with such an amazing texture. This was the second bag she'd delivered, and this time she said the grower was happy to keep me supplied if I would just blog about them, get the word out among my various contacts.
Well...yeah of course I would! Share recipes? You betcha. Just send me the contact information...address of the farm, the website, the Facebook page. In preparation I took pictures of my bounty, and of some of the ways I used it (did you know good mushrooms make amazing hash browns? Seriously!)
My friend gave me a business name, and I turned to my good friend Google. To find...nothing.
Not one thing about this person, this farm. Heck I couldn't even bring up the farm address. I knew they had to exist, I had the proof in my fridge. Well what was left of the proof, anyway, after my 'shroom binge. Mmmmm.
Eventually my friend did get in touch with the farm owner, who said she'd have something up soon and was I able to get the word out? Well, not really since, except for the fungilicous 'shrooms there was no word to get out. When that information is available I will definitely swing into action. I've already primed my friends to descend up her for their own oyster mushrooms.
These people had a fabulous product but they were sabotaging their business.

Pretty picture to break up the text

How often do we do that to ourselves? How often do we have a fairly successful book release, or, heck, any book release, and we're caught flat footed without sufficient information about us, our other books (current or future) or any information about us which might attract potential readers. Yeah I know, we writers are a solitary sort. If we wanted to interact with people we wouldn't have selected such a solitary occupation.
When we find out people want to KNOW us we get that deer in the headlights feeling. However, unless we want to write books for giveaway, we need to get ourselves OUT THERE. That means a website, a blog, a Facebook or Twitter or whatever presence. We don't want to be winking in the dark, do we?
Confession time, I have my ups and downs about doing this for myself but I'm trying to overcome that problem. Resistance is, after all, futile! And with MFRW's own guru (AKA Kayelle Allen) we have no excuse, do we?

So I'll stick in a bit of promo for myself. The second Stormhaven book, A Question of Faith, is out and the third, A Questions of Trust, is well underway.
Stormhaven is a ranch in northern New Mexico that welcomes veterans not quite ready to move back into society. My heroes have put others first for so long, they've begun to think they don't deserve their own happiness.
Silly guys, they're actually just waiting for their perfect mate!
I'm available through Black Opal Books , on Amazon, and at Mona's Blog

When not clandestinely acquiring mushrooms or pounding the keyboard, Mona helps monitor the MFRW discussion group. Yeah, she's the one who begs you to PLEASE trim and remember to promote your fellow writers, not yourselves. Which makes for a stronger writing community, don't you think?

Do The 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 Second Monday of the month. You can post your tweet until the second Wednesday of the month.

Retweet Day is 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

Writing contemporary romance, Tina Gayle enjoys wring stories that has strong women fiction elements as well as touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created storied to help put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dreams. 
Find her at www.tinagayle.net  or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x

Difference Between KDP and KDP Select by Kayelle Allen @kayelleallen #writerslife #MFRWauthor

Have you ever wondered what the difference between KDP and KDP Select is? Authors who self publish on Amazon use Kindle Direct Publishing. Once you upload, you're asked if you also want to join Kindle Select. This is an exclusive contract with Amazon and will place your book into Kindle Unlimited (KU). The contract runs 90 days from signing and auto renews unless you cancel prior to that date. It will put your book in Kindle Unlimited for readers. Members pay $9.99 a month and can read as much as they want of all books in KU system. In addition, you will get paid by the page count of pages read.

Breaking it down

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) - all self-pub authors on Amazon

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) + Kindle Select (also called KDP Select) - exclusive contract, no sales outside Amazon (except print), includes Kindle Unlimited

I sell my books on my own site but only the print books for the ones on Select. It's exclusively exclusive. No ebook sales anywhere else.

My recommendation is to go with "wide distribution" for your first book Sign up at these sites:

Amazon
Smashwords
CreateSpace

Here's what you'll get with each.

Amazon - total reach across all of Amazon

Smashwords - reach across all venues (you can publish from here to Amazon but why would you? You'd be cutting out your own royalty base b/c you'd share it with Smashwords.) You will get Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple iTunes (iBooks), plus many others.

CreateSpace - you'll be in print on any and all sites where you want to share it. You can go exclusive on Amazon and still sell the print on Smashwords.

If, after six months, you don't see awesome sales at non-Amazon distributors, consider going KDP Select and advertise as "free on Kindle Unlimited" (KU). You will get paid for purchases as well as pages read by those who only "borrow" the books.

What I Do

I have a number of books in that system. I make more in one month on Amazon than I do in a year on the other venues combined. It's different for every person. Be sure to advertise and include places where readers can buy your books. Don't say "I'm on Amazon" when you have an opportunity to write the actual URL to the book's page. Notice the banner above shows the icons for Amazon and CreateSpace, plus the hashtags #ScifiRom and #KindleUnlimited. These are cues to the reader what your book is about and when shared, gives them a way to know what hashtags to use on Twitter or Facebook.

Try everything with your books. They're yours. What works for others might not work for you. Whatever you decide, good luck with sales!

If you've used KDP Select, please share your opinions and tips in the comments.

---

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
Twitter https://twitter.com/kayelleallen

Join the Romance Lives Forever Reader Group Download four free books and get news about books coming soon. You can unsubscribe at any time.