In today’s article, I’d like to share with you some tips to consider when you’re reviewing your current website or when you’re thinking about creating one. Let’s take a look at these tips for your website’s design and usability.

1. Structure Your Theme Around Your Update Frequency – First and foremost, I believe that you have to make a decision, up front, about how often you plan on updating your website. If you’re not going to blog or update very often, you can simply choose a different website theme that’s a little more static than a blog, but still attractive and professional. If your website isn’t focused around a blog, visitors won’t expect you to update your website as often, but you can still provide good, useful information for anyone who visits. Several themes offer you the ability to have a blog component integrated separately into your website, too.

2. Balance Text with Images – Images can be a great enhancement to your website and they can allow you to easily share content with your readers that they might enjoy seeing. However, your website copy is arguably the most important asset you have for many reasons. Copy allows you to reach your readers and search engines, and it also allows you to attract new visitors through Google and similar places. As an author, your content is exceptionally important because it’s a reflection of you and your work.

3. Consider Saying “No” to Fancy Functionality – I’ve seen quite a few big budget author websites that have no text and lots of bells and whistles. Unfortunately, when you start adding a lot of fancy programming scripts, you can end up making your site inaccessible to the blind because there is nothing for them to read. Accessibility is a huge topic in website design because people with disabilities interact with the web differently than you or I might, and those groups have sued other companies for their oversight. Keep in mind, too, that not every visitor will have the latest software that is often required to interact with that complex functionality either. How many times do you stick around installing new software to interact with a website?

Additionally, depending upon how your website is programmed, search engines can also have a tough time picking up your content, which can hinder your ability to be accessed through search. If your functionality (Flash, JavaScript, QuickTime, etc.) ends up being a roadblock, that can affect how your visitors and search engines interact with your website.

4. Think About Avoiding a Splash Page – Do you have an additional page that your readers have to go through to get to your website? If your answer is “yes,” then you have what is known as a “splash page.” Regardless of how your website is structured, it can be questionable to have a splash page from a usability perspective, because it hampers your readers’ ability to quickly get to the information that they want to see.

5. Design for Readability and Consistency – Even though you might spend hours reviewing color schemes and fonts, your website may not render the way that you want or expect it to. Sometimes, a website design will look totally different in a browser like Chrome than in Firefox, even though the website’s programming is the same. Color can be more difficult to standardize, because two computer monitors may render color very differently. To avoid poor readability and to increase consistency in your design, try to ensure that your theme has a lot of contrast and offers common fonts. If you don’t want to use a font like Arial, etc. for your logo, then I would consider turning text into an image or a logo.

6. Own Your Own Domain – Did you know that if you have your website on a free domain like WordPress, Blogger, Typepad or Blogspot that you may not own your own content? Every free service — including blogging and website platforms — has a Terms of Service (ToS) that spells out what your rights are. I highly recommend reviewing the Terms of Service of the websites you’ve registered for and consider owning your own domain. Also, if you own your own domain it does tend to look more professional than if you use a free service. After all, what is your career worth to you?

7. Provide Easy, Intuitive Navigation – There is nothing ( and I mean nothing) worse than having to hunt and peck on an author’s website to find what I’m looking for. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to dig through pages of cat pictures or other personal information just to find out more about an author’s book or their bibliography. Your website navigation should be easy for people to browse and should be centered around your primary focus. If your website is about you as an author, then cater the navigation to your multiple audiences: readers, reviewers, agents, editors and the press. If your website is about you as a person, then be clear about that on a FAQ page and redirect visitors to your professional presence.

8. Offer the Ability to Search – Remember what I said about being able to find things on your website? A visitor shouldn’t have to click back to a search engine to look for things that are on your website. Some websites offer built-in search functionality; some don’t. Either way, it’s a good idea to double-check your site to ensure that it has that ability.

The good news is that you don’t have to listen to or agree with anything I’ve said in this article, because you can see for yourself how your website’s design and usability is affecting your visitors through your website analytics data.

Google Analytics (GA) doesn’t charge you a dime to use their service. Even though you technically don’t “own” the data (e.g. you can’t maintain it or download all of it), there is a lot of insight you can glean from the reports. There are also quite a few other web analytics services you can explore, and many of them may charge you a fee. Since there isn’t “one” standardized method of garnering the data from your website, different programs may provide you with different insight. Fortunately, GA has some tutorials and the program is pretty intuitive.

The thing to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to add analytics, is that the data that you learn from a tool like Google Analytics can help you improve your website’s design and usability. Simply identify what questions you want to answer and then leverage your data to find the answer.

About the Author

Monica Valentinelli is the content and web analytics manager for the digital sheet music retailer and publisher Musicnotes.com and the project manager for the horror and dark fantasy webzine Flamesrising.com. Monica is an aspiring novelist working on revisions for her first novel which she’s talked about at VioletWar.com; she has several non-fiction, short fiction and game writing credits to her name including her recent digital e-book release entitled THE QUEEN OF CROWS.

To read more about Monica, visit her blog located at www.mlvwrites.com.

A style sheet is a document the copyeditor prepares that lists the grammatical conventions, characters, places, unusual or made-up words, and the distinctive treatment of words (capitalization, hyphenation, favored spellings, etc.) within a particular text. My style sheets are very thorough, because every decision I make is a deliberate one, and I’m often leery that an overzealous proofreader will come along and try to change things.

Style sheets are useful in a number of ways. First, they help the copyeditor maintain consistency. I’ve heard other copyeditors say that they prepare the style sheet once they’re done with a book, and I cannot imagine how that works for them. I refer to the style sheet constantly as I copyedit, because despite having a freakishly good memory for what I’ve read, even I cannot keep track in my head of the hundreds (literally) of possibilities that alternate spellings, hyphenation, and capitalization produce in any book.

For fantasy and science fiction, style sheets are particularly important for a number of reasons: First, SF/F books often come in series, and a thorough style sheet is important for maintaining continuity from one book to the next. Second, these books generally contain a large number of made-up places and terms–the authors are often fantastic world-builders–as well as very unusual names. In any genre, it can be difficult to remember the exact spelling of the name of a minor character you haven’t seen in three hundred pages–Was it “Frederick” or “Frederic”?–but in SF/F you might have an alien proper noun with seven consonants and an apostrophe. Unless you’ve already written it down and can refer back to your list, you’re going to have a hard time maintaining consistency. (And incidentally, the complexity of the world-building and its attendant vocabulary is one reason many copyeditors don’t like to take SF/F–it’s a lot of work that way.)

Style sheets are often provided to the compositor, too, and the compositor can then use them while setting the book to verify that something was indeed done intentionally.

And style sheets are always provided to the proofreader.

As an aside, proofreading (which is comparing the set proof against the manuscript) requires less knowledge than copyediting. Therefore it pays less, partly because proofreaders don’t have to make decisions about how to apply styles and so on: They’re just supposed to make sure the styles the copyeditor decided on were followed. That doesn’t stop some proofreaders, however, from deciding that the copyeditor should have followed strict CMS (Chicago Manual of Style, the basic publishing Bible) and altering things accordingly. (I personally think that authors should always be able to see the proofreader’s alterations, and many publishers don’t show them outright, though they may send along second proof with the changes already incorporated.)

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I dislike CMS for fiction; it is geared toward nonfiction. And despite the fact that some production editors like copyeditors to follow strict CMS, I’ve yet to talk to a single editor (and I’ve talked to many about this) who feels the same way. Tor editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden, for instance, agreed with me about that in this thread, calling strict CMS “potentially disastrous” for fiction. CMS’s rules on hyphenation, for instance, drive authors insane if you follow them exactly, and with good reason: The rules often make fiction less readable. (And yes, I know I’ve promised a post on hyphenation; I’m just really skeptical that I won’t bore people to death with it.)

So my style sheets contain a lot of items in which I’m instructing the proofreader to leave things alone: “Fragments are acceptable with this author’s style” and “Split infinitives are acceptable with this author’s style” and “Please follow style sheet for hyphenation.” (I detest the “never split an infinitive” rule, btw. Everyone knows that the only reason the rule came into being is because some bishop looked at Latin and decided that since Latin didn’t split infinitives, English shouldn’t either, right? And Latin can’t split infinitives, because they’re all one word. Argh. Drives me nuts. Following that rule can result in the most unnatural-sounding sentences. There’s a detailed discussion here if you’re interested. )

I also put into the style sheet things I need to keep track of: Does the author prefer to lowercase or capitalize a full sentence after a colon? What is the author’s preference for showing the possessive of proper singular nouns ending in “s” or “x”? How does the author treat titles? Some publishers have particular house styles they want copyeditors to follow for those rules, and if so I note those on the style sheet.

And of course I put in all the character names and nicknames and epithets and titles. I put in the names of the characters’ pets or horses, and what color and sex they are. I note all the place names, and whether they take a “the” in front. I note the names of wars and laws and the titles of books to which the characters refer. I note the author’s preferred spelling for any words for which there are alternatives. For all of those, I put in the page number for the first time I saw each item.

It goes on and on. I want to be consistent, and if I make a change, I want it to make sense to the author. The book is their baby, after all. By maintaining a thorough style sheet, I am able to have a particular page to show the author if I query or change something in order to produce consistency. To me, that’s just common courtesy.

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Reprinted with permission from the author’s website.

Deanna Hoak is a freelance copyeditor specializing in fantasy and science fiction. SF/F novels she has copyedited have been finalists for (and have sometimes won) the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke, Endeavour, Golden Spur, John W. Campbell Memorial, Quill, Locus, Philip K. Dick, British Science Fiction, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy awards. In 2007 she became the only copyeditor ever short-listed for a World Fantasy Award.

The world is changing rapidly, its moments swarming us like pixillated butterflies.  The woman walking down the street in front of you talking to the air may not be crazy, but having a conversation on her Bluetooth headset. Two people who have never met face to face may fall in love, or out of it.  Our relationships to each other, both at the personal and professional level, are becoming crowded and changed, to a point where it’s difficult to track what is and isn’t the same as it used to be.

One shift lies in the area of social networks such as Facebook, Livejournal, MySpace, and Twitter and their skyrocketing popularity. According to a Consumer Research Center study, 43% of online users visited social networking sites this year, as opposed to 27% the year before. If you believe maintaining an online presence is useful for connecting with readers, social networks form the way to interact efficiently with nearly half of them.

From February to May of 2009 Twitter grew from six million users to 35 million. Discussions of Twitter’s ubiquitousness were held on the pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, as well as the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Some news programs now use “Twitter crawls”, a scrolling line at the bottom of the screen showing people’s “tweets” (Twitter posts) about news stories or issues, while websites may use Twitter to furnish part of their content. In June, Twitter was used to expose problems with the Iranian elections. When scheduled maintenance would have taken the service down, Twitter decided to stay up in order to help with the scheduling of an important demonstration, not just because its users asked, but because the Obama Administration requested it.

At the most basic level, millions of people are using Twitter and other social networks to connect with friends, family, and co-workers. A few are writers. A lot of them are readers.

Social networks manifest what technologists call “Web 2.0″. Web 2.0, a term first used in 1999 by user experience consultant Darcy DiNucci, is the next generation of Web tools and usages. It emphasizes on communication, ease of use, and accessibility. Its products also include collaborative efforts like wikis (Wikipedia being the most notable example), blogs, video-sharing sites like YouTube and Hulu, and the concept of mashups, web pages or applications that combine “data or functionality from two or more external sources to create a new service” (quote taken from Wikipedia). Mashups have become a familiar concept in speculative literature lately, recently introducing zombies to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

A major technological factor encouraging social networks is the acquisition of Internet capability by cell phones. I can update Twitter, Facebook, and my blog through my iPhone, and more companies are developing phones that do much more than phone home. Brief tweets and Facebook updates are suited to a cell phone’s small screen. They can be checked standing in line at the grocery store, waiting for take-out, riding on the bus. No wonder more and more people are participating!

At the same time, people resist what seems a social mandate to electronically network. In a world where things are changing rapidly and technology is having an impact on everything from the way we work to the ways we play and perform, social networks are sometimes unfairly the symbol of Technological Anxiety.

This article intends to do a few things. The first of these is to assuage some of those anxieties. Once that’s (hopefully) accomplished, we’ll take about the differences between the most popular social networks, how to behave in a way that maximizes your effort, and what’s worth (and not worth) doing.

What’s It All About?

Social networking’s basic concept is not difficult. You have people who influence you and are influenced in turn by you. Word of mouth, which depends on social networks, has always worked this way: someone makes a recommendation to a friend or family member. When that friend or family member is shopping, they remember the recommendation and act on it, purchasing the recommended good or service .

Many marketing-minded people enthuse about social networking because as social networks change to suit the Internet, the power of word of mouth balloons. Not only do more people see that recommendation, but it can be made more compelling, through the ability to point someone at a link about the product, include a snapshot taken with a phone, or even embed a YouTube clip of the product in action.

Publication time is different on the Internet, too. A book review on a website sticks around much longer than a print recommendation. While the magazine sits on a shelf or molders in the recycling bin, the web review continues spreading the word about the book indefinitely. Its popularity can fluctuate – a mention on a site such as Boingboing.net or Slashdot.org can send the numbers skyrocketing. As the editor of an online magazine, I’m fascinated by this. One of the most popular articles on the Fantasy Magazine website, for example, is a piece of steam punk gadgets. It continues to gather a significant number of hits and is almost always one of the top ten posts each week. Behold the power of a good search keyword!

Your informal social network, the people you interact with on a regular basis, has changed with the advent of electronic social networks. For example, my Facebook account allows me to connect with: close and extended family, such as my brother and my cousins in Kansas; former workvcolleagues; college acquaintances and teachers; friends from the online game I work with; friends who I gamed with twenty years ago; fans of my writing, fans of the magazine I edit; fellow writers and editors; and assorted people who just really like my name.

Facebook even makes it easy to build those networks. Birthday reminders let me pop over to their Facebook page and write quick greetings. If I wanted to go digital, I could buy them a virtual present to display on their page, like a picture of a pet or a flower.  (How smart of Facebook, to be selling what are, essentially, pixels.) I can see what my cousin Faith is up to, and drop a line of commentary on it. I’m told what groups my friends are joining, what videos they’re posting, when they update the “relationship” status of their profiles.

Perhaps you’re new to this world, deciding to dip your toe in the electronic pool for the first time. Or you’ve made a few attempts and never really followed up, letting your MySpace profile moulder or your blog sit there with one post back in 2005. Maybe you have a strong presence on one network and want to know whether or not you should expand into others. That brings new questions: how do you pick a social network? Which ones reach the most people, are the most effective, and/or involve the least amount of effort on your part? How do you avoid getting swallowed up by the social networking world?

Identifying the Important Networks

Why think about the different social networks? Because each represents a distinct group of potential readers. People tend to find a social network they like and stick with it.  Therefore, while there’s some overlap between social networks, it’s not as great as one might think.

The social networks with the largest numbers of members are Facebook, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, MySpace and Twitter. Each has its own unique aspects, advantages, and disadvantages. I use three, and by my estimate, advertising a new publication that way allows me to reach several thousand people that are already interested in my writing, for no cost other than the time spent posting. I’m a very minor author, although like everyone else on this particular rung of the ladder, I hope to expand my following. But were I larger, I’d be making as much use of social networking as I efficiently could.

Facebook:

When you create a Facebook account, you are setting up your profile: what people on your friends list see about you. Facebook can be confusing in its distinction between profile, group, and fanpage. Most people are represented on Facebook by profiles. People who want to see their updates must request that the other person “friend” them, and the relationship depends on both parties agreeing to it. A person’s Facebook “feed” consists of updates from their friends, groups, and other subscriptions. Updates can include items a person posted, as well as things they did. For example, my friend Sue just requested help in a Facebook game she’s playing, Mafia Wars, and that item appears on my feed.

Groups revolve around a single cause. Anyone can create a group, and they can range widely, from a group of people wanting to change an aspect of Facebook to a group denying global warming, or another group organized to get out urban voters in a campaign. Silly causes abound too, such as a recent one to “stop over-fishing on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.”

If you are a writer who does has a signficant number of fans, the most useful thing you can do is probably to create a “fanpage”. For example, Fantasy Magazine is represented at and anyone, regardless of whether or not they’re a friend, can become a fan of it. Fans see the updates to the page in their Facebook feed. Post on your fanpage when you have something you want to share with fans. You’ll find that people comment on items, and the comments will be visible. You can respond to them or not, as you choose, but you’ll find that responding will tend to make the group more appealing to new members. However, don’t do it, unless there’s a genuine following for your work — nothing looks sadder than a fanpage with a following of two.

LinkedIn:

When you set up a LinkedIn account, you are also setting up a profile, but one that is considerably less interactive than a Facebook one. Only LinkedIn users that are linked to you (sometimes through another person) can see all of your profile information. LinkedIn is primarily a job and employment site, so the emphasis is on your resume and references. This is useful to writers and editors in terms of finding work or workers to do it. While I make sure I have links to my site in my profile, I don’t think of LinkedIn as a network that will drive traffic to a website. LinkedIn might also be useful in terms of finding reviewers, reading or speech venues, or markets for articles or fiction.

LiveJournal:

The primary purpose of a LiveJournal account is to create a LiveJournal blog. You network with other people by “friending” them. as with Facebook, which allows you to see their private entries as well as collecting their posts with those of your other friends in an easy to read format for you.

LiveJournal boasts a thriving collection of authors, editors, and publishers, including Elizabeth Bear, Ellen Datlow, Gregory Frost, Sean Wallace, and Martha Wells. One of the confusions that has arisen on LiveJournal deals with the issue of “handles,” special names attached to accounts which may bear little to no resemblence to one’s real name. Writers setting up a LiveJournal account under an exotic name may want to make sure their real name and contact information are listed on their profile page.

MySpace:

MySpace is very similar to FaceBook: you set up a profile page which your friends can comment on, and which can hold music, embedded video, pictures, and the like. MySpace is a favorite of musicians, and has additional functionality to offer them, but there are many authors here as well. Many people, including myself, complain about MySpace’s interface, but it does allow writers some good functionality, such as allowing people to readers to your posts.

Twitter:

Twitter is all about brevity. Users post “tweets”, 140-character messages that span a gamut of possibilities. You can subscribe to or “follow” someone’s tweets, or twitter a message that directly addresses them but which can be seen by anyone. The most rapidly growing network, Twitter was the first to exploit cell phones, allowing users to post from phones as well as the web.

Twitter is used by a wide, wide range of people, including Shaquile O’Neill, Jon Hodgman, Christopher Walken, and Ashton Kutchner, and ghost-writing tweets is a growing field for freelancers. The shortness of the form has led to a fascination with it; there are several speculative-fiction Twitter magazines, such as Thaumatrope and horror-based TweetTheMeat.

Twitter spreads information with remarkable quickness through the practice of “retweets”, signified in Twitterese by “RT.” For example, I might see a book recommendation from my buddy, user @bestfriend, and decide to pass it along to my followers, in the form like, “RT @bestfriend says Baloney by Oscar Meyer is the most tightly plotted mystery ever!” Retweets help spread news fast, such as the Hudson River plane crash or the Mumbai terrorist attacks. In both cases, eyewitnesses tweeted, and the tweets were quickly passed along and even used by the slower moving news networks.

Twitter has a secondary mechanism for passing along information, hash tags. They are called hash tags because one uses the hash mark symbol, #, to indicate one. Hash tags are words that people can use to search for a common interest group, such as #fantasy, #tengu, #buffy, or #pabloneruda. They are sometimes used to create an event such as #followfriday, where users broadcast their recommendations for interesting users to follow. Anyone can look for the word and find lists of users interested in being followed and following in turn. A Twitter stream making judicious use of hash tags can steadily increase its number of followers, allowing its messages to reach more and more people.

One of the joys of Twitter is the wide range of tools that can do things with your Twitter feed. Here, for example, is my Twitter stream displayed as a cloud of words. Words are larger and redder if they are more often used; smaller and bluer when they seldom appear.

The TweetBeep service can be used to alert you when certain key phrases (like your name) appear on Twitter, which you can have it do on an hourly or daily basis. I use Tweetbeep to monitor my name and the phrase “fantasy magazine”. Followmebutton.com allows you to generate a button, easy to post to a blog or other social network, that lets someone follow you on Twitter with a single click.

Blogs

Blogs are a favorite form of networking. THe wide variety of blog-based networks includes Blogger, Blogspot, and WordPress. Blogs tend to be time-intensive, although you can take the labor-saving approach of only posting excerpts from your work in progress and/or announcements of events. If the former, responding to comments will, as with any network, help drive traffic.

Sometimes virtual networks are dedicated to meat-space meetings. For example, you might use TweetUp.com, Twtvite.com or Meetup.com to organize events such as signing, readings, lectures, or other performances. Or it may be just as easy to use one’s social network presence elsewhere for such organization.

The feel of different social networks vary according to their communication model. Facebook communication is like being at a party in a very large house or apartment building where everyone knows everyone else, even if sometimes only in a vague way. You can wander into someone’s space and join the conversation, comment on the decorations or the items stuck to the front of their refrigerator. MySpace is the strip mall and trailer park down the road. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is much more like an office building or conference center, where all communications center on employment and professional networking. Of Twitter, novelist Kelly Eskrige has noted, “It’s like being in a stadium full of people and having a shouted exchange with friends on the other side of the field, while also overhearing random bits of strangers’ conversations, which every once in a while tell you something that you actually needed to know right now — a weird and wonderful synchronicity.”

By contrast, blogs usually contain a single resident, unless they’re one of those hippie commune blogs like the Daily Cabal or SFNovelists. – they’re like being invited into someone’s house. All communication is, by the virtue of the location in which it’s taking place, addressed to them, and the sense is that of a one to one relationship between reader and author/host. While readers may address each other in the comments, they’re always aware that the host is there watching, and some, like John Scalzi, have a notoriously firm hand in ejecting trolls and steering the conversation.

There are other networks. GoodReads and LibraryThing, for example, are book recommendation, review, and listing sites. Good reviews on there will help sell copies of your book. You can make use of these networks in two ways, one of which is considerably less time consuming. This first way is simply to spend some time figuring out who the prolific reviewers who you think might do justice to your book are, and then make sure they get a copy. The second is to actually join, and then spend time reviewing other people’s books, so you develop a reputaiton that leads to people seeking out your work. If you go the second route, I would suggest making sure you have links to your work in your profile on the network.

Flickr and YouTube

Flickr is a great site for publishing visual images. It’s free, but a professional account will allow you to publish more pictures. YouTube is often used for video, such as interviews, readings, or book trailers. While there are a number of audio-based social networks, none of them have yet emerged from the pack as a standout.

YouTube is particularly appropriate if you do something visual. For example, writer and SFWA secretary Mary Robinette Kowal has published a number of clever and interesting videos, ranging from popular pieces to DIY to interviews. Book trailers can make for great video. Mario Acevado has done amazing trailers for his Felix Gomez vampire detective series using Lego and a driving sound track.

In selecting a network, figure out what you want to achieve through social networking. Promote events and new material to fans? Reach new readers? That helps you decide both what sort of venue you want to opt for as well as what you do with it.

Behaving Correctly

No matter which social network(s) you decide to join, the important thing to remember  there is to behave in accordance with the rules of the group. You wouldn’t walk into someone’s house and spray-paint the title of your latest book on their kitchen wall. You don’t want to do the equivalent in virtual space either.

Don’t spam people by posting the same message or messages over and over again. Make your content interesting, meaningful, and/or entertaining in order to keep people still reading.

One pitfall is thinking of your blog as a billboard. It’s not, or at least it’s one where people have the ability to put notes on it. Read and answer the comments you get, and engage your readers. Answer their questions and give them a reason to feel invested in the blog. Some bloggers periodically ask their readers to introduce themselves if they’re new, or to weigh in on an issue.

What’s a Writer To Do?

Internet social networking sites can provide valuable space for publicizing events such as signings, convention appearances, or book releases as well as products. They also provide ways for you to influence where your writing and publicity efforts appear through tagging and word-of-mouth sites.

An early concern is branding. Writers understand the power of names. You want a distinctive, memorable name representing you on the Internet by . You want readers to  find you easily when they use a search engine. For example, my name is one where, nine hits out of ten, they mean me. (The other one time, someone has named their housecat Rambo.)

When setting up accounts , use the name you write under so your readers can recognize you. If you’re a longtime Net participant (or even a short one), you may have developed an avatar name, like grouchyoldwoman43 or PrinceSparkle. Unless that is the identity you wish to embrace, consider making new accounts with the correct name. You may want to make sure that your e-mail address is similarly straightforward and recognizable, as well as professional sounding.

What if someone has your name already? Play around with your name. Can you use a special character, like an underscore, or perhaps a middle initial? Perhaps first person, such as IamYourName, or append something that signifies your genre, like SFwriterYourName. Perhaps a number that’s significant, like 2010YourName (be aware some names may age more gracefully than others.)

Representing yourself visually: It’s worthwhile spending time picking a photo that shows you well, and perhaps even paying for a professional photo. Don’t use an abstract image, like a guitar to show you play one, or a petunia to demonstrate you like flowers. But no matter what, do include a picture – one study showed that no photo decreased a person’s likeliness of being followed by 80%.

Networks don’t do much good unless you’re using them, no matter what. The Associate Editor of PANK wrote: “If you’re going to have a blog or a Twitter feed or a Facebook page, update them regularly. One of the things that drives me crazy is going to a blog that hasn’t been updated in months. If you’re not updating a given social networking tool regularly, you don’t need it.”

And In The End

In the end, are social networks bane or boon to the modern spec-fic writer? While I’ve regretted the hours I’ve frittered away on Facebook games or checking Twitter, in the end I’d still land solidly on the boon side. To me it seems inevitable that we procrastinate and dawdle, and that we poke at the Internet doing all manner of things. Inevitably, we’ll let those pixillated butterflies lure us into enjoying a chat here and there. All in the name of networking.

Ten reasons I might actually want to know what you had for breakfast

1. You are a close friend or family member and I am interested in your health.
2. Your breakfast was particularly poetic.
3. Your breakfast was particularly unfamiliar and thus interesting to me.
4. You tried a food I am curious about.
5. You tried something that I know an Interesting Fact about.
6. You had something that has strong emotional resonance for me.
7. You tried something a favorite fictional character eats.
8. Your description persuades me to try something new.
9. Your description warns me off from something I know I won’t like. (If you’re reliable or I know your taste matches.)
10. I am stalking you.

Simple Things You Can Do To Build Your Online Presence

1. Tag things.
2. Comment, comment, comment. Responding to someone is the best way to show that you’ve read their content. FaceBook condenses this down to the simplest possible form with the “Like” functionality.
3. Share your opinion.
4. Tell authors when you like something.
5. Include links in your e-mail signature.
6. Make sure your fans gets link whenever you publish something on line.
7. Sell to some of the online pro markets, which pay as well as the majority of the print magazines, and which allow you to link to your material from your website or blog.
8. Put a press kit on your website that includes: a headshot, a brief bio, and links to interviews.

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This article has been reprinted, with permission, from The Bulletin

Cat Rambo lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. Her collections, EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT, and THE SURGEON’S TALE AND OTHER STORIES (with Jeff VanderMeer) are available on Amazon.com.  She is the fiction editor of FANTASY MAGAZINE. Upcoming appearances include a reading for RASP on January 29, 2010, a one day workshop for the FIeld’s Edge Writers Community program, March 13, 2010, Norwescon, WisCon, WorldCon, and World Fantasy Con.

Let me talk about conventions and their relationship to my writing life. Everyone will have very different experiences, depending on their personality. Here’s how it works for me.

I primarily go to conventions for three reasons.

1. To see other people in the field whose company I enjoy.
2. Improve craft/business sense.
3. To be “visible.”

1) To see other people in the field whose company I enjoy.
I relish the social aspect of SF. There are people that I just plain like and a convention is like old home week. It’s fun! I like you guys.

2) Improve craft/business sense.
A convention with a really good list of panels is going to appeal to me more than one in which I only hang out at the bar (though I love that, too). I want to know what’s happening in the field and to think about things that aren’t just products of my own brain banging against the inside of my skull. Even if I only learn one new thing, that’s a thing I didn’t know before.

3) To be “visible”
I’m a new writer, so I’m building my “brand.” I’m not going to get that many new readers at a convention, but the people at cons are the ones who vote on things and frankly, nominations can be leveraged ((Nominations and awards do not automatically mean a reader increase. You have to know how to work them, but the power of narrative on career is a different topic.)) into getting more readers which means…that cons are filled with a good target audience. Cons also tend to have editors at them and those are good people to know.

Now, I’ll be frank about how this works, because a lot of people don’t understand how to do effective schmoozing. Yes, yes, I’m aware that admitting this happens is distasteful. But, I’m going to talk about how to schmooze, anyway.

Schmoozing 101

These are all ideas to employ but none of them are hard and fast rules. Schmoozing is all about being charming and that will vary somewhat depending on the situation. So, here are the basic ideas behind successful schmoozing.

First idea: The other person is more interesting than you are.

Clearly, there are going to be cases where this isn’t true BUT act like it is. Why? Because the more time someone spends talking about himself and the more he feels intelligent and the more interesting he will think the conversation is. Hence, the more interesting he will think you are. So practice being a good listener.

Now, the way I do this is that as I’m talking with the person, I listen for the things that we have common interests in. They like cars? Great, I can reference the MG-TD that I covet. That gives me something to add to the conversation so that they don’t feel like they are being interrogated.

What if you can’t find any common ground?

Second idea: Have an exit strategy.
Let’s say you are a writer talking to an editor. It’s a good conversation, but you don’t know them all that well. The conversation pauses. Rather than looking for a way to prolong it, excuse yourself. To borrow from theater, “Always leave them wanting more.”

Exit strategies are also useful when you are trapped in a conversation. It’s okay to break the flow and say, “I’m so sorry, it’s been good talking to you, but I need to [x].” Yes, I’m suggesting that you lie. They trapped you. You are escaping. It’s fair.

But if the conversation is going well?

Third idea: Don’t be the first to bring up business.
Why? Because everyone at the con is talking about writing and business and you, you will be a welcome respite in the midst of a sea of people who have all been talking about the same things. You stand out this way. Now, if someone else brings it up, you are more than welcome to indulge, but don’t go there first. Later, make sure you follow up, but when you are in a non-business setting, leave the business alone.

Fourth idea: When the conversation turns to business, be prepared.
It is a con, so the conversation is very likely to swing round to writing. If you have something to pitch, practice your pitch at home. If you have a question, practice it at home. If you’ve gone to panels, think about what your opinion is before someone asks you.

Right now, I’m sucking at answering the question, “So what do you write?”

I rattle off a couple of magazines — which is what they want to hear — and I fail to say, “I have a novel coming out from Tor in 2010.” I think I told two people that at the last con. This is foolish. Someone gave me an opening to pimp myself and I didn’t oblige them.

Fifth idea: Be physically pleasant.

Is this shallow? Yes, yes it is. But we’ve all read the studies that repeatedly show that people who are attractive are treated better, so for heaven’s sake, take advantage of that. You look good in green? Wear green. Nicely turned calves? Show them off. And for heaven’s sake, bathe. Trust me, in a con, just a little bit of effort will make you stand out.

Want to know a secret? In real life, I almost never wear makeup, but I wear it at conventions. Too many people take photos and I look dead in photos without it. Especially on very little sleep, which is a natural state at cons.

Sixth idea: Follow up.

You meet someone who is either fascinating or who might be a good connection later. Drop them a line afterwards. It can be as simple as swinging by their website and saying “Hey, good to meet you!” Don’t stalk them, but that tiny bit of post con contact will help them remember who you are. Heck, it’ll help you remember who they are too.

By the way, this is why it’s good to hand out cards at conventions. I’ve been bad about this lately and keep forgetting to print enough to take with me.

So let’s review.
1. The other person is always more interesting than you are.
2. Have an exit strategy.
3. Don’t be the first to bring up business.
4. If business comes up, be prepared.
5. Be physically pleasant, ie, bathe.
6. Follow up.

There are other things too, but these are the basics.

—

Conventions and Writing, or Schmoozing 101 is reprinted with permission of the author.

Mary Robinette Kowal was the 2008 recipient of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Cosmos and Asimov’s. Mary, a professional puppeteer and voice actor, lives in Portland, OR with her husband Rob and nine manual typewriters. Tor is publishing her debut novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, in the Spring of 2010.

Written by Chuck Rothman

Index

1. What is an agent and why do I need one?
2. When do I need an agent?
3. How are agents paid?
4. Where to I find information about agents?
5. How do I choose an agent?
6. How do I contact an agent?
7. How do I create an outline and sample chapters?
8. What happens if I don’t get an agent?

1. What is an agent and why do I need one?

   An agent is a writer’s business representative. His job is to market your book, negotiate a deal with the publisher, keep track of rights sold, and generally handle the business end of things so that the author can concentrate on writing.

   You may not need an agent. If you write poetry, or short fiction, or articles, you don’t. Agents only handle book length manuscripts — fiction and nonfiction. It’s not worth their while to handle shorter works.

   Even if you write books, you may not need an agent. There are two main advantages that an agent can offer you when it comes to marketing:

   • A good agent knows what editors are looking for. He can target your manuscript more effectively; an author has to send it out hit or miss, wasting time on editors who are overstocked and missing windows of opportunity. Generally, it will take a good agent less time to sell a manuscript than it would take if you did it yourself. However, if the agent can sell the novel, there’s a good chance you can sell it, too. Conversely, if the novel is no good, no agent is going to be able to sell it.
   • Many publishers don’t accept unagented submissions. Or, more commonly, they allow an agent to send the entire manuscript, while limiting unagented submissions to outlines and sample chapters. You’re more likely to sell if the editor reads the entire book.

   The main advantage of having an agent is not in marketing a novel; it’s when you find a publisher willing to publish it. A good agent is an expert in negotiating contracts. She knows what clauses to ask for, which are harmless boilerplate, and which seemingly innocuous ones are invitations to disaster. A good agent will know how to get you the best possible deal. Unless you are in the publishing industry, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to negotiate a contract that gets you the most money possible while protecting all your rights.

   (Some people think that a lawyer can replace an agent when it comes to this. However, few lawyers specialize in the type of contracts publishers use. In the words of editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor Books, every time an author used a lawyer to negotiate with Tor, the author was left “skinned and bleeding.”)

2. When do I need an agent?

   The first thing you need to do is write a book-length manuscript. Unless you have the book in hand, an agent won’t be interested. He needs something he can see; without a manuscript, there’s no knowing if you can write anything that’s worth the agent’s time to try to sell.

   When the manuscript is done, you can start contacting agents. But don’t let the search for the agent get in the way of your search for a publisher. You’re perfectly welcome to start marketing the book yourself, if you want. It’s up to you.

   If you do send the book out, and get a call from the publisher that they’re interested, this is the perfect time to find an agent. Indeed, some publishers will even recommend you get an agent before there’s any negotiation; they’d much rather deal with a professional. It’s said that, if you do get the call from a publisher, you automatically say, “I’ll have my agent contact you” — whether you have an agent or not. If you call agents and tell them about the offer, they will often jump at the chance to take you on. After all, it’s a quick way for them to make a buck. The hardest part has been done; all they have to do is negotiate a contract, which means they (and you) will be paid in a couple of months, not several years.

3. How are agents paid?

   Agents are paid by publishers. Usually, when they sell your book, the check is written out to the agent. The agent then takes his percentage of this amount and sends you the remainder. Most literary agents nowadays take 15% of any money paid you; a few still stick with the old rate of 10%. (Screenplay agents are required to only charge 10%.) If the agent sells your book to a non-North-American publisher, they usually take 20%, since they often work through a subagent.

   Some agents also pass through charges for expenses to their authors. This can happen in different ways. Most commonly, an agent will pass along charges for “extraordinary” expenses. These include charges for such things as Express Mail, Special Couriers, and other items that are not the usual part of doing business. Regular postage and copying costs are not extraordinary. Agents generally deduct these expenses from any money due you. In other words, if you’re paid $1000 for your novel, and the agent spent an extra $15 for Federal Express, you’d be paid $835 instead of $850.

4. Where to I find information about agents?

   There are many sources, of varying degrees of reliability. The best is to ask a published writer about her agent. If the writer likes the agent, ask if the agent is taking clients. If so, contact the agent.

   Writer’s Market and Literary Market Place list agents in their yearly volume. Check out the agent entries, looking for people who represent authors in your field of writing. Look for names of clients and recent sales.

   You can find ads for agents in Writer’s Digest. However, many of these are for sham agents who take money and do little to advance your career. I would strongly urge you to look elsewhere. Good agents don’t take out ads to find clients.

5. How do I choose an agent?

   This is the hardest question to answer. Anyone can call herself an agent. Scams are common; the pages of Writer’s Digest are filled with people who claim to be literary agents, but who have never sold a book in their life. Even among legitimate agents, one agent may be perfect for you, but all wrong for someone else.

   The first step is to eliminate the scams. The quickest way is to stick to one invariable rule:

   Never, under any circumstances whatsoever, pay money to an agent.

   If you follow this, you automatically eliminate the frauds. A fraud is out to get your money. A few years ago, scam agents charged “reading fees.” Lately, as word has slowly gotten out that this is the sure sign of a ripoff, the same agents are charging for “expenses.” Sound plausible, but the reality is that legitimate agents don’t ask for money in advance for any reason.

   If you send money to an agent in advance, there’s no guarantee she’ll do anything other than cash your check. A legitimate agent doesn’t get paid unless she sells your novel; a fraud isn’t going to go to the bother.

   Other signs to be wary of:

   • Agent asks you for money up front. Yes, I know I just said this, but it bears repeating. Do not pay any agent, and especially don’t pay anything in advance merely to have him represent you.
   • Agent won’t give you the names of his clients and recent sales. Always ask for this. A legitimate agent is all too happy to recount his successes; most send out press releases whenever they sell a book. A fraud won’t tell you (usually citing “confidentiality”), because it gives you a handle to track him down (and because he often has no recent sales).
   • Agent recommends an editorial service. Be very wary here. Real agents either like your manuscript or pass on it; if it’s close, they may ask you to revise it yourself. There is, however, a common scam where the agent recommends an editorial service. There’s a good chance the service is paying the agent a kickback to make that recommendation. (Note: probably the most notorious of these editorial services is a place called Edit Ink. Don’t even consider any agent who mentions Edit Ink.)
   • Agent has contacted you. Agents don’t need to go out of their way to find clients. But it’s quite common for frauds to buy mailing lists of writers and go fishing. Unless you have published something, or otherwise have a reputation as a writer, no real agent is going to contact you out of the blue.
   • Agent’s contract has a time limit. Agents used to work on a handshake basis, but nowadays even good agents often have contracts. But legitimate agency contracts are open ended: the continue until either party decides to quit. Frauds set a time limit, since this allows them to ask you for a further fee for “expenses” or “representation.”
   • Agent claims sales to a vanity press. A vanity press is one where the author pays to be published. No real agent would even consider sending a manuscript to one (how could they make any money, if the publisher isn’t going to pay?). Some agents do recommend vanity presses, most likely because they are getting kickback from the press (how else do they get paid?)
   • Agent asks you to put up your money in advance. What I tell you three times is true.

   If an agent does any of these things, go somewhere else. There is little chance any agent who has these policies will be any help at all to you, and could do great damage to your career — with you paying for the privilege of having them ruin you. It’s just not worth it.

   For more information about how agents work, check out this article by Dan Perez.

6. How do I contact an agent?

   Once past this hurdle, the question becomes one of nuances. Does the agent seem interested in having you as a client? Does she have some sort of vision for your career? What do her other clients think of her?

   Most agents do business by mail (a few by e-mail). The first thing to do is to send a query letter. The query letter should introduce you to the agent. Explain that you are looking for representation for your completed book. Describe the book in general terms (i.e., it’s a science fiction novel), but don’t summarize the plot. Mention any publishing history (if you have one, if not, say nothing) or any background information that might indicate a relevant area of expertise (if there’s nothing directly relevant, leave this out, too). Keep the query letter short (if it’s more than one page, it’s way too long). Be sure to include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply. Send it off.

   A question that crops up is whether you can query several agents at a time. It all depends on what you’re comfortable with. It’s generally acceptable to send off multiple query letters, so if you want to go that way, do so. However, once an agent asks to see your manuscript (or more likely, sample chapters and an outline), you should send it to that agent alone, and to none other until he says yes or no. If you get a second request, wait until you hear back from the first agent before sending it along (it isn’t necessary to tell the second agent it’s out somewhere. Just say nothing until you’re ready to send it to her).

   Incidentally, your agent hunt can be separate from the hunt for a publisher. You can send the book out to editors while agents are deciding; if the book sells, call the agent who is currently considering it. Note, however, that an agent often wants to market the book from scratch, and has a slight preference toward a book that has yet to be rejected.

7. How do I create an outline and sample chapters?

   These are essential to selling a novel. Most agents (and publishers) want to see these instead of a full manuscript (note: if at all possible, it’s best to find a way to send a full manuscript. But be careful: doing this when the agency/publisher doesn’t allow it may mean that your book will not be read. You can break this rule, but be prepared to suffer the consequences).

   The sample chapters are always the first chapters of the book. Usually the first three, but if you’re writing extremely short chapters, send the first 50-60 pages (don’t stop in the middle of a chapter). The idea is to give the editor/agent an idea of your ability to write.

   An outline runs around 20 pages and describes the action in the book. It is usually written in the present tense (our hero kills off all the soldiers, but the princess is kidnapped by the Grand Vizier). Include any particularly important lines of dialog and all important scenes as you lay out the plot and all subplots.

   Some agents prefer a synopsis to an outline. This is shorter (5 pages) and is more of an overview. Needless to say, either your outline or your synopsis must be well written and interesting.

8. What happens if I don’t get an agent?

   There’s no reason you can’t market your novel yourself. There are a few hurdles, but it’s eminently possible. It isn’t the end of your career, so just keep on plugging. Sooner or later, it will click for you.

—

Chuck Rothman has been writing SF since way back in the previous century, with stories in Asimov’s, F&SF, Realms of Fantasy, the current issue of Space and Time, and dozens of other magazines, some of which are still publishing.  He lives in Schenectady with his wife, poet Susan Noe Rothman, daughter Lisa (just back from the Peace Corps), and cat Lightning.  He is looking for an agent.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Of the many issues highlighted by the recent launch of pay-to-publish divisions by two major commercial publishers (Harlequin Enterprises’ DellArte Press–nee Harlequin Horizons–and Thomas Nelson’s West Bow Press), one of the most interesting, to me, is how blurred the distinction between self-publishing and vanity publishing has become.

Like many other changes in and around the publishing world, we owe it all digital technology. Pre-digital, self-publishing meant that you became your own publisher, undertaking or contracting out every aspect of the job yourself–from editing to design to printing/binding to warehousing to sales (famous example: What Color Is Your Parachute?). Vanity publishing meant that you paid a company to do it all for you (examples: Vantage Press, Dorrance Publishing). Although the end result was similar (since either way, you paid the full cost of production and had to store and sell the books yourself), self-publishing provided greater control over quality and cost.

In the late 1990’s, a different kind of vanity publisher began appearing: one that took advantage of the then-new print-on-demand technology. Because the books were produced on demand on glorified photocopiers, rather than in quantity on offset presses, these new digitally-based vanity publishers could charge much lower prices, as well as eliminate the problems of storage and unsold stock. There was even some degree of distribution, via Internet booksellers such as Amazon. Writers paid an initial setup fee, and the company recouped production costs at the point of sale, keeping the lion’s share of profits and paying the author a “royalty.” (Among the first digital vanities: AuthorHouse and iUniverse, both now owned by Author Solutions).

Looking for a way to set themselves apart from the expensive offset vanities of old, and also for a stigma-free term they could use in advertising, these new companies dubbed themselves “self-publishing services.” This has been the accepted term for fee-based digital publishing ever since–even as the costs have skyrocketed to old-fashioned offset vanity press levels, even as the old offset vanities have gone digital, even as major commercial publishers have begun experimenting with fee-based publishing, even as ambitious publishing service conglomerates like Author Solutions attempt to confuse the issue even further by re-christening themselves “independent publishers.”

This is the answer to one of the questions I’ve seen asked over the past couple of weeks: how Harlequin could have failed to understand that DellArte Press was not self-publishing, but vanity publishing. The kind of service offered by DellArte has been called “self-publishing” since the late 1990’s, with little criticism or protest. For many if not most people, AuthorHouse, iUniverse, and their kin have become the standard definition of self-publishing. (Example: when Lisa Genova’s iUniverse-published book, Still Alice, got picked up by a commercial publisher, the extensive news coverage described her as a “self-published author,” and no one disputed that designation.) For a sizeable group of writers, this method of publishing has even become an ideological position, with iUniverse, Lulu and others supposedly leveling the field by allowing writers to bypass slow, exclusionary, and behemothic “traditional” publishers, while avoiding the DIY hassle of true self-publishing.

There’s been a lot of effort, in the discussion over DellArte (and, to a much lesser extent, West Bow), to establish an unambiguous dividing line between “self-publishing” and “vanity publishing.” Is self-publishing keeping 100% of the profit from sales? Is it owning your ISBN number? If the company that produces your book takes a cut, or if you use its ISBN, are you by definition vanity published, even if you didn’t pay an upfront fee? Is any print-on-demand publishing service vanity publishing, or are there meaningful differences between them? There’s also been discussion of how the pejorative connotations of “vanity” distort the discourse. Some feel that the term should be retired–but coming up with a new term is difficult.

These are all relevant questions. But I think that the lines between self-publishing and vanity publishing have become so hopelessly blurred, both by custom and ideology, that crafting an authoritative set of definitions is impossible (not to mention, no matter what one comes up with, someone is always bound to disagree). I think it makes more sense to see fee-based publishing as a continuum, with true self-publishing and full-on vanity publishing as the extremes, and many variations in between.

Moreover, beyond matters of terminology, or the ethical concerns that arise when commercial publishers attempt to monetize their slush piles by setting up their own pay-to-play publishing divisions, there’s a much more fundamental question: no matter who offers it or what it’s called, is paying to publish a good choice for authors? In some cases, the answer will be yes (in which case the writer must then decide which kind of fee-based publishing best suits his or her needs). In many others, it will be no.

In the end, what’s important is that writers know their goals, do their research, understand the challenges, ignore the hype, and do their best to make an informed decision. Wishful thinking, I know. Still, I live in hope.

********************

Having said all of the above, I’m going to add to the confusion by offering my own set of definitions.

When the DellArte discussion began, I felt it was fair to make a distinction between vanity publishers (fee-based publishers that presented themselves as publishers, rather than as publishing services) and digital publishing services like AuthorHouse, which were perhaps not entirely forthright in their presentation of the issues surrounding fee-based publishing, but at least didn’t try to pretend to be something they weren’t. On reflection, however, I feel that in terms of hype, expense, and value, there’s not a hair’s worth of difference in most cases. There is, however, a subset of digital publishing services that do provide something different (IMO, anyway), as you’ll see below.

So here goes: My attempt to define the major points on the continuum of fee-based publishing.

Self-publishing. I described this above: you handle or contract out all aspects of production and marketing yourself, from editing, to design, to printing/binding, to warehousing, to selling. In true self-publishing, you own your ISBN number (it has also been pointed out to me that some self-publishers don’t use ISBNs), and keep all sales proceeds. You do not grant or encumber your publishing rights in any way.

Assisted self-publishing. Assisted self-publishing companies charge no setup or other fees (although most sell a variety of add-ons, some quite expensive), recoup production costs at the point of sale, and make their money by keeping a cut of profits (you can usually determine what the profit is by setting your own price). They’ll provide their own ISBN, or let you use or buy yours. To enable the company to produce your book, you may be required to grant nonexclusive publishing rights (terminable at will), and to indemnify it against legal action. Examples: Lulu, Cafe Press, Blurb, CreateSpace (although with CreateSpace and BookSurge merging, that may change).

Vanity publishing. Any kind of publishing or publishing service that requires you to pay an upfront or setup fee. This would include print-on-demand publishing services like the Author Solutions brands, former offset vanities like Dorrance Publishing that now use a digital model, and book manufacturers like Brown Books that offer a more elaborate (and more expensive) service, but also the option of short-run printing. Such companies handle the entire publishing process for you, and may or may not exercise some degree of selectivity. In return, you grant publishing rights (usually nonexclusive and terminable at will), accept the company’s ISBN and pricing structure, and are paid a pre-set “royalty.” While not attempting to conceal the fact that they charge fees, or pretending to match your resources with their own, these companies can be quite misleading in their presentation of the benefits of fee-based publishing.

Deceptive vanity publishing. Fee-based publishers that pretend to be something else–whether by failing to reveal their fees on their websites or in their promotional materials (SterlingHouse Publisher, Strategic Book Publishing), charging fees for something other than printing and binding (such as requiring or pressuring authors to buy their own books–American Book Publishing, Anomalous Press, VMI Publishers), claiming to match authors’ fees with their own money or resources (Commonwealth Publications, Northwest Publishing), or denying that they are vanity or subsidy publishers despite charging a fee (Tate Publishing).

Posted by Victoria Strauss

As I close in on the end of my current writing project, the issue of self-promotion is much on my mind. I don’t mind admitting that it’s a prospect I contemplate with dread. I’m one of those I-just-want-to-sit-in-my-room-with-my-laptop writers who really is not constitutionally suited for a world in which the definition of “author” also includes “huckster” (or, if you want to be a bit more diplomatic about it, “entrepreneur”).

Nevertheless, self-promotion is a fact of life for today’s book writer, an issue that’s explored in an interesting article by Neely Tucker of the Washington Post. The article explores the dizzying array of self-promotional options that are made possible, in large part, by the Internet. To relatively old-school methods like readings, signings, and author websites, the Web has added blogs, blog tours, social networking, book trailers, and more.

“Being an author has become much more of an ongoing relationship with your audience through the Web, rather than just writing a book and disappearing while you write the next one,” says Liate Stehlik, publisher of William Morrow and Avon Books. “You have to be out there in the online world, talking and participating.”

Typically, the article starts out with a success story: Kelly Corrigan, whose cancer-survivor memoir was not tagged by her publisher for any extra promotional perks, and who took promotion into her own hands. Corrigan created a book trailer, got friends to host book parties, put together her own book tour, hand-sold her books, and posted a video of one of her readings on YouTube. The end result: 20 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and a second career as a paid speaker.

Does this give me hope for the success of my own self-promotional plan, whatever it may eventually be? Does it make me more motivated to roll up my sleeves and dive into the self-promotion ocean? Well, sure. But there are also some things I’m keeping in mind.

The article ties some of the trend toward self-promotion to publishers’ shrinking publicity budgets. But the truth is that publishers never provided significant promotion for more than a handful of their authors, even in pre-Internet days. What’s really driving the self-promotional frenzy, in my opinion, is the dilution of the market. As the article points out, 560,000 books were published in the USA last year (more than were published in the entire 10-year period between 1980 and 1989, when title output averaged around 51,000 per year). Even if you subtract the nearly 300,000 that were self- or micropress-published, that’s way too many books. How do you make your book stand out from thousands of others in your subject or genre? Go forth, intrepid author, and self-promote!

But if the book market is overcrowded and fragmented, the new self-promotional frontier of the Internet is even more so. Not only is there a tremendous number of different options, every other author with a new book to flog is rushing to take advantage of them. For each new Web-based self-promotional strategy that comes along, there’s a narrow window of opportunity in which it’s actually possible to grab some eyeballs; thereafter, everyone piles on, and you wind up struggling not just for the visibility of your book, but for the visibility of your book trailer or blog or Twitterfeed or whatever. So as I plan my self-promotion strategy, I need to remember that, just as my book will be competing against too many others, so will my efforts to promote it.

Another thing to note: Kelly Corrigan’s book was nonfiction, a memoir about cancer survival. This gave her advantage–not just over fiction authors (the market for nonfiction is much bigger than for fiction, and nonfiction audiences are often easier to identify and target) but over many nonfiction authors, since cancer is a subject of urgent interest to enormous numbers of people.

Often, however, when self-promotion is discussed, it’s discussed as if all books are more or less the same, and any and all self-promotional methods are equally applicable. But books are not the same, nor are readers. Though there’s always some overlap, the audience for nonfiction is different from the audience for fiction. The audience for romance is different from the audience for thrillers. The audience for YA is different from the audience for middle grade. In other words, the method that worked for one author will not necessarily work for you. In planning my self-promotional strategy, I’ll look at everything, but I’ll look most closely at what authors in my own market area are doing.

And that brings me to the final thing I’ll be keeping in mind as I think about self-promotion: no one actually knows what works. Agent Richard Pine, quoted in the Post article, praises Kelly Corrigan’s self-promotional moxie, but points out that “Her videos could have not worked just as easily as it turned out they did.” The article goes on to say:

So all these shiny things that go fast are really fun to produce, and some are even fun to watch. But do they move units any better than the old-fashioned author signings in a local bookstore? Do they help a book sell more copies, or merely keep pace with others in the marketplace?

Nobody really knows, a range of publishers and industry watchers say. There is not a clear-cut means of connecting Web site traffic, say, to results in sales, and some experts warn new authors not to go overboard.

In this, despite the bells and whistles of the Internet, the promotional game has not changed at all. Publishers have never really been able to reliably tie sales data to promotional methods–and even if, in some cases, they can, what’s effective for one book will not necessarily be effective for another.

The key, I think, is to be realistic. Have a plan. Do your research. Know the options. Keep your head–don’t get carried away by the hype that surrounds every new self-promotional strategy. Keep it reasonable–for your budget, your time- and energy-level (don’t let self-promotion cut too deeply into the time you allot to your real job, writing), and your personality (do conventions stress you out? Do you despise Twitter? Then focus your efforts elsewhere). Even if you can’t really know what will work, be aware of what probably won’t–press releases, email blasts, “marketing” services that will charge you an arm and a leg for Web-based strategies that are either not worth doing or doable on your own (here’s one example).

And never forget that the basis of all self-promotion is something very simple, and infinitely complex: a good book. There really is no substitute.

So you open a search engine–Google, let’s say–and type “publishers” into the search box. Here’s what you get.

The two top nonsponsored listings are for Random House and HarperCollins–big names that you may recognize. You navigate through their websites for submission information…bummer. In your genre, they won’t look at any manuscript that doesn’t have an agent.

The sponsored listings look a lot more encouraging. Instead of “Agented submissions only,” they say things like “We Want to Read Your Book!” and “Get your book published today–the industry leader for new authors!” and “The only choice for new authors.” There’s just one problem. Of the eleven listings, ten are for fee-based publishers (though you may not realize that right away, since some are less than candid about the fact that you have to pay) or self-publishing services. The eleventh is for a “publisher search” website that includes no real publishers, only vanity publishers and self-publishing companies.

Suppose, instead of Googling “publishers,” you’d Googled “book publishers.” Here’s what you’d see, and it’s just as bad. Of the nonsponsored listings, Random House is first…and PublishAmerica is third. Again, there are eleven sponsored listings–ten for fee-based publishers or publishing services, and one for another faux publisher search website, this one registered to Author Solutions, parent of self-publishing services AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford, and WordClay. Guess which publishers it suggests?

Just about any general search you may do–”novel publishers” or “find a publisher” or “getting published” or “how to get published”–is fraught with similar perils. Of course, the search pages also throw up helpful links–to Absolute Write, or Publishers Marketplace, or Publishers Weekly, or Harold Underdown’s tongue-in-cheek but very helpful how-do-I-get-it-published quiz. But I’ve gotten enough email over the years to know that many inexperienced writers look no farther than the highly-visible sponsored links.

All of which underscores the need for caution on the Internet. (Yes, I know I’ve blogged about this before, but it’s such a consistent issue for the writers who contact me that the point can’t be made too often.) Don’t get me wrong–I love the Internet, and can’t imagine my professional life without it. It’s an invaluable research resource, offering unprecedented access to a treasure trove of information, enabling knowledgeable writers to fine-tune their agent- and publisher-quests as never before. For new writers, however, it can pose substantial hazards, since there’s at least as much bad information as good–not to mention all the people who want to sell you something that may not be good for you. Even so-called professional resources aren’t always reliable–the writing and editing question forums at LinkedIn, supposedly a place for business and professional networking, are absolute pits of bad advice and misinformation–and as for writers’ message boards, it’s a good idea never to forget that people who know nothing are as eager to opine as people who know something.

Unless writers are able to filter the information they find online, they’re at risk of making bad decisions or falling victim to predators. In other words, writers need to know something about publishing before they start searching for publishers (or agents). Rather than plunging in and attempting to learn on the fly, it’s a much better idea to first take the time to build a knowledge base. There are many ways to do this, and it doesn’t have to be tedious. My blog post, “Learning the Ropes,” offers some suggestions.

Trust me: it’s one of the best investments in your future career you’ll ever make.

If you attend as many conventions as I do, you’ve probably heard about the importance of developing a writer’s platform. There are several books and articles on the subject, including this book featured on Writer’s Digest entitled Why All Authors Need A Platform Before you start thinking about your writer’s platform, I recommend considering what your overall online reputation is first.

“Search” Matters

Through my experiences in online marketing for different companies, one of the most common forms of “discovery” for a person’s name or brand is to simply type it into a search box. (Right now, Google holds the majority of the search engine market share worldwide and in the U.S., but the search engine traffic is constantly changing.) Search engine results pages continually “breathe,” offering different results depending upon a variety of factors.

Search is often referred to as “natural” or “organic” search, and is a key component for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For any professional, search is extraordinarily important for visibility into your online reputation, for two reasons: One, it’s widely used by many people and two, it’s a “free” way to find information about you. Keep in mind that search engines don’t “care” if you have a writer’s platform or not. In fact, there’s a good chance you already have a reputation on the internet. Do you know what yours is?

Tracking Vs. Managing Your Online Rep

Everyone who has ever posted something online has an online reputation whether they like it or not. Managing a reputation, however, is a different story. Google Alerts are a great way to help you track your current online reputation, but that tool has its limits because it doesn’t tell you a) where you rank for your own name in Google or b) what people are typing in to find you online. You can, through Google Webmaster Central, see some great data not available through Google Analytics. If you haven’t set up Google Webmaster Tools on your website, I highly recommend it.

Tracking your online reputation is only part of the story. Next, you have to figure out how you want to manage and foster it. Take a moment and think about the content you’re posting on various websites and forums. Are you comfortable with complete strangers reading what you’ve posted? What about your employer? Agent?

Online reputation management not only includes monitoring what people say about you, but also your strategy related to what, when and where you post your content.

Your “Content” Comfort Level

For a variety of reasons, I take a pretty careful approach to what I post online. Internet content can be tracked, dissected, read, copied or pasted at any time on any website, regardless of when it was posted. Because of that, I have a broad variety of topics I typically do not discuss online including: personal finances, health problems, politics, religion and family, relationship or job troubles and data related to my book sales or popularity of posts. (Mind you, I’m not perfect.) On occasion I have whined about a bad case of the flu or talked about politics, but for the most part I steer clear of these topics. Why? Here’s my reason once again: at any time, anyone, in any place, can read anything you’ve ever posted. Your “audience” may include complete strangers that live in different countries, but also past, present and future friends, employers, agents, publishers, readers, family members, teachers, colleagues, etc.

When you post content online, it’s important to understand what you’re comfortable with people knowing about you both now, but also in the future.

Tarnished Reps and Their Effects

Unfortunately, there has been a rash of writers that publicly argue with agents, bash reviewers (or delete bad reviews), talk about their “evil day job” or even beg for money. It may take years, if not months, to build an online reputation, but all it takes is one flame war to bring it down into the gutter. (For a funny take on this read my post about How to Ruin Your Online Reputation in Ten Easy Steps.) If the idea of managing your online rep isn’t complicated enough, keep in mind that popular authors may have different methods of managing their online reputation than aspiring writers, simply because the volume and quality of posted content is dramatically different.

People have been sued, accused of plagiarism, lost their jobs or publishing contracts, gotten divorces or have ended long-term relationships over poorly-worded exchanges online. The things that you write not only affect your desired readers, but also the readers you least expect. Sure, you can delete your unwanted activity, but you might find that it’s more difficult than you thought. Twitter, for example, allows you to delete Tweets but they currently still show up in their Twitter search functionality for a period of time. Depending upon when you delete blog posts or other content, it can take up to six months for your content to fall out of a search engine’s index.

With that in mind, do you know what are you comfortable with sharing publicly?

Of course, the question that every author wants to know is whether or not a bad online reputation affects the sale of your book. It’s not uncommon for buyers to research things they want to purchase online before they go to a brick-and-mortar store in their area; no amount of web analytics data will show how many people do just that. While retailers are often obsessed with conversion (e.g. How many people that visit my website buy directly from me?), selling massively-distributed products (like books) online is extraordinarily complicated. Besides a typical buyer’s behavior, there are dozens of factors that may affect online sales including: technology, seasonality, paid advertising, SEO, social media, brand awareness, trends, etc. So the short answer is, “No one knows.”

“You” Or Your Rep?

While I believe you definitely want to be genuine online (especially if you network offline as much as I do), I also think you should define what you’re comfortable sharing for public consumption. Because you don’t have control over your audience, developing your online persona can be pretty difficult. After all, different people will find you interesting for different reasons. Your “reader” could be your editor, your neighbor — even Donald Trump!

So take a minute and search for your name. Seriously. You’ll be glad you did. Ask yourself a few questions to help you make your own decisions about your online reputation. “Am I ranking for what I want to rank for?” “Is my website up-to-date?” “What are people reading about me?” “Are the claims I’m making accurate?” Taking a peek at what content ranks for your name is only one aspect of online reputation management, but it’s a good place to start. (If you have a name that’s pretty common, I recommend adding a keyword like “author” or “writer” after your surname in your content to help your readers find you more easily. Be sure to read up on how to optimize your website for more information.) Remember, the old way of thinking said that if you searched for your own name, you were being vain. The new way? It’s essential to ensure that people not only find “you,” but also that they are left with the impression you want to leave them with.

In the end, remember that the web does not distinguish between your “online” writer’s platform and your online reputation. That’s something you’re going to have to figure out how to do.

About the Author

Monica Valentinelli is the content and web analytics manager for the digital sheet music retailer and publisher Musicnotes.com and the project manager for the horror and dark fantasy webzine Flamesrising.com. Monica is an aspiring novelist working on revisions for her first novel; she has several non-fiction, short fiction and game writing credits to her name including her recent work for APEX MAGAZINE Vol. III, Issue III and FAMILY GAMES: the 100 BEST.

To read more about Monica, visit her blog located at www.mlvwrites.com.

Whenever I’m at a convention, one of the more common questions I am asked is: “Do I need to have my own website?” I always counter with, “Well, what do you want to use the website for?” Several have answered me either with the proud declaration “To get published, of course!” or “To sell my books!”

Having an online presence may or may not translate to your desired action, in part because your presence really is about “you” as a person rather than “you” the author. With today’s technology, the two are not mutually exclusive. Even if you post personal things on one particular corner of the internet, doesn’t mean that other professionals won’t read those comments and form opinions about you. In this way, a website can help you manage either the “first” impression that people have about you or a designated location you can send your readers, editors and other professionals to. There are pros and cons to having your own website that depend upon where you are in your career and what message about yourself you’d like to share.

It is easier than ever before to create a website that looks polished with a small budget. Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress are a boon to many writers because they allow you to schedule content and update your website fairly easily. Depending upon how you want to treat visitors to your website, you can do all your website updates (e.g. if you have a blog component in your website) weekly, and then set your content to automatically post. Since the technology does exist to “do-it-yourself,” many people (authors or not) are drawn to the idea of having their own presence online.

A website can help leave a positive first impression if it’s designed well and your content is professional. (By designed well, I mean easy-to-use and easy-to-read.) Typically, I recommend not posting extremely personal content on your personal website, because you really don’t know “who” the audience is going to be. It could happen that your neighbor, a random reader, or an HR professional stumbles across your website. For this reason, I tend to use different tools for different reasons. My own website (located at http://www.mlvwrites.com) is very different from my LiveJournal or my Facebook account because my content varies depending upon where I’m writing it.

If you’ve never been published, but you are an aspiring author, having your own website might actually work against you depending upon the content you post on it. For example, if an agent “googles” your name and comes across a website full of bad poetry or rants about not getting published, chances are you have potentially left a bad impression in that person’s mind. However, a web presence can work “for” you. Short writing samples and discussions about the craft of writing can show a positive attitude and an enthusiasm for the industry.

If you have been published, your website can also help your readers find a point-of-contact for you as an author. Once you have a website, you’ll need to maintain the technology and occasionally update it with news about your career or your writing for your readers. That strain on your time can work both for and against you. In one respect you’re providing content about you or your books for your devoted readers. In another, if you don’t plan on being online very much you might view those updates to be a chore. Some readers react positively to a static presence; some don’t. While you can’t control what your readers think of your site, an “official” web presence can be a really positive thing for your readers and your “author’s brand” because your news is coming from another authoritative place

For any website, whether you currently have one or not, I feel that the most important thing to consider is what message you are trying to convey. Even though a website isn’t a guarantee that someone will “discover” you, I like to think of it as a tool that you can wield rather than regard it as a room you’re hoping someone will stumble into.

About the Author

Monica Valentinelli is the content and web analytics manager for the digital sheet music retailer http://www.musicnotes.com and the project manager for the horror and dark fantasy webzine www.flamesrising.com. In her spare time, Monica enjoys writing fiction, and has over a dozen game and fiction credits to her name including: “Pie,” a short story found in the Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas, her recent novella “Twin Designs” which was part of the collection Tales of the Seven Dogs Society, her flash fiction piece “Prey” on Pseudopod.org with more works on the way.

To read more about Monica, visit her blog located at www.mlvwrites.com.