by Cat Rambo
One of the tools I mention to students in my online class Building An Online Presence for Writers is a website called Namechk. You can input the user name you want to use and see whether or not it is taken on a number of social networks and well as domains.
Shelfari is, like GoodReads and LibraryThing, another social book cataloging website. Online book retailer AbeBooks owns a large percentage of the company. Users catalog the books they own or have read and can rate, review, and tag those books as well as discussing them on the site.
Goodreads is the largest reader community site in the world, with over thirteen million members. Users can track their reading, find or make book recommendations, and discuss what they’re reading.
A long-standing practice in book promotion is giveaways, particularly since book giveaways may help drum up reviews as well. You can conduct such giveaways in a simple fashion, asking people to leave a comment on a blog post or social network page in order to be entered.
LibraryThing, which was the first social book site, allowed users to enter their own books in order to catalog their library. People signed up immediately.
If your writing features a richly detailed universe, full of names, places, and historical events, you may want to explore using a wiki to chronicle it. A wiki’s structure allows intricate details to be recorded in a way that both preserves it in an easy to locate fashion but also allows devoted fans to browse the longtime story of your work.
Reddit is a social bookmarking site, allowing its users to post URLs that they think other users will enjoy. Other users can comment on or otherwise discuss the links. It is organized in terms of interests, also known as subreddits.
I have always thought that it’s a little strange that fantasy tends to concentrate on what’s really a very small slice of history (basically 13th or 14th century England) when there’s so much available to use as an archetype. So I was really excited about the idea of basing a fantasy world on something else, and when I started reading about Napoleon I thought, “Okay, this is it!”
SFWA’s special interest email group focused on professional middle grade and young adult publishing is now open to all SFWA members. Requirements are an up-to-date membership in SFWA at any level and an interest in the MG and YA fields.
The other aspect of Heinlein’s work that I’ve tried to emulate is his ability to choose and present just a few precise details to convey a different world, be it the future or another planet. The classic example from his own work is the phrase, “The door dilated.”
It’s ten years since the hordes of Sumerian gods arrived in Indiana to kick off the end of the world, but a principal player decided not to show. Now humanity is stuck in a never-ending apocalypse. Emelia & Gillian are determined to force a change.
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author and scientist. Her works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She lives in Santa Fe, NM, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
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