It’s nothing personal against Coloradans, but I’ve started to sigh heavily when I hear this one word: Denver. For those of you with many friends in the Romance Writers of America, you know what I’m talking about. Next week, thousands of writers will descend on Denver, Colorado for the RWA annual conference — the one I was planning to go to, until I discovered the date conflicted with a previous family engagement.
Alas, the answer to “Will you be in Denver, Julie?” is a decided “No.” Followed by that sigh.
And it’s not just RWA. Other summer conferences include ThrillerFest, Killer Nashville, Writers’ Digest, Writers Police Academy, and more. It’s summer conference season, and if you’re not going to any of them, you can start to feel left out. Like everyone else is attending the Cool Kids Party while you’re stuck at home staring at blank screens and wishing your book would write itself.
Or maybe I just informed some of you that it’s summer conference season, and now you’re feeling crappy about it when you hadn’t before. Sorry about that. If it helps, I give you permission to get some Ben & Jerry’s therapy.
But is there something—besides a pint of ice cream—you can you do about this Left Out feeling? How can you also benefit from all those other writers going to conferences you won’t be attending?
1. Stay connected on social media.
You might be surprised how much advice gets shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other forums. There's a lot of insight to be gained by simply reading what attendees share. Most conferences have a hashtag you can follow to stay in the loop. Figure out which ones you’re interested in, then track the hashtags and see what’s being said.
Feel free to ask follow-up questions if a presenter's insight is shared and you want to know more. Yes, it won’t be the same as being in the workshop, but you can get some golden nuggets of wisdom just by tuning into those social media channels connected to the conference.
2. Ask friends to share what they learned.
Most people love sharing what they’re learning, so find friends who are attending those conferences and ask them what they gained. When they return, you can go at this several ways — from taking a friend to lunch and letting them spill what they learned, to asking someone for notes from a specific workshop you’re interested in, to simply opening up a conversation with a group about the conference.
Your local writing group could also have a debriefing from those who attended a conference, so they can spread the wisdom they gleaned. If your group isn’t amenable to that option, host a gathering yourself. You can feed a decent-sized group for a reasonable amount and ask your guests to fill you in on what you missed.
3. Order the recordings.
Some conferences, including RWA National, offer recordings of workshops. Since the recordings are completed by professionals, the audio quality tends to be good, and you can hear for yourself exactly what was covered.
You miss out on the camaraderie and opportunity to ask your own questions, etc., but you might get more content than if you attended in person, since workshops often overlap.
4. Take your own writing retreat.
Another option is to skip out on trying to connect with the conference and go the other direction: Retreat. With “everyone else” at the conference, this might be the perfect time for you to log more time with your work in progress. Just avoid the social media where conference attendees are sharing the fabulous time they’re having and do what they’re likely not doing — write a bunch of words.
Tuning out that buzz, you might find yourself taking great strides toward finishing your project. Let them have their conference. You don’t care because you’re on your own personal writing retreat, and you’ll have lots to show for it!
Whatever option you choose, I still sanction Ben & Jerry’s — or my favorite, Blue Bell ice cream — as a good companion for your journey.
Are you going to a summer writing conference? If so, how can you share with others what you’ve learned? If not, how can you benefit from others going?
ABOUT JULIE
Julie Glover writes mysteries and young adult fiction. Her YA contemporary novel, SHARING HUNTER, finaled in the 2015 RWA® Golden Heart®. When not writing, she collects boots, practices rampant sarcasm, and advocates for good grammar and the addition of the interrobang as a much-needed punctuation mark.
Julie is represented by Louise Fury of The Bent Agency. You can visit her website here and also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
There are certain words that make most writers break into a cold sweat. “Synopsis” is one of them.
Until recently, the thought of writing a synopsis would send me into fits of, “screw this, I’m going to become a unicorn farmer.” After all, I’m a pantser, I can’t possibly write about a story I have only a vague idea about.
The first time my agent asked for a proposal that included the first 50 pages and a synopsis, I panicked. Full out, hyperventilating into a bag of gummy bears panic. Once I was done with the gummy bears (and post-gummy Pepto Bismol), I sat down to write what needed to be written.
It was, my friends, a writing-life changing moment!
Here’s what I learned …
1) A synopsis is a brainstorming tool.
When a story idea nestles in my brain, I have various bits and pieces but no idea how they fit with each other. I’ve tried character sketches and scene cards and three-act structure diagrams and pretty much every how-to out there. None work for me. What works for me, is letting the ideas marinate until the story comes together. I open a word document, type “chapter 1” and work things out as I get there.
So, the idea of writing about a story that was still forming, was slightly south of crazy. First time out was indeed painful. But at one point, I stopped agonizing over knowing what was coming, and let ideas jumble out of my brain. I’ve written before about mind-mapping. Free-flowing with a synopsis is just connecting the dots, where the dots are the branches of the mind-mapping exercise.
By not stressing over the structure, I can play around with ideas. I fantasize where the story could go and I don’t limit myself by rules or expectations.
2) A synopsis is not your novel.
In writing the synopsis, I’m telling my story’s story. I’m looking down at the game-board for my story and guiding the characters along the chutes and ladders. I’m writing from a different POV, and from a different level of intimacy with my story and characters. I don’t worry about whether the story has a sexy first line or a plump middle. I’m not focused on hooks and perfect phrasing.
By not agonizing about wordsmithing the content, I allow the ideas to pour out of my mind and settle onto the game-board as they see fit.
3) A synopsis is not your GPS system.
It doesn’t have to get you to a specific spot, just in a general direction. Sometimes you land on a chute that takes you one way, sometimes it’s a ladder that takes you in the opposite direction. And that’s okay. The point of the synopsis is to give the agent/editor/you a sense of the story’s purpose.
With a synopsis written, my next step is to storyboard the chapters. Before I start to write a chapter, I review the synopsis and what I’ve done in the previous chapter, then sketch out what the next chapter will look like. Sometimes the synopsis is on the money, other times, the chapter that needs to be written is completely different from what I thought would happen next.
The synopsis acts as a prompt, which can be a godsend on days when that blinking cursor tries to hypnotize the words right out of my brain.
The best advice I was given about writing a synopsis: “Relax.”
My advice to you: “Try it.”
I’m still a free-soloing pantser. But I’ve also discovered the joy of a synopsis sanity saver.
Okay, tell me … are you camp synopsis or would you rather walk on legos than write one? For those who are camp synopsis, do you have any other tips for writing them that will help nudge a reluctant synopsis-writer?
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About Orly
Orly Konig is an escapee from the corporate world where she spent roughly sixteen years working in the space industry. She is the founding president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, a member of the Tall Poppy Writers, and a quarterly contributor to the Writers In The Storm blog.
She’s the author of Carousel Beach (May 2018) and The Distance Home (May 2017).
Have you ever wanted to engage with popular blogs and people in the book biz? Following publishing experts and influencers on social media is not enough—you need to be proactive by standing out. Book promotion and marketing utilizes many tools, but there is one simple and efficient thing you can do that will help you connect.
Have you ever posted a comment on a blog? Maybe a topic you wanted to chime in on, or posting a thank you to a blogger for covering a story you were interested in? What if you attempted to do this professionally, with blogs and people you really admire and want to connect with? Did you know this can also help you rank higher in search results, too?
Author Marketing Experts have been using blog commenting for years as a book marketing tool to help promote our authors, and while the structure of the blogging campaigns has changed over the years (as has Google), the idea has remained the same.
What is Blog Commenting?
The concept of blog commenting is nothing new, but using it for virtual networking is a solid strategy that a lot of authors don’t initiate enough. As a book marketing tool, it’s an effective way to connect to people of influence.
Blog commenting, however, should not be confused with a blog tour, of which there are a variety of iterations. This isn’t an opportunity for you to place content on another blog, but rather to comment on an existing post. When it comes to sound book promotion, a blog tour can be good, but blog commenting, from my viewpoint, offers a better advantage.
Why Commenting is Important for Book Marketing
People love to receive comments on their blog posts. I know I sure do, but oddly enough so few people take the time to network that way. So, commenting, in and of itself, is a great way to build on a relationship and get to know a blogger—and to get the blogger to know you. By connecting with a blogger over a period of time and offering insight on their posts, it helps to bring you to the forefront of the blogger’s mind, when and if you should pitch them for your book. For many, book marketing is an uphill battle, and much of this is because authors lack the interactions they need to gain more exposure for this book. Blog commenting is an excellent way to fix that and boost your book promotion efforts.
Is there Any SEO Value?
SEO means “search engine optimization.” Years ago, when blog commenting first became a “thing,” many SEO experts were using it to attract incoming links to their page. Why links? They can aid in your Google ranking. Incoming links from high traffic websites can help boost your overall website visibility and thereby, help you get found for your keywords. So, SEO is definitely a consideration, but moreover, the comments help to foster your relationship with the blogger.
For those of you who want to geek out about SEO, here’s a basic overview of links (in case you want to check which links are coming to your website).
Backlinks are valuable to have, moreover backlinks from high-quality websites with lots of traffic. This is one of the main factors by which Google measures Domain Authority. Formerly, Google referred to this as Page Rank which was, as the name implies, the rank of various pages on your website. Google no longer uses this metric and instead uses a series of benchmarks to determine your domain rank.
Domain rank varies by industry. For example, our domain rank is 48, which is on the high end for our industry. You can check your own domain rank by visiting: https://www.semrush.com which will also show you how many incoming links you have!
Figuring Out Your Goals: Which Blogs to Comment on and Why
It’s maybe tempting to go after big names and big news sites like CNN, FOX, or MSNBC. While those are all potentially useful sources, I’d encourage you to get a clear focus of your blog commenting and book promotion goals. What do you want to accomplish?
While it’s tempting to do this work just to get links into your site, it’s not the full picture. At the beginning of this post, I talked about virtual networking, and that’s where your book promotion focus should remain. So, who do you want to network with?
Maybe you have a list of blogs you’d like to get featured on. Perhaps the blogger reviews similar books to yours or does author features, and you think you’d be a perfect candidate for that website. They may also accept guest post requests. If you didn’t receive a response to a pitch you’ve emailed, this could be an opportunity to elevate your status. (Want to work with a blogger on book reviews? Check out this recent article I wrote.)
Not all blogs do reviews, but some could be a worthwhile place to be interviewed. There’s another opportunity to get to know the blogger, and that’s by posting thoughtful comments.
How to Find Great Blogs in Your Industry
You probably already know whom you’d want to network with, but if you don’t, then you’ll need to get on Google to do some quick searches on your topic. You can use the same site I recommended previously to find other sites that are linked to yours. I’d recommend watching these sites for a while (maybe a week or more) to get a sense of the content they post, how often, etc.
Make a list of 10-15 blogs you want to follow, but don’t feel like you need to comment on each of these sites every week. A good pace is generally five comments a week on five different websites.
Writing Thoughtful Comments
You need to post something of substance and be thorough in your commenting, more than just a standard congratulatory message like “Great post!” Give your comments more thought, offer your own perspective, maybe even (gently) mention something related that you address in your book. Don’t push your book too hard, though mentioning it is acceptable as long as you don’t do it every single time you write a comment.
Your Website: To Link or Not to Link
Within your blog post, you can certainly link to your website via the login most sites have. For example, when you post on our site, the commenting system will ask for your name and website. Most commenting systems offer this, but always list the website as “optional.” This should never be an option. Always list your website when you’re signing into the comment portal.
But we talked about linking earlier and getting incoming links to your website. It’s sometimes prudent to list your website URL within the comment itself, but I’d only suggest doing this if it’s appropriate to your comment. So, if you reference a blog where you wrote about a similar topic, it’s okay to mention that in the post and link to it as well. You should do this sparingly, and I’d recommend dropping the “www” from your URL, because a lot of blogs now have no-follow rules, meaning they won’t approve comments with full URLs linked in them.
Blogging on Your Own Website
We all know that blogging is an excellent book marketing tool, but in reality, it’s much more than that. In order to network with others in the blogging community, you need to also be a blogger—even if you’re only blogging once a week, which is enough to develop a presence online. However, if you’re trying to build more traffic to your website, I’d recommend blogging twice weekly if you can. It’s a solid book promotion strategy.
Following up on Social Media
The next step should be following these bloggers on social media. In most cases, they’ll be on Twitter, which makes it pretty easy. (Here’s a recent post I wrote about connecting with influencers on Twitter.) Wherever they are, I’d suggest following at least one of their social links. If you’re a frequent Facebook user, you may decide to follow them there as well. The point is that you want to follow and also share or comment on things they post on social media too. Networking on blogs via blog comments is a great idea. but following this up with a social platform or two can really be helpful to your book promotion efforts. Not sure which social platform is best for you? Take our new quiz!
Just from personal experience, I can tell you that there is a lot of merit to this. I have “followers” on our blog and social platforms who are always engaging with our content. I don’t know them, per se, but I “know” them virtually—and their emails always go to the top of the pile when they write.
While in-person meetings with people in your industry is a fantastic way to connect and gain additional exposure for your book, blog commenting can be a successful tool when used effectively. Along with social networking interactions, these combined efforts will create a heightened awareness for you and your book.
Do you comment on sites, or do you lurk? What other questions do you have for Penny?
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ABOUT PENNY
Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert and an Adjunct Professor with NYU. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. She is the author of fourteen books, including How to Sell Books by the Truckload. AME is the first marketing and publicity firm to use Internet promotion to its full impact through online promotion and their signature program called: The Virtual Author Tour™
To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at http://www.amarketingexpert.com or subscribe to her free newsletter.
