Finding a critique group/partner (I call them 'critters') is one of the most frustrating things about being a writer. Then, when you find the perfect one, and life intervenes, and they drift away.
Don't you hate when that happens?
So I thought it might help if I laid out the rules for a perfect crit partner, for those who don't know them.
Choose someone who writes in your genre - After all, who knows the tropes, style, and rules better than them? Unless you - Choose someone who writes in a different genre - In my original crit group, the Sci-fi author taught me world-building. The Action/thriller author taught me tension and stakes. The WF author taught me conflict.
Bottom line: You'll learn something either way - don't let this be a barrier,
2. Choose someone waaaaay better than you - you get a lot out of it. Until they get bored, and tired of getting not much in return. In which case you - Choose someone who's a rank noob - and they get a lot out of it. Until . . . you get the drift.
Bottom line: Try to find someone just a bit better than you are. If you both feel this way about the other - it's a match made in heaven!
3. Make sure you can meet in person - unless they live across the country. Then you - Skype, Call, crit via email, send owls, whatever.
Bottom line: No reason in this century for logistics to be a barrier.
My first crit group. Some may look familiar...
4. Choose someone who is a fan of your writing - because how can unmitigated praise be bad? Unless you actually care about the quality of your work (and isn't that what critting is about?) in which case, choose someone who doesn't think you're all that.
Bottom line: All that's really required are manners and mutual respect.
5. Be true to your story and your vision, regardless of feedback - I've seen more than one story lost because the author heeded every single bit of advice. Unless you - Ignore wise advice. You're the author, and you know best. In which case, you're wasting your critter's time. Oh, I see, you just came for unmitigated praise!
Bottom bottom line: NO writer can put out something worth reading without feedback. We know what we meant to get on the page, but we don't have the objectivity to discern if we accomplished that. Finding your perfect critter isn't easy, and when you do, there's no guarantee it's permanent.
It's normal to be transitioning at all times, into and out of critting relationships. Don't be afraid to get out of a bad one, and continue to take risks, getting into new ones. Trust me, it'll be worth it.
Because a perfect critter is as rare and elusive as a unicorn,
but wow, are they worth the search!
So tell us, how do you feel about your critting relationships - the good, the bad, the ugly!
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About Laura
Laura Drake is a city girl who never grew out of her tomboy ways, or a serious cowboy crush. She writes both Women's Fiction and Romance.
She sold her Sweet on a Cowboy series, romances set in the world of professional bull riding, to Grand Central. The Sweet Spot won the 2014 Romance Writers of America® RITA® award in the Best First Book category.
Laura began a video blog for writers, answering their burning questions. You can watch all the episodes HERE. If you have a question you'd like her to address in a future episode, leave her a comment!
Did you know Laura teaches craft classes? Check out her upcoming ones, both online and in person, HERE
If you’ve ever built a website, you know that it can take a lot of time, effort and planning. And that’s before you get the SEO rolling. And with Google and other search engines constantly changing the way they crawl through sites, SEO rules change frequently as well. It can be hard to keep track of what’s really going to get Google to notice you.
Why does SEO matter?
Well, Google ranks top in search and you want to be found. In fact, over 65% of us search on Google with only 7.31% searching on Bing (this is down from 33% in 2015). Sites like Ask, Yahoo, AOL and others make up the remainder.
We recently noticed our search started falling from the the first page. It’s easy to stop paying close attention to all of the factors that go into SEO, and that’s what happened here. Thankfully, it is relatively easy to bring it back. Especially if you have a site that’s been around for a while. But, with that said, it’s incredibly important to keep an eye on SEO. So let’s have a look at the elements that matter in terms of achieving a great ranking.
Every so often, Google changes how it will rank sites. About five years ago, Google did an algorithm change that was so vast, it literally wiped some sites off the map. An internet cleanup like this likely won’t happen again, however you should be aware that there are rules to follow, if you want to gain some visibility for your website.
First and foremost, know your keywords. If you aren’t sure ask whoever designed your site where to find that data. We use a plugin called Yoast and we also use Google Analytics to filter data like this. This tells us specifically what keywords people searched on and which ones brought them to our website. This is hugely important for reasons I’ll go into in a moment.
1. What Keywords are on your Homepage?
This is where some of these keywords will come into play. Having these on your homepage and spread throughout your site is a good way to gain some traction and appeal to the Google gods of search. Also, don’t make your homepage too wordy. Keep it to 250 words if you can.
2. Do: blog. While it may seem boring, blogging is still the number one way to get the attention of consumers and Google. Use keywords in your blog title and sprinkle them throughout your blog post.
3. Blog often.
Most SEO experts recommend three times a week. The more you blog, the better your search is. Generally, I recommend content in three lengths, so long content (1000-1200 words) shorter content (650 words) and then super short (500 words or even less).
4. Always use images.
Images are crucial not just because of the value of search but also the value of keeping your consumer on the page. Our minds are image processors, not word processors to having one or two images per blog post as well as on your site, helps to draw users in. When you use images, make sure to name them appropriately using keywords.
5. Page titles: If your pages aren’t named, they should be. Make sure your web site pages have titles, if you’re not sure ask your web designer about this.
6. Three clicks. Any page on your site should be accessible within three clicks from your homepage.
7. Do: Check out your competition. If you’re trying to get incoming links, see how’s linking to your competition. How do you search for incoming links? Pop the following into your Google search box: linkdomain:www.website.com
8. Be focused.
Have a focused goal on your home page. While your site can do a good many things (and many sites do), your home page should have one goal. Once you get someone to your web site you don’t want to confuse them. A confused mind doesn’t make a choice and will likely click off to your competition.
9. Get a good URL.
Choose something that relates to your topic and is easy to remember. Ideally your URL should also have keywords in it. If you have a few different web site addresses (such as your name, maybe an old domain, etc.) make sure they aren’t all forwarding to the same page on your site. Have them forward to different pages, this will also help with your search rank.
10. Don’t: And speaking of keywords…try avoid using slogans, catch phrases or industry jargon. Here’s why: first off your reader might be a lay person and doesn’t understand what you’ve written, if you confuse the reader you will lose them. Second, when you search for your site in Google, you’ll see that some text comes up with your site URL, this text is pulled from your home page so use that space wisely.
11. Guest blogging helps.
Guest Blogging is a Great Way to Build SEO Love! Offering yourself up as a guest blogger is a great way to build relationships but also a great way to get some good incoming links to your site. By the same token, inviting people to blog on your site is a win, too. You’ll want to invite people who are active on social media so they can share the posts and if they have a good following all the better!
12. Social Media Won’t Help your SEO.
The thing about social media is that it’s good for outreach and networking, but it won’t help your SEO per se. It used to, quite a lot actually but now all of that’s changed. It doesn’t affect your ranking, but it’s great for networking.
13. The Mystery that is Google+.
When Google first started their social networking site, everyone in the tech and SEO community jumped on the bandwagon. Then Google seemed a little iffy about the social media platform, and lots of people (including myself) stopped posting there. A lot of SEO people may tell you that Google+ doesn’t matter in terms of SEO, but I have a hard time believing that Google wouldn’t give preference to their own site so post there, even if it’s just your own blog, a few times a week.
14. Use Google AdWords.
Even if you don’t want to run ads, sign up for an account there and dig into that platform to find great keywords. Their results are quite accurate in terms of searches per month and this can help you greatly if you’re struggling to find the right keywords to use.
15. Getting local reviews on Google.
With 43% of search focused on local results, even if your consumer isn’t intentionally searching locally these results will still dominate the page. So focus on pushing some reviews to Google to get some local love. Even if you aren’t promoting a business necessarily, these reviews will always help you in search.
16. Broken links are bad. I’ve had this happen, we all have, but 404 links are bad news so check the pages on your site frequently. This is especially true when you have made any kind of changes to your website.
17. Mobile is a must.
For the first time since 2014, mobile is exceeding desktop usage and Google is penalizing non-mobile sites, or sites that aren’t mobile friendly. By being mobile it means you need a site created specifically for the various phone and tablet platforms.
18. SEO Experts are a Myth.
I get a lot of emails from people offering to optimize my website. Granted there are great things you can do, and our website person is fantastic at giving us input and advice on SEO, keywords and making sure our website is gaining rank in Google. But Wordpress has a lot of tools that can help you zero in on your SEO if you’re willing to spend some time to do it. Trust me when I say, it’s not overly complicated. If someone is trying to sell you heavy duty SEO services, run the other way. You’ll spend a whole lot of money for a whole lot of nothing.
19. Get a good website.
There’s a temptation these days to get a site using places like Wix or others that build sites for you for free. These sites won’t rank as long as they’re connected to the bigger platforms. You have to pay to own it and you should. My suggestion is always go to Wordpress. A Wordpress template site will get faster traction in Google and probably in the end, cost you less, too.
20. Incoming Links Rock.
So how many sites are linking to yours? Well a good way to find out is to do a linkdomain search on Google. Just type in linkdomain domainname.com and see what comes up. When you insert our URL (www.amarketingexpert.com) it shows over 50,000 incoming links, but keep in mind that I’ve had that URL for 17 years so the older the domain, the more incoming links it’s likely to have.
Getting ranking for your website doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult, the thing to remember is that a static site, boring site doesn’t help your ranking.
What SEO tips do you have to share? And do you have questions 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™
I’m going to let you in on a little secret—I didn’t land my agent from a slush pile.
Mandy Hubbard—founder of Emerald City Literary Agency and affectionately known by me as Agent Awesome—never read a single sentence of a query from me. No full manuscript. No verbal pitch at a conference. No gushing recommendation from a writing pal.
In fact, Mandy signed me based on two chapters of I book I’d written, that wasn’t even my own.
Let me explain.
Back in 2013, Mandy was an agent at D4E0 Literary Agency, founded by Bob DiForio, a rock star agent I’d been thinking about querying for my adult thriller work. I was new to Twitter, and while looking up Bob’s wish list, I happened upon a tweet by Mandy. I wish I’d taken a screen shot of it, but the gist was basically that she and a co-agent, Bree Ogden, were auditioning a writer to execute a story they’d brainstormed. The successful writer would win representation from Mandy, as well as a chance to write the book in their mind.
The odds weren’t great. Semi-finalists were chosen from a 300-word sample—a few paragraphs to demonstrate voice, style, and craft. Plus, it was young adult…and I’d never written young adult before.
Nevertheless, I submitted my entry and then did my due diligence on Mandy. It took me about a nano-second to realize that she was my dream agent. I devoured her books, stalked her clients, and wrote down her sage Twitter advice. I dreamed about “the call.”
And then, it came. Well, not so much on the phone, but rather, the notice that I’d been selected as one of three to write two scenes from the proposed book—a modern retelling of the torrid romance between King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. I had two scene outlines, a setting, and POV direction. The rest I was free to explore on my own.
Two painstaking weeks later, I submitted my chapters. A day or so later, my husband and I went to the liquor store to buy some wine. While there, he said, “Do you want me to pick up champagne?” I said, “No. It’s a long shot. Don’t jinx it.” But, like any patient, non-paranoid writer, I was checking my email every three seconds on my phone. As my husband stood at the till to pay, I got this message from Mandy: You blew us away, and you ARE our writer.
A lot of that night is a blur, but I distinctly remember yelling in a crowded booze store, “HONEY! BUY THE CHAMPAGNE!”
That book became Anne & Henry, and while the story was conceived by Mandy and Bree, they handed over the creative reigns and allowed me to make it my own. For better or worse, I did.
But Anne & Henry wasn’t just my first book. It was the beginning of my career, and the start of a tradition that has become almost a joke in my house: we celebrate every milestone.
Every.
Milestone.
This industry is damn hard.Seriously. You weather rejection, paranoia, writer’s block, bad reviews, absent muses, quasi-alcoholism, partners that don’t understand, questions about when you’ll be famous/rich/award-winning/insert belittling comment here, exhaustion, financial stress, and crippling self-doubt. There isn’t one week that goes by when I haven’t asked myself WHY I do what I do—and my third book from Simon & Schuster (literally my dream publisher…but that’s a different blog for another time) hits the shelf on April 10, 2017.
The writer’s curse, though, is sometimes a debilitating lack of confidence.
And yet, when I see that hardcover on my desk, or that ARC drops in the mail, or I get that letter from a fan who just gets it, I remember that I’m married to this job—for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. And like any marriage, it takes work.
Which is why my husband “picks up” champagne whenever:
I finish a first draft of a new book—no matter how terrible.
My awesome agent greenlights that book or a new proposal.
That book or proposal sells to an editor.
I hack my way through every. single. revision.
I receive advanced reader copies of my book.
I get my first trade review that doesn’t tell me I suck.
The hardcover hits the shelf. (Extra champagne if it’s available in my city!)
The soft cover hits the shelf.
And sometimes, he brings home champagne when I’ve just made it through a really bad week of really bad self-doubt. Because that’s how I like to celebrate each milestone. Milestones that are determined by me. They’re what gets me through the tough times, and propels me to that magical moment of seeing my book come to life.
Next month, I’m excited to pick out a new champagne to celebrate the advanced reader copies of my third young adult from Simon Pulse, Lizzie—a modern teen retelling of the Lizzie Borden hatchet murders, with a lesbian twist. I’m thinking hubs will pick up a Rosé. <wink>
What are your writing milestones—and how do you celebrate them? (Also, if you have champagne recommendations, I’m all ears!)
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About Dawn
Dawn Ius is the author of Anne & Henry, Overdrive, and the forthcoming Lizzie, all published by Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster). She is the Deputy Editor of The Big Thrill, a book coach with Author Accelerator, and a co-instructor at Lit Reactor. When not slaying fictional monsters, Dawn can be found geeking out over fairy tales, true love, Jack Bauer, muscle cars, kayaking, and all things creepy. She lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband and two giant breed dogs.
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