This is truly the decade of space exploration. I think the announcement of the discovery of this little planet(ok 1.9 times the size of Earth so not that little) this week is fitting as a testament to Stephen Hawking who is lying gravely ill in England. Stephen has often stated that the future of the human species lies in space.
Ta muchly to P J Hoover of The spectacle blog for alerting all her fellow geek kids writers out there.
Jumped onto Jane Friedman’s blog today. She is regularly posting the best twitter updates she see’s on her blog and today is no exception.
What a comprehensive list and the fun bit is that it that it can definitely apply to children’s bookshops (John.... Malcolm....go take a look) but also Authors and Illustrators could probably apply some of the ways directly to their own business. Actually if you know anyone operating a small business send them on over to take a look.
Twitter is good for something....Posting the title of your latest blog post...drives traffic to your website.
Penguin have just released some teachers notes to go with my book and I would like to thank the teacher who wrote them. They are very good and just what I would have done if I was still in the classroom, probably not in so much detail tho. After all this book would have been one reading group out of five and the reading ages in my middle school classrooms used to range from emergent to teen...but it’s a great resource to have.
On the conference front...(oh no I hear you sigh) things are continuing to come together slowly. However we have tied down a fantastic master class for Illustrators today...I would love to go on their mystery trip...I wonder if I can convince Fifi that I am really an up and coming Illustrator...
No probably not-she’s seen my stick figures.... (darn –that trip is soooo brilliant....sigh )
Yes this post is all about the digital revolution...well actually it’s not a revolution any more. It’s life moving fast on the digital highway.
I too have finally succumbed...Life got too complicated last week and so I went and bought....a....mobile phone....Yup and my thumb is sore! Learning to text....OMG. I am not giving out my number...because I can’t remember it...and if I get a text from the two family members who know it, I fumble and drop it and miss it and take 15 minutes to text Five words...
So I will get there...This from the geek who reads PopSci and PopMechanics...I know about it intellectually.....Anyway the model I have has the features I want which I’m still trying to make work.
But investigating this marvel of modern technology I discovered no games, but a cool music composer...You can sing into it, convert it to a score, change keys, rhythm, and instrument and save it.
Who needs games....
And so onto the digital bytes that relate to marketing and writing and conferences that I have for you this week.....(I’ll add this to the marketing links sidebar next week because there are some great links. )
100-internet-possibilities-to-investigate
’The future is now. Sometimes, we don’t look outside our little angle of it, and that means we miss some possibilities. Other times, we realize something’s out there and we have part of the puzzle, but we’ll catch a different view that gives us even more. I’ve compiled a list of 100 possibilities and things happening out there on the Internet that might be of interest to you. You may have even more to add.’
The amazing Chris Brogan (expert in social media) posted this post at the end of January. I scrolled down the list and there were links everywhere for more effective web marketing, running your e-business, you name it and Chris did.
One of the points Chris made was that you should be looking at the opposite of what you do on the web so you can get ideas... sounds funny doesn’t it, but you have to read the post. More important is the list of nearly 100 posts responding to it with people around the world adding to the list...Brilliant stuff...I’ve already sent links to peoples way from the responses.
Chris has broken down his list into these categories.
Streams of Information Web based work Video Small and local Mobile Applications And Money
The seminar programme for the Digital Publishers Forum is up....and a varied programme is on offer. Martin Taylor is talking on e-books fresh from a NY conference on them Adrian Keane from Pearson Education... is talking about educational digital publishing Neale Pitches from South Pacific Press is talking on his experiences e-publishing. And a bloke with my brother’s name... but he’s not....tho he sounds just as interesting.... The Wellington seminar is on April 1 ....and a 50% discount for NZSA members looks well worth it...
For those of you waiting for news of the conference....It’s coming....it’s coming... We are finalising the programme as you read this....we have a cool logo nearly ready to go...and we are putting the call out for sponsors...So if you Book People know anyone who wants to partnership with us, Please get in touch! Don’t forget to get on our advance notice mailing list, if you want to come. See sidebar.
But to whet your appetite on Children’s Book Conferences...Here is the amazing Alice...She has just blogged The three day New York Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators Conference. There are some great observations on talks and panels and people and publishers. The photo’s are awesome especially the winners of the Illustrators award. And don’t worry about the recession...well that’s what they were saying in New York last week. http://scbwiconference.blogspot.com/
Maureen
The pic -the hottest tee shirt item on the web at the moment... couldn’t resist...sorry Twilight fans....I’m sure Stephen King will be wearing one given his comments on the series this week.
I have a good friend, a marketer by trade, who knowing of my interest in marketing for authors sent me this link to David Meermans Scotts web blog.
Trawling around the site I discovered little gems on marketing and case studies where companies have got it all right The world wide rave....or horribly wrong....the worldwide rant.....
Have a look. David talks about how Lisa Genovia self published a book and then through great viral marketing it became a NY Times best seller.
We came back from the extended holiday a few days ago and in the midst of getting children’ ready for school and dealing with the ‘on hold until we get back’ issues, I have been working and swearing about the latest funding application for the Conference.
In mid December we released information about the conference inviting people to register their interest by going on our mailing list.....wow what a flood of interest there is....we sort of suspected there would be.... the list is climbing towards 100 and that’s after only a month in the blogosphere and being emailed around.
If you haven’t registered your names for early bird updates do so...the intention with the mailing list is to let everybody on it know first, before the general public, when registrations open...It will be on a first come first served basis...i.e. because we only have 80 places.
The big bloggers are waiting for our official logo (coz they like pretty pictures) and the mocks of the proposed logo look funky indeed. We have some amazing speakers confirmed we’re waiting on a few more....and obviously funding applications because our overriding quest is to provide you with a conference YOU CAN AFFORD to go to.
In our conference meeting on Saturday...two of our number have confirmed books coming out this year and two of us have been rejected due to the recession....(I’m one of them... yet again it was we would publish but.....) I will be very interested in the quality of the books published this year by the publishing houses who have contacted me with their rejections....I would like to have a career not a hobby.
I would like to thank my eldest child...smart, beautiful and most of all kind... for looking after the younger two so I can use the computer with relatively little interruption....
Just a little note as I tweak my blog layout....I came across this from Janes blog...Does the author need indie epublishing platforms....lots of food for thought....go look....
Once again I’ve missed my regular blog day....sorry all you regular readers...however if you check out Fifi’s blog, she has a blog roll which shows who has updated lately...quite a handy little list and it must pull in more readers to her blog...great marketing Fifi....
While you are looking at her list, check out the neat link to her craft classes for kids...she has to make the studio pay...(and we’d all like her to keep the studio going... coz it’s a handy meeting space with everything you need, great parking at the door, big table to spread your gear around...)
Today following on from a comment made by Tim I am going to muse about Author Branding.
"Eh What?" I hear you splutter...
Yes...Remember when I raved about meeting Stacy...among the snippets I gleaned was the way The Class of 2k8 was set up and why.
In the States now the author is expected to get out and really push the book. Gone are the days when the publisher’s publicity department did that work. Because of this, authors are frequently at a loss as to how to go about their books P.R.
Canny Greg Fishbone of 2k7 decided that if a whole pile of debut authors got together and started telling the world in as many ways as possible about themselves as The (Brand) Class of 2k7, people would be more interested.
Voila! And so they were...
Debut authors were invited for 2k8 and beyond (Canny Greg having registered the brand names.)
The collective Brand gives these authors a voice and an identity which would otherwise be lost in the huge publishing world out there. All the authors commit money to the brand so that a Youtube video book trailer can be made of their book...and the videos all have the same feel (brand identity)
All the authors have websites and blogs and so does the Brand. The Brand profiles the release dates of each Partner Author with interviews... virtual parties... guest blogs...etc.Partner Authors do the same on their own website and blog. Suddenly you have 30 people out there promoting your book like crazy...instead of just you on your own.(quid pro quo)
Now it gets interesting...Because there are librarian conferences, reading conferences, literature conferences etc...who all need speakers, The Brand supplies Panels and Speakers to these conferences. They have the topic and collectively within the Brand can supply
The PB,YA, Mid Grade writers...on the topic, New Voices in publishing (coz they are all debut) or New Trends (coz they are all debut ) or whatever is interesting.
P J Hoover has been giving talks about code cracking and new alphabets etc all based on the research she did for her book, The Emerald Tablet at Lit. Conferences.
Stacy Nyikos has been coordinating the organisation of panellists for The Class of 2k8...that means finding out who’s available and getting them to an event. The authors meet before hand to make sure they are all on the right page with their presentations and to make sure that a local bookshop has ordered in copies of their books to sell....
The speaker’s fee they get means that sometimes they break even, sometimes they make a little, sometimes they lose out. But their individual profile and their brand profile is lifted....and don’t forget that the other Brand Partners are out there talking up the fact that...X, Y and Z will be speaking at ....
And that my friends solves the problem of ‘What brand am I when I write across the age groups?’ that children’s authors have with Author Branding...that genre fiction authors don’t have (they just change their name.)
At this point you might be scratching your head and asking, "Why do I need an author brand anyway? I'm small right now."
The point is you want to grow big, right?
You can take a long, painful, expensive trip to get to from point A to point B without a road map or make it there for far less expense, time and effort with a map. All I am trying to get you to do it creating your brand is build your map first.
Hats off to Greg Fishbone for a brilliant idea.
Hi to Tricia Hoover and Stacy Nyikos who probably have a google alert out on their names and books...now that is a great idea. (Check out Stacy’s blog for her diary on her research trip to NZ, absolutely brilliant...you will be cheering her on...)
I’m off to think up some great brand names for our conference...email me or comment back if you have some brilliant thoughts on what to call the National Conference of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators 2009...(what a mouthful...)
pic is The constellation.. Kiwi....coz we need some local constellation names...courtesy of the Phoenix
I have no idea why Blogger decided that the last post had to be in an almost unreadable font colour.
I tried to change it many times and gave up and posted it...
So if you gave up as well I don’t blame you.
The main points I was making....Networking, building communities, and having your website reflect this, is where marketing and promotion in the online world is going.
For the lonely writer sitting in their garret...but with an internet connection....this is a good way to go. Start with posting comments on blogs you are interested in. Visit web communities that have links in to your writing audience...or are the same people as you...starving in a garret....
As you get more familiar with the web...create your blog and have a go...it is very easy to do and easy to delete if you don’t like it.
The web can be a scary place for authors who are just used to using Google for research and a word processing programme for everything else.
Scott Francis has a marketing blog for authors on the writers digest site. He offers these great tips for a media kit...but they can be useful if you are looking to see what a website should have.
A media kit can be a great tool for promoting your work and can be used to try to get mentions in publications or to try to get speaking engagements or spots on radio or TV.
A few do's and don'ts:
Do include your complete contact information as well as your website/blog address
Do include a personal biography and a photograph of yourself
Do include a business card
Do include any recent articles or endorsements
Do include a good cover sheet that summarizes the contents of your media kit
Do include a copy of your latest book
Don't over do it--these days everyone is busy and have short attention spans. Keep it relevant and to the point.
Don't include clippings of every press mention that you've ever gotten--go with either the most recent or the most impressive. Everything else can be summarized on your cover sheet (remember to be concise).
A website is a marketing brochure, a blog is a newsletter that shows off you voice and style.
A blog doesn’t have to be long....but it should be interesting...a picture, a few links, a thought provoking question and you are done....
So...if you are new to blogs stop in and comment...you can use my gmail address if you need to.
If you were coming to the National Conference of Children’s Writers and illustrators would you like to see a workshop on being online? What do you think should be in it?
Maureen
the pic is from a beautiful Artists website...Isn't it lovely! Go to
It’s Blog day and we are continuing our little marketing series....which has jumped around a bit with the extra posts on YouTube promotion that authors are doing for their books and online workshops...
Let’s do a little recap.
101a looked at SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION, KEYWORDS AND PRESS RELEASES
101b we learned to be WEB FRIENDLY
101c was where we looked at WHO IS YOUR WEB SITE AUDIENCE
Then we diverted to looking at AUTHOR PROMOTION online, and what one publisher is doing to promote a book. BLOGGING and YouTube videos then got a look in.
Today I’m going to join these all up with links to two places.
You the author need to become part of the online community.
You need to talk about your work on message boards, blog comments, etc
You need to celebrate your success by posting press releases of your work.
You need to have a distinct voice on line...blog... web... social network.... which brings me to my next link...All you ever wanted to know about writer’s websites...
After you have read these and thought about the implications I will be interestedto learn your thoughts about the helpfulness of what I have been blogging about.
Remember, I am co convening the National Children’s Writer’s and Illustrators conference next year in September... It has already been suggested that we have some sort of online teaching component to the conference. What do you think?
BEING ONLINE-What would you like to see covered in a workshop on this topic for Children’s Writers and Illustrators?
maureen
here endeth the lesson...(let's see thats1 picture 2 links... bold words... breaks... a couple of numbers... and a question to finish...)
