At the start of the month, Dani posted about electronic newsletters and generated some great discussion in the comments. So, today I’d like to address some of the questions that came up—the “why” of mailing lists and newsletters. Tomorrow I’ll be back with more ideas on strategy, content, and frequency. Why Do You Want, or Need, a Mailing List? A mailing list is a valuable commodity and is evidence of a platform. If your statistics are good, you can use them in query letters to agents and publishers. If you’re an indie author, you can sell or trade advertising in your newsletters (never sell access to your actual mailing list, though). And that’s before you’ve even begun using it to market your own books. According to Copyblogger.com email marketing still generates more sales than other online communication options. Why not...? - Blogging, Instead of Email? A blog is an excellent platform to build, but you have little to no control over whether a first-time reader will ev...

Recently an author emailed me to find out if I’d heard anything about a publisher called knowonder! – she planned to submit a story I had declined though I really loved her work. I’d never heard of knowonder! but poked around the Internet a bit to get a feel for them. After researching and giving the author feedback, I decided my process was worth a blog post. Here’s my vetting approach and something any author looking for a publisher can do to get a feel for a company before submitting. Google the company name. In this day and age they should have a website as well as links to their social networking sites like Twitter , Pinterest ,   Facebook , and a blog . How do those sites look? Have they been around long? Are they active? They should give a solid and consistent impression across platforms. Next look for a submissions page , and read every line closely. Knowonder! has a very concise submissions page, explicitly outlining what they seek. Their focus is read-al...

Google Images After you’ve thought about the qualities of your potential readers , you might want to stake out some of them before you begin to write for them. Here are some more ideas that might help you find out what your readers care about.   Go out to coffee with a friend or acquaintance who typifies your ideal reader, and have an in-depth conversation with them about the subject of your writing. Ask them what they care about, in terms of your topic. What questions does he or she have? Does he or she have any objections to your position? What problems do they have that your writings might solve for them?   A good idea is to record these conversations (with their permission, of course.) Or you might want to take surveys of your potential readership.   If you have an email distribution list, or a group of friends on a social networking site, or have joined clubs or other interest groups, ask these same kinds of questions of them. Social networking sites...

I recently attended the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference in Denver, so the benefits are fresh in my mind. In addition to the educational and networking opportunities at these conferences, there are often manuscript critique workshops and appointments to pitch your work to agents and editors. Here are my ten suggestions to get the most from any writers’ conference you attend. 1. Become a member of the organization sponsoring the conference. If that organization has a Yahoo! Group, join it as well. It’s the best way to make contacts before the event and find the volunteer jobs I mention in #3. 2. If you have an area of expertise useful to authors, send a workshop or panel proposal for the conference committee’s consideration. At Colorado Gold, some of the well-attended sessions were presented by unpublished writers or others with knowledge of e-books, e-readers, digital publishing options, police arrest tactics, blogging and social media, and publicity. 3....

The definition of social media is evolving. The Wikipedia version is constantly under discussion and is dynamic, changing as fast as the various components of social media change. To get to the bare bones, however, we can say that social medial consists of internet-based applications accessible to a variety of content producers and a wide audience of consumers/readers. You, as producer or consumer, can participate in social media and social networking in a variety of ways (blogger, Wikipedia contributor, photo sharing exhibitor, podcast producer, internet forum contributor/reader, corporate marketer, and so on). Finding resource materials on the use of social media seems easy when you take a look at booklists. I’ve consulted: Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day by Dave Evans (Wiley Publishing, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2008) Blogging for Dummies by Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley (Wiley Publishing, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2008) The Twitter Book by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Mil...