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This Writer’s Life 10: Staying Healthy, Because Working Sick Sucks
I’ve been passing out in the afternoons. Not getting tired, passing out. I can’t focus, can’t keep my eyes open, and have to lie down for 20 minutes to restart my brain. Add that to days where I can’t work to save my life and lie on a couch in a malaise, and I thought...
Marketing True Magics 9: Twitter Ad Copy
Marketing True Magics 9: Twitter Ad Copy So, last week was all about my “please be my follower” strategy on twitter (and if you aren’t my follower, I’m @erik_buchanan, and don’t you want to be my friend?). This week is all about getting folks to buy my book from...
This Writing Life 9: More Editing and Editors, or More Than Just Copy vs Substantive
(Sorry this one is a late. I was sick. I'll be blogging about health next week.) Last week we talked about why you need an editor. And you do. Sometimes a publisher supplies the editor, sometimes you want a piece edited before it goes to the publisher, or to the agent...
Marketing True Magics 8: Wait a minute! What about Promoting Your Books on Twitter?
All right, you caught me. I haven’t been doing much marketing of my books on Twitter yet. Which begs the question: Why not? The Marketing Process: Think, Feel, Do Marketing has three steps: I need to get you thinking about my book, which will lead to you feeling...
This Writing Life 8: Editing and Editors or Just Because It’s Done Doesn’t Mean It’s Done
(Note from Erik: My blog posts have been too long. Since I’m talking about editing this week, it seems like a good time to start shortening them) Last week I talked about writers as Explorers or Engineers. I said that no matter which a writer was, when that writer...
Marketing True Magics 7: Twittering To The Masses, My Journey So Far
The delay on True Magics, final book in my Magics Trilogy, has given me extra time to build my social media presence and following, and take my time in planning out the rest of my marketing campaign. So far, my main focus has been on Twitter. (Buy Small Magics...
This Writing Life 7: Outliners vs. Pantsers or The Many Ways to Write Stuff
There is big debate over which way is the best way to write a novel. This debate divides the writing community into two main camps: “Outliners” and “Seat of the Pantsers.” Outliners outline their books before they write them and Seat of the Pantsers don’t. And I’m...
Marketing True Magics 6: Reaching Your Target Audience (without being creepy)
Last week we defined Target Audiences. That was the easy part. In case you forget: A writer’s target audience is the group of people most likely to buy that writer’s books. This week we’re talking about the hard part: reachin your target audience. Because unlike...
This Writing Life 6: The One Rule to Writing
There is a plague of doubt that affects all writers. Some are affected once in a while. Others are affected on a daily basis. You sit down at your computer and you stare at the blank screen and as you begin to type you wonder: “Am I doing this right?” Well have NO...
Marketing True Magics 5: Target Audiences or Who Are My Readers?
The single hardest thing in any business is getting people to know you exist. And in this business, it can be very difficult indeed. There were (on a researched guess because stats are hard to find) approximately 2,000,000 books published last year...