Exploring and understanding audience, encouraging communication, announcing excerpts and celebrating book releases. Just basically talking about websites... and the occasional cupcake.

June Wrap-Up

by Emily Cotler
June 30, 2009 – 4:39 pm

NEW BOOKS for SUMMER:

JULIA QUINN appeared in this blog almost two months ago with the best book video promo ever for What Happens in London, in stores today. That din you hear is JQ fans everywhere whooping in delight. Website Value-Add: Take your pick –> Inside the Story, What Happens in London soundtrack, and the newest Dedication (what about Paul this time?).

Desire Untamed by Pamela Palmer

Today PAMELA PALMER releases Desire Untamed, the first in her Feral Warriors series. Trilogy addicts let out a cheer — book two hits next month, and book three one month after that (with many more planned). Website Value-Add: get your downloadable posters, and explore this paranormal world.

SUSAN ANDERSEN can’t miss. Bending the Rules, the much-anticipated follow-up to Cutting Loose also releases today. Website Value-Add: get the inside scoop between the covers.

Also today: MICHAEL SPRADLIN released Spy Goddess: The Quest for the Lance. This is the fourth book in his Spy Goddess series and the second to appear in a Manga format… or was it Magma? Website Value-Add: Get Mike’s funny Magma tale, and see nine lovely pages excerpted.

SOPHIA NASH: Four Dukes and a Devil featuring Sophia’s novella “Catch of the Century” came out today. Regency readers rejoice with this Website Value-Add: Sophia’s Era Lexicon helps you navigate all the terminology. Bookmark it.

Impetuous by Lori FosterTails of LoveLORI FOSTER does good work, and redoes a first good read. Tails of Love (an anthology to benefit Animal Adoption Foundation) hit bookstores at the beginning of June. Impetuous (a reissue of Lori’s first book) came back in the beginning of June to thrill. Website Value-Add: Lori’s site is never-ending. Read these excerpts, read dozens of others.

And two June releases in the UK: DIANE GASTON’s The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor, released in May arrived in the UK as Regency Summer Scandals. And JENNIE LUCAS’s The Innocent’s Dark Seduction arrived in the United Kingdom (will available September 2009 in NA)

* * * * *

NEW EXCERPTS:

LORI FOSTER posted an excerpt from Sinful, a reissue due in stores July 7. Out of the Light, Into the ShadowShe also posted two sneak peek excerpts — one as Lori Foster, the other as L.L. Foster — from Out of the Light, Into the Shadow, an anthology in which both her personas contribute… Due in stores August 4.

LAURA LEE GUHRKE posted an excerpt from With Seduction in Mind, due in stores August 25.

PAMELA PALMER posted an excerpt from Obsession Untamed, due in stores July 28.

SUSANNA CARR posted a sneak peek excerpt from The Year of Living Shamelessly, due in stores early October.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Fun Site Features, The Book Business, Working on the web, Wrap-ups •• Comments (1)

Which Character are You?

by Emily Cotler
June 22, 2009 – 10:24 am

Attention authors on Facebook: Connect with your readers by creating a quiz asking your fans to find out which of your heroines they are. Easy to do, quick to take, and FUN. Sign onto Facebook and take the Julia Quinn quiz to try it out. I was Henrietta from Minx, which does not exactly fit me (I am not really the tomboy type), but I had fun for the three minutes in which I was taking the quiz.

And of course, you can have your web team build the quiz for you if you are short on time. Just use Facebook for more than just status updates… Connect! And use whichever tools you can. Don’t forget to create a link on your website to the quiz as well — as powerful as Facebook is, your site still needs to be the definitive place on the web for all things you!

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Fun Site Features, The Book Business, Understanding Audience, Working on the web •• Comments (2)

Being True to Your Book in Your Online Excerpts

by Emily Cotler
June 13, 2009 – 2:21 pm

Whether you are an bestselling novelist or one debuting her first title, a cookbook author, or a plumber who blogs, as writers you need to be aware of audience, and not just in terms of demographic. Who your audience is is important, yes, but where they access, and when, in what mood… these all have to be considered.

I recommend removing the F word, and by extension, anything that might insinuate an unnatural relationship with one’s mother. It may be that being true to your character requires this kind of language. And I believe you — that anatomically correct word, or that colorful epithet may have absolutely been the right word in the right context. But even though your books are not for children, your audience is often surfing on family computers. Why risk getting your site flagged by parental controls?

If you are at all concerned about being accessible on family computers, consider editing what you post online. If you are at all concerned that your excerpt has been compromised, perhaps a disclaimer of sorts…

Basically, being true to your book in your online excerpts should not confound being findable.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Understanding Audience •• Comments (5)

Publisher Support

by Emily Cotler
June 8, 2009 – 9:44 am

Just over a week ago I was in New York City for Book Expo America — the biggest gathering of publishers in the world. Abi and I went last year, but I flew solo this year. One of my goals was to find Greenleaf Book Group and introduce myself.

Why Greenleaf? Waxcreative and Greenleaf don’t share any mutual authors. But Greenleaf does something that no other publisher –as far as I know– does these days:

photo: deborah sherman photography

Greenleaf gives their authors Autographed by the Author stickers.

“We tell our authors to bring a Sharpie and their stickers, sign and sticker their stock, shake some hands and kiss some babies,” says Tanya Hall, Greenleaf’s Business Development Manager, “then watch their books get face-out placement in the ’signed by author’ section with no co-op fee!”

Tanya Hall, Business Development Manager, Greenleaf Book Group

Tanya Hall, Business Development Manager, Greenleaf Book Group

Invaluable advice. And yet, some authors really do need this explanation and urging — they simply don’t know what to do with the sticker or why it helps.

And did Greenleaf know that they are one of the only (if not The Only) publishers who actually provide a roll of stickers for each of their authors? Tanya seemed surprised.

“But it’s such an inexpensive way for publishers to support their authors.”

Exactly.

So if you aren’t lucky enough to be with Greenleaf, you can get your stickers on your own. And get more tips for a successful signing, too!

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Booksigning Tips, The Book Business •• Comments (2)

RIP for the Seventh Time

by Emily Cotler
June 3, 2009 – 10:45 am

Growing up, my sisters and I had a “boy next door”, who, to be literal, actually lived up the street a few condos. Mike Doyle was a little younger than me, super sweet and cherubically cute. (His brother Billy, at a couple of years older than me, was ripe for future alpha-male crushing material, but that is a story for a different day).

Mike Doyle, an actor experienced in being killed in television shows, on the set of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” photo: Michael Appleton for The New York Times

Fast-forward a couple of decades. Mike, now an actor, lands a plum supporting role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as forensics guy Ryan O’Halloran in 2003. More than 50 appearances on the show later and we come to last night, when poor Mrs. Doyle had to watch her sweet son get killed off — for the seventh time in his career.

This great article in the New York Times (subscription may be required) features Mike’s hilarious narration of his many and varied on-screen deaths. And here is a video interview from Nightline about the same thing. And since we at Waxcreative work with so many authors –and readers– I was wondering about the written death scene. How hard is it to craft? And if you have written them over and over, does it get easier?

As for Mike, I am thinking he’s getting quite good at this dying on camera thing and look forward to him getting back on the small screen and spattering it with fake blood for many characters to come!

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Miscellaneous •• Comments (9)

Home ·· Profile ·· Services ·· Web Portfolio ·· Print Portfolio ·· Web Redesign ·· WaxBlog ·· Contact ·· Client Login

© 2008-2009 Waxcreative Design, Inc.