social media & resources for writers

As promised to the students at OKCU's low-residency MFA creative writing program, I am sharing a few links related to social media and online networking. This post has been updated since the previous list with a few new updates--so, it's happily shared with any and all who might find these resources useful.

Happy surfing….

Social Networking & Community Sites

• Facebook
• Facebook’s Networked Blogs
• Twitter
• Red Room
• PW.org Speakeasy
• AWP discussion forums
• Book Marketing Network
• Freelance Writers Network
• CrimeSpace
• Think Poemata
• Read Write Poem
• Poets and Writers Registry
• Shewrites.com
• BlogHer
• Harlequin
• Shelfari
• GoodReads
• Google Plus
• Huffington Post article on the new Google+

Web & Blog Hosting

• GoDaddy
• 000WebHost
• BraveNet
• wordpress
• blogger
• livejournal
• yola

Reasonably Priced Website Design Software

• Web Easy 8
• CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer
• Website Tonight by GoDaddy
• Microsoft Expressions

Authors on Amazon
Amazon.com: Author Central
(if you currently have books for sale on amazon, take advantage of this free program!)

Marketing Tips

• The Practicing Writer
• Buzz Balls and Hype
• There Are No Rules (Jane Friedman)
• Writer’s Market

Writing Magazines with Online Resources

• The Writer
• Poets & Writers
• Writer’s Digest: 101 Best Websites for Writers: Agent Blogs

Agent/Editor Research

• Directory of Book Trade People on Twitter
• Agent Query
• Association of Authors’ Representatives
• Open Directory: Writing Resources
• Publishers Marketplace
• BookEnds LLC
• Agent Rachelle Gardner
• Nathan Bransford (former agent at Curtis Brown)

Book Trailers Video
For those of you looking to expand your promotions with multi-media, I thought I’d suggest a few links to demonstrate some of the really cool things writers are doing lately, in an effort to market their work. I hope you enjoy these examples:

• Cindy Gerard’s Book Trailer
• Audio of Molly Peacock’s Shimmering Verge
• A literary review on YouTube: Shape of a Box

There are so many more great resources for writers to take advantage of online, but hopefully this small sampling inspires you to research, network, and connect with others passionate about the pen!

Feel free to comment and share some of your favorite online resources for connecting writers to the greater community.

new community for writers

I’m a big fan of online communities. Yes, of course, there is facebook and twitter, but the ones I love the most are truly community based and offer writers real opportunities to connect with one another. The ning network seems to be host to many of these, such as shewrites, poemata, and the freelance writers network. And now there’s something new.

Earlier this week, the folks at Writer’s Digest magazine sent out announcements for the new Writer’s Digest Community, hosted on the ning network. At the time of this writing, there are just under 700 members but we can expect that to grow rapidly. Why? Because writers need community. We like to network. We like to befriend similar minded people. And… because it just makes sense. We need to market and promote our work and that means using every reasonable available opportunity to do so.

My profile is located here, so please do drop by. If you write, please also consider signing on for your own profile. This is especially true if you don’t yet have your own website. Your profile page will allow you to post a brief bio, links to your other sites, and you can even do an RSS feed of your blog if you have one. Most importantly, you can join a group and meet other writers, thereby expanding your community base. We’re writers. We need to support one another.

As I am new to the Writer’s Digest Community, I am still adding content to my profile page and getting to know others in the network. But if it’s anything like the other communities I belong to, it’s worth the half hour it will take to add more info and start connecting. I can’t tell you how many opportunities I have stumbled into by playing an active role in these online groups. You’ll mix and mingle with other writers, yes, but you will also come into contact with agents and editors, festival organizers, book reviewers and everyone else who plays a role in publishing. If you can make it to an online community even once a week, you can vastly increase your network and tap into new opportunities.

If you join on to Writer’s Digest Community, let me know how it goes. Also, be sure to ‘friend’ me so I can keep up with your news and events.

Thanks for stopping in today! I wish you all a great weekend and will see you on Monday. Have a great weekend.

help wanted: social media experiences

This fall, I’ll be presenting at a number of conferences on the topic of social media. Specifically, I will be chatting about the many ways social networking sites (eg. twitter, facebook, shewrites) benefit writers.

As I would like to share real examples of how writers can benefit from interacting with others online, I am asking you to share your experiences with me. Whether you want to keep the names between you and me, or you’re not concerned about anonymity is up to you. I’ll only disclose with workshop attendees what you agree to share.

Moving past the obvious benefits of public profiles, making friends, and using RSS feeds, I am hoping to discover tangible experiences of writers of all stages and all genres. Some of the stories I would love to hear about include the following suggestions:

• An author develops a working relationship with a freelance editor
• A publisher discovers and recruits a new voice for their magazine, newspaper, or anthology
• An author is discovered and contacted by an editor, agent, or other paying market
• A collaboration is developed through a relationship initiated online
• A writer is offered an opportunity to speak at a conference or workshop
• An author’s work published online is acquired by another media outlet/publisher
• A really interesting friendship is developed that may not have otherwise emerged if it weren’t for social networking
• Evidence of sales increase or readership linked to specific online activity
• Your blog caught the attention of an editor, agent, publicist, etc
• Any number of other positive working relationships and benefits that came about because of using twitter, facebook, myspace, goodreads, shewrites, or any of the other sites

You know the experiences you’ve had. I’d love to hear your personal success stories about how social media has benefited you, improved your readership, or improved your sales/contracts, etc. I don’t need to know all the details, but I would love to be able to share with conference attendees some of the tangible experiences real working writers have benefited from as a result of creating an online presence.

To submit your experience, send an email to mystory@loriamay.com.

Give as many details as you like, but be sure to let me know anything you want kept between us. As an example, you may have had an experience with a well-known author or a mega publishing house and not want to name them by name. That’s fine. You can still share the story without identifying all parties. So long as your story is yours, real, and something that truly benefited you, I want to hear about it. Also please feel free to mention your website and publications if you want me to share that info with workshop attendees, so they can learn more about you – if you want. I’m happy to send people your way, but only if you want to share your links and publications.

Thank you to all who submit an experience or two. If you’ve had the kind of experience I am talking about, you know how valuable social networking can be for an author. Thus, I thank you for allowing me to share such positive examples with others looking for a reason to create an online presence.

Remember to send your experiences to mystory@loriamay.com.

Until tomorrow, happy reading!

tweet me right

It wasn’t that long ago I started using twitter. In my experience thus far, I have to say – it’s brilliant. Since I have learned a few key ways for making the most out of twitter, I thought I’d share some of my experience with you. Perhaps you’ll see why this social media can be an excellent tool for writers and readers, when used strategically.

Many want to know if it’s possible to make genuine connections and not just succumb to talking about what you ate for lunch. Then there’s the big concern…

When you first join your main concern is whether or not anyone is going to give a crap about what you have to say. What I quickly learned, however, is that it's not what you have to say about yourself, but what you say about others. Think in "pay it forward" style and you'll tweet successfully. It's been said that the only time someone cares about what you have to say is when you're saying something about them. I believe that, especially on twitter.

In my modest experience of sending and receiving tweets, I have observed the most successful posts tend to relate to others and what other news is happening in the land of publishing. Think about it. I consider myself an emerging/somewhat-established author with a humble list of publication credits to my name. Does anyone really need to receive a constant update about today's word count or the fact that my cat just furballed all over my rough draft? Not really.

What people do care about though is gossip. And I don't mean negative gossip (although we have recently seen a demonstration or two of how negative comments can multiply tweets by the nanosecond); I mean useful information. Like what? How about the announcement of an editor moving from one house to another. Or the release of a hot new book release. Then there's the promo for an upcoming author appearance. Being in the book biz, these are things I like to hear about. Plus, the amount of books publishers give away on twitter astonishes me. I’d say I see a giveaway just about every day. Who doesn’t like free books?

What I’ve discovered twitter is most useful for is keeping up with breaking news, hearing about to-the-minute contests and calls for submissions, and finding links to authors and editors I would perhaps not otherwise have connected with. Rather than searching around the Internet when I'm looking for something new and exciting, the exciting news comes to me.

Of course, you ask, how do you receive all this great news? You add yourself as a follower to other people's tweets. But, whoa, slow down. You don't want to follow everyone, do you? Just think of how your email inbox looks on the worst of days. Do you really want to wake up to 2,897 tweets? Not likely. So the trick is to be selective. Follow only those you actually want to hear updates from. You can still read any tweets you want without actually following them. But here's the kicker: When you do see something really cool, something worth sharing... share it!

Retweet the best of the best. By sending an RT@ post, you are not only sharing something others may appreciate, you will likely receive twitter love in return. Someone else is no doubt going to tweet you back or, ideally, become one of your followers. From this method, your own list of followers will grow.

Why do I think that’s so important? Because when you finally do want to share your own fabulous writing news (like the sale of a book, landing an agent, reaching the bestseller list), you will have long ago built up an audience who will all hopefully retweet til their heart's content. And thus the cycle will feed into itself. Doesn't that sound great? To have an audience eager to hear about what you're doing? Then you can tell them all about what you had for lunch!

If I can offer one final bit of wisdom I think we all know, but sometimes forget, it's this: Posting comments online is an open invitation into your world. Meaning, think before you tweet. Just as you wouldn't slam someone in person (I am assuming this much), it's not a great idea for a writer to moan about someone on twitter, or any social medium for that matter. These posts are indefinite and will possibly last longer than your career. Remember that. If you don't want a potential agent, editor, or employer seeing your nasty comments all over the net, back away from the keyboard before it's too late. After all, this is your career we're talking about.

Have I become a twitter master? No. I'm still figuring it out as I go. However, I have learned some of the ins and outs of using this social medium to my advantage. Treat twitter like a controlled substance and it can be one of your best promotional tools. Just remember to use it wisely, with forethought, and with a “pay it forward” mentality. And remember, friends don't let friends drink and twitter.

For writers interested in following people in the biz, High Spot compiled a great list of agents, editors, publishes, and more. Find it here. Tip: You don't need to follow each one that interests you, but you can 'bookmark' their tweets and read them when you have time.

Tip: If you are a reader looking to see what your favorite author is doing in between edits, type his or her name into the search field.

Also, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez recently wrote how writers can use twitter to start building the all-important platform. There’s great tips and discussion there, so check it out.

Agent Rachelle Gardner also has a lively discussion about social networking on her blog and you can see it here, but be sure to also visit this blog post about why Rachelle suggests unpublished authors should focus more time on writing than on social networking.

By the way, the twitter buttons used in this post can be found at http://www.twitterbuttons.com/. They have a great selection.

If you use twitter, don’t forget to visit me here. If you have any great twitter experiences, share them here!

she’s a hit! with shewrites.com

There’s something taking the Internet by storm. It’s women. More specifically, it’s women writers.

If you haven’t yet discovered She Writes now’s the time to join one of the most resourceful, encouraging groups I have seen in some time. The first 24 hours brought in 277 members. Now, shewrites.com is just one week old and already more than 1,000 women writers have flocked to unite and share publishing tips, book recommendations, and stories from their own writer’s desk.

The organizers Kamy, Nancy, and Deborah wanted to offer women writers – of fiction, journalism, memoir and more – an opportunity to connect through a social networking site that offers relative information, real opportunities to learn from one another, and provides a resource like no other.

Last Friday, I chatted with Deborah Siegel, one of the fabulous women behind shewrites.com, who was blown away by the success of the site:

"It's been 6 days and 1,000 members have already joined. Clearly, there is a need for women writers to connect in this way!"

Of course, the membership continues to increase at astounding rates. At the time of writing this post, there were more than 33 blogs, 40 discussion groups, and dozens of videos to view. Women range in age from 17 to 80, but it’s up to you to disclose your stats. What matters most is that women writers are able to post information about their works-in-progress, links to their sites, and join in on conversations about writing, life, and connecting with like-minded women.

Personally, I feel lucky to have stumbled upon shewrites.com right after its debut. So far I have connected with fiction writers, journalists, bloggers, publicists, and poets and my list of ‘friends’ is growing. But don’t assume this is just like some of those other sites where a person accumulates friends by the number but has barely any real contact with one another. This site is different. The writers joining shewrites.com really, truly want to connect with other writers. They want to learn from one another. They want to hear what the successful authors are doing and offer tips to those just starting out.

Members are able to start or participate in existing discussions, post information about themselves in their personal writing profile, submit article ideas and offer workshops for others. The profiles are particularly useful as a writer is able to share her writing history, publications, career direction, web links and more. It’s an easy way to learn more about other members and connect as real people within the discussions.

Until shewrites.com came along, I didn’t know I was looking for a group like this. I have been an active member for the last week and I am pleased with the useful tips, personal connections and writing resources the site has to offer.

If you are a writer, whether well established or just starting out, consider signing on as a member to take advantage of all this wonderful site has to offer. You’ll instantly make connections, get a sense of the friendly community vibe, and be glad to be amongst some truly talented women.

For more information visit shewrites.com.