Author Meeting Place

This blog can be followed along like any other blog can be. We are expected to have authors blog here about themselves, reviews and/or anything else author related. From time-to-time we will also be included in Online Scavenger Hunts.

We expect you to follow general audience verbiage.  Nothing harmful will be posted in this blog. You can be removed for adding anything non-concurrent with author related materials.

HAPPY BLOGGING!

TITLE: The Smell Of Gas AUTHOR: 

I have been putting my review on my blog so that writers know exactly what they get with a review by Mind Fog Review. I personally take pride in each review that I get to do. As I stated before I love to read and this allows me to read as much as I want. 

Once a month you should check your visibility to the world by searching your name.  It will provide you with a listing of where your name appears on the internet and what information is provided.

This will help you keep track of places that you have joined in order to better promote yourself.

This will also tell you where you get the most bang for your buck by seeing how much your name is out there from the various places that you have added your information to or others have added your information.

You MUST do this once a month as the search engines are always being crawled and the key words bring up your names if the web site owner is doing them correctly.

Editing is a very important aspect of getting published.  A publisher will not continue reading a manuscript when they are finding several grammatical and typographical errors.

Choose your editor wisely.  Find out how many years of experience they have doing editing.  Find out what it is that they look for and what they will do as far as fragments are concerned.

The ideal editor will use tracking for you to see what they have changed. This allows you to delete a change or add something new.  The font color will change when you add something so that the editor may peruse the addition for typos as well. The editor will then do an autocorrect to make the manuscript read without the color changes in the text. 

The editor should then reread the manuscript to double check that all errors were changed.

A proper editor will take at least a week or two depending on the size of your manuscript. For a much larger manuscript you should allow three to four weeks.

Constand communication between you and the editor is a proper item.  You should be available for any questions and also to read down through the editing marks.

Do not hesitate to ask about a change or read the comments provided in the right hand column should the editor need you to verify something or to know why the editor changed it.

Choosing a proper editor is VERY IMPORTANT!

I was asked to join LinkedIn which is a free site. It can be useful for networking and advertising yourself and services you offer. I was invited by an author.  Hope to see you there.

Amber here. With the world constantly changing and opening the doors to new writers, its making it harder to become a noticed author. When budgeting is a challenge, promoting our books become even harder.

I would like to offer up some ideas to help you resolve that issue! The Internet is growing rapidly and there are many websites where you can advertise for free. Look at Myspace for instance. So many people on there and all you have to do is add them to your friend's list!

Besides Internet, word of mouth is still the largest way to market anything. But if you're in a place where you can't speak, there's other options.....

A hat with your logo, website url, or book cover is great. Or wear a t-shirt! You can pass out business cards (or just leave them on tables), bookmarks, magnets, stickers, coloring pages of your characters, and much more!

Give away copies of your books. If they like your book, believe me they will tell people about you. Neighbors are a good choice because they will brag that they live next to a published author. They really get a kick out of it lol.

Newsletters are also a great way to get the word out. If not making your own, find other writers who have one and ask to put your information in there. I have one and I offer free advertising space in mine. Some may charge but you won't know unless you ask.

The most important thing to know is to have fun. Speak with passion when you speak to others about your books. Never pass up a chance to share your information. Standing in line, start up a conversation. Sending mail back to pay a bill, include your business card or a flyer. Waiting to pay for gas at a gas station, ask to leave some business cards on the counter. Leave some of those at the library too. Offer contests to give away gifts or a free copy of the book too.

And don't forget to create that website so keep all that information handy for your new fans!

Thank you!

Amber Rigby Grosjean

http://www.argrosjean.com

Author Meeting Place has a desire to accept more bloggers on this site.  It is a great place to meet authors in your area. Don't forget to submit your book(s) to the site to be able to blog. This site is growing so quickly.

For Lulu authors outside of the US you can submit your order to ship directly to me and I will let you know the postage of sending your free book to USA destinations so you won't have to pay postage from another country to me or to someone who orders your book.  Ship it directly from Lulu to save on these postage costs as they can be high because of overseas shipping.

As for US authors you can list your book for free and have someone who wants it to contact you directly.  You can list as many books as you'd like to.  If you have a contest for the giveway just e-mail the instructions to authoranastasia@authormeetingplace.com and I will get them on there.

For Lulu authors outside of the US you can submit your order to ship directly to me and I will let you know the postage of sending your free book to USA destinations so you won't have to pay postage from another country to me or to someone who orders your book.  Ship it directly from Lulu to save on these postage costs as they can be high because of overseas shipping.

As for US authors you can list your book for free and have someone who wants it to contact you directly.  You can list as many books as you'd like to.  If you have a contest for the giveway just e-mail the instructions to authoranastasia@authormeetingplace.com and I will get them on there.

I have started this blogging for all authors who wish to participate. Please contact authoranastasia@authormeetingplace for the user name and password. Among some of the new items is also a forum, a chat room and a game page.  The games are updated every so often so you can choose which ones to play and let me know which ones you'd like to see permanently on the site in order to continue to play them. 

Bookmark orders are piling in because of a new concept I have developed with an author from Australia.  I decided that I would print the bookmarks and add the ribbons and then donate them to several libraries here in the states. They love donated bookmarks and they seem to run out of them quickly.  What a great way to receive free advertising.

I am having a great response for submissions for the free advertising. New authors come pouring in each week. Don't forget to advertise this or refer this to your author friends.

I hope that everyone has been enjoying the long weekend. We have been camping and I had to come home while hubby worked three hours and I have been checking submissions and e-mails. I will be going back out to camp to have a Memorial Day picnic.  I hope that you have been telling all of your author friends about the site because submissions are coming in from all over.

Anastasia

Thank you and congratulations to all of the authors on the site. You have proven to me that my site is a worthwhile endeavor and that authors can appreciate my efforts.

The Author of the Month and Book Cover of the Month Contests have received a wide participation and I truly appreciate that.

In order to be a little fun I have added a games page for authors to relax with.

Enjoy the site and keep checking for more additions as it grows and grows!

Anastasia

To see what BlogTalkRadio interviews have been done by Poetic Monthly visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/poeticmonthly.  They are scheduled already until mid-May.  There is a form on this site to send to them to schedule an interview.  It is under Free Services for Authors.  Check them out, fill out a form and get scheduled for interviews. This is a great service for authors.

Poetic monthly e-zine and site are geared for authors.  It has a great forum on the site with many categories of participation. Their e-zine is always looking for authors to participate as well.  I highly recommend them. Check them out.  http://www.poeticmonthly.com

A rant about inspiration.

As a writer I found myself being uninspired a lot.  So whenever I feel at a loss for what to write I look to life itself for answers.  I look at my previous experience and how it treated me and use that as a base for writing.  New experiences also help, that is to say go out more and find out what you can, experience new things and you get new subjects to write about.  You can also look around you and search for things and put them together, the more random the better the ideas.

*With that what you write about is limitless.”

(Oatka Creek) 

This blog is an ongoing dialogue with my muse, Calliope. Please join in our conversations.

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Energized. But do you have to start your inspiration so early?
CALLIOPE: What do you mean?
JOE: You know exactly what I mean. The ideas you placed in my head at 4:30 this morning. I had to get up and write them down to be sure I wouldn't forget them.
CALLIOPE: I wanted to make sure I didn't forget them either. What ideas did you receive?
JOE: One was the difference between lies and creativity in dealing with literal truth. The other was whether our national bird should be the eagle, turkey or phoenix.
CALLIOPE: That's exactly what I remember. Do you want me to take the chance of forgetting and inspire you later in the day?
JOE: No, I just wondered. I'm ready for inspiration any time. But you sure keep me on my toes.
CALLIOPE: That's the nature of my job and our relationship.
JOE: Well said. I accept the terms. I guess I can always go back to bed later if you wear me out.
CALLIOPE: Glad you understand.
JOE: I think we understand each other. Talk with you tomorrow.

Joseph G. Langen

jlangen@slidingotter.com

There are many different avenues of advertising for authors.  There are free ones as well as paid ones. When searching free advertising you can find several different types of spots to put in your book information and where to buy it. They have several different types from sites to classifieds.  Do you have a site to share?  Please comment on them here to help other authors get more bang for their buck in advertising.

BEWARE:  Some sites get you to put one book in but they hit you immediately with other things to buy at very high prices. Just do the free advertising on their sites. Some of these sites allow only one entry but others allow more. Some require ISBNs and others will accept any number of books with purchase links attached to them.

Take care and be well.  I can't wait to see how the authors use this knowledge and let us know how well the referrals are for them.