Your Home Page Needs These Links

After straightening out my thoughts on social media last week I ran out and got a severely short haircut, so short that almost everyone I met on the streets of Lambertville that day remarked upon it, most of them favorably, bless their hearts, one or two saying that I must be very brave. It's a Scorpio thing, I told them. We Scorpios like to completely reinvent ourselves every so often.

Now, however, my web site is obsolete. That woman has hair down to her shoulders. Like my head, my home page must now be reinvented. By me, since I'm my own web designer. So the appearance of the thing needs to change. I'm going to play around with different backgrounds, colors, fonts, and graphics for a while and see if I can come up with something I'm pleased with before I go completely blind. There are elements I won't change, though I might move them to a different place on the page. These are links to various sub-pages. A home page without these links isn't doing its job.

ABOUT (or Bio, or All About Kate, or whatever.) Clicking on this should take the viewer to a short bio, a long bio, and a head shot.

BLOG A link to kategallison.blogspot.com. Some writers run a journal on their home page. I like Blogger because it accepts comments and tracks page views.

SCHEDULE (or Appearances, or Public Appearances.) This links to a calendar or a list of signings, conferences, and lectures. That way folks will know when you'll be in town.

BOOKS (or Works.) Everything I ever wrote that made it into print, with pictures of covers and short descriptions.

MEDIA KIT This should link to a page full of classy, hi-res photos suitable for inclusion in newspaper articles and the cover of MYSTERY SCENE (I should live so long). Now I have to get new pictures taken. My hair is all cut off. Bummer. Maybe that's what they meant when they told me I was brave.

CONTACT This can bring up your email address, or show a page with your email address, your post office box if you have one, and your twitter handle. I'm thinking a post office box might be a neat idea in case fans want to send me gifts of jewelry or shoes. It's also useful for dealing with correspondence from convicts. If you want to do that.

You might also include a link to reviews, if you have a whole bunch of nice ones, a link to free stories and chapters, and a link to your book trailers. But the first six links I mentioned, or five links, if you don't keep a blog, are the most important.

It is also interesting to note that a page without text on it tends to be ignored by search engines. So put some text on your page. Kate Gallison – World's Greatest Writer. Something along those lines.

Anyway here goes. I'm going to shoot for something pretty.

Kate Gallison

Riding the Beast of Social Media

The cool weather is back. I wake from my long summer's torpor and pick up my Authors Guild Bulletin. It says here that other writers are prospering in their careers through skillful use of social media.

How does one do this? A couple of years ago I got some advice from Janet Reid, the Query Shark, who gave me tips on improving my web site (www.kategallison.com), told me to post on my blog three times a week, and guided me onto Twitter. My Twitter handle is @kategallison. Oh, please follow me. I still don't have many followers. On the other hand I don't tweet much. But this is about to change.

Alafair Burke's Puppy

Alafair Burke (@alafairburke) is good on Twitter, Janet says. I follow her, and it's true. She shares personal stuff without grossly invading her own privacy, a fine line to walk, and interacts gracefully with other tweeters. Besides being a lovely person and an engaging writer, Alafair has a really cute puppy.

J.T. Ellison (@thrillerchick) was mentioned in the Authors Guild article as having an excellent Facebook presence. I looked, and it's true. Odyl helped her design the application, and Involver handles her mailing list. Constant Contact is one of many other services that will do this for people. The mailing list is used to direct the newsletter.

Maureen Johnson (@maureenjohnson) won an award for her Twitter activities. She's a lot of fun to follow. Her web site is very nice, having been developed over a period of years. The visual design is gorgeous, and the functions work well.

All of these women are writers of enviable success, and owe some of it to social media. What are they doing that the rest of us can emulate? Here's a plan.

Write a really excellent book. (Hey, I did that. A couple of times.)

Choose your social media venue carefully. Don't overextend yourself. Nobody does everything. Remember you're going to have to update early and often. Here's what's out there that's been useful for reaching readers:

• Your web site. You have to have one. I'll tell you what needs to be on it in my next post, and suggest ways to put it together whether or not you have technical expertise. Meanwhile check out the above links to other people's sites.
• Your blog. That can be the same as your web site, with a little tweaking. Blogger supports custom URLs, and a number of other platforms probably do too. (If you don't know what any of  that means, don't worry about it. We'll talk later.)
• Your newsletter. You will write this at regular intervals and your mailing service will mail it out to the people who gave them their emails and said they wanted it. (I haven't been doing one. Maybe later.)
• Facebook. You can put up an author page on Facebook, which is different from the "wall" you use to send baby pictures to Aunt Fanny. It can, and should, be beautifully decorated and fancy.
• Twitter. Post short, clever observations here, hang around to see what goes on, and become involved in conversations. Post links to items of interest.
• Goodreads. You should explore that. I'm no good at it.
• Youtube. You can put book trailers up, if you have the skills or the money, or you can post home movies of your puppy.

There are others. These are the most popular right now. I don't understand the usefulness of LinkedIn to writers unless they're looking for day jobs, but there are groups on LinkedIn where you can talk to other writers.

Be open to hiring help. (For setting up pages and mailing lists, that is, not for writing tweets, blog posts, or Facebook remarks. That's supposed to be you talking.)

So here I go, all set to drum up a little interest before the next book comes out (MONKEYSTORM, or maybe BUCKER DUDLEY.) I'm going to try out some of the things mentioned in the Authors Guild article as well as the things I talked about here. I'll let you know how it goes.

I am not going to get a puppy.

Kate Gallison

Internet Constant Contact: How Much Is Too Much?

We need to talk.  Before my thoughts on this subject solidify.

On Facebook, two or three of my friends tend to post or share pictures eight or ten times quickly within half an hour or so.  On Twitter, there are people who tweet twelve or fifteen times a day.

“Bling!”  “Bling!” If my phone makes a noise announcing a text message, I pay attention.  It could be a family member who needs help.  It could be a witty friend inviting me for a chat and a glass or three of wine.  It could be my agent announcing a movie deal!  Most likely: it’s another writer tweeting to announce a new blog post.  Sometimes, it all seems like a bit much.

I agree wholeheartedly that we all need to take full advantage of the opportunities available from sites like Facebook and Twitter.  I have a feeling I don’t do enough.  You may feel the same.  Like most of the writers I know well, I am more or less desperate to attract attention to my work.  I am not at all above using shameless self-promotion.  Look what I am doing right now, for instance.  And yes, I will FB and tweet links to this rant.  This is all true.  But that said, I for one will benefit from some discussion of the question “How much is too much?” Is all this social media stuff something to do while procrastinating about getting on with the next book? 

Getting a substantive conversation going on a blog is a tricky business, but I hold out hope that you will weigh in on this.  How much is just enough when it comes to these sorts of communications?  And how many tweets or postings a day would you say are too many?  How should we space them out?  And how would you politely tell that wonderful writer whose work you so admire that telling everyone on FB every time her cat sneezes is not going to get us to like her more?

 Before I start annoying the stuffing out of all my friends, I really need to know what you think?

Annamaria Alfieri