Tag Archives: Finding readers

Freedom of Speech

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

Writers need readers. Simple enough. I’ve taken advantage of Facebook to boost postings and engage with new readers. I blog, both on my website and with other writers and bring links about those posts to Facebook. But I have become cautious about posting anything but easy thoughts on my website (cynthia@cynthiakraack.com).

All who have reacted in a civil manner to postings or photos are greatly appreciated. The hatemongers and brutes on Facebook are another experience. Respectful disagreement appears to have disappeared into rambling, often vulgar, statements that not only disagree but also add opinions about the supposed personality of the writer.  While blog responses can be prescreened, not so on Facebook.

I began my writing career as a journalist. People disagreed with editorial content and called or wrote letters. We also had a few cranky folks who would show up at the office. They weren’t fond of conversation, were more prone to raise their voice to tell you their thoughts, maybe with a few vulgarities, even pound on a desk. Sometimes we’d call a family member to help us out, a time or two we called the police. In general, people owned their opinions with names and addresses on letters or by talking face to face. We didn’t deal with people hiding behind threatening screen names. We never expected to be harmed, stalked, or killed.

It is a different time. While holding the right to free speech dearly, I am perplexed about how to deal with the verbally abusive responders. At this point I hide their comments. I hear from others that this is part of today’s communication and just not pay attention to what is ugly. Unfortunately I can’t forget.

What’s your experience and do you have any advice?

Aldo Leopold Weekend

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March 4, 2017, sixty-nine years after Aldo Leopold penned his final contribution to A Sand County Almanac, a marathon reading of his work begins in a small building called The Schoolhouse in the Clearings Folk School in Door County, Wisconsin. Pine trees can be seen through every window. A few birds flitter past during the ninety minutes. Eight inches of snow dumped during a nasty storm earlier in the week glistens outside with puddles beginning to form where the day’s sun and temps clear out cold stuff one more time. Leopold, the man known as the father of wildlife ecology, would appreciate the setting for this local event celebrating Aldo Leopold Weekend.

Young and old, writers and environmentalists, students and philanthropic retirees, wait their turn to read selected pieces. Everyone willingly hands their attention and time to listening one more time to Leopold’s insights about the ways of nature as highways and manufacturing were changing America in the 1930s and 40s. No one checks cell phones or watches. Stories about fishing, about birds, about snow melt, about prairie flowers lost to road construction written near The Shack in Baraboo, Wisconsin by a wise man. Humor, detailed description, a few lessons tucked into each about caring for the land because it is ours communally.

A Sand County Almanac would be a good read for any person who thinks about the land, or to nurture awareness of our environment. It could be a nice present for Ryan Zinke or even Mr. Trump, who might prefer the audio format.

 

 

Book Award Season

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More than 900 people gathered April 16 for the 28th Annual Minnesota Book Awards. Writers, publishers, family, friends and lovers of books celebrated thirty-two authors whose work reached the finals of this prestigious competition.

While most of the winners were names well known in the book world, many of us hoped a writer friend would be the dark horse to take home one of this year’s eight awards. Regardless of results, they would always be a Minnesota Book Award Finalist, an affirmation of talent and skill earned by very few.

My friend Steve McEllistrem, author of The Devereaux Decision, now carries that status. Steve has been a host of KFAI’s Write On radio show for years and a wonderful sci fi writer.

Ames Sheldon, a member of my writing group, recently won the Independent Book Publishers Association’s 2016 Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal Award for Best New Voice in Fiction for her debut novel, Eleanor’s Wars. We have a gifted writing group with the current membership producing 17 published books and nine significant awards. We are thrilled for her success.

The High Cost of Flowers, my 2015 release, won two Midwest Book Awards—both Literary andContemporary Fiction.

The three of us chose a small publisher or self-publishing. Awards confirm that our works, rejected by

The High Cost of Flowers was the 2015 Midwest Book Awards winner in the Fiction and XXX Categories.

the larger publishing world, are quality. We earned affirmation, a little media coverage, a few speaking engagements.

But, there’s a whole lot of post-award publicity and book sales left on the table for writers like Steve, Ames and me. Without resources of a large publisher, there’s no expertise to develop plans in advance or manage promotion after winning a significant book award. The honors promote a publisher’s brand, a writer’s brand and sales. Nothing that should be squandered.

Most royalties are paid to a small number of authors. Self-published authors earn between nothing and one thousand dollars per year on a book which isn’t a lot different than with small publishers according to Amazon data. Being a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award or winner of the Midwest Book Award should help build valuable readership. Prizes open doors to meet readers through book clubs, libraries, and flowers-cover-200schools. But book clubs, libraries and schools first need to know about a quality book by an unknown writer.

My advice: if you are writing the best book ever in your genre, include how a publisher can support promoting an award in your decision of how the book is published. And if you do win relish the affirmation. It is priceless.

A Fiction Writer’s Social Media Plan

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An author with five published novels and three book awards sounds like a safe choice when looking for something to read now that winter is at hand. How can an author supplement a publisher’s efforts to get that message to readers?

The pros say discoverability is key to an author’s success and active social media is a must. author-kraack-speakingI’d like to believe that social media can also open two-way communications. Late this summer I wrote two blogs about pushing social media beyond Twitter and Facebook. A skeletal marketing/communication plan is the final entry in that series:

Since my publisher manages @c_kraack, I have opened a new Twitter account for personal use. Follow me @cmkraack and I’ll return the favor. @cmkraack is the Twitter handle to share observations about the world, vacation stories, friends’ achievements, and, because I am a writer, a few tweets about writing. I’ll continue originating more general daily personal tweets related to writing on @c_kraack.

There are many sites where authors can interact with readers. I hope to offer readers reason to visit more frequently by developing unique content weekly for my Facebook author page (Cynthia Kraack, Writer) and monthly for my Amazon author and Goodreads pages. I’m also exploring other book websites are more intimate and might offer more opportunity to connect with readers while doing my own search for new books and authors.

IMG_0855My blog began as a place to share my views on the writer’s life versus concentrating on the writing industry. I’d like to return to that strategy with new blogs every other week. If I have the time, I’d like to develop a new blog introducing people from the broader art world.

With video and visual content drawing high social media user attention, I have begun development of a small number of projects to enrich my website early in 2016 including one or two that will be posted on YouTube in late 2016. The Pinterest Book Community looks like a flowers-cover-200different way to participate in a more visual community. The High Cost of Flowers already has a presence on Pinterest thanks to a wonderful reader.

How to do all this is tricky. My most immediate project is developing an editorial calendar. Twitter is a daily activity. Setting aside one day a week for blog writing and refreshing other media is a heavy investment as well as an interesting journey.

These are the bare bones of a social media plan. Readings, speeches, guest blogs, blog tours, teaching and traditional marketing haven’t been addressed. Any advice?

Mix and Match Social Media

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Kindle topping pile of books

Some writers spend half the year driving to bookstores, church fairs, and events to sell very few books at each. They don’t cover expenses; much less earn enough to give up their day jobs. Some are aggressive with their social media management. They’ve been told they need to be on all social media sites, that the more titles they publish the more people will recognize their brands, and the closer they will be to the tipping point of success. Published by small publishers, they have almost no marketing support and run on dreams and trust.

This is a turbulent time for creators of artistic content. Writers once made a living selling short stories to magazines. Now many markets charge submission fees. The number of self-published book titles in 2013 increased 17 percent over 2012 and 437 percent over 2008. Like the music industry, the large publishing houses assume less risk by signing fewer unknown authors. Those published have weeks for their books to meet ambitious sales targets or lose support.

Calumet Editions, my publisher, has built an e-world marketing strategy that includes a website and an aggressive Twitter presence. Through a traditional distributor, it uses a print on demand approach with minimal inventory. It is a new marketing model that has empty spaces that are different than those of the very traditional small press that published my first four books without social media or ebook strategies. Indie flowers-cover-200bookstores would like to have The High Cost of Flowers, a Midwest Book Awards winner, on their shelves, but don’t always have the hours needed to add another distributor to their business.

What makes sense for my work to be discovered by readers? Here’s what I discovered:

Women over 45 account for 58% of all books purchased. They rely on personal recommendations and like to visit bookstores. More Americans own tablets, but still almost 70 percent read traditional books. That distinction doesn’t vary much by demographic group. Young people are more likely to read ebooks than older people, but they’re also likely to read paperbacks.

As of 2014, 74% of online adults use social networking sites. Highest networking use is in the 18 and 49 age categories where over 82% use networking sites. At age 50 networking sites use drops to 65%. About 71% of online adults use Facebook. Only 28% use Twitter.

Doing fancy calculations that means about 15 out of every 100 online adults over 49, and 19 out of those between 19 and 49, might see a tweet. BI Intelligence found Twitter use leans toward males with 22% of online men tweeting and 15% of online women.

Follow me on FacebookWhere are the women I hope to reach? Some are not online. Those who are find their way to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Pinterest is leader in online shopping because of food sites. Facebook still claims top of the heap for other sales. The challenge for me is to pinpoint a social networking strategy to connect me with a primary demographic of women in their 30s through 60s.

I’ll share how I intend to augment my publisher’s strategy to connect with that group in my next blog.