Apt Design » authors

Advice from the Pros: How Writers Should Use Blogging and Social Media

Apt Design — Thu, 13 May 2010 05:42:29 +0000

Recently I gave a workshop at Write on the River, a writers’ conference for North Central Washington. My presentation was entitled Blogging and Social Media: What Every Writer Should Know. I spent a lot of time preparing and had lots of great information for the talk, but one of my favorite parts was getting to show the power of social media directly to attendees.

A few days before the conference I had tweeted some of the most helpful and influential people who tweet about blogging and social media for writers. My basic question to all of them was this, “I’m giving a workshop for writers about blogging and social media – could you give your 140 char. of advice about them?” I received replies from everyone I tweeted, and all within 24 hours.

Thus one of the most powerful aspects of social media is displayed. When else in the history could I get on such easy, instant, direct contact with someone who gets the respect and following of tens of thousands of people?

So without further ado, here is advice from the pros: How Writers Should Use Blogging and Social Media:

Ronnie Smith

Ronnie runs writersrelief.com, a great website with lots of tips, hints, and hot leads for submitting and publishing your books, poems, and stories.
@WritersRelief >10,000 followers

Advice? Proofread. Be consistent. Smile. :-) Sounds like a great workshop.

Dana Lynn Smith

Book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketer Guides at www.SavvyBookMarketer.com.
@bookmarketer > 3,000 followers

Blogging: Combine author blog & website; plan on paper first; keyword optimize; blog 3x/week http://bit.ly/BloggingResources

Social Media: Choose right networks; build effective profile; budget time; write effective updates http://bit.ly/SocialResources

Joanna Penn

Is the author of thecreativepenn.com, offering TONS of advice on writing, blogging, social media and how to get published. Tweets lots of links to great content for writers across the web.
@thecreativepenn >12,000 followers

get a distinctive blog, add great content regularly, be useful, use multimedia, stay in niche, focus hard on 1 social network

Alexandra Levit

Business/workplace author and speaker with 5 pubbed books and 2 syndicated columns. Featured in New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio, ABC News, Fox News, CNBC, the Associated Press, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Fortune.
@alevit > 34,000 followers

Set aside an hour a day for blogging and social media. Otherwise they will eat up time surreptitiously.

Leo Babauta

Started ZenHabits.net, one of the best blogs ever (in my opinion) and WriteToDone.com, a blog to help writers improve their craft and their art. He’s a true poster-child for noname-to-stardom blogging. With his great content he got over 100,000 readers of his blog in less than 2 years. He’s also published multiple books from his blog.
@zen_habits > 42,000 followers

Writing advice: Say less, choose carefully, clear distractions. And it’s all distractions, if it’s not writing.

Have more advice for writers using blogging and social media? Give it below in the comments and be sure to leave your social media links.

Or, read one of these:

Blogs and Social Media: What Every Writer Should Know

Apt Design — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:20:23 +0000

When I started Apt Design there was a local writing conference that was starting around the same time. Write on the River became one of my first, favorite, and most longstanding clients. I’m excited to announce that this year I will be a presenting speaker at the conference! After talking with some members of the board we decided that some of my knowledge of blogging, social media and the internets at large could be extremely useful for writers wondering about what blogging and social media could do for them. Thus my workshop, “Blogs and Social Media: What Every Writer Should Know” was born.

Here’s a description of the workshop, from the Write on the River website:

The web is no longer a fad for part-time HTML hobbyists. Authors as much as anyone need to look at how they can leverage the internet to connect and communicate. This workshop will begin by exploring one of the basic building blocks of the internet – the blog. We’ll look at the advantages and disadvantages blogs hold for writers. After finding out if creating a blog is right for you, we’ll look at how you can choose what to write about. We will also look at ways social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more) can benefit authors. We’ll examine ways writers can make money using the web, including the feasibility of income from blog-writing. Practical tips will be given as the important differences in writing for a web audience are considered. Lastly, we will touch on new experiments and opportunities for writers in an ever-changing online world.

I’ll be presenting May 15th at 2:15. Terry Brooks is the keynote speaker this year! So come in for the workshop or drop me a line here if you have any topics you’d like me to make sure and address.

Or, read one of these:

Advice from the Pros: How Writers Should Use Blogging and Social Media

8 Great Author Websites

Apt Design — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:07:42 +0000

Unfortunately this post was not easy to write. Sadly many authors these days still don’t even have websites (Tom Clancy – where you at?) and those that do often have very poor ones built long ago using outdated code, tables and animated gifs (best-selling author Ken Follett has a pretty poor showing). However, as more and more authors realize how important a presence on the web is new author sites are being built, and they’re getting better. A great author website reflects the nature of the writer’s style, helps fans get to know the author better, provides an easy way for authors to connect to their audience, and remains easy to navigate.

If you are an author and you need a better website (one that would make this list) please contact me today. I can help you create a custom-designed site that is easy for you to update yourself. Let’s not let this industry wallow in 1998 any longer – its time for authors to embrace good web design!

For inspiration and to offer a bit of hope here are a few stand-out websites for authors I’ve found on the web:

Absolutely stunning site that makes great use of a minimal design approach and limited color scheme.

Peter goes big and bold. You definitely know whose site you are at, and the navigation is well done too.

Brash and colorful, Augusten certainly has the best use of illustration of any author website I’ve seen.

Mr. Brown’s site perfectly mirrors the mystery in his books. Navigating the site is like unlocking a great puzzle.

Clean, simple, beautiful and functional. Not much to go wrong with here. Nice emphasis on the books right from the start as well.

Trevor gets extra points for his use of social media and blogging. The way these are sorted and posted down below is brilliant.

Many sites try to be too artsy and leave the user behind. Rachael’s site pulls off the scattered design well.

Spark’s site is clean and pretty and does a great job appealing to his target audience.

Get your own great author website! Click here to learn more »

Or, read one of these:

18 Beautiful Websites built with WordPress