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How To Help Your Favorite Authors – Guest Post

A question I’ve received several times on Facebook or elsewhere is, How can we help promote? I love that people want to help me (and other authors) promote their books. Here’s a great little article by Lindsay Buroker on promoting an author’s work. Not just for me — do this for any book you enjoy!

As authors, we spend a lot of time trying to promote our books. Our biggest obstacle is obscurity because there are a lot of books out there. No, really. A lot.

photo of classical music advertisement for epic music and great battle scenes

Music & the Writer

photo of classical music advertisement for epic music and great battle scenes
I snapped this pic in Chicago, Dec 2011, because music matters.

Lots of writers use music to set mood and evoke emotion while writing, and I’m no exception — I love using music to create a tone for a scene or even just to get creative juices flowing.

Site Renovation :)

As you might have noticed, the site just got a major facelift. I think everything’s working, but if you notice anything out of place, please let me know. In related news, the blog is now on Networked Blogs, so feel free to follow if that’s your thing. In… 

ebook reader with book image

Your Sample Should Include a Sample.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Okay, I am pretty equal-opportunity when it comes to paper books and ebooks. I have minor preferences — I like paper books for plane trips (no obligatory power-down!) and ebooks for reference material (I have no guilt highlighting and annotating a ebook, while defacing a paper book even in the name of education feels wrong) — but I feel fairly egalitarian about the whole thing.

I can flip through a paper book in a store and get my own free sample; I can’t with an ebook. Both types, however, offer (or suffer from) electronic sampling. Amazon automatically provides peeks of a book’s first 10%, while other sites allow the publisher to set a sample (my Smashwords account is set to show at least 20%, for example). Publishers (and self-publishing authors) need to consider this when laying out their books.

adorable Doberman puppy, photo by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Amazon Deals on KITSUNE-TSUKI

Retail news! Not only is Kitsune-Tsuki now available in paperback (say, here, for example), but it’s eligible for Amazon’s 4-for-3 promotion — which means if you add Kitsune-Tsuki to an order of three books, you get it free. Of course, it’s in ebook at Amazon, too, and at… 

Kitsune-Tsuki

How Operant Conditioning Sold My Pitch

Kitsune-TsukiRepublished from original post at CaninesInAction.com

I spent last weekend immersed wholly in words. I don’t talk about it much, but I also write fiction, and I’ve decided lately to put more effort into that area. So two things happened last week — my novella Kitsune-Tsuki came out on ebook, and I attended a writers’ conference.

I hadn’t been planning to pitch to any of the agents at the conference — I didn’t feel my newer projects were wholly ready — but a new friend listened to my practice pitch and then literally led me to the agent board and signed me up for a pitch. Now it was on.

Laura Presents on Japanese Folklore at Gen Con Indianapolis

I will be presenting a two-hour panel on Japanese Folklore & Mythology at Gen Con Indianapolis, August 19, 2012. We’ll have two hours to talk about Japanese folklore, supernatural creatures, and why it’s smart to fart at a kappa and greet your friends with, “Moshi moshi!”