Nancy Christie's Blog, page 79

Becoming an Indie Business Writer: Guest Post from Robin Baum

Robin Baum

The last post of this month will feature the first of several monthly guest posts provided by Robin Baum, an independent writing, editing and voiceover professional who entered the freelance world after a successful career as a media relations manager for STERIS Corporation.

Robin’s series will provide a behind-the-scenes look at how to make the transition from employee to self-employed and provide some illuminating and helpful advice for those who are evaluating where they are pro...

The Melody of Writing

While some writers like to have music playing in the background when they are deep in the throes of creation, silence works better for me.

Maybe it’s because I am trying so hard to listen to what the characters are saying that any external noise threatens that tenuous connection.

Or maybe I’m afraid that, instead of tap-tap-tapping lines of setting or dialogue on the keyboard, I might start rap-rap-rapping the rhythm of whatever tune is coming out of my CD player! In any case, music generally...

5 Tips for Making Media Releases Work for You

Do you have media releases in your arsenal of marketing tools? If you don’t, you should.

Sending out media (also called news or press) releases is a relatively low-cost way to draw attention to you and your work, help generate traffic to your site, blog and books, support your platform-building activities, and in general, get you a little closer to front-and-center which is where we would all like to be!

But if you want your release to do its job, you need to make sure that you do your part....

What I’m reading now: The Year of Pleasures

Sometimes you choose a book to read just to while away time, to escape from your life or to simply have fun.

Other times, you pick a book at random and find out that, as you become immersed in the story line, it’s become a roadmap guiding you through the unfamiliar territory you’re currently traveling in, giving you a sense that “I can make it through this” because the characters you’re reading about have blazed the trail for you.

That’s been my experience as I come to the end of The Year of...

What to do with book reviews

This past January, I had written a guest post for Marie Lavender’s blog entitled What You Can Learn from Reading Your Book Reviews.

So I thought in this post, I’d share some ideas on what to do when you get reviews (besides thanking the reviewer, of course!) so that you can maximize its effect.

(If you’ve got some ideas of your own, feel free to add them in the comments section!)

Post on your book review page

Now I am assuming that you have a book review page, of course! (No page? Create one...

Writing wherever and whenever, and other thoughts

So I am sitting at the laundromat, writing this long overdue post. In my defense, my to-do list is pretty overloaded right now, but I can’t let another day (week? month?) go by without writing something on my own blog! (Clearly a case of the shoemaker’s children going shoeless… I write for everybody else so my own blog gets sorely neglected. Bad blogger!)

So what today’s post is going to be is pretty much a brain dump of all the things that have been rolling around in my mind.

On having the r...

Update #3 on this month’s booksigning events

Sometimes book events are all about you. You’re there to talk, to read, to engage the audience and (hopefully) to sell books.

But sometimes, book events are about something bigger than you. You’re not the star, just a supporting player. And that’s good, too.

This past Monday I had the chance to be part of the To Kill a Mockingbird Read-a-Thon at Barnes & Noble Booksellers-Settlers Ridge in Pittsburgh, PA. It was the first time I’d ever participated in the read-a-thon and enjoyed the experienc...

Update #2 on this month’s booksigning events

Lori K. Marchand

So in my last post, I shared some of the wonderful interactions I had at the Joseph-Beth Booksellers (Cleveland Clinic) booksigning.

Yesterday, Lori Marchand, an author friend of mine, and I drove up to Loganberry Books for the store’s Author Alley event.

While we were there, we had a chance to hobnob with a lot of other authors (including my writer friends Christine Benedict and Claudia Taller, among others!) as well as chat with those who had come out for the annual event....

Update #1 on this month’s booksigning events

So in my last post, I talked about what could go wrong at a book signing and how you just have to go in with no expectations except that whatever happens it will all be good.

And yesterday’s signing at the Cleveland Clinic, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, proved that point.

Here’s what went right:

I had a very heartfelt and touching conversation with a mother whose 28-year-old son has been dealing with cancer for eight years and was undergoing yet another procedure. We talked about courage and...

The pleasure (and sometimes panic) of booksignings

I have quite a few book events coming up in next few months—some just for my newest book, TRAVELING LEFT OF CENTER AND OTHER STORIES—and some for both TRAVELING and my first book, THE GIFTS OF CHANGE.

And I’m excited—of course I’m excited! Who wouldn’t be excited!

Standing there, greeting all my fans, signing book after book, telling the booksellers that they better pull the ones in the stockroom out because we are very nearly out of the ones on display, asking the photographers to please sto...