Ruth Harris's Blog, page 15

Online Book Reviews: Games People Play

Last year I wrote a post about the importance of writing Amazon reviews that caused something of a poop-storm in the bookish corners of Cyberia. Although most readers—especially in my own Boomer demographic—were grateful for the post, a furious minority exploded in fits of high dudgeon.

I even got death threats from a handful of self-appointed Amazon vigilantes and anonymous enforcement-persons. I suppose this post may, too--and I may lose all my Amazon reviews as "punishment"--but I think the subject is important enough to take the risk.

At first, I was baffled by the enraged responses. As an avid reader, former bookseller, and newly-republished author, I only wanted to urge readers—especially older folks who aren’t so Web savvy—to take the time to write reviews because of the power they give us to speak to the marketplace.

At that point, Boomers were an ignored segment of the reading population. Now Boomer Lit is an up-and-coming genre—I think in part thanks to the voice that social media and online reviews gives us.

But I admit to extreme naiveté. I knew nothing of the rampant gaming of online book reviews or the bizarre culture of Amazon reviewing.

I still back every word I said: readers who write honest reviews are helping the reading community and enabling authors to write more of the kind of books their fans will like. Older people shouldn’t fear writing reviews, although it may seem daunting at first. (And we do need to be aware that “a gold star” isn’t an endorsement. You need four or five to say “I loved it,” if you did.)

In fact, it’s far more important for real customers to make their voices heard than I realized when I wrote that post thirteen months ago. But I feel readers need to branch out and post reviews on other sites beside Amazon. The Amazon review system seems to be irrevocably broken.

Since I wrote that post, a number of abuses of online reviews have come to light.

• Many Amazon reviews have been generated by paid review mills. Even big name authors have been using them.

• Other reviews have come from “sock puppets.” A handful of authors—again, many famous, traditionally published ones—have been writing rave reviews of their own books and scathing reviews of their “rivals” under assumed names. (More on the idea of “rival” authors below. I don’t believe most authors think in those terms, although R.J. Ellory obviously did.)

• A few authors have been playing a mutual “back-scratching” game where authors “review” each other without reading the books. I even heard of one writer who extorted good reviews from his colleagues by leaving a 5-star review on an author’s book, then demanding reciprocation—threatening to turn the 5-star to a one-star if the back-scratch isn’t forthcoming.

• Flash mobs of vigilantes have been using nasty Amazon “reviews” as a way of punishing perceived transgressions by authors, even if the transgression has nothing to do with the author’s books. When a misunderstanding about a book-lending site ended in a lot of complaints to Amazon last summer, vigilantes then attacked the Amazon pages of the complainers with scores of one-star reviews. Not exactly helpful to customers and seriously disrespectful to everybody in the book business.

• People who hate Amazon as a company are taking out their wrath on authors with one-star anti-Amazon "reviews" (which seriously drag down a book’s Amazon rankings and take money out of the author's pocket.) Other bizarre one-stars seem to be proliferating. More on that this week at the Writers Guide to E-Publishing. (The comments are especially interesting.)

I should add it’s not just Amazon that is having review problems.

• Goodreads suffered an attack of bullying via review that resulted in the formation of a posse of author-vigilantes who retaliated with even more bulling. That resulted on one big old dogpile of Mean Girls.

• Barnes and Noble isn’t immune either. Last August, authors found online gamers were sending messages to each other using nonsense phrases in reviews. (But to their credit, the gamers usually gave high star-ranks to their messages.)

Here’s an example from the B & N buy page of fantasy author M. Edward McNalley, all posted on August 16, 2012

(5 stars) Review title: Mistyclaw
Wat the click is happening?
(5 stars) Review title: Firepaw
He keeps charging prey always making a sonic boom. Sorry. Cant help it. Ill stop. 
(4 stars) Review title: Mistystar
Um… I don't know, really?
Right. Dept. of WTF.

Barnes and Noble must have quietly cracked down on the cat-people since no more strange reviews have appeared after a flurry last summer. B & N has left the gamers’ reviews intact if the authors don’t complain, but the "reviews" don’t seem to be hurting anybody, although they may leave customers a tad confused.

Goodreads seems to have solved its bullying problem, too--or at least the brouhaha has quieted down. (This is good because Kobo plans to link to Goodreads reviews.)

Amazon, on the other hand, has responded with a draconian review purge that might have been engineered by King Herod of the Nativity story. Mr. Bezos and co. seem to have taken bad advice from people who know nothing about the publishing industry.

Some authors have seen every one of their reviews removed: legitimate reviews that were not paid for or solicited in any way.

Conscientious reviewers who have never been paid for a review have had every one of their reviews removed and were told they could never review in Amazon-town again.

The accused are simply told they have “violated Amazon guidelines” with no further explanation. Amazon allows no appeals and threatens to ban any author for life who complains.

It seems Amazon is removing any review perceived to be written by somebody who has a “relationship” with the author. For me that meant the removal of a couple of reviews written by somebody with the last name of Allen. (It’s a good thing my cousin Woody didn’t write me that review he promised, LOL.)

At the time, I didn’t mind sacrificing a few reviews to the cause of cleaning things up. But recent blogposts and news stories suggest the Zon has been throwing out a lot more babies than bathwater with their new policies.

They have declared all authors to be each others' “competitors”—especially authors in the same genre. Competitors are banned from reviewing each others’ products.

This makes sense with toasters, trucks or toothpaste. But it’s silly when it comes to books.

There’s more on this in the UK’s Telegraph this week. They interview a number of well-known authors who have suffered in the purge.
Joanne Harris, bestselling author of Chocolat, said, "One thing authors are able to do is articulate about books. They tend to read about books and their opinions... are listened to."Crime fiction author Mark Billingham said, “If they are targeting authors for no valid reason then that is a shame…The whole online review system is deeply flawed to me and has been for years…They need to tackle anonymous reviews as they cause all the trouble. They could easily ban those and all of this would go away.”Thriller author Jeremy Duns said: "It seems unfair and bizarre to target authors like that. There needs to be change but not like this."The reason they are so dismayed is that books have ALWAYS been reviewed by other authors.

If authors weren’t allowed to review, there would be no New York Times Book Review. No New York Review of Books. No Times Literary Supplement.

Can you imagine the San Francisco Chronicle asking some random tourist at Fisherman’s Wharf to review the latest Michael Chabon instead of hiring National Book Award finalist Jess Walter?

Or if the New York Review of Books had told John Updike he would be “unethical” to review Philip Roth?

Or if the New Yorker had banned Dorothy Parker from reviewing The House at Pooh Corner because they suspected she’d be “too nice” to A. A. Milne after meeting him at a cocktail party? (Her famous review under the byline "Constant Reader" said "Tonstant Weader fwowed up.")

This week I’ve heard that Amazon reviews are now being removed simply because the reviewer received the book as a gift—so if you got a book for Christmas, you might not want to review it on Amazon unless it was purchased somewhere else (and this is good for Amazon’s business…how?) They've declared it “unethical” to review any book you haven't personally paid for—especially if it came from an author or publisher.

Sorry, Zon, but this is just plain ignorant. Giving free review copies has been a standard practice in publishing since the industry began. I have no doubt Catullus's publisher gave Cicero a free scroll of the latest Lesbia poems in hopes Great Orator would rant about their licentiousness at Caesar's next orgy.

This is how the business of publishing has always worked.

And the ebook revolution has made it more important than ever to let authors review each other, because the line between "reader" and "author" has been blurred. Most readers dream of writing a book. A lot of them already are already at work. Easy self-publishing means a lot of them will be published. Is everybody who is working on a book banned from reviewing? If you ban every reviewer who has ever published or might do so in the future, you’re going to end up with a mighty small number of reviews.

In fact, the simple act of writing a review for an online site makes you a published writer, in the strictest sense. Perhaps Amazon should limit reviews to YouTube videos? Or compel reviewers to compose in wing-dings?

So how has Amazon got so off-base with their “guidelines”? 

Some people theorize they are motivated by complaints from some of the cliques that dominate the Amazon forums. This makes sense to me. Many of the high-dudgeoners who threatened me over my grandma post identified themselves as members of an elite group of Amazon denizens.

And yet they had no knowledge of the book business and seemed to consider all writers their enemies. Many expressed outrage at the idea that writers wanted to be paid or cared about having an income.

I decided to do a little research. I discovered the Amazon forums (as opposed to the Kindleboards) predate the ebook revolution and its members tend to be anti-ebook. In fact some members aren't much into books at all. Although Amazon began as a bookstore, the early forums were apparently dominated by reviewers of videogames and electronic products other than books. Nothing wrong with that. Games need reviews too.

But a pugnacious atmosphere of rigid "us/them" thinking, paranoia, and bullying has persisted in the forums. You don't want to visit unless you've developed some callouses on your eyeballs. Disrespectful, cruel behavior may be common in online games--I admit to complete ignorance there--but it seems wildly out of place in the book world.

Let me be clear that I'm talking about a handful of people. The majority of the top Amazon reviewers are intelligent, literate book lovers who genuinely care about readers. I've met some personally and found them exceptionally wise, charming, and honorable. They don't like the nasty, territorial nature of the forum culture either.

I was recently warned by a fearful top reviewer about the extent of bullying that goes on. I was told I should beware of hitting the “useful” button on more than one or two reviews by any one Amazon reviewer, because that reviewer might be accused of using me to get her/him into the coveted top 100 category--and we'd both be banned from Amazon forever.

That's right: My simple act of appreciation--and using Amazon as it was intended--could get that reviewer (and me) banned--over some competition most of us know nothing about.

This shadowy group has that much power.

The reviewer's warning clicked on a brain-bulb for me: it would appear that the reviewing itself has become a game with the primary goal of "defeating" other reviewers. Authors and readers--and the entire publishing industry--are simply collateral damage.

Knowing this helps explain why I got death threats for urging grandmothers to write reviews and show appreciation for other reviewers. If Amazon has become a private online game, the players need to keep little old ladies from wandering onto their turf.

This knowledge also helped me understand the violent, irrational missives I got in response to my post. They might have made more sense if I’d known they came from people who spend more time playing Orcs and trolls in online games than schmoozing their favorite authors at booksignings.

Publishing's role-playing fringe of "fanboys, fantasists and basement dwellers, all leaking testosterone" makes for some hilarious comedy when Gary Trudeau satirizes it in the "Red Rascal" Doonesbury storyline.

But if these are the people who are rewriting the rules of our venerable profession, it's closer to tragedy.

This is an industry where people tend to be nice to each other. Some even think book people are too polite. In the non-Amazon world, most authors don’t consider other authors in their genres to be “rivals” at all. Successful authors write in genres they’ve been reading a long time, so they love to read and promote each other’s books. When the genre is doing well, all the authors do well. The rising tide elevates all boats.

Authors are much more likely to band together for events like Richard Castle's poker game, or the Rock Bottom Remainders than sabotage each others' sales. Most author-bloggers host and promote each other--especially authors in the same genre. Ruth Harris and I write for the same demographic and we not only promote each other, but we belong to a Goodreads group where Boomer Lit authors enthusiastically read and support the work of all Boomer Lit writers.

No author can write books fast enough that we could expect fans to read no books but our own. The whole idea is silly.

Not that we’re going to endorse every single book in our genre, because we want our fans to trust our judgment. That's why book review journals have traditionally hired authors to write their reviews.

And there's the simple fact that experienced authors know how to use language to convey ideas, so our reviews tend to be more informative than those of, say, that random tourist at Fisherman’s Wharf.

I know some people claim the banning of authors from Amazon reviewing is a good thing, because "authors have brought it on themselves" as if people who write are some sort of monolithic entity in which we're all privy to each other's actions. That kind of thinking would give everybody in Connecticut the death penalty because of the Newtown shootings.

It's all zooming fast into the realm of the absurd.
OK, so what can we do?
Joanne Harris calls for an overhaul to the Amazon review guidelines, particularly the "star system." As she said to the Telegraph, "To be honest I would just rather Amazon delete all their reviews as it has caused so much trouble.” She added, “It is a pity. Originally it was a good idea but…it has become inherently corrupt."
In spite of all this, I’m going to continue to urge you to write Amazon reviews (even if you have committed the terrible sin of writing a book or two of your own.) Some reviews are removed and some aren't-- based on those mysterious Amazon algorithms we mortals are not privy to. But I would add the caveat that you should ALWAYS post to several sites other than Amazon in case it gets removed.
Since Barnes and Noble seems to leave a review up forever, even if it’s nonsense from the mysterious Mistyclaw and her online cat-game friends, you can be pretty sure your review will be preserved there. Besides, Nook owners will thank you. If you’re a member of Goodreads, post your review there, too. Mostly it’s a nice community, if a little clunky to navigate. (I admit to difficulties finding my way around myself.)If the author is self-or small press-published, there’s a good chance the book is on Smashwords, where reviews are easy to post and the atmosphere is friendly. Mark Coker is a smart man and author advocate so I think anything we do to support him makes the book industry a better place. If you’re in the UK, you can look for the book on the Waterstones site and paste in your review there. Canada’s Kobo is an international site where your reviews will have a world-wide impact. I admit I’m not sure how to post reviews there, but it’s worth checking out.Read and support book review blogs. The dedicated book review bloggers who donate their time to read and write thoughtful reviews deserve our support and thanks. If you’re an author and would like to have a book review blogger consider your book, here’s a post on how to query them.I urge some entrepreneur out there to set up a site for book reviews like the Rotten Tomatoes site for film reviews. Because RT was set up as a site solely for review curation and not sales, it is the go-to site for most of us. I've got it on my browser toolbar. Wouldn't it be fabulous to have a site for books that had both professional reviews and customer reviews? If you’re an author, take screenshots of your reviews and save them. If your reviews disappear, you can contact the reviewer and ask to have the review posted at one of the more author/reviewer-friendly retail sites. Consider taking your book-shopping dollars/pounds/euros to other sites. Amazon isn't going anywhere, but healthy competition is always good for the marketplace. And who knows: they may just take notice and decide they can catch more flies with honey than the acid that flows through the Amazon forums.So what about you, scriveners? Have you had any reviews deleted—either reviews of your books or reviews you’ve written? Have you figured out how they could have been perceived as “violating” the guidelines of the Mighty Zon? Can you recommend book blogs we should follow in your genre? What other sites are good for finding honest reviews?

An Editor Confesses: 6 Things Writers Taught Me...by Ruth Harris

Best Wishes for a Happy 2013 from Anne and Ruth! 

 Six Things Writers Have Taught Me About Writing 

by former Big Six Editor Ruth Harris
I’ve known and worked with a lot of writers over the years (decades). Some work first thing in the AM, others in the PM, some don’t get started until near midnight. Some write sober, some don’t. Some write on a computer, some on legal pads, and these days some write on tablets. Some edit as they go along, perfecting each sentence before going on to the next. Some keep strict, almost corporate office hours, some write irregularly but in hot rushes of productivity.

Others write a first draft as fast as they can, then go back to edit and revise. Some outline in detail; some prepare elaborate storyboards, others work from a jotted list of scribbled notes; still others let the characters do the work. Some brainstorm the plot with a trusted friend, spouse or editor. Some work with a crit partner getting comments and guidance along the way; others won’t let anyone see their work until it’s finished. Bottom line, there’s no ONE way to get the job done.

No matter where, when or how writers write, though, professional writers have taught me the following:

Let yourself go. Get rid of the inner censor, that stern, humorless second-guessing nay-sayer that kills your ideas before they’re born. That killjoy is telling you your idea is too outrageous, too unbelievable, too over-the-top to see the light of day? Don't listen. Tune him out, shout her down  Don’t quash that zany/loony/nutty idea; instead, let it rip. Play with it and see where it goes. The “unspeakable,” the “unbelievable,” the OMG! “you can’t write that,” are exactly the ideas that lead to the fresh, original breakthrough.

Don’t kill your darlings, kill your inhibitions instead. You can always tone them down later. Considering every possibility, no matter how over-the-top, is the reason TV writers’ rooms are noted for Raunch and Irreverence. The reason? "R & I" I break through the conventions, the “should’s and can’t’s” that destroy creativity.

Edit yourself. Heresy coming from an editor, I know, but professional writers are often excellent editors of their own work. After years of experience, they have learned to recognize their strengths and weaknesses and figured out effective work-arounds.  They have developed the ability to look at their own work objectively and their approach is practical: what works stays, what doesn’t work hits the cutting room floor; aka the delete button.

The ability to self-edit comes with time and experience but it’s a goal for beginning writers to keep in mind.

Consider your book from the POV of a marriage, not a hot affair. Spouses get to know each other very well, are aware of all the plusses and minuses and still love each other. Take off the rose-colored glasses of passionate romance, marry your book instead and live happily ever after.

Bag your lordly delusions. Most of the professional authors I’ve known don’t clutter their minds with undefined notions of “relevance,” “significance” or “art.” Instead, they are experienced, disciplined and competent storytellers and entertainers who understand that craft matters. Great books are about characters, plot, setting, if “art” is the outcome, so much the better but, as in building a house, don’t rely on a gauzy fantasy from a literary review when what you need is a hammer and some nails.

Know your genre. Successful writers whether of horror, romance, thrillers or mystery study their genre. They know what their readers expect and they do NOT let them down. Period. No unhappy endings for romances. Readers want the HEA (happy-ever-after) so that's what the pro delivers.

No “revelation” at the end that the whole book, the characters and their trials and tribulations, was the MC’s dream. We're talking compelling fiction here, not a shaggy dog story. No tearing up in tough-guy noir. Hard edges, dammit! No weepy heart-to-heart confessions in action thrillers. Paranoia is the WTG because paranoia works; paranoia is what the reader wants. Disappoint him or her at your peril. Don't think you can reinvent the wheel. Pros know better.

Rescue yourself. One of the great old-time pulp writers (200+ books) once told me “Each one is a pain in the ass in a different way.”  What he meant was that  at some point each book is going to present a problem. A plot going nowhere. A boring/stupid/addled/DebbieDowner character. Too much/not enough background/research. Too long. Too short. You name it, sometime, somewhere in the course of writing a book, you will get stuck and you won’t know why.

Professional writers have learned how to bail themselves out. Whether it means going back to the beginning and starting again, a light rewrite, a total revision, a personality transplant (for a character, not the writer—lol), the pros have learned how to get themselves out of trouble.

Write. Write a lot. Then write some more. Seriously. Professional writers turn out copy, they meet deadlines, they get the job done and the more they write the better they get. Same with any job, career or profession.  Do you want a surgeon who’s just out of med school or one who’s done hundreds of knee/hip replacements? See what I mean?

How about you, scriveners? What are the most important things you've learned about writing from your fellow writers? Do you write on a computer? An iPad? A legal pad? A clay tablet? Do you have a writing routine or do you work in hot bursts? Do you edit as you go along, or dump it all on the page and deal with problems later?

FREE BOOKS FOR  YOUR HOLIDAY E-READER!
Get a new ereader or tablet for Christmas? Anne's new Camilla Randall mystery, NO PLACE LIKE HOME will be FREE on Amazon on January 1, 2 and 3! In both the US and the UK.  It's a comic mystery about a super-rich home decorating maven who ends up homeless. With the help of a trio of intrepid homeless friends and a little dog named Toto (and the ever-polite sleuth, Camilla Randall) she exposes the secrets of the "financial wizard" who has ruined her life and the lives of so many others. It's #4 in the series, but you don't have to have read the others. All the Camilla mysteries are stand-alones.

And #3 in the series, SHERWOOD, LTD, about mayhem and murder at rogue publishing company in Robin Hood country is still free on Smashwords. for all ereader platforms.

50 Shades author EL James fesses up. Stop the slaughter. A writer remembers the editor who shaped his work. Nifty Nook promo.

I'm posting today with Anne R. Allen: 6 Things Writers Taught Me About Writing.

Ivory now at $1000 a pound.  Kenya makes efforts to save wildlife & stop poaching. Godawful stories like this about the brutality of wildlife slaughter inspired me to write ZURI.

Her guiltiest pleasure? 50 Shades author  EL James fesses up.

The gold standard: A writer explains how a great editor helped shape his work. Ashbel Green


SHOW ME YOUR NOOK!   December 17 thru December 30
1. Do you have a Nook? Take a picture of yourself holding it and upload the photo to @RuthHarrisBooks at Twitter.  If you don't have a Twitter account,  just attach the photo of you and your Nook to an email and send to me at harris.ruth.c@gmail.com.
2. Contact me with your email address & if my million copy NYT bestseller, MODERN WOMEN, appeals to you, I will gift you a copy. If you'd prefer another book, take a look at this knock-your-socks-off list of participating authors, let me know which book you'd like & I'll forward your request.• Cat Kimbriel:  Fires of Nuala  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Jeffrey A. Carver:  Eternity’s End  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook• Phyllis Irene Radford:  Guardian of the Balance, Merlin’s Descendants #1  (Fantasy)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Mark Chisnell: The Defector  (Thriller)  FaceBook• Brenda Hiatt:  Lord Dearborn’s Destiny (traditional Regency romance) FaceBook• Phoebe Matthews:  Demonspell  (contemporary fantasy)  Web Site• Lorraine Bartlett: Murder On The Mind  (Mystery)  Blog• Ruth Harris: Modern Women  (Fiction/Chick Lit)  Blog• Jennifer Stevenson:  King of Hearts  (romantic comedy)  Web Site & FaceBook• Vonda N. McIntyre: Starfarers, Book One of the Starfarers Quartet  (Science Fiction) Book View Cafe• Lise McClendon:  All Your Pretty Dreams  (Adult Fiction)  FaceBook
 THE WOMEN WE WERE MADE US THE WOMEN WE ARE!



Million Copy New York Times bestseller MODERN WOMEN (Park Avenue Series Book #4) by “brilliant” novelist Ruth Harris was originally published by St. Martin's Press in hard cover to rave reviews. In its paperback edition, MODERN WOMEN repeated that success, becoming a national bestseller, and then equaled that achievement for the third time when the Kindle edition rose to #1 on Amazon’s prestigious Movers and Shakers List.
Opening with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on 11/22/63, MODERN WOMEN is about the lives and times of three young women—and the men in their lives. The right men. The wrong men. The maybe men.
Lincky Desmond: She marries Mr. Right—only to risk it all for Mr. Wrong.Elly McGrath: She is loyal and idealistic but when faced with the ultimate betrayal, will she be able to stand up for herself?Jane Gresh: Bawdy, talented and determined not to be ignored, she manages to shock the entire country.Owen Casals: Handsome, successful, magnetic. He marries one, betrays another and makes one of them very, very rich.
“Author Ruth Harris's rapier wit spices up a coming-of-age story. A superb 'rags to riches' novel. You'll love MODERN WOMEN.”--West Coast Review of Books
“Ruth Harris's breezy prose style, peppery dialogue and irreverent observations make MODERN WOMEN fun to read.”--Dallas News
"Funny, sad, vivid, and raunchy. Harris seeks to enliven and entertain, and she does it in spades.” --The Cleveland Plain-Dealer
"Upbeat, sassy. Filled with romantic sparks and fast action ."--Booklist
"Sharply and stylishly written. Harris treads a fine line between popular fiction and more substantive women's literature."--Chicago Sun-Times
"Glory be! Excellent, a thoroughly delightful tale of what it was like to be young, ambitious and in love."--Los Angeles Times
"Fiction at its best. Savvily mixes rosy fantasy with truth about women's lives. Open this novel and prepare to be happy."--New Woman magazine
"A sure thing. I greatly enjoyed MODERN WOMEN and, actually, I couldn't put it down." --The Washington Times
Ruth Harris is “Brilliant.....trenchant, chic and ultra-sophisticated, a writer who has all the intellect of Mary McCarthy, all the insight of Joan Didion.” --Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The five books in the Park Avenue Series are available as single ebooks and in a Boxed Sets: Books 1-3. All available in Nook editions.
Decades, Book #1—A marriage at risk and a family in crisis, originally published by Simon & Schuster to rave reviews —“Absolutely perfect.” —Publisher’s Weekly
Husbands And Lovers, Book #2—Million copy New York Times bestseller. A wallflower becomes a swan and two handsome, successful men vie for her love. “Steamy and fast-paced.” --Cosmopolitan
Love And Money, Book #3—Rich girl, poor girl. Sisters and strangers until fate—and murder—bring them face to face. “Richly plotted. First-class entertainment.” —NYTimes Book Review
The Last Romantics, Book #5—An epic love story set in Paris and New York during the glamorous but doomed 1920’s. “Full of larger-than-life characters.” 5-stars

Writers' cubicles & the Procrastination Zone. Literary museums & an almost forgotten memory.

Writers' Cubicles:

I love their black architect's lamps. Don't know what I'd do without mine—although mine have green shades. Writers, their cubicles & the Procrastination Zone.


Literary museums in a literary city bring back an almost-forgotten memory: 

I was home for the summer from college—we had just read and parsed The Magic Mountain that year. Visiting friends of my family, I saw my father's tennis partner sitting on the veranda immersed in a book.

"What are you reading?" I asked.

"Buddenbrooks," he said. We then had a lengthy discussion of Thomas Mann, the details of which I have forgotten. What I haven't forgotten is that he was reading the family saga (based on Mann's own family) in German and graciously took the time to actually listen to my (no doubt) jejune theories of T. Mann, the symbolic meaning of the mountain sanitarium, and the allure of Mme. Chauchat.

The man was a well-known radio newscaster of his era. Do today's broadcast equivalents do the same kind of leisure reading? Is Brian Williams reading Thomas Mann? In German? In English? On Wikipedia? Thomas Mann, Günter Grass & literary museums.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Video: The Nutcracker Part 1 as danced by the Royal Ballet.

Merry Christmas!

The Nutcracker as danced by the Royal Ballet.

Nifty Nook promo:


SHOW ME YOUR NOOK!   December 17 thru December 30
1. Do you have a Nook? Take a picture of yourself holding it and upload the photo to @RuthHarrisBooks at Twitter.  If you don't have a Twitter account,  just attach the photo of you and your Nook to an email and send to me at harris.ruth.c@gmail.com.
2. Contact me with your email address & if my million copy NYT bestseller, MODERN WOMEN, appeals to you, I will gift you a copy. If you'd prefer another book, take a look at this knock-your-socks-off list of participating authors, let me know which book you'd like & I'll forward your request.• Cat Kimbriel:  Fires of Nuala  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Jeffrey A. Carver:  Eternity’s End  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook• Phyllis Irene Radford:  Guardian of the Balance, Merlin’s Descendants #1  (Fantasy)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Mark Chisnell: The Defector  (Thriller)  FaceBook• Brenda Hiatt:  Lord Dearborn’s Destiny (traditional Regency romance) FaceBook• Phoebe Matthews:  Demonspell  (contemporary fantasy)  Web Site• Lorraine Bartlett: Murder On The Mind  (Mystery)  Blog• Ruth Harris: Modern Women  (Fiction/Chick Lit)  Blog• Jennifer Stevenson:  King of Hearts  (romantic comedy)  Web Site & FaceBook• Vonda N. McIntyre: Starfarers, Book One of the Starfarers Quartet  (Science Fiction) Book View Cafe• Lise McClendon:  All Your Pretty Dreams  (Adult Fiction)  FaceBook
 THE WOMEN WE WERE MADE US THE WOMEN WE ARE!



Million Copy New York Times bestseller MODERN WOMEN (Park Avenue Series Book #4) by “brilliant” novelist Ruth Harris was originally published by St. Martin's Press in hard cover to rave reviews. In its paperback edition, MODERN WOMEN repeated that success, becoming a national bestseller, and then equaled that achievement for the third time when the Kindle edition rose to #1 on Amazon’s prestigious Movers and Shakers List.
Opening with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on 11/22/63, MODERN WOMEN is about the lives and times of three young women—and the men in their lives. The right men. The wrong men. The maybe men.
Lincky Desmond: She marries Mr. Right—only to risk it all for Mr. Wrong.Elly McGrath: She is loyal and idealistic but when faced with the ultimate betrayal, will she be able to stand up for herself?Jane Gresh: Bawdy, talented and determined not to be ignored, she manages to shock the entire country.Owen Casals: Handsome, successful, magnetic. He marries one, betrays another and makes one of them very, very rich.
“Author Ruth Harris's rapier wit spices up a coming-of-age story. A superb 'rags to riches' novel. You'll love MODERN WOMEN.”--West Coast Review of Books
“Ruth Harris's breezy prose style, peppery dialogue and irreverent observations make MODERN WOMEN fun to read.”--Dallas News
"Funny, sad, vivid, and raunchy. Harris seeks to enliven and entertain, and she does it in spades.” --The Cleveland Plain-Dealer
"Upbeat, sassy. Filled with romantic sparks and fast action ."--Booklist
"Sharply and stylishly written. Harris treads a fine line between popular fiction and more substantive women's literature."--Chicago Sun-Times
"Glory be! Excellent, a thoroughly delightful tale of what it was like to be young, ambitious and in love."--Los Angeles Times
"Fiction at its best. Savvily mixes rosy fantasy with truth about women's lives. Open this novel and prepare to be happy."--New Woman magazine
"A sure thing. I greatly enjoyed MODERN WOMEN and, actually, I couldn't put it down." --The Washington Times
Ruth Harris is “Brilliant.....trenchant, chic and ultra-sophisticated, a writer who has all the intellect of Mary McCarthy, all the insight of Joan Didion.” --Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The five books in the Park Avenue Series are available as single ebooks and in a Boxed Sets: Books 1-3. All available in Nook editions.
Decades, Book #1—A marriage at risk and a family in crisis, originally published by Simon & Schuster to rave reviews —“Absolutely perfect.” —Publisher’s Weekly
Husbands And Lovers, Book #2—Million copy New York Times bestseller. A wallflower becomes a swan and two handsome, successful men vie for her love. “Steamy and fast-paced.” --Cosmopolitan
Love And Money, Book #3—Rich girl, poor girl. Sisters and strangers until fate—and murder—bring them face to face. “Richly plotted. First-class entertainment.” —NYTimes Book Review
The Last Romantics, Book #5—An epic love story set in Paris and New York during the glamorous but doomed 1920’s. “Full of larger-than-life characters.” 5-stars

The Secret Writing Rule Book…and Why to Ignore It

Somerset Maugham famously said, "There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are."

But pretty much everybody you meet in this business will tell you there are a whole bunch. (One is "never start a sentence with 'there are'" —so watch yourself, Mr. Maugham.)

I recently read a great post by editor Jamie Chavez about what she calls the Secret Fiction Rule book. She points out that nobody knows where these "rules" come from, or why so many great books have become classics without following a single one. But that doesn't seem to matter. You will hear this stuff repeated over and over again at conferences, critique groups and forums.

Take them all with several shakers of salt. Most are true some of the time, but if you follow them rigidly, you'll end up with wooden, formulaic prose that nobody is going to want to read.

Here are ten of my unfavorites.

1. Show, don't tell:  Authors who follow this rule closely can write such murky stuff that you never know what's going on.

Is this really the best way to present a character? "He wore a helmet with a wide brim, longer in the back to protect the neck, big black boots, and a protective coat and overalls held up with red suspenders. He smelled of ashes and soot."

Why not just tell us he's a %$@*ing fireman already? After three pages of these guessing games, the building has burned down and WE DO NOT CARE.

2. Eliminate all adverbs. Seriously? Even when you're writing in the voice of someone who is, um, rather vague?

3. No prologues. Yeah, I know I've preached the no-prologue gospel because so many beginning authors use them for unreadable info-dumping, but my readers keep pointing out that George R. R. Martin seems to do OK and he loves them. I think it depends on your genre and what your readers expect. Personally, I'll skip it, but I'm probably not your target audience.

4. You must write every day. Nothing should be done every day. Moderation in all things. Including moderation.

5. You must blog to have a successful writing career. Finally, even agents are seeing the silliness of this dictum. You must do what's right for you and your writing. There are many paths to writing success.

6. Cut the last paragraph of every chapter. This annoys me no end. I write great last paragraphs.

You're not going to take them away from me. No, no you're not!!

7. No multiple points of view. Multiple points of view in one sentence—or even one chapter—can be really confusing, but novels with several points of view can be richer and have more depth.

8. Eliminate the words "was", "that" and "just." This one just makes my blood boil. I wrote a whole blogpost about the "was" police.

9. Kids can't die. Jamie Chavez addresses this in her post.

10. Happy endings are required in any commercial book. Ditto.

And here is a little verse I stole from Dorothy Parker wrote about the rules in that Secret Book.

Rules for the Beginning Novelist…with apologies to Dorothy Parker
Writer, writer, never penBackground story till page ten.Use no flashbacks—no, nor prologue.Never start your book with di’logue.Set the hero’s hair on fire.Keep the situation dire.Write in genres tried and trueFrom a single point of view.Tell your tale in linear time.Avoid a plot that strains the mind.No dead kids, bad priests, abuseOr politics in your debuts.Copy last year's biggest hit.No one wants to read new @#%*
Make it light but never funny.
(Humor’s too subjective, honey.)
And if that gets you published kid,You’ll be the first it ever did.


Have a very Merry Solstice Season, everybody!
What about you, scriveners?  Have you run into the "Secret Writing Rules" book? What are your unfavorite writing rules?

REMINDER: Congratulations to the winners of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE..AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY. 

The winners of the ebooks are: E.S. Ivy, Clare London, and Cheri
And the winners of the pbooks are: Stella Notte, Linda Gray, and Jlmbewe

Contact Catherine at ryanhyde at cryanhyde dot com with your address to receive your prize. Some of you don't have blogs or email addresses, so we can't contact you. (A little tip: it's a good idea to put your email address on the "about me" page of your blog. That way agents and editors who fall in love with your deathless prose can contact you. You want to make sure you're home if opportunity knocks. It does. It happened to me!)

Jerry Seinfeld: how to write a joke. 2012 best movies. Show me your Nook.

Two years & a yellow legal pad. How to write a joke. Jerry Seinfeld.

Another end-of-year list. 10 Best movies of 2012.

Nifty Nook promo:


SHOW ME YOUR NOOK!   December 17 thru December 30
1. Do you have a Nook? Take a picture of yourself holding it and upload the photo to @RuthHarrisBooks at Twitter.  If you don't have a Twitter account,  just attach the photo of you and your Nook to an email and send to me at harris.ruth.c@gmail.com.
2. Contact me with your email address & if my million copy NYT bestseller, MODERN WOMEN, appeals to you, I will gift you a copy. If you'd prefer another book, take a look at this knock-your-socks-off list of participating authors, let me know which book you'd like & I'll forward your request.• Cat Kimbriel:  Fires of Nuala  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Jeffrey A. Carver:  Eternity’s End  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook• Phyllis Irene Radford:  Guardian of the Balance, Merlin’s Descendants #1  (Fantasy)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Mark Chisnell: The Defector  (Thriller)  FaceBook• Brenda Hiatt:  Lord Dearborn’s Destiny (traditional Regency romance) FaceBook• Phoebe Matthews:  Demonspell  (contemporary fantasy)  Web Site• Lorraine Bartlett: Murder On The Mind  (Mystery)  Blog• Ruth Harris: Modern Women  (Fiction/Chick Lit)  Blog• Jennifer Stevenson:  King of Hearts  (romantic comedy)  Web Site & FaceBook• Vonda N. McIntyre: Starfarers, Book One of the Starfarers Quartet  (Science Fiction) Book View Cafe• Lise McClendon:  All Your Pretty Dreams  (Adult Fiction)  FaceBook
 THE WOMEN WE WERE MADE US THE WOMEN WE ARE!



Million Copy New York Times bestseller MODERN WOMEN (Park Avenue Series Book #4) by “brilliant” novelist Ruth Harris was originally published by St. Martin's Press in hard cover to rave reviews. In its paperback edition, MODERN WOMEN repeated that success, becoming a national bestseller, and then equaled that achievement for the third time when the Kindle edition rose to #1 on Amazon’s prestigious Movers and Shakers List.
Opening with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on 11/22/63, MODERN WOMEN is about the lives and times of three young women—and the men in their lives. The right men. The wrong men. The maybe men.
Lincky Desmond: She marries Mr. Right—only to risk it all for Mr. Wrong.Elly McGrath: She is loyal and idealistic but when faced with the ultimate betrayal, will she be able to stand up for herself?Jane Gresh: Bawdy, talented and determined not to be ignored, she manages to shock the entire country.Owen Casals: Handsome, successful, magnetic. He marries one, betrays another and makes one of them very, very rich.
“Author Ruth Harris's rapier wit spices up a coming-of-age story. A superb 'rags to riches' novel. You'll love MODERN WOMEN.”--West Coast Review of Books
“Ruth Harris's breezy prose style, peppery dialogue and irreverent observations make MODERN WOMEN fun to read.”--Dallas News
"Funny, sad, vivid, and raunchy. Harris seeks to enliven and entertain, and she does it in spades.” --The Cleveland Plain-Dealer
"Upbeat, sassy. Filled with romantic sparks and fast action ."--Booklist
"Sharply and stylishly written. Harris treads a fine line between popular fiction and more substantive women's literature."--Chicago Sun-Times
"Glory be! Excellent, a thoroughly delightful tale of what it was like to be young, ambitious and in love."--Los Angeles Times
"Fiction at its best. Savvily mixes rosy fantasy with truth about women's lives. Open this novel and prepare to be happy."--New Woman magazine
"A sure thing. I greatly enjoyed MODERN WOMEN and, actually, I couldn't put it down." --The Washington Times
Ruth Harris is “Brilliant.....trenchant, chic and ultra-sophisticated, a writer who has all the intellect of Mary McCarthy, all the insight of Joan Didion.” --Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The five books in the Park Avenue Series are available as single ebooks and in a Boxed Sets: Books 1-3. All available in Nook editions.
Decades, Book #1—A marriage at risk and a family in crisis, originally published by Simon & Schuster to rave reviews —“Absolutely perfect.” —Publisher’s Weekly
Husbands And Lovers, Book #2—Million copy New York Times bestseller. A wallflower becomes a swan and two handsome, successful men vie for her love. “Steamy and fast-paced.” --Cosmopolitan
Love And Money, Book #3—Rich girl, poor girl. Sisters and strangers until fate—and murder—bring them face to face. “Richly plotted. First-class entertainment.” —NYTimes Book Review
The Last Romantics, Book #5—An epic love story set in Paris and New York during the glamorous but doomed 1920’s. “Full of larger-than-life characters.” 5-stars

Best book covers. Best movie posters. Show me your Nook.

More 2012 end-of-year lists.

Graphic designers choose the year's best book covers.

The retro, minimal, satirical, and striking artwork representing this year’s slate of incredible (and yes, terrible) movies. Best movie posters.

Nifty Nook promo:


SHOW ME YOUR NOOK!   December 17 thru December 30
1. Do you have a Nook? Take a picture of yourself holding it and upload the photo to @RuthHarrisBooks at Twitter.  If you don't have a Twitter account,  just attach the photo of you and your Nook to an email and send to me at harris.ruth.c@gmail.com.
2. Contact me with your email address & if my million copy NYT bestseller, MODERN WOMEN, appeals to you, I will gift you a copy. If you'd prefer another book, take a look at this knock-your-socks-off list of participating authors, let me know which book you'd like & I'll forward your request.• Cat Kimbriel:  Fires of Nuala  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Jeffrey A. Carver:  Eternity’s End  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook• Phyllis Irene Radford:  Guardian of the Balance, Merlin’s Descendants #1  (Fantasy)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Mark Chisnell: The Defector  (Thriller)  FaceBook• Brenda Hiatt:  Lord Dearborn’s Destiny (traditional Regency romance) FaceBook• Phoebe Matthews:  Demonspell  (contemporary fantasy)  Web Site• Lorraine Bartlett: Murder On The Mind  (Mystery)  Blog• Ruth Harris: Modern Women  (Fiction/Chick Lit)  Blog• Jennifer Stevenson:  King of Hearts  (romantic comedy)  Web Site & FaceBook• Vonda N. McIntyre: Starfarers, Book One of the Starfarers Quartet  (Science Fiction) Book View Cafe• Lise McClendon:  All Your Pretty Dreams  (Adult Fiction)  FaceBook
 THE WOMEN WE WERE MADE US THE WOMEN WE ARE!



Million Copy New York Times bestseller MODERN WOMEN (Park Avenue Series Book #4) by “brilliant” novelist Ruth Harris was originally published by St. Martin's Press in hard cover to rave reviews. In its paperback edition, MODERN WOMEN repeated that success, becoming a national bestseller, and then equaled that achievement for the third time when the Kindle edition rose to #1 on Amazon’s prestigious Movers and Shakers List.
Opening with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on 11/22/63, MODERN WOMEN is about the lives and times of three young women—and the men in their lives. The right men. The wrong men. The maybe men.
Lincky Desmond: She marries Mr. Right—only to risk it all for Mr. Wrong.Elly McGrath: She is loyal and idealistic but when faced with the ultimate betrayal, will she be able to stand up for herself?Jane Gresh: Bawdy, talented and determined not to be ignored, she manages to shock the entire country.Owen Casals: Handsome, successful, magnetic. He marries one, betrays another and makes one of them very, very rich.
“Author Ruth Harris's rapier wit spices up a coming-of-age story. A superb 'rags to riches' novel. You'll love MODERN WOMEN.”--West Coast Review of Books
“Ruth Harris's breezy prose style, peppery dialogue and irreverent observations make MODERN WOMEN fun to read.”--Dallas News
"Funny, sad, vivid, and raunchy. Harris seeks to enliven and entertain, and she does it in spades.” --The Cleveland Plain-Dealer
"Upbeat, sassy. Filled with romantic sparks and fast action ."--Booklist
"Sharply and stylishly written. Harris treads a fine line between popular fiction and more substantive women's literature."--Chicago Sun-Times
"Glory be! Excellent, a thoroughly delightful tale of what it was like to be young, ambitious and in love."--Los Angeles Times
"Fiction at its best. Savvily mixes rosy fantasy with truth about women's lives. Open this novel and prepare to be happy."--New Woman magazine
"A sure thing. I greatly enjoyed MODERN WOMEN and, actually, I couldn't put it down." --The Washington Times
Ruth Harris is “Brilliant.....trenchant, chic and ultra-sophisticated, a writer who has all the intellect of Mary McCarthy, all the insight of Joan Didion.” --Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The five books in the Park Avenue Series are available as single ebooks and in a Boxed Sets: Books 1-3. All available in Nook editions.
Decades, Book #1—A marriage at risk and a family in crisis, originally published by Simon & Schuster to rave reviews —“Absolutely perfect.” —Publisher’s Weekly
Husbands And Lovers, Book #2—Million copy New York Times bestseller. A wallflower becomes a swan and two handsome, successful men vie for her love. “Steamy and fast-paced.” --Cosmopolitan
Love And Money, Book #3—Rich girl, poor girl. Sisters and strangers until fate—and murder—bring them face to face. “Richly plotted. First-class entertainment.” —NYTimes Book Review
The Last Romantics, Book #5—An epic love story set in Paris and New York during the glamorous but doomed 1920’s. “Full of larger-than-life characters.” 5-stars

2012: Worst Words, Best Dressed. Show me your Nook.

Time for those end-of-year lists. Here they are: The best. The worst.

2012's worst words.

2012's best dressed.


NOOK-alicious!
SHOW ME YOUR NOOK!   December 17 thru December 30
1. Do you have a Nook? Take a picture of yourself holding it and upload the photo to @RuthHarrisBooks at Twitter.  If you don't have a Twitter account,  just attach the photo of you and your Nook to an email and send to me at harris.ruth.c@gmail.com.
2. Contact me with your email address & if my million copy NYT bestseller, MODERN WOMEN, appeals to you, I will gift you a copy. If you'd prefer another book, take a look at this knock-your-socks-off list of participating authors, let me know which book you'd like & I'll forward your request.• Cat Kimbriel:  Fires of Nuala  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Jeffrey A. Carver:  Eternity’s End  (Science Fiction)  FaceBook• Phyllis Irene Radford:  Guardian of the Balance, Merlin’s Descendants #1  (Fantasy)  FaceBook & LiveJournal• Mark Chisnell: The Defector  (Thriller)  FaceBook• Brenda Hiatt:  Lord Dearborn’s Destiny (traditional Regency romance) FaceBook• Phoebe Matthews:  Demonspell  (contemporary fantasy)  Web Site• Lorraine Bartlett: Murder On The Mind  (Mystery)  Blog• Ruth Harris: Modern Women  (Fiction/Chick Lit)  Blog• Jennifer Stevenson:  King of Hearts  (romantic comedy)  Web Site & FaceBook• Vonda N. McIntyre: Starfarers, Book One of the Starfarers Quartet  (Science Fiction) Book View Cafe• Lise McClendon:  All Your Pretty Dreams  (Adult Fiction)  FaceBook
 THE WOMEN WE WERE MADE US THE WOMEN WE ARE!



Million Copy New York Times bestseller MODERN WOMEN (Park Avenue Series Book #4) by “brilliant” novelist Ruth Harris was originally published by St. Martin's Press in hard cover to rave reviews. In its paperback edition, MODERN WOMEN repeated that success, becoming a national bestseller, and then equaled that achievement for the third time when the Kindle edition rose to #1 on Amazon’s prestigious Movers and Shakers List.
Opening with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on 11/22/63, MODERN WOMEN is about the lives and times of three young women—and the men in their lives. The right men. The wrong men. The maybe men.
Lincky Desmond: She marries Mr. Right—only to risk it all for Mr. Wrong.Elly McGrath: She is loyal and idealistic but when faced with the ultimate betrayal, will she be able to stand up for herself?Jane Gresh: Bawdy, talented and determined not to be ignored, she manages to shock the entire country.Owen Casals: Handsome, successful, magnetic. He marries one, betrays another and makes one of them very, very rich.
“Author Ruth Harris's rapier wit spices up a coming-of-age story. A superb 'rags to riches' novel. You'll love MODERN WOMEN.”--West Coast Review of Books
“Ruth Harris's breezy prose style, peppery dialogue and irreverent observations make MODERN WOMEN fun to read.”--Dallas News
"Funny, sad, vivid, and raunchy. Harris seeks to enliven and entertain, and she does it in spades.” --The Cleveland Plain-Dealer
"Upbeat, sassy. Filled with romantic sparks and fast action ."--Booklist
"Sharply and stylishly written. Harris treads a fine line between popular fiction and more substantive women's literature."--Chicago Sun-Times
"Glory be! Excellent, a thoroughly delightful tale of what it was like to be young, ambitious and in love."--Los Angeles Times
"Fiction at its best. Savvily mixes rosy fantasy with truth about women's lives. Open this novel and prepare to be happy."--New Woman magazine
"A sure thing. I greatly enjoyed MODERN WOMEN and, actually, I couldn't put it down." --The Washington Times
Ruth Harris is “Brilliant.....trenchant, chic and ultra-sophisticated, a writer who has all the intellect of Mary McCarthy, all the insight of Joan Didion.” --Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The five books in the Park Avenue Series are available as single ebooks and in a Boxed Sets: Books 1-3. All available in Nook editions.
Decades, Book #1—A marriage at risk and a family in crisis, originally published by Simon & Schuster to rave reviews —“Absolutely perfect.” —Publisher’s Weekly
Husbands And Lovers, Book #2—Million copy New York Times bestseller. A wallflower becomes a swan and two handsome, successful men vie for her love. “Steamy and fast-paced.” --Cosmopolitan
Love And Money, Book #3—Rich girl, poor girl. Sisters and strangers until fate—and murder—bring them face to face. “Richly plotted. First-class entertainment.” —NYTimes Book Review
The Last Romantics, Book #5—An epic love story set in Paris and New York during the glamorous but doomed 1920’s. “Full of larger-than-life characters.” 5-stars

Social Media Overload: How Do Authors Reach READERS? Advice from Bestselling Romance Author Roni Loren

First: We have Contest Winners!
Thanks to everyone who entered our contest last week for free copies of How to be a Writer in the E-Age...and Keep Your E-Sanity! which I co-authored with Catherine Ryan Hyde. We assigned everybody a number (two numbers if you entered on both blogs) and put them into the random number sequence generator at random.org. (Timestamp: 2012-12-16 05:05:33 UTC)


The winners of the ebooks are: E.S. Ivy, Clare London, and Cheri
And the winners of the pbooks are: Stella Notte, Linda Gray, and Jlmbewe

Please contact Catherine at ryanhyde@cryanhyde.com with your address to receive your prize.
Today we have a visit from one of my favorite online author-friends. I knew her even before her name was Roni Loren :-) Roni is an awesome blogger who always has something innovative and thoughtful to say at her blog for the Fearless Romantic. She's become a bestselling author for Berkley Heat through her smart use of social media, so this is market-tested advice. My experience with Twitter and Facebook mirrors hers. I much prefer Twitter, but the readers seem to be on Facebook.
Social Media Overload: How Do You Reach READERS?Guest Post by Roni Loren
If there is one question that all writers would love to have a definitive answer to, it’d be: How do I reach my current readers and attract new readers?

For many of us, the most practical place is online. We don’t have the funds to fly around the country for book signings or to pay for shiny ad campaigns in magazines or on TV, so we go to our computers.

But, of course, the choices are overwhelming. Facebook? Twitter? Blogs? Blog about writing? Blog about...other stuff that readers will like (and what the heck IS that other stuff)?

First, let’s tackle the biggie: blogs. I’ve had a blog going on four years now. I started out as a writing focused blog. That was before I had an agent or was published, so it seemed the obvious track to take. Over time, I’ve morphed into a more flexible blog. Sometimes I blog about writing, sometimes it’s about what I’m reading, and other times it’s just general life topics.

And the reason I made that gradual change was because I went from a blogger who writes to a published author who blogs. The focus changed. Of course, you can have a niche writing blog, and there are many authors like Anne and Janice Hardy who do a fantastic job at providing that to the writer community. However, I chose to go a slightly different route because (a) I get tired of writing about writing at times and (b) I wanted to provide my readers with something fun to if they happened to stop by.

So what should YOU do? Well, that is up to you and what you feel you can maintain and enjoy. If you do decide to stay focused on a more craft/industry type blog, then maybe make sure your website has “sticky” extras that readers can dig through if they stop by. (See my post Author Websites: Layering Yours With Sticky Extras for ideas.) I have photos of my heroes, pictures of The Ranch (the secretive, illicit resort my series centers around), and a music playlist for the books and characters. I also keep a list of what I’ve read that anyone can look through. Those are things readers enjoy. (And my web stats speak to that. The Ranch page gets a surprising amount of hits.)

So try to look at your site through the eyes of a reader stopping by for the first time. What are you offering them?

All right, now on to the two other biggies out there…

Facebook or Twitter? It's a question that people seem to have definite feelings on. Most people prefer one strongly and see the other as a pain. In the past, I've made it no secret that I'm a Twitter girl. I like the fast pace and the simple interface. I like that I can follow a bunch of people and get a little nibble of everything. And frankly, I use it as my blog reader now since I never seem to have time to keep up with my Google Reader.

However, over the last few months or so, I decided to put more effort into my Facebook presence. Many established authors swear by Facebook for connecting with readers, and I know that people are way more likely to be on Facebook than Twitter.

So I begin to put focus on FB and not just by copying tweets over there. FB and Twitter are inherently different in the kinds of updates that "fit." I also made the point of keeping FB more reader-focused than writer-focused. Twitter is filled with my fellow writers who don't mind hearing about word counts or craft-related things. But FB seemed to be getting more pure readers, so I didn't want to bore them with the technical side of writing.

And you know what?

When I did a poll recently, the difference in "crowd" became noticeable.

I posted a question on both Twitter and Facebook asking what I should put on a stamp I'm going to use when I send out signed bookplates. One option was my tagline "For the Fearless Romantic" and the other was "Greetings from The Ranch."

So the results were very telling. Almost every one of my Twitter followers said the Fearless Romantic one. Then on Facebook, every vote was for The Ranch. It was amazing how divided it was.

And then I realized the difference. My writer friends were going for the one that spoke more to "author brand". We've been trained to think that way, to have that marketing hook. But my READERS who are already fans of the books were thrilled at the thought of having "Greetings from The Ranch." One line is meant to "sell" the books to new people. The other serves to entertain people who love the series already.
So, it was an easy decision. Anyone who is asking me for a bookplate is already a fan. Therefore, this needs to be for them. It's not about selling someone new on the book. If this were for promo material at a conference or something, the fearless romantic line would be the better fit. So it was a lesson in knowing who your audience is for something.

BUT, back to the point, this also showed me the clear distinction. Twitter is where my writer friends hang out. Facebook is where more readers are. (At least from my own anecdotal evidence and what I've heard from other authors.)

So which one should you do?

Short answer: Both

Longer answer: If you don't have time for both, do which one you enjoy the most because that's the one you'll probably thrive at.

But here are some things to consider and make a good case for cultivating both...

Why Is Facebook Important?

■ It's the most likely place fans will look for you besides your website.

■ Not everyone is a social media addict (like we writers are). Your every day person may not read blogs regularly, have a google plus profile, a Twitter account, or a Goodreads account. But even the most social media averse person probably has a Facebook page. My grandparents have one, my parents have one, my high school teachers have them. I'm hard pressed to think of someone I know who DOESN'T have one.

■ It allows you longer updates because not everything can be said in 140 characters.

■ It gives you the chance to put up exclusive content and sneak peeks to give your readers something extra for following you and reading your books.

■ You only have to post an update one or two times a day. So there is more opportunity for interaction about one topic.

■ It's easy for people to share you with their friends.

■ And yes, I’m aware that the recent changes with the “promote” button make updates harder for all your followers to see. However, if you post interesting things that get good interaction, the algorithm spreads the message to more people.

Why Is Twitter Is Important?

■ There is an incredible writer community on there. Writing is a solitary business. Hanging out on Twitter is like the office water cooler. You can go there for gossip, encouragement, or just to vent to each other.

■ Some readers do prefer Twitter and that will continue to grow.

■ It is a wealth of blog link love. Like I said, it acts as my blog reader these days.

■ It's more casual than FB in my opinion. Since you can update throughout the day, each update doesn't have to be super profound. : )

■ It's easy to share things via Twitter.

■ It doesn't have all the restrictions like FB. And your followers see your updates--you don't have to pay extra to "promote".

■ You don't get a crap ton of emails anytime someone comments on something.

■ It's less of a commitment for someone to follow you on Twitter. Most people won't "Like" a FB page unless they are a fan already. But many people will follow you on Twitter just to check you out and see what you have to say. So it's easier to introduce yourself and your books to new people.

Each obviously has benefits and drawbacks. But I think if you can manage both, you're going to find you have a more well-rounded online presence. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you and connect with you.

So, if you aren't already there and want to hang out with me, you can find me on Twitter AND Facebook. ;)

And a quick note and PSA on Pinterest and Tumblr because I know someone will inevitably bring one of them up in the comments. If you follow me, you know that earlier this year I was sued for using a photo on my blog that I didn’t have the copyright to. Therefore, Pinterest and Tumblr scare the crap out of me because I know now the rules, and you are not protected. Anytime you post something that you don’t have clear permission from the copyright holder to post, you can be sued for copyright infringement. So use it at your own risk. All I post now are book covers, movie posters, and creative commons licensed pics. *end PSA* : )

So what do you think? Do you have a preference on your social media presence? To those of you on both Twitter and Facebook, do you find a difference in the "crowd"? As a reader, do you seek out authors on any particular social network? Do you read blogs?

Roni wrote her first romance novel at age fifteen when she discovered writing about boys was way easier than actually talking to them. Since then, her flirting skills haven’t improved, but she likes to think her storytelling ability has. Though she’ll forever be a New Orleans girl at heart, she now lives in Dallas with her husband and son. If she’s not working on her latest sexy story, you can find her reading, watching reality television, or indulging in her unhealthy addiction to rockstars, er, rock concerts. Yeah, that's it. She is the National Bestselling Author of The Loving on the Edge series from Berkley Heat. Website: www.roniloren.com

NEWS: Anne is visiting Louise Wise's Wise Words this week with some tips on fixing some of those pesky problems in your WIP that your critique group can't help you with.