Introductions!

[Aiyana]

Welcome Devin and Anna!

[Jason]

Welcome to the group Aηηα !

[Merenwen]

(Oh my gosh, there is so much to look at in this group! :D)

Hello there! My username is Merenwen Inglorion (because its a bit cooler than my real name ;)).Some of my hobbies are reading, writing, Minecraft, writing, and being beat by my brothers (...and eight year old sister...) in Force Unleashed II. :P
I'm an aspiring author who hopes to have *something* published this month.
I joined this group because I'm looking for Christ-centered writers/aspiring writers to help me along in my own writing journey.

God bless!

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

We're very glad you joined us, Merenwen! I love your username!!! :D
Good luck on your book, too!

[Rebecca]

Hello Merenwen! It's nice to meet you!

[Rebecca L]

Hello Merenwen!

[Aiyana]

Welcome!! :)

[Jason]

Welcome welcome! :). Saw you on the A-Z thread, good luck on your hopeful publication! You will have to let us know what comes of it.

[Bailey]

Hello all! My name is Bailey! I have a lot of hobbies, interests, and things I love, so it's impossible to name them all. But to give a few, I enjoy dancing, reading, writing, playing and listening to music, watching movies, TV shows, and YouTube, and gaming. And I am also a Christian (obvious, I know) ^_^

Excited to join!

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

Welcome to the group Bailey! You'll fit right in here! :)
What kind of dance?

[Bailey]

I took dance classes, so I learned tap, clogging, lyrical, ballet/pointe, and jazz.

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

Ooh, ballet! ^_^

So I totally stalked your profile (I love doing that, hehe!), and we have so much in common!!!!! It's kinda scary..... ;D

[Bailey]

Haha that's ok! And that's cool! What kind of stuff do we have in common? (Just curious)

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

Ballet, history, LotR, writing (fantasy), etc. :D

[Bailey]

Ah okay. Cool! :)

[Jason]

Welcome Bailey! Great to meet you. :) Always nice to see new faces and it looks like you are finding your way around the group. :)

[Bailey]

Yes I am. Thank you for the welcome :)

[Jason]

*thumbs up*

[Bailey]

Thank you Astrid :)

[Stacey]

Hello,

My name is Stacey Robinson. I just published a new book called "Closer to the One". I am working on becoming a full-time writer and I am also going to school to earn my masters in Project Management. I enjoy writing, producing movies, commercials, painting, and acting. You see my work at
www.actingoutforlove.com .

[Jason]

Hey, welcome to the group and congratulations on the book!

Sounds like some exciting pursuits!

I will check out your website and your book. *thumbs up*

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

Welcome, Stacey! Your books look neat! :)

[Stacey]

Thank you!

[MacKenzie]

Congrats on the new book, Stacey!

[Ritchie]

And ... hello, everyone. Lena has suggested joining. I am Ritchie Valentine Smith - Website called, logically, www.ritchievalentinesmith.com - do please have a look. I'm a writer in the UK (London). Latest work is a KDP series called 'Words of Power', a fantasy series very loosely based on the first Christian inroads into samurai Japan. Quite a lot of modern fantasy deals with the grim and dark. I'm looking for the light...

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

Great to have you, Ritchie! Good luck on your books! :)

[Stacey]

Nice to meet everyone. With all the internet sites for social media and book advertising what works for my fellow authors out there? Time is one I know and have to be patient with. does anyone have one particular site that works best for them?

[Jason]

Welcome Richie! Your book sounds interesting and I checked out your site. I think you have done a good job and I loved the little blurb about the book. Very intriguing. *thumbs up*

Stacey, I have wondered that same thing! Honestly I stick to G+ facebook and goodreads. I get the most response from G+ personally but I could not tell you which has sold books for me.

I do have a twitter but it rarely much activity. I also have a pinterest but unless it is my Lord of the Rings board or Starwars board I don't have a ton of activity there either. :P lol

What types do you use?

[Ritchie]

Thanks Lena, Astrid, Jason... Thanks Jason for the good words on www.ritchievalentinesmith.com - which I'm now pleased with, after some months of re-working it (with the Webmaster, I didn't design it myself).
More generally - and I've had some novels out in the UK, as well as a couple of plays on (London and Edinburgh) - there's no doubt that publicity is oxygen! But, unless you've got excellent contacts, or even fame, or a large budget, I think patience has to be a virtue. But patience, time, does allow you to get the work right...
I've dabbled in a tiny amount of advertising, with a small amount of notice from it. We are still refining...
More later?

[Ericka]

Hello Everyone,
I am Ericka Thompson. I am interested in Father, reading, writing, gardening, and marketing. I have been studying marketing for years and watching the evolving landscape for self published authors. Rise of the Machines by Kristen Lamb is a good start for marketing your books. Also regarding which platform to utilize you have two avenues. The first is use what you are comfortable with. As authors we are fortunate to be able to reach out to multiple people every where.
The second approach is to figure out who your target market is and reach them on their preferred platform.
G+ is mostly comprised of male programmers.
Pinterest is women oriented etc
Hope this helps.

[Jason]

Yes, Ritchie. I think you are right on that! It is hard if you have no fame or a large budget. Patience is probably going to be your biggest asset in those situations.


Hey Ericka! Thanks for the tips, any bit helps for sure. :)

[Ritchie]

Ericka - interesting! I have heard of pinterest though didn't know it was 'woman oriented', and I'm unfamiliar with 'G+'.

Jason - right now I'm concentrating on the work, as I should fairly shortly have a complete 4-book series, which I'll then think again about publicizing as something major and complete. But this isn't an exact science and time is a good teacher!

As well as some string-pulling and minor advertising, I think I will put up a couple of pieces on the associated site, see what happens...

[Jason]

*nods* Not an exact science, got that much right! lol

That's really cool! I have my first of a four book series out on amazon, am writing the second book, have the third book written but it needs a re-write and editing something fierce. :P and then am working on the plot for the 4th book mainly because I can't stop the ideas from coming!

I have tried G+ and pinterest. I have got best results with G+ but not really much of those results have ended in a sale.

[Ericka]

I think from the advertising perspective it helps to decide what it is that you are trying to accomplish when using a medium. The real key is to figure out a way to get people to sign up for your email list and than you are in business! Since both Jason and Ritchie both have series, I would suggest doing a free book promotion. At the end of the freebie offer the second book free when they sign up for your email. The first two books become losses during the free time, but they get you something more valuable, an email address.

[Ritchie]

The advantage of Amazon Kindle is that you can access the books from anywhere and read a good percentage for free - I think it's 10%, which means in my case that you can read 20,000 words out of the 198,000. That should be enough for a reader to decide if it's a book for them...
The disadavantage, of course, is that it's very hard to get visibility - i.e. if nobody has heard of you, nobody is going to click onto even the free sample...
Tricky one!
I would advise writers starting out, especially, to maybe produce short-ish books. 80K words, perhaps... What do other people think?

[Jason]

Ericka, that is a good point.
I have been contemplating trying to build an e-mail list. However, at this point I know I don't have enough exposure to make much of a list. In light of that I have been trying to gain exposure through the help of other authors and such things once I have more contacts and such that are willing to help me build that e-mail list I figure I will try and work something up.

However, another issue is... I have two kids, a wife, a full time job AND my writing... I don't have just a ton of time to sit down and write regular e-mails.


Exactly Ritchie... getting someone to pick it up in the first place is the biggest challenge.

[Phillip]

Hello all, I'm excited to be getting into the Goodreads Discussion Groups a bit more. I'm a teen writer, I have been dabbling in writing since I was eh, eleven I suppose, so for about six years now. I have actually been blessed by God quite a bit recently, one of my manuscripts was picked up by a Christian Publishing House and got published in April. I absolutely love Medieval Fantasy, my favorite color is dark green, and I love reading. I'm a particular fan of Flanagan, Cliff Graham, Roth, Collins, and the greats like Tolkein.

[Lavay]

Hi, Phillip! Welcome! I'm Lavay!

That's really cool that your manuscript was published by Christian Publishing House! God really has blessed you!

I also love Medival Fantasy! You should check out the Illyon Chronicles by Jaye L. Knight and The Makilien Trilogy by Molly Evangeline!

These are really cool medieval fantasy series!

Any way, welcome to our group!

[Phillip]

Thanks so much! They look really great, I am looking forward to checking them out!

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

Welcome, Phillip!! Fantasy is absolutely the best!!! ;)
Your book looks pretty neat! Congrats on getting it published! That must be such an awesome achievement. We're so glad you joined us!

[Phillip]

Thanks for having me! It's good to be among birds of a feather! I appreciate that, it really was an amazing blessing.

[Daniel]

Hi Phillip, congrats on the book! This is a great group to be involved in. Lots of amazing Christian writers here who have awesome discussions. Glad to have you on board!

[J.C.]

Hi my name is J.C.! I'm 14 years old and I've self published 2 books The Hidden Amethyst and You'll Be Like Faye! I was excited to find this group! I love Christ and want to follow Him in all that I do!

[Lavay]

Hi, J.C.! Welcome! I'm Lavay and a Christian "independent" author like you!

What an amazing accomplishment to self-publish at 14 years old!

You're books look really interesting.

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

Welcome, J.C.! We're glad you found us too!! Hope you enjoy it here! :D
Congrats on your books!

[J.C.]

Thank you!!;)

[Merenwen]

Welcome, newcomers!

@J.C.: That is so cool! I'll definitely check your books out. :)

@Phillip: Neat! What publishing house, and/or what book? I'm always eager to get my hands on Christian fiction, new and old alike. :)

[Phillip]

I published through Outskirts Press, based in Colorado. It's called-- Seraph's Rise (Subtitle: Part one of the Sentinels' Epic)

[[deleted user]]

I'm Shine. I write my own Heroes and Villains stories. Inspired by Marvel Universe.

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

Welcome, Shine! It's great to have you!!!! :)