web stuff 4 writers

I’ve probably seen hundreds of trailers for films in my lifetime.  Almost every trip to the cinema begins with those short clips, highlighting the best bits of movies-to-come.

This week, I’ve seen my first book trailer - or rather my first nine book trailers - which have been posted on YouTube to promote the launch of Douglas Coupland’s new book, The Gum Thief.  Three of the snippets are from the point of view of Roger, the main character.  Three are from the point of view of another character, Bethany.  And three are extracts from Roger’s own novel, Glove Pond.

Here is my favourite - it’s an introduction to Bethany:

You can view the rest on Douglas Coupland’s YouTube page.

Your thoughts

I’m probably not the best person to comment on the effectiveness of these videos, as I’ve already bought and read (and enjoyed) The Gum Thief.  For anyone who hasn’t read the book, do these videos leave you wanting to find out more?

Tags: Promotion by Natasha
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What is Bookcrossing.com?

Bookcrossing.com is a book sharing website.  Members register their books on the site, then leave them in the wild (on park benches, in coffee shops, in trees and so on) for others to find, or pass them on to another read through organised bookrings.  Each new reader writes a journal entry about the book, so that previous readers can track its journey.

How writers can use Bookcrossing.com

I’ve been a member of the site for about four years now, and – through finding books in the wild and through bookrings – I’ve been introduced to authors and works that I might have otherwise missed.  Though the Bookcrossing.com monthly meetups, I’ve also met a number of fellow readers, in Melbourne when I lived there, then in Wellington, and recently in London. 

There may be people out there who’ll argue with me, but I believe that reading and talking about what you’re reading is of great benefit to a writer.  And by following the journal entries of the books I’ve read, I’ve been able to see what does and doesn’t appeal to certain readers.

Earlier this year, I also set up two bookrings for my novel Lessons to Learn: one for Bookcrossing members in Europe and North America, the other for members in Australia and New Zealand.  On the day after the launch, I mailed the copies to the first participants.  The feedback has been mixed: some have enthused, some have been indifferent – but it’s feedback either way and it has been interesting to see what each reader has picked up on. 

Does Bookcrossing.com hurt book sales?  No more, I’d argue, than libraries do.  Perhaps less.  After all, I have been know to buy extra copies of my favourite books so I can share them with others through Bookcrossing.com  On the Bookcrossing.com forums, this topic is discussed further in a thread called Authors and Bookcrossing.

Your thoughts

What are your thoughts on book-swapping websites such as Bookcrossing?  Are you a member of any?

Tags: What is? by Natasha
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Earlier in the year, the UK rock band, Radiohead, announced that they were going to sell their latest album via their website, inrainbows.com. Nothing new there. What was different was that, when the buyer got to the virtual check-out, they were presented with a pound sign and then an empty box. Click on the question mark next to this box and they got the message, ‘it’s up to you’.

In other words, as the consumer, you could pay what you thought the album was worth.

Fast forward to earlier this week, when I discovered this Associated Press article: Most Fans Paid $0 for Radiohead Album. According to the study quoted in the article, 62% of the survey participants downloaded the album for free. The remaining 38% paid an average of US$6.00.

So, at first glance, it seems that Radiohead’s not making as much money out of this album as they would if they sold it through the music stores. What they are doing though, is making headlines. They’re getting their name out there, creating a buzz. And a buzz will sell box-sets, and buzz will get people to their gigs.

Also, when you download the album – even if you pay nothing for it – you have to register for an account with the inrainbows.com website. I’m not sure how this data will be used, but when you sign up for any website, there’s the potential that you’ll be made aware (usually by email) of any future products or campaigns.

Your thoughts

Do you see this business model working for book sales? If you had the option of downloading it for free, would you still pay for the right to download a book by your favourite author?

Tags: Promotion, Publishing by Natasha
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It doesn’t matter whether you’re hiring a team of professional web-designers to create you a high-tech, database driven website to promote your writing or whether you’ve got a couple of friends who are going to pull something together for free – there’s still some questions you might want to ask them before they begin.

1. Can I have a look at some of your past work?

In most cases, yours won’t be the first website that this person has developed. Ask if they can email you some links to other websites they’ve worked on, or if they can mail you a site or two on CD. Looking at their previous sites may give you a better idea of what you like or don’t like, and an indication of what the designer may be able to do for you. Of course, building any website is a usually team effort, so it may be worth asking your prospective web person, which part of the site he/she built. It’s no point choosing someone because of the fantastic graphics on one of his/her portfolio sites, if those were designed by someone else altogether.

2. How do you charge?

Some web designers will quote for the whole job, and ask for a percentage up front and the remainder once you’ve signed off on the project. Others will charge an hourly rate. If you intend your web designer to update your website regularly, you may also want to ask if these updates will be at an hourly rate or at a fixed charge per update.

3. Can you recommend a good hosting company?

At the end of the day, you don’t want a great website sitting on your computer hard-drive. You want your great website up on the web. To do that, you’ll need a website hosting company for space on their server or find somewhere to host your website for free. Your web designers may be able to recommend a company they’ve used before, or provide you with quotes for a number of services.

4. Will everybody be able to find and see my website?

It’s no good having a website that doesn’t show up on search engines. Similarly, it’s no good having a website that doesn’t display correctly on certain browsers (especially if those browsers are major ones like Internet Explorer and Firefox). Ask how much testing will be done before the website goes live.

5. How will my website be updated?

This will be particularly important if you want to update the website yourself. Ask if you will be able to update the website online, or whether you will need a software programme such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Does the amount that you’re paying for your website include training in how to update it? Will you be given a copy of the files at the end of the project?

Your thoughts

Are there any other questions that should be added to this list? If you’ve had a website created for you, how was the experience of working with a designer? Are there things you wish you had asked or did it all turn out okay?

Tags: Creating websites by Natasha
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A few more writing resources from across the world wide web.

• Overwhelmed by emails? Not getting any writing done because your mind’s on those blog entries you need to respond to, those websites you have always meant to revisit? You might want to read Digitally Bankrupt, which is about starting over in the online world.
• The Daily Blog Tips blog also has 10 Tips for Managing Email Effectively.
• Alternatively, you could save time on your research and other novel-writing activities, by checking out Mashable’s 30+ Tools for the Amateur Writer.
• Meanwhile, over on Information Today, Roberta Roberti has written a piece about Blogs to Book deals, focusing on The Julie/Julia Project blog which went on to become the book, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.

Your thoughts

Found a new website for writers this week? Started a new series or posted an interesting article on your own writing-related blog? Please leave a link in the comment box below.

Tags: Web links by Natasha
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Tomorrow night, I’m starting a four week writing workshop, organised by the London literary project, Spread the Word.  With an MA in creative writing under my belt as well as several undergraduate papers and a number of evening classes, I guess you could say I’m a bit of a writing workshop junkie.

However, I know that not all writers feel the same way about the usefulness of such workshops – which leads me to this week’s writing about writing question…

Writing about writing, Week #7

What’s your opinion of writing courses?  Do they offer anything to writers?  Is writing something that you think can be taught?

If you’ve answered this question in your blog, please leave a link to the entry in the comments box below.  Alternatively you can write/paste your answer directly in the comments box.

Tags: Writing about writing by Natasha
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In Saturday’s entry, while writing about about blog tours, I mentioned touring writer, Trish Milburn and added a link to her website. This morning, I received a notification that Trish had commented on that entry. There are millions of blogs out there. There are millions of entries posted each day. How did she find out about mine?

She received a Google alert.

What are Google alerts?

Google alerts are email notifications that you receive when a certain term (which you have specified) is mentioned in a blog post, news story, web page, or Google group.

You can choose to receive these emails, once a day, once a week, or as soon as the term is discovered by Google.

How can writers use Google alerts?

Writers may wish to enter their own name, or the names of their books or websites, as a search term so they will receive an email whenever these are mentioned on the web. It’s worth noting though, that if you or your works have a common name, some of the results you receive may not be relevant.

If you blog or write articles about a niche topic, signing up for Google alerts related to your keywords, will also keep you up-to-date with what’s newsworthy in that area.

You can create your alerts by entering your email address and search terms at the Google alerts website.

Your thoughts

Do you use the Google alerts service? What ‘search terms’ have you specified? How relevant is the information that the service delivers?

Tags: What is? by Natasha
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In Friday’s entry, I wrote about how writers could use the basic features of facebook.com – the groups, event calendars, and profile fields that become available to them as soon as they become a member of this social networking website.

However, there’s more to facebook than these basic tools. Earlier this year, the owners of facebook began to allow external organisations and web developers to create their own applications.

There are hundreds of these applications now available: from maps applications which show all the cities you’ve visited to vampire/werewolf applications which allow you to virtually bite your friends and have them join your monster army. Here are a few of these applications which as, a writer, you might find fun or useful.

Blog RSS Feed Reader

This application uses your blog’s RSS feed to display the titles of your recent entries within your facebook profile. Profile visitors can click through to your website to read the full text, or subscribe to the feed directly from facebook.

Books

As a writer, I’m also a reader – and the Books application allows you to share your opinions on the books you’ve read (as well as keeping track of any comments that facebook readers have left about your own). The book information is generally taken from Amazon, but if the book you’ve read doesn’t appear there, you can add it most of it yourself.

There are a number of different versions of this application. At the moment, I’m using the one coded by Larry Gadea and Martin Mroz.

Storylines

This is a shared story application. You write the first 200 characters of a story, then invite your friends to add their 200 characters and see where the narrative goes. This one was a bit buggy when I first installed it, and I couldn’t see new additions to my stories for days at a time. However it seems to be working fine now.

Scrabulous

Scrabulous is a online version of my favourite word game. You can challenge up to four friends to a match, with each player taking their turn when they’re logged into facebook.

How to add applications to your facebook profile

1. If you want to add the specific applications I’ve mentioned here, you can search for them by their name. Alternatively you can browse applications by keyword.
2. Clicking on the name of the application in the resulting list will usually take you to a page with general information about the application. Click on ‘Add Application’ to add it to your profile.
3. The application may need some extra information from you in order to display correctly. Once you’ve filled in all the details, the application will appear as a box on your facebook profile.

Your thoughts

If you’ve got a facebook profile, do you use any applications to help promote your book? Or are there any writing-related games you play via this social networking website? Leave a comment and let us know.

Tags: Procrastination, Promotion by Natasha
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Here’s a new concept for the week: blog tours.  Well, the concept is new for me at least.  Other writers, it seems, have been packing up their virtual bags and touring round the blogosphere for months now.  There are even organisations, like Pump Up Your Book Promotion PR who specialise in these online book tours.

How does a blog tour work?

Instead of visiting bookstores and libraries to promote their new book, a writer will make guest posts on a number of blogs – trying to visit as many as possible within a restricted ‘touring’ period.

At each ‘stop’, the writer will either take questions from the blog author and readers, or post an entry on a prearranged topic.  Touring writers will often publish their itinary on their own website, as seen here on Trish Milburn’s blog.

Why go on a blog tour?

As far as I can see, there’d be two major advantages to going on a blog tour.

The first, and probably most important, is that it gets the ‘buzz’ about your book, out to new audiences.  Blogs that host tours may have many more daily readers than your own blog or website.  If you pick your blogs carefully, you might also be able to reach people who are unaware or unfamiliar with your work, but already interested in your subject matter.  For example, if you had written a non-fiction book about scrap-booking, you might want to target craft blogs, blogs by craft store owners, and so on.

The second is that, your appearances may inspire the readers into online action.  If you’re on a shortlist for a contest, as Trish Milburn is, at the end of each post you can call for votes.  Or, if your book’s available online, you can provide a link to a site where the reader can find out more and maybe purchase a copy.

Over at The Blog Tour Spot blog, there is an evaluation of Mary DeMuth’s tour of 85 blogs in six weeks, as well as more information about blog tours and tips that might come in handy if you’re organising your own.

Your thoughts

Have you seen authors on blog tours?  Have you been an author on a blog tour?  Do you think that the publicity gained is worth the time commitment involved?

Tags: Promotion by Natasha
2 Comments »

What is facebook?

facebook is another social networking website, which allows its members to keep in touch with their friends and associates. Membership was originally restricted to university and college students, but in late 2006, use of the site was opened up to pretty much anyone with an email address.

To give you some idea of the site’s popularity and reach, I’d suggest you check out the BBC news article, 15 reasons why facebook may be worth $15bn.

How writers can use facebook

It’s probably fair to say that facebook is a more ‘closed’ website than some of its social networking competitors (such as Bebo or MySpace). To see most of the information, you need to be a logged-in member. To see someone’s profile – depending on the privacy settings on their account – you may need to be listed as their friend. Unfortunately this means I can’t provide links to content.

Instead, I’m going to provide a list of ways that writers could use facebook, by taking advantage of the basic tools and applications that are available to you as soon as you become a member.

• Add relevant links to your user profile. Under contact details in the profile editor, you can add a link to your writing website or blog. You can also use the posted items application to let your friends know when you’ve written an entry or found a website that you want to share.
• Join one of the writing related groups. Search for ‘writing’ using the groups application gave me 500+ results.
• Start your own group. As an alternative to an email list, you might want to start a facebook group about your writing. Then you can send messages to all the members of the group, share related videos or photos, and join in any discussion on the group’s message board.
• Advertise your event. Whether you want to promote a performance of one of your plays or the launch of a new book, you can make it an ‘event’ for it on facebook. You may wish to allow your friends to invite their friends, which will get the word out to a much wider audience.

There are also a number of ‘add-on’ applications which may be of use to writers. I’ll cover these in a later entry, but in the mean time, if you’ve got any other suggestions about how writers can use facebook or any opinions about the service in general, please leave a comment below.

Tags: What is? by Natasha
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