Good guest guidelines for guest blogging

Being a guest on someone's blog can be a wonderful way to expand audience. But you won't get much traction with your posts if you can't give the visits proper attention.

I've had lots of guest bloggers here, some of whom did extraordinarily well in terms of page views and gaining new fans, and others who got little attention or engagement.

I've also been on the other side of the table, writing posts for others' blogs, in one-off visits, tours I organized for myself, and in a tour someone else organized. I could definitely see a difference in the experience based on how I behaved as a guest more than how the host did or didn't strive to drive traffic to my post.

Make no mistake, getting a post on a high-traffic blog can be very helpful in expanding your reach. However, "landing the gig" is only the first step. Additional follow up will make the difference in whether blog readers connect with or ignore you.

So how do you make the most of guest posting? Here are some helpful pointers:

1. Create value-added content. Clearly you want to excite potential readers about your new book. But if they only wanted to see a book description, they could simply go to Goodreads or a e-retailer.

So consider how you can share something of value to readers that will also entice them to read your story. Perhaps you tried out a new method of research that was really fruitful for understanding your characters' world. Perhaps you twisted a common trope or created a spectacular mash-up of genres. Share the lessons learned and insights gained, Share best practices, or simply something weird or funny, like how a personal life experience led to a particular plot element or choice of setting.

Give readers the story behind the story and they'll become naturally more invested in continuing to learn more about your work.

2. Think "evergreen" with your content. That is, share information that will be as useful to someone who finds it three years from now as those who find it today. Evergreen posts can be part of your long-term social media strategy--a way to continue delivering good content even when you don't have a new release, provided you re-share and revisit them over time. This method capitalizes on "the long tail" of sales, in which readership grows slowly over time.

OR think trendy, and strive to tap into a controversy-of-the-moment. This method is useful if your goal is to make immediate movement in the sales charts. You will need to do more work up front to keep the post alive within its news cycle, before the content becomes dated.

Either strategy will bring more readers to the blog post. You can probably see varying advantages to each approach.

3. Do your part to drive traffic. You need to be a team player with your host, rather than expecting them to automatically deliver readers. After all, you're an unknown quantity to your host's readers. So make sure you're sharing everywhere that you have great content that your existing connections will want to see.

• Write a short post with a link on your own blog.
• Create a series of tweets to post throughout the day, with a graphic if possible
• Retweet your host's tweets about it
• Share a link on your Facebook page
• Share links in any Facebook group you're in that might be interested in your content
• Include links in your newsletter
• Visit some of your blogging buddies, and they'll likely return the visit

4. Be available. Don't just post and run, or post, tweet and run. Come back and comment.

Be sure to thank your host for hosting you, not only for the sake of your host, but because it shows blog readers that you value the opportunity of being there. Don't let shyness cause you to gain a reputation of seeming standoffish or even entitled. Not sure what to say? Try: "Thanks so much for having me, Host!" It's really that simple.

Interact with everyone who comments. This may be more difficult that you expect, because not all visitors will be lovely and easy to converse with. Some might throw you for a loop with an odd comment you aren't sure how to respond to.

Some will be itching for a fight, so tread carefully, especially if you chose to tap into a controversy. A helpful maxim from St. Paul: "as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" (Rom. 12:18). Try to acknowledge their point of view, thank them for their time, even if they seem nutty. If they personally attack you, don't retaliate in kind. Try to be calm and de-escalate the situation. A helpful post on de-escalating arguments; 5 ways to stop an argument. If your de-escalation doesn't work, stop interacting with that individual. Others might more successfully defend you, but take care that you don't inspire or encourage a mean spirited pile-on. Our world needs good examples of how to have adult disagreements that don't devolve into character assassination. As far as it depends on you, be a peacemaker.

5. Remember that your ultimate goal is building new connections. If you happen to sell some books along the way, great. If not, that's okay because you've done something strategic--become a known quantity where you used to be anonymous. In a glutted marketplace, this is essential.

Seek to connect with those who comment well--follow and comment on their blogs, connect on Twitter and elsewhere. Send a brief message in any of these venues along the lines of "it was great to meet you through [host's] blog." Remember the currency of the Internet is attention. Letting visitors know you see them, that you appreciate their attention and plan to repay it, goes a long way in building goodwill for your author brand.

Those connections can also lead to further guest posting opportunities. If a commenter seems like they are part of your target audience and have a blog, too, it makes sense to reach out. Be sure to offer content that is similar in quality to the post they liked, but customized for them.

6. Don't burn bridges. If someone hosted you on their blog and no one commented at all, or worse, it was a troll-a-thon, don't give in to the temptation to cut ties with the blogger. Some or all of these problems may have been entirely out of their control. Emergencies can keep a blogger from being able to help you drive traffic; trollish behavior can be hard to rein in once it takes hold on a site. It's possible that this blogger can be helpful to your journey with a different book, perhaps if you choose a non-controversial topic to write about, their followers will be more receptive.

Learn what you can from the experience and use that knowledge to approach future guest posting opportunities differently.

Any other tips? What have your guest post experiences been, either as a host, guest, or visitor?

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Finding series material in your stand-alone novels

Book series are all the rage in publishing, Readers enjoy spending more time with familiar characters and/or worlds, and series promise a kind of brand consistency that the risk-averse reader appreciates. They know that if they like your style and content, they're more likely to continue liking your other similar works.

That doesn't automatically mean one should only write series. If you are a young writer, it might be wiser to experiment in numerous genres until you hit your stride and wait to invest time in creating series once you've found the sweet spot --stories that you like to write and readers like to read.

Some genres lend themselves to particular types of series more than others. Romances rarely if ever span several books with the same characters. Romance arcs are usually constrained by reader expectations of a happy ending, not a cliffhanger. Romance series tend to be joined by locale or by theme, spanning numerous discrete pairings whose stories might or might not overlap.

Mystery series tend to follow the same sleuth, but move from case to case, again, eschewing the cliffhanger model. Readers expect a mystery to be resolved by book's end--to be a stand-alone product. The sleuth might develop over the series, or he or she might be a more steady force and the appeal is the new intellectual puzzle rather than character development.

It's in adventure, science fiction, and fantasy (and their subgenres, like dystopian) where cliffhanger endings and incomplete arcs are more the norm. But look at series like Harry Potter, and you'll find that each book has a complete, contained arc, while each book also contributes to and moves forward a larger, whole-series arc. Whether you could create such a series by building on a stand-alone is debatable, however. Rowling's work clearly was heavily planned and structured to give equal weight to each volume's arc as well as the series arc. So I'd think twice about attempting to take your stand-alone fantasy and expect to have a series arc pop out without having been planned it, with seeds planted that have yet to come to fruition.

With those genre-trope caveats out of the way, I'd like to suggest some ways to build series when you've written stand-alone books.

Same world

Some of McCaffrey's Pern series (via Amazon.com)

Frank Herbert's Dune series follows several different characters through a universe he creates in which space travel is made possible through an altered-mind state caused by a rare drug, Spice, found on the desert planet Arrakis. Whoever controls the Spice controls the universe.

Anne McCaffrey's Pern series take place on the planet Pern, where human colonists genetically modified lizards into dragons in order to fight a sky-borne menace called Thread. Books cover everything from the first colonization to generations of dragonriders over centuries, and include other professions in the planet's guild system during its "middle ages," such as healers (Nerilka's Story) and bards (Dragonsinger, Dragonsong, Dragondrums).

If you've spent considerable time and effort building a unique setting, consider how you might use the setting for other stories, focused on other characters and/or other segments of society. It doesn't necessarily need to be a fantastical or otherworld setting either. A New Adult author might work with a particular invented college campus with unique majors or unique campus features. A cozy mystery writer  might set all of the stories in the same region with different amateur sleuths. A literary fiction writer might follow several generations who live in the same oddball town.

Imagine how the unique setting might change over time because of the events in your stand-alone. Consider picking up with your main character's children or grandchildren, or with a secondary or even tertiary character you wished you could have developed more in your first book.

Spin-off characters

L.M. Montgomery's Anne series contains seven books, five that focus on Anne Shirley, and two with her children, Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside. This series follows Anne from childhood, when she is adopted by the Cuthbert siblings, into her teen years, college, early career, marriage and motherhood, moving to several locales in Canada. Once Anne is fairly settled and no longer having madcap adventures, her kids carry on.

Perhaps the sidekick character in your first book would like his or her own story. Or perhaps you'd like to carry forward what happens next from the love interest's point of view, as Gayle Foreman did with both If I Stay / Where She Went and Just One Day / Just One Year.  Perhaps you'd like to experiment with changing genres without switching brands, so spin off a younger or older character and write his or her story in your existing world, but write it as middle grade, or young adult or adult.

Thematic series

If you feel like no characters are begging to have their own story, and you want to try a new setting, consider building a thematic series of stand-alones. The books might have the same kind of content--all coming-of-age, all awkward romances, all entrepreneurs struggling with start up businesses. Or they might have complementary themes, like Melody Carlson does with her True Colors series, each a faith-based story about a teen struggling with a particular social problem, like peer pressure, substance abuse, jealousy, heartbreak, abuse, depression.

Unfinished business

Even if your stand-alone book tied up several loose ends, there might be some that you chose to leave to the reader's imagination, merely hint at, or simply chose to not address for fear the denouement would feel unrealistically tidy. That's the case with my second book, Almost There. It picks up a year and a half after my first book, which deals with my main character losing her dad. But while I gesture toward Dani and her mother heading toward a better relationship, I leave somewhat open ended what that might look like in the future. And her mother's family, Dani learns, have a history of dysfunction that's only briefly examined in Never Gone.

Think about the  How to Train Your Dragon films. While Hiccup and his father have largely reconciled at the end of the first film, it remains to be seen how their relationship will change as Hiccup matures from teenager to man. Plus, the first film hints at the hole left by the loss of Hiccup's mother--a loss shrouded in mystery. That mystery comes to the fore in the sequel.

Unfinished business stories work only if you love your character enough to stick with them into their future. What parts of your initial novel weren't tidily tied up? Conversely, which tidily tied up things might, in time, fall apart? What minor characters lurking in the background want to come forward and interact with your protagonist? What aspects of your protagonist's flaws do you believe will loom large and cause conflict in the future? Build on your previous story, considering where natural consequences would lead over time.

If time has passed since your initial release, it's wise to work to make the sequel understandable as a stand-alone itself.

What are some of your favorite books series and why?

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Building a Twitter following as an author: lessons from the trenches

I was a somewhat late adopter of Twitter, in part because the fast and short nature of posting intimidated me. I'm more of a slow and deep thinker, and at first I thought adding a Twitter feed to my life would make my head explode.

But as I shifted gears to indie publishing, I realized I needed this site to reach a wider audience. Blog reading was on the wane, and I'd heard so many positive things about Twitter, I knew I had to get a grip on my fear and jump in.

My early attempts were half-hearted I admit, but in the past year I've gradually experimented and reached out and basically doubled my follower base. If you are still trying to get your footing on Twitter, this post is for you. If you're feeling meh about using Twitter, this post is for you. If you're a mega guru, maybe you have some wisdom to share in the comments, so please stick around!

Develop a vision 

What do you want your Twitter presence to be? This precedes all other considerations. How vulnerable will you be about your personal life in this forum? Will your persona be mostly serious, mostly silly, mostly enthusiastic, mostly wise, mostly curious, mostly pious, mostly arty, mostly visual? Which parts of yourself will help you reach and connect with your "tribe"? Your tribe is the group where your passions and enthusiasms are shared and supported and cheered on.

Consider the kinds of projects have you written and ones you plan to write. Now imagine your ideal reader. What are his or her interests? Which parts of  yourself do you think this reader will most want to know?

Communicate your vision

Choose your photo, banner image and color scheme to undergird the communication of vision. The visual look might mirror your blog or website, it might echo your book covers. But you don't want a lot of dark and heavy if you write romantic comedy, any more than you want light and fluffy images if you write thrillers. Look at Twitter profiles of others in your genre and emulate those who communicate well a message you also want to communicate.

Side note: If you're especially stumped about picking a color scheme, you might find it helpful to read up a bit on the psychology of color. It's how I landed on plum and tan as part of my branding; the first related to wisdom, creativity and spirituality, the other with warmth and being down-to-earth. Here are a couple of useful articles on the topic:
The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding
Color Psychology

Build your description from your vision: that sense of yourself and your work. Think keywords and allusions. Here's my description: "Urban Christ follower, incurable Anglophile, Ravenclaw. Pro grammar wrangler for hire. My writing explores how faith grows in dark places #CR4U"  Describing your thematic approach is more inviting than listing book titles, I've found--readers and writers are more drawn to a vision than a product name.

As you might guess, I am frequently found and followed by others in my faith tradition, by Harry Potter fans, by other writers, by other editors, by other city dwellers, by other lovers of British culture, and by members of Clean Indie Reads, a Facebook indie author collective, which uses the hashtag CR4U (clean reads for you).

Who you follow, what you tweet, and what you retweet and like--all these things should be guided by your vision. These actions also communicate your vision.

My published work so far has been in diverse genres--Christian fiction, poetry, and nonfiction writing resources. I hope to continue producing work like this and building a following for it. My Christian fiction is quite niche, so that takes the most concerted effort to seek a tribe. The writing resources are more broad. But as you might guess, writing religious work means I'd be unwise to follow just anyone on Twitter. There are are few kinds of accounts I avoid following back if they approach me first--erotica and gore-horror writers, pottymouths, inappropriate photo-posters, political all the time, cranky/agenda-driven zealots, bot accounts, click-farm sales pitch accounts,

You need to know your no-go areas and be thoughtful about it, or you'll find your garbage following takes all the joy out of the platform. For the most part, not following back followers who don't interest you is enough. In the case of inappropriate photo-posters, I tend to block accounts. The pottymoths and erotica and gore folks I tend to simply mute. (Click the sunshine icon next to the follow button in your followers list, and these options will appear in a drop-down menu).

Find your tribe

This is honestly fairly easy to do on Twitter. It is its most powerful feature in my mind. Start by following any writer friends, beta readers, critique partners, and fellow bloggers. Follow your favorite authors and organizations, especially local ones.

Cannibalize their friend lists. Okay, let me put that in a more positive way--check out their follower lists, likely to be full of people who share interests and will be similarly awesome, and follow them. I also find it helpful to RT their pinned tweets or like something they posted recently. It's a way of saying "Hi, you look fantastic, Let's be friends" in a less sycophantic way.

Do keyword searches for things that are part of your vision. Maybe it's your genre. Maybe it's a particular fandom (Star Wars or Sherlock; things like that). Maybe it's a geographic region you live in or write about. Follow away. Retweet and like.

Remember on the keyword searches to look not only at "top" tweets, but also click the next category, "live" where fresh content will be popping up. Folks with tiny followings who may be wonderful friends are likely hiding in there. The top stories are the ones that have had a lot of RTs and likes. They might be worth following if only for a time to find more of your tribe.

Hunt for hashtags popular in your tribe. #YA or #teenreads, for example, will help you find those who love young adult books--reading and writing them.

Join one of the weekly work-in-progress sharing parties like #2bittues (two bit Tuesday) or #1linewed (one-line Wednesday). Look up the hashtag and you will find instructions to participate. This is a really fun way to share small snippets of your writing and find readers who like your style--and for you to find writers whose style you admire.

Post a variety of content

Getting followers and keeping them also requires you to keep putting out content yourself. If you have been blogging for any length of time, you likely have some ready-made content that is eminently tweet-able. For the most part, age doesn't matter either. Your good post about hiring a cover designer in 2013 is just as helpful today.

Pimp your books--but only occasionally. If possible, link not only to your sales page, but also to interviews you've given about it, old blog-tour posts, and really great reviews posted online. Your "buy my book" pleas are better received when they aren't pushy but rather inviting to target readers. Creating photo memes with quotes can be a nice change of pace for getting the word out. Have a variety. Pin a new one to your page (click the ellipsis icon at the bottom of a post and chose "pin to your profile page") every week or so. Keep it fresh!

Share parts of yourself that relate to your vision. Be sincere. I have posted about finishing drafts, about choir practices, about cool things going on in my city, about parenting. These posts might not get a lot of retweets, but they are an important part of building a genuine following.

Share inspiring quotes. You can find them on Goodreads, on BrainyQuote on Quote Garden. Be sure to properly attribute them!

Add useful hashtags in moderation. Some that will help your tweets be found by other writers include #writing #amwriting #writetip #writingtips #amediting #books #amreading. Limit yourself to one to three. More than that just looks spammy and desperate.

Engage with others

Aside from following and following back (with care--remember your vision!), it's essential that you interact with your followers. Twitter gives the impression that it is a 100% live stream, but that isn't the case. It is moderated like Facebook is. Those you don't interact with much stop showing up in your feed--and you in theirs! So make an effort to pop back through your followers list periodically and like or retweet content from folks you haven't seen in your feed recently.

If you love someone's blog post shared on Twitter, add a comment before retweeting, like "I so agree with this" or "fantastic!" or "wonderfully helpful!" Your follower will know you aren't simply automating your sharing, but that you actually engaged. Attention is the currency of Twitter, Share yours liberally.

Ask questions and follow up. This can be a powerful way to deepen the relationships you have, and for your followers' followers to discover you.

Express gratitude to those who share your content. I tend to take a batch approach so that my feed isn't too noisy. It also helps my followers find cool people to follow when I acknowledge them.

A note about automation

I have found it really useful to sit down weekly with Hootsuite and automate some of my Twitter activity. Hootsuite makes it really easy. And you may find it useful to experiment with which times of day your followers are most likely to engage with your content.

Variety is essential with automating. If you post only one kind of thing, it will seem spammy. Share your historic blog posts with news articles with inspiring quotes with memes for your books.

Don't go overboard, posting every five minutes, which you could feasibly do on Hootsuite. Use it to keep some fresh content appearing daily. Two to six automated posts, spread from your waking to sleeping hours, is plenty. Feel free to experiment with hours you aren't awake to engage with folks in other time zones.

Importantly, don't let automation be the only Twitter presence you have. Live retweet others. Live share items. Thank people. Ask questions.

Do you use Twitter much in your capacity as a writer or author? What tips would you add?

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Refreshing

photo by jdurham, morguefile.com

My long-time readers might be a little disoriented, since the scenery has changed quite a bit around here. Laurel's Leaves now has a different color scheme, simplified post layout with click-through, and of course a cool slideshow. There are new tabs up top, separating my books from shorter magazine pieces, and offering other goodies like samples for blog readers. I expect to be adding other tabs in the next few months. The followers widget and search tools by date or tag have moved to the bottom, giving a cleaner look.

In addition to radically changing the blog design, I've also redesigned the cover for my debut novel. All this design tinkering is part of developing my author brand.

Brand is more than packaging. It's finding ways to marry content with form and presentation in a way that's winsome and emotionally meaningful.

Many of us, as we begin to move from single title to a body of work, have to stop and reassess our core strengths and messages. What do I want readers to think and feel about what I provide in terms of a reading experience? How do I build an overall aesthetic that communicates that?

Interestingly, one doesn't need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to these sorts of design decisions. Rather, learn from other authors whose look would be equally fitting for your work. After scouring the virtual shelves, I found a very different aesthetic had grabbed me by the throat, one based on some genre cousins in YA literary fiction.

I'll be back Friday for relaunch festivities. Meanwhile, have a look around!

What do you think of the new look? Have you developed a brand? How did you do so?

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Warning...

This site is under construction

Beware of falling debris

(and dead links)

A beautifully refurbished blog 

coming soon!

image: North Safety Products (www.northsafety.com)

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