Some links I’ve come across lately that have made me think:
So I worked in search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet marketing for several years, and I know Google can be daunting. Rick Daley has a good guest post on using SEO for authors. My favorite tips are that you need to go beyond your name and book title. You should be ranking for those anyway! Think about what people who are looking for a book like yours might type in to search. You can use tools from search engines to see if people really are using those keywords or similar ones.
Want to really up your productivity? Check out how one author quintupled her daily output. (via @LuisaPerkins via @AnnetteLyon) I’m trying these methods out and I have to say I really like the idea of making all those tiny little decisions BEFORE rather than DURING the actual writing process.
I’m having a lot of conversations with one of my critique partners about setting lately (it’s something we’re both working on), so when I saw this article on active vs. passive backstory/description tweeted, I had to click. Great examples from published novels, too. (Sorry, I couldn’t find who’d tweeted this in my stream 🙁 .)
Edittorrent blogged about Dean Wesley Smith’s latest article on the history of literary agents and whether we need them today. The comments on Smith’s article lead me to Laura Resnick’s website and her three-part series on agents as well as her article on experiences with the agent-author business model. OTOH, I know lots and lots of people who really like working with their agents—people who are getting big book deals, too. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is that I’m so glad I don’t have to make this choice right now.
What links are making you think right now?