Author Promotions and what works

[Misfit]

Apologies for the blatant promo in my signature - but an author has to do what an author has to do!

I don't think you'll find anyone (at least not here) having a problem with that. Interesting, an author wanted to start participating over at Amazon's romance board and she was kind enough to post first and ask what the *rules* were so that she didn't ruffle feathers (those gals don't like spamming). The last time I was on the thread I hadn't seen anyone having issues with the signature line. Personally I think it's great, it lets me know who is an author and who isn't.

[boswellbaxter]

[quote=""wendy""]

Shouldn't a web site strive for individuality? I want mine to reflect the uniqueness of my work and capture the general themes I write about.

What's important to you?

[/quote]At a minimum, I want an author's website to list the author's books and give a description of each book. I also would like to see an excerpt from the book, or at least a link to a site where I can see an excerpt.

When an author writes historical fiction, I like seeing pieces about the history behind the novels and suggestions for further reading. When I'm familiar with the period, I find the latter particularly helpful, because I can get an idea of how the author's going to treat her subject or the extent of the research she's done based on what references she lists (or doesn't list).

I don't like a lot of flashy geegaws on a website, and I don't like to have to do a lot of navigating through the site just to find out what an author's written. I seldom look at book trailers--they really don't tell me anything about whether the book would interest me.

[LoveHistory]

I don't much care for flash either. I like websites to be fairly simple in that I can find the info I want easily. For an author website I like to be able to read a bio, know what books he/she's written and where they are available, excerpts that don't appear in pop-up windows, and contact info.

I have a question about author websites/blogs. What does an author who is not writing historical fiction do for post topics? When the subject matter is fiction, and isn't drawing from current news-like events, what else is there? Does anyone want to read about the author's day to day life? Would it be better to stick to various books the author enjoys? Ok so that's really four questions.

[Misfit]

What does an author who is not writing historical fiction do for post topics? When the subject matter is fiction, and isn't drawing from current news-like events, what else is there? Does anyone want to read about the author's day to day life?

A very good question. I haven't strayed from HF in sometime so I don't follow other author blogs. I'd be interested what other members say who do read them.

[cw gortner]

[quote=""Misfit""]A very good question. I haven't strayed from HF in sometime so I don't follow other author blogs. I'd be interested what other members say who do read them.[/quote]

Though of course I write and blog about hf, I don't post much about my research; not sure why, but it's such an organic process for me, so layered, it feels hard to elucidate it for others. Plus, I never think anyone is very interested, though evidently I might be wrong?

But I also don't like to post a lot of "Look at me, livin' la vida author" stuff either. I think a little goes a long way in that particular department. I've had readers tell me they want updates, but I try to mix it up; so I post reviews, guest blogs from other authors, interviews. I try to keep it hf-focused but also eclectic. I've been wanting to liven it up a bit over at Historical Boys, too, but haven't quite figured out how.

Honestly, between the marketing, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Librarything, etc. it's a miracle we find time to write

[fljustice]

[quote=""cw gortner""]Honestly, between the marketing, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Librarything, etc. it's a miracle we find time to write [/quote]

You find time to write!!?? It's been months since I've written fiction!

[wendy]

"When an author writes historical fiction, I like seeing pieces about the history behind the novels and suggestions for further reading. When I'm familiar with the period, I find the latter particularly helpful, because I can get an idea of how the author's going to treat her subject or the extent of the research she's done based on what references she lists (or doesn't list)."

A great idea BoswellBaxter - I can see how that would be useful. Thanks for the tip.

[Margaret]

I don't care for the fancy animated intros on some authors' sites either. When I go to an author's site (and nowadays I expect an author to have a website and am disappointed when I can't find one), it's to get information, so it's annoying to have to spend extra time watching a bunch of introductory stuff before I can get to the information. Fortunately, even the authors who put this stuff on their sites nowadays usually offer an option to skip past it. Even then, it's more of an annoyance to me than a positive benefit. What I do really like are extra pages offering information about the history behind the novel, the author's research, and beautiful pictures of places related to the novel. I've been known to go to an author's website for a very specific piece of information and then spend a bunch of time exploring it, when it offers these sorts of extra enticements.

[fljustice]

From Galley Cat:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/10 ... ook_b29220