Tina Haapala, Excuse Editor

Social Networking Tips for Authors Social networking is a powerful way to grow your business, reach, readers, and sales. As an author, you want to become known for your area of expertise and as the go-to person for your topic. The purpose of social networking is not to constantly promote your book, but rather to be seen as someone who interacts and offers value to the community. You want to network with people who are interested in you and your topic as well as with other authors. By networking with other authors you will gain ideas and suggestions for additional ways to promote your book. Networking with people interested in the topic you write about allows you to grow your readership as well as the sales of your books and programs. Engage your readers in conversations that lead to more referrals and sales . By taking the time to set up your profile on several of the key networks, you will benefit in many ways. You will meet and connect with more people and become known as an autho...

 I try to include 20 or so new listings in the monthly "Scoop", including those with deadlines that are close (in case you have something collecting dust that would be perfect to submit). It never fails, once the list is complete, and the email's been blasted, I come across one or two more. Sometimes I share them on the Facebook and Twitter pages (so like and follow , if you don't already!), but today I'll share a few with July 31 deadlines  (where is this year going?!). If you are not a subscriber, this gives you a taste of what you get every month from the Excuse Editor. Enjoy. Deadline: July 31 Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award  3000 word max $15 entry fee  1st place wins $1,200, publication in  Glimmer Train Stories , and 20 copies of that issue; 2nd-place: $500;3rd-place:$300 Standard Submissions 12,000 word max NO ENTRY FEE $700 payment for accepted stories (and 10 copies of that issue) Journal of Experimental Fiction Kenn...

Is it Time to Disappear?  Why I Became a Ghost--and Why you Should, Too I never intended to become a ghostwriter. After all, why would I spend months of my life toiling away on someone else’ s book? No thanks. I only wanted to write my own books, and that’s what I did. I soon found, however, that the life of a book author wasn’t quite what I’d envisioned. I was working long hours, yet making less money than I had before, when I wrote only articles. The reason was simple—the time I spent promoting my books left me less time to write articles and other books, which cut into my income.             Fortunately for me, I was approached by a nutrition expert about coauthoring her book. I found I enjoyed collaborating with her, but the real payoff came when we finished the manuscript. As the author, she now had to start promoting it—but I was all done! That was enough for me. I decided to pursue coauthoring and ghostwriting, and “my” next book was ghos...

Start Checking off Your List Every month, I send a list of writing contest and market announcements to my newsletter subscribers. It's called "The Scoop." It usually contains more than 30 different places looking for submissions. People seem pretty interested in this list, as it gets way above the average "opens" every month; last month's list received an 83% open rate. (According to aweber , the average open rate is 20-40%, depending on the day that it's sent). While I'd like to think that I've mastered the art of the e-mail subject line, making my list irresistible, I know the truth. My readers love to discover different places to send their writing, and why not use the somebody else's research to give them some ideas? Of course there's a few who unsubscribe, and a few of those who were nice enough to tell me why. "I'm overwhelmed," said one. Another: "I have no need for this." So, in the spirit of making...

Image: Ambro Sometimes it's a picture taken at an unexpected time (you know, the one where you say to your friend, "Please don't post that on Facebook"), sometimes it's a news report about the dangers of "belly fat", and sometimes it's just another pair of pants that just won't seem to button without Herculean effort, whatever it is, it's telling you, it's time to DO Something. No, you didn't just stumble onto a weight-loss or fitness blog; I'm still the Excuse Editor, but I'm also a late 30-something woman who is realizing the importance of listening to the clues from her body, mind, and world around her. And the memo from my choice of skirts with elastic waistbands started to read much like the writing on the wall from my writing procrastination days. The Excuse Editor Steps To Writing Fitness You know you need to work out when there's too much of you to fit into YOUR jeans. You know you need to get writing wh...

During my "buzz-session" at the OWFI conference, I talked about how important it was to not squander the time and money spent on conferences, classes, and coaching. The frugal part of me related it to a gym membership. When I am paying an annual or monthly fee, I want to get my money's worth! Say I pay $50 a month. If I go 3 times a week, it's like paying about $4 each time; but if I go 5 times each week, I get the same gym benefits for only $2.50 a visit! What a bargain! I get healthier and can be a cheapskate at the same time! Here are a few hints to help you get a healthy impact from your already spent conference dollars: Start immediately. I met one writer who actually skipped a few of the Saturday sessions because he was so inspired to write and attempt to fill a whole in his novel. That may be too soon for most of us, but the idea is sound: Get moving before the afterglow starts to fade. If one of your goals was to get back into the habit of writing, do...

Flying Words You made it! You may have had to wrap up your day job duties or make sure your current deadlines were met before traveling a few hours or longer, but you are finally at the writer's conference. More than likely, the money has already been spent (or is weighing down your credit card), so do what you need to do to make it worthwhile (and get that ROI, return on investment)! To Boldly Go... Don't shy away from unfamiliar subjects. Sure, there are the tried and true topics that you are positive you will get something out of. That's great, unless it is your 3 rd " Create your own e-book " session in as many years and you have yet to reformat a single word file into html or research an e-publisher.