Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

As the publishing business continues to change, authors are ever-more reliant on social media. Great for me. I love interacting with my friends and readers here, on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr , at my website ... I could go on and on. But it's not as easy as it looks. We don't want to just shout at you "Buy my book" all day. Or "Buy my friend's book!" We do want to share stories, pictures, funny things, cat pictures (I do dog pictures, allergic to cats), and learn more about you in the comments. That's why we love comments. It's not all about us when you comment. It's actually very hard to be that into ourselves. We prefer the interaction over the promo. Thank you all for commenting! Thanks for being my friend. Writing is such a lonely profession. I'm having a contest now. If you go on out to my Facebook and click "like," you will become part of my community, from which I will choose one random winner to receive Downton ...

By Danielle Dresser One of the most frequent questions I get asked is what authors should be doing on their own when their book is finally available and also between releases to promote their books. These aren’t the easiest question to answer because everyone has their own schedules, and own levels of comfort when it comes to self-promotion, but here are some ideas: When your book is FINALLY in stores… This the time period when you are allowed to brag a little :) Reviews are coming in, so you should be receiving Google Alerts like crazy with links to wonderful reviews of your book. Share those! Most book blogs have an option to share the review through social media—Twitter, Facebook, etc. (for an example of what I’m talking about, look at the line of buttons near the bottom of this blog post… those buttons are all direct links to share this blog post via social media). This is an easy way to keep readers in the loop about what’s going on… it’s also a nice way to recogniz...

By Danielle Dresser Happy New Year! It’s always exciting to have a fresh start. I thought I’d share my list of things I’m working towards this year, in regards to publicity: 1. Social Media. It seems like everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is doing it… Some people sing it’s praises, some people hate it. Secret confession—I fall in the latter category. However, it has become a great way for authors and readers to connect, and a fast way to get information out to a targeted audience. Are hashtags really the only way to reach that targeted audience? What can Instagram add to a romance author’s profile (aside from showing the world what you had for dinner)? How many pins does it take to make an impact on Pinterest? I’m not sure I’ll find out all of these answers, but I plan on doing some research into what makes sense. 2. New Romance Media. New blogs pop up every day. New requests for books for review are sent to me every day. Do I approve every single review request that c...

by Danielle Jackson, Senior Publicist, Sourcebooks Over the last few months, I’ve been invited to speak at various writers conferences—RT Booklovers Convention, Chicago-North’s Spring Fling, RWA National Conference, Evanston Writers Workshop—about publicity and marketing of books in today’s ever-changing publishing climate. It’s always hard for me to prepare for these things, because everyone involved is at a different stage in their publishing journey! But I have noticed some similar questions/ideas come up at almost every event, and I thought I’d share them here today. 1. I have to do all kinds of social media to be successful. I don’t believe this… with so many different ways to connect (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs, Websites, Four Square, Apps, Reddit, Google+… among others), social media can become very overwhelming. My advice to authors is to find one or two that you like and can handle, and stick with those. Can you reach more people if you do more? Perhaps,...