Out and About – Cailin Briste
The Interwebs are crawling (pun intended) with places to engage with others be they friends, family, or complete strangers who become online friends. Writers have their hangouts where they can talk shop with other authors and places they can engage with readers. Both are equally important.
Facebook groups are particularly useful. There’s a group for help writing blurbs and another for promotional opportunities. If a writer wants to become involved in an anthology or boxed set, there’s a group for that. I’m a member of several sci-fi romance groups. Recently we had a long discussion about sci-fi romance titles: what we like, what we didn’t like, what we thought worked. And all in a polite way even though opinions were varied.
Email lists are the other online means I use to engage with other authors. I belong to the RWA Pan list, IndieRomanceInk, a Marketing for Romance Writers list, and a private list for authors with my publisher. I’ve gleaned a lot over the last year from authors who share their own trials, tribulations, and successes.
I’m also part of a blogging group, Romance Writers Behaving Badly. We share the duties of posting to our blog and help each other by sharing one another’s promotions, posts, and tweets. This is the group of writers I go to when I have a dumb question.
There are a multitude of places that I use to interact with my readers. I’ve listed the links below, but I’ll highlight a couple that are particularly useful for some back and forth.
I have my own Facebook group dedicated to my street team, the readers I rely on for opinions on covers, to write reviews of my books, and to spread the word about my new releases, sales, and giveaways. It blesses the socks off me when I ask a question in the group and have answers a short while later.
The blog on my website is another place I enjoy conversing with my readers. I post regularly, and not just book promos. The Fashion Maven posts once a week. I’m not sure who I’m mimicking when assume her persona. My dears, she’s so proud of keeping up with the A to Z blogging challenge this month. Twenty-six posts. One for each letter of the alphabet. Her theme is fashion designers. Yesterday featured Calvin Klein and a plethora of male underwear models. Something bold and sexy when that zipper comes down?
The Fashion Maven is fun, even if you’re not into the latest runway styles. But you can also read a variety of posts about writing and reading, Cailin’s life, and things that catch her eye or tickle her fancy. You’re here now, why not take the opportunity to look around a bit.
Cailin’s Social Media Links:
- Website
- Blog – lots to read.
- Join My Street Team
- Street Team Facebook Group
- Facebook Author Page
- Google+
- Pinterest – boards for each of my books with lots of fun stuff, sci-fi romance books, Hot! Hot! Hot!, a bunch of Selina Shirley fashion boards, and other boards. I like to play on Pinterest.
- Goodreads – some great reviews of my books here
- Bookbub – follow to get notices when my books release
- Amazon
- Newsletter
fashion maven is intestesting. looks like fun.
It just occurred to me that the Fashion Maven sounds more like an over the top gay fashion queen nowadays. But there used to be women who had that persona in the past. Maybe the Gabor sisters?
Pinterest that’s not one I’ve attempted to understand. I’ve seen others do the A to Z challenge. It seems like a huge undertaking so kudos to you and all the other participants.
My comment from last week I don’t think went through. Read on my phone and the verification thing gave me fits.
On PInterest, you follow other people’s boards that interest you, and bam Pinterest starts streaming you stuff in the same vein. You create a board and they do the same thing. I started with an author board and a board for each of my books. I searched Pinterest and Google images for pictures that went along with the book.
If you look at my board for Shane: Marshal of Tallav, (https://www.pinterest.com/cailinbriste/shane-marshal-of-tallav/) I’ve posted pics of rope bondage, a space ship, my fantasy cast, a dome on Beta Tau, horse stuff, and Shane’s family estate. It took me a while, but I used the pics for blog posts too, so the effort was used multiple times.
Pinterest shows your pins to other people who then re-pin and sometimes follow you. You build followers slowly. Boards that are tangential to you books work well in attracting followers off the beaten book promo path.
My Hot! Hot! Hot! board was easy to do. As an erotic romance author, shouldn’t I have a board of things I find hot?