Tag: author

Ways to Connect with Readers Outside of Social Media

Social media is a necessary tool for connecting in today’s world and it is a must for all businesses to have a social media presence in some capacity.

There are people whose entire livelihoods are built into their social media accounts. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and now Threads have become creator economies where high performing content gets you paid.

But what happens if you are hacked, the app malfunctions, or in the case of TikTok, the app is banned? Now all that work you’ve done and all those people you connected with are gone in an instant.

That’s why I believe authors should focus as much energy into building their own communities.

Community Membership Website

Outside of meeting up with people in person, community membership platforms are the next best thing. I am a member of a few, and I love that the person has their own social app, which they control. There are paid membership sites like Mighty Networks and Skool, and free ones like Discord. The only reason I don’t have one of my own is because I am already managing so many websites, including this blog. Otherwise, I would definitely consider it.

Blogging

This blog has helped me tremendously in my work, and Imma stick beside her.

Email List

By email list, I do not necessarily mean an author newsletter that reads like an ad. These newsletters usually have updates on the author’s latest books and events and usually go out once a month or so. (Pretty much whenever the author has a new book out.)

However, most author newsletters are boring, long, and cluttered with too many images.

The emails I am talking about are where the author speaks to their readers like friends. They might share thoughts on what’s happening in the world lately, how they feel, or offer an inspiring story. They might also throw in an update, but not so many that it becomes a billboard for their books. These emails might come out several times a month, and readers are okay with them because they are fun and inviting.

These emails are usually simple and sent using third-party providers like Mailerlite or Mailchimp. They give people the option to unsubscribe if they want, which is kinda legal. If you are sending out mass spammy marketing emails with no way for people to unsubscribe, you are breaking privacy laws.

Text List

By text list, I mean a professional text line for your business, not your personal number. This can be used to offer short, quick updates, alerts for sales, or an inspiring quote. Personally, I don’t have a text line, nor do I want one, but it is an option. Many businesses use them and do well.

In-Person Meet-Ups

This one is pretty self-explanatory. In person meetings, workshops, and events will always provide a special kind of value you won’t find online and I don’t think we should neglect them. Zoom meetings can also be a great way for meeting up to see people face to face.

As for socials, remember to back up your content, download your data, and save viral moments like videos you might want to repurpose later!

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

How Blogging Is Good Practice for Book Publishing

Disclaimer: I do not think blogging is for everyone. These articles are here to help guide and encourage you to discover your own systems and practices, as each person’s journey is and will be different.

Three of my books were conceived through blogging: I am Soul, The Women with Blue Eyes, and Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School.

Let me be clear: I did not start this blog to write these books.

I started this blog for some other reason, and in the process of being creative, I wrote about these topics until they culminated into whole books.

After three years of writing poetry dedicated to Black people and Black womanhood, I compiled those poems into a book called I am Soul.

After sharing excerpts from an exciting short story out of my wheelhouse but fun to write, it eventually culminated into an urban fantasy novel.

After writing Black History articles every Friday for Black History Month that went beyond February, the project culminated in a full-length volume people can now enjoy anytime they pick up the book instead of waiting for Friday.

I hope you see where I am going with this.

In the same way that journaling can help us to organize our thoughts, writing about your area of expertise on a blog can be good practice for book publishing.

Posting content on social media and a blog is a form of publishing. Whenever you hit that post button on a blog article or a Facebook post, you are publishing content. Here are two powerful ways it helps to prepare you to write a book.

It Helps You to Get Used to Writing Publicly

When writers publish books, they open themselves to be judged, not just praised. When you post content online, you engage in a similar vulnerability. Your thoughts are now live for everyone to see, critique, or admire. This is similar to what happens each time an author publishes a book. Writing on a blog or posting to social media helps you to get used to hearing feedback about your writing.

It Helps You to Build an Audience / Readership

One of the significant issues new self-published authors face is publishing books with no readership. While established authors like Ashley Antoinette can pop out with a new book and surprise readers, new authors may have a hard time doing the same because they don’t have the audience for it to be successful. They can publish books on a whim, but they also run the risk of people not buying them. Blogging can help with that.

While practicing how to write publicly, you also build up a tribe of readers who like what you write! You attract people who enjoy the same things you do, not just with writing but with life. You might all like to travel, garden, or camp. You might all be married, single, or divorced. You might all be business owners, work a job you love, or retired.

These genuine connections help build bridges of commonality that eventually lead to mutual support systems. You also get instant feedback that will help you test-drive your story idea.

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

Are You REALLY Promoting Your Book?

Are you really promoting your self-published book?

Or does it just look and feel like you are promoting your book?

  • If you are only telling people you wrote a book, but you are not telling them what the book is about, you are not really promoting your book.
  • If you only show us the cover of the book but do not educate us about the content and core message, you are not really promoting your book.
  • If you only post Amazon links to social media but do not discuss the book and what we can learn from it, you are not really promoting your book.

These things can be a part of book promotion. Still, alone, they do nothing to generate enough interest in people to want to buy the book, and that is what book promotion is:

A culmination of your activities and strategies to create awareness and generate interest in your book.

This includes but is not limited to:

Advertising: Paid Ads (or just ads in general), digital or print material, website or landing page, etc.

Publicity: Interviews, book reviews, media coverage, guest blog posts, podcasts, etc.

Social Media: Building engagement with readers through entertainment and educational content using any of the many social media platforms. Blogging can also fall under this and is a powerful tool for community.

Events: Conferences, Author Talks, Book Signings, Book Fairs

The purpose is to create enough buzz to interest readers to purchase the book.

  • Anytime you share a review from someone who reads your book, you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you create content (graphics, excerpts, videos, etc) that educates or entertains people about your book’s message (nonfiction), characters, or plot (fiction), you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you talk about the book on a podcast or in an interview, you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you share your journey and what it was like writing the book, you ARE promoting it.
  • Anytime you write on a topic that is relatable to the things we can find in your book, believe it or not, you ARE also promoting the book.

We can do many things that look like book promotion on the surface but are ineffective in raising awareness among our readers about the book’s topic and why it’s important to them.

But I hope this post gets you thinking about deeper ways to connect with your audience!

If this has helped you, let me know!

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

My Viral Experience on TikTok (What I Learned)

I wouldn’t say going viral is fun. I find it overwhelming. However, it could be less stressful if you are prepared. Here’s what I am learning.

Proper Preparation

When I first joined TikTok, I made my account a business account. I didn’t wait until a bunch of people followed or anything like that because I knew I wanted to use it to increase awareness about my poetry and black history book. I added my website link, which I customized for TikTok like I did on IG.

SN: I stopped using Linktree years ago. While I love it, I wanted to brand my website, not Linktree so I created a specialized page on my website for my social media pages. For Instagram it looks like this, and for TikTok it looks like this.

This made it easier for people to sign up to my email list and visit my website to order books once my videos took off. Without this seemingly small act, I would have been stressed about where to direct all these people. Thankfully, I had somewhere for them to go if they wanted to learn more about me.

Don’t Worry About the Numbers, Just Post Your Content

I immediately noticed that once a video goes viral, people binge the rest of your content. This means that even if your posts aren’t doing well (regarding numbers), you should continue to post! This way, you are not frantic about what to post next after your viral moment.

I had tons of other black history videos, and poetry content people could watch while I worked on creating more videos.

Every post on my page averaged over a thousand views after that one viral video. I followed this up with a welcome video, directing people to my email list, and then I posted again today (7/19) a whole week later.

The viral video is on its way to a million views, and I have reached 15K followers, up from the 3K I had when I first posted.

SN. I have never used ads or paid anything to boost my videos on TikTok. All my growth is organic.

Changes to My Account

  • After 5K follows, you can no longer see who views your posts. I don’t like this change because I enjoyed being nosy. (lol) I like to see who is just watching versus who is taking action.

  • You now have the option to create a playlist to organize your posts. I like this because I can now separate my poetry videos from the Black history ones. Even though the black history is more popular, I still do poetry and I don’t want my audience confused. You will get black history but you gonna get these poems too.

  • You can now have people subscribe to your page instead of just following it, apply to TikTok’s creator fund to start making money and sign up for the TikTok shop.

That’s it so far!

Authors, Are You on TikTok? Do You like it or Nah?

Let’s Stay in Touch

Hey ya’ll, hey.

With yesterday’s social media shenanigans, I want to drop in to give some tidbits about how to join my author list for those of you who might not be subscribed but thought you were.

First, you should know subscribing to this blog is not the same as subscribing to my author email list.

  • Subscribing to this blog ensures you receive email notifications every time I publish a blog post.

  • Subscribing to my author list means you receive email notifications whenever I have author news to share for myself and other authors. These emails go out about once or twice a month.

“I Thought I was Already Subscribed But I Don’t Get Your Newsletters”

Due to excessive spam emails and inactivity, I deleted all emails from the first list and started over. If you remember my emails, but noticed they have stopped, it means you are not subscribed to the new list.

Because I want to make sure those who signed up want to sign up, I am not re-subscribing people manually. You must click on the link below to add your email back to the list.

When You Subscribe to my Author List:

  • You receive a free ecopy of my award-winning poetry collection, I am Soul.

  • You get first dibs on book reviews and other services I might offer. My review registry is currently closed for 2021, but my email members get the first chance at registering early. I will pick books from authors on my list first.

  • You get an inside look at what’s going on behind the scenes of my work, a summary of any blog posts you might have missed, and links to writing resources I might have discovered since we last connected.

  • If anything happens like yesterday’s outage, you are not left in the dark about what’s going on with me or the services I provide.

Click on the link below to connect with me. You will know you did it right when you receive a welcome email.

Ready???

Click HERE to Join My Community

See you soon!

The Women with Blue Eyes: Rise of the Fallen is LIVE

The Women with Blue Eyes: Rise of the Fallen is live!

About.

When Tina’s nephew, Ronnie is killed, she is left to care for his siblings and to solve a series of mysterious murders involving only black men. Investigating each murder thrusts her and her team into a world of deities, demons, and fallen angels, leading Tina to battle a serial killer beyond this realm.

CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW

“Paschar walked with confidence and held her head high as she moved her hips from side to side. Red was her most favorite color to wear with this skin. Something about the hue against this dark body is so different from her true form and more comfortable to navigate the Earth. Who wanted to be invisible to humans when it was easier to seduce them in the skin of a beautiful black woman? Passersby, men and women alike, looked, and Paschar smiled. They always stared. Humans were fascinated by blue, crystal pupils against such brown, creamy skin. In real life, Pas thought human bodies were disgusting. She hated the soft, gooeyness of the flesh, how it bruised and bled so quickly, how it fell apart and crumbled with each passing day. She hated the rotting meat on the bone, but she did come to love dark skin tones. Other pigments didn’t make her heart beat like melanin.”

– From Chapter 7, The Women with Blue Eyes: Rise of the Fallen
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“Tina walked out of the door as her body trembled. She knew Big Sam had blue eyes, and Ronnie’s death was no accident. They had murdered her nephew, were back, and killing again.”

– From Chapter 3, The Women with Blue Eyes: Rise of the Fallen
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We sold out of signed paperbacks on the site, but no worries! You can still order a paperback from Amazon. The next round of signed copies will be restocked soon! Be sure to bookmark my website below so you don’t miss it!

CLICK HERE TO BOOKMARK MY AUTHOR WEBSITE

Welcome

Wherever you are in the world, welcome. I have been MIA a minute, and I’ve noticed an uptick of Freedom Readers to this blog. You guys are fantastic.

If you have not already done so, be sure to visit the About Page to learn more about me and this blog.

My name is Yecheilyah, pronounced e-SEE-li-yah, aka EC. It is a Hebrew name meaning Yah Lives. In case you are wondering, I was not born with this name. I follow in the footsteps of Maya Angelou, Ntozake Shange, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Kwame Ture, and others who are not widely known by their birth names.

At some point, I imagine these people, like I, have awakened to a truth that demanded a better version of themselves and a better way of living. Not only did they strive to change their perspective on life, but they changed their names to fit the newly developed person, they became. (I am drafting an article called “The Power of Your Name,” about the vital role our name plays in author branding. I should have it ready for you sometime next week).

Speaking of growing, this blog is so much more than what it was. It is the primary platform from which I share my work and the work of others. From our home office, living room, or bedroom, we can reach people worldwide. Isn’t that amazing? While I don’t intend to blog forever, I hope what I share here serves a purpose. With so many people home now because of this global pandemic, I take my role as writer/author/blogger even more seriously than ever. I know now more than any other time the power of the written word and its capability to change lives.

This blog runs mainly by a few weekly posts you might want to know about.

Wednesdays

The Women with Blue Eyes – I usually author poetry and black historical fiction, but I have a secret love affair with Fantasy and Sci-Fi. My first published novel (The Aftermath, 2012) was Sci-Fi. I got interested in writing in this genre after reading George Orwell’s 1984 in 2008.

The Women with Blue Eyes is a free fantasy story I have been sharing freely here on the blog. When Tina’s nephew Ronnie died, it traumatized her. It wasn’t just that he died. It was the way he died. After taking custody of Ronnie’s sisters and brother, Tina experienced supernatural phenomenons that eventually led to therapy and hallucinogenic suppressants. This didn’t help.

She meets Azbuga, an Archangel sent to tie the missing pieces together, still connecting her to Ronnie’s death.

Paschar (pu-shar), is the angel of vision, once tasked with guarding the veil between the physical world and the heavens, between consciousness and unconsciousness, between awareness and illusion. She once saw the beauty of visions from the Almighty and projected these into human consciousness. Now, she is limited, capable only of seeing physical beauty, extracting energy from mortal man, and projecting illusions. Paschar has fallen, and in a jealous rage, she attacks black men for their energy. How dare he choose them over her?

Can Tina, Jason, and Az defeat Paschar and her Legion once and for all? More black men are dying, and you can’t fight spiritual warfare with physical weapons.

This series is divided into two parts, and I am sharing freely part one, chapters 1-20. Click here to read chapters 1-17. Chapter 18 publishes next week. (Note: The Women with Blue Eyes is a Rated-R Fantasy series. You should know there is some profanity for those sensitive to cursing, and adult language).

My intent is to use this platform as a motivation for completing the series and one day turning it into a full-length novel.

Thursdays

Throwback Thursday Jams – If I was on the edge of a cliff, music would be one force pulling me back from jumping.

Okay, well, that’s a lil dramatic but, yea. I love music. Tee Hee.

So while I’m a serious person, I am also a silly and musical person. I love R&B and old school soul, and Thursdays are all about introducing you to some of my favorite throwback jams. Now, when I say throwback, I don’t mean that they are all technically throwbacks. I post music ranging from Old School (60-80s), the 90s (my fav), and the early 2000s. And sometimes I might post something new-ish because I just like it. Check out the Throwback Thursday category to jam out.

Fridays

Black History Fun Fact Friday -Black History Fun Fact Friday is a weekly blog series of articles focused on Israelite/Black/African American history. While the title of the series includes the words “Fun Facts,” not all pieces are “fun,” in the sense that is is all positive. My intention with this series is to present black history as it is without adding to or taking away from the truth, despite how brutal or uncomfortable it may be to read.

Take Sun-Down Towns, for example. The unfortunate truth is that some all-white communities today are all-white neighborhoods because they were once sun-down towns or cities where blacks were driven out and not allowed to enter after sun-down. Read more about that here. 

 

And while this is a weekly series, we have had no new articles in a few weeks. There’s a good reason for that, and I will let you all know about that exciting bit of news later!! In the meantime, if you would like to participate, I am still accepting black history guest blog posts for this feature. Please click here to learn how to apply.

These are some top weekly posts you can get used to. In between them, I share poetry, quotes, blog, and writing tips I call Indie Author Basics with EC based on my experience as an Independent Author.

 

It’s almost time for me to change my Avatar’s outfit. It’s getting cooler out! Who’s ready for the fall??