Cheryl Cowtan on Writing

Internet saturation of your name and your profile is key to creating a strong author presence. Agents and publishers prefer authors who have already established themselves online--even before they have been published. You know the common drill: Author Website Author page on Facebook Goodreads Tumblr, Blogger, Twitter, Wordpress Group membership All of the above take some effort and take you away from your writing. Well here is a new way to promote yourself, to build relationships with publishers, get some free reading materials and become a recognized "professional reader" . NetGalley connects you to publishers who want you to review books that are soon-to-be-published.  Why would you do this? Free reading material It's a good way to get your name and possibly your Web site or blogger links out there Your blog or group will get reviews of great books before they hit the press (timely) You may be able to build relationships with publishers You get...

Figment is a personal space that allows you to promote and showcase your writing, in groups, on the site and on your blog. The layout is very user friendly and easy to understand. I signed up yesterday.  I create a profile, joined some groups containing potential readers of my favourite genre for writing and then I posted a flash fiction. For you writers out there who are dying to get some feedback on your writing, there are a few things you can do. Have a friend read it. Or, post a synopsis on your Web site and hopefully receive some responses to your upcoming work. I did that at my Web site and I did receive some nice feedback. See how it looks using WIX gallery.  Another way, is to create some writing that showcases your style and talent and post it on Figment.  The Figment writing tool allows you to create a cover, choose limited styles of text and layout and then make it available to the many readers on the site. See my example below. Notice how many respo...