I'm Still Alive

If you're wondering where I've been, let's just say my mind has been on other things.

Some have asked me, "Where are your author interviews?"

And I really don't have an answer.

I've had a few authors contact me for interviews, and I've sent along the questions for them to answer, but I'm still waiting to hear back from them.

I suppose in every life (mine included) a person does a bit of shifting. And I suppose that's what's been happening here - some shifting.

Top 5 Posts from 2016

It's that time again!

Time to see what readers and writers are reading!

#1 for 2016 was Novel Contest!! Get Your Book Published! 



Best news is that we're still continuing with this contest. See what we're doing the third time around!

#2 is an Author Interview I did with Chris Fabry, author of War Room - BTW my favorite movie of 2016!

#3 is an Author Interview I did with Shelley Bingham Husk, author of The Ghost of Elm Lake.

#4 is another Author Interview I did with Robin King, author of Rembrandt. 

#5 is a post on Marketing Your Book on a Budget 2016. Also great news! Authors love this book and the new 2017 update on this book will be available soon. Find it here.

Enjoy these articles!

Kathryn

Wanted: Author Interviews, Character Interviews, Book Trailers

It's that time again to start thinking about the holidays. No kidding.

Come September, the rush is on to get those books out for holiday sales. Do you want to be a part of the rush? Let me know and I'll set up an author and/or a character interview with you.

So far, everything is scheduled out until October 10th, so anything after that is fair game. I usually post interviews on Monday's and Wednesday's with a Friday Flicks segment on, you guessed it, Friday's.

A am looking for authors in various genres to spotlight. Please send me an email at: kathy@ariverofstones.com and we'll discuss when we can place you. 

Things will be getting busy. Why not get your interview ready before the rush?

Thanks!

Kathryn

Author Interview? Character Interview?

Obviously, the new year has brought some difficulties for authors and some of my interviews are just not going to take place this month :(

The good news is that this gives me an additional opportunity to plug author and character interviews. In a nutshell, filling out a form, whether for yourself or your character, takes about 20 minutes of your time. If you have your author photo and book cover jpgs ready as well as a couple of links for me to add to the interview, we're talking possibly another five minutes of your time.

What do you get for that time?

New readers! Maybe even readers who are willing to try you out as a writer and buy your book!

FREE advertising! Can't beat that.

A chance to share who you are and what you do - or how your character thinks.

An opportunity for a possible trade. Many times I have authors on my side, who, in turn, offer to interview me or post my books for free advertising on their site. How does this help you? More readership for your blog.

I would LOVE to help you with your marketing. Why not shoot me an email today and let's get started!

Kathryn

kathy@ariverofstones.com

TOP 5 POSTS FOR DECEMBER 2015!

December is one of those interesting months. Folks are busy planning parties, shopping for gifts, and - dare I say it, taking a well-needed rest when they finally get a break.

I wanted to take just a pause today and share with you my top posts for December 2015. I wanted to know, if, during the month of December and all of its busyness, what my readers made time to read.

So here goes!

1. Patricia Kiyono is a well known author, so it's not a surprise that she comes in first. See her author interview here: http://idea-creations.blogspot.com/2015/12/author-interview-patricia-kiyono.html.



2. In second place is Nirit Littaney. An author of children's books, Nirit was excited for this interview - her first one! http://idea-creations.blogspot.com/2015/12/author-interview-nirit-littaney.html.



3. Third is my post announcing my updating of marketing book, Marketing Your Book on a Budget 2016! You can find the post here: http://idea-creations.blogspot.com/2015/12/marketing-your-book-on-budget-2016.html.



4. Fourth place goes to author Julie Carobini! You can find her author interview here: http://idea-creations.blogspot.com/2015/12/author-interview-julie-carobini.html.



5. And finally, in fifth place, enjoy Editing to Death? by yours truly. You can find the post here: http://idea-creations.blogspot.com/2015/12/editing-to-death.html.



HANDS DOWN, author interviews have been the most read. I will continue these in the new year, so if you haven't interviewed with me and would like to, drop me a line at: kathy@ariverofstones.com.

FIVE OF THE MOST READ POSTS SINCE MAY

I haven't done this for awhile - posted the most frequently read posts on my blog. Favorite posts from May to July 2015.

Here they are:

James C. Duckett, author of Hidden Identities and Pushing the Wall, received the most reads. You can find the post here



In second place? My post on Successful Book Signings

In third place: Keep Positive: Sometimes it's Hot Out There, by yours truly, tied with FRIDAY FLICKS:The Gift: A Parable of the Key, also by yours truly.



In fourth, Dancing in the Rain 

And in fifth place, Successful Book Signings - Part 2

I appreciate all my faithful readers!

Kathryn

What Would You Say to Some FREE Book Advertising?

I'm continually amazed at how many writers spend little time marketing their work. Obviously, a writer should write more than they market, but how are those potential readers ever going to discover you if you don't get the word out?



No, I'm not doing any character or author interviews until September, but I will need to hear from you before then if you're interested. Who wouldn't want the FREE advertising? If you also have a terrific book trailer, let me know. I will slot you for my Friday Flicks segment.

So, what are you waiting for?



Let me know today, right here, or shoot me an email at: Kathy@ariverofstones.com! Let me know what you write and what you'd like to do to promote your work. I'll take it from there.

Kathryn

Author and Character Interviews for the Summer

I wanted to let you know that author and character interviews on my blog will be slowing down for the summer. What that means for you is that you have ample opportunity to submit your information to be a part of the author and character interviews beginning again in September.

Author and character interviews are a great way to reach your readers. These interviews allow your readers to learn a little more about you and about your characters in a way that just reading your books won't.

So I encourage you to take part beginning in September. Just shoot me an email at: kathy@ariverofstones.com, and tell me you're interested.

Keep in mind that I try to post author and character interviews with no more than a PG-13 rating. 

Thanks, and have a great Memorial Day!

Book Marketing is Making a Shift

Used to be, getting blog reviewers for your book was easy; about as easy as writing a letter to your grandmother and getting a response. But things have changed.

Just since last year, I have noticed many bloggers who also review books shifting gears a bit. Many are now doing author interviews and showing off new releases. There just isn't the time to read an entire book and place a review on Amazon.

What's easy is getting the author to send you all of the material for a terrific question and answer interview. All that's needed then is a bit of copying and pasting of the material.



And the promotion is done.

I am all for promotion, however it looks, but I am finding in more and more difficult to get the reviews that still are the number one (online) way to sell books. What this means to me is that I have to work all that much harder at getting the reviews, and still manage to get the author interviews and other free promotion I need done, and this takes extra time.

The good news is that if a reviewer likes one of my books they may be interested in reviewing another, but if this is your first book, times are hard, and getting those reviews in may cause you to wish things were back to the 'old' days.

Having said that, I think it's important to take a look at all the new great things that people are doing to sell their books. Just last week I was a part of another author's first book release. She took most of the time on Facebook doing contests and talking about her book for her day book party; I was given an hour of her day to promote mine.

It's an interesting idea, one that I may try again. We didn't get loads of responses, but I figure this was partially due to the fact that she was a new author, and I was the only other author a part of the day. Perhaps more authors scheduled would help, especially those with a name for themselves in their particular genre?

I have seen #hashtags take a leap in interest along with doing your own book trailer. Another thing I am enjoying is connecting with readers and authors on Facebook and LinkedIn, who want to swap reviews, or have a group that allows you to post the book you need reviews for.

Still, what I am seeing the most of are author and character interviews, and I can tell you quite honestly that usually these (on my site) get the most views out of everything I post. So that should tell you something.

If you have great way of finding reviewers, please let me know. One of the best things I have learned is that working with other authors brings results, even if it's primarily readers who haven't 'yet' bought your book.

Kathryn

Author and Character Interviews

Are you an author soon to publish his/her first book? Is your main character something to write home about?

I'm currently near the tail end of scheduled interviews for this year and would love to interview you or your main character or both!

Just drop me a line at kathy@ariverofstones.com and I'll send you the list of questions!

Keep in mind that this is a family friendly site, and that I'm only particular when it comes to books that cross over the PG-13 line, so keep that in mind when requesting an interview.

Author and character interviews are the most popular viewed posts on my site, and so if you're looking for a free way to get your name out there, I'm here to help!

Kathryn

Top 5 Posts of April 2014

I've got your ticket to success. Below are the five most read posts of April 2014. Again, I discovered that many of the most favorite posts had to do with what other writers are writing.

 

Enjoy!

#1 An Interview With Kathryn Elizabeth Jones

#2 Character Interview: Elle Burton

#3 Author Interview: Lisa Miller

#4 Character Interview: Aaron from The Stone of Valhalla

#5 Marketing Tips to Change Your Life

Author and character interviews continue to be a big deal here, so you can be assured I'll still be sending them your way.

And marketing?

I guess that's a given.

As always,

Happy Writing!

Kathryn

Surprise! Top 5 Posts in March 2014

I've done this before, sort of given you a run-down of top posts. And I think it's good, especially if you've missed my daily posts and are just hunkering to read the best ones.

This time around I wanted to focus on a month time period. I wanted to see what readers were reading in this short time frame and see if I could come up with some reasoning for the favorites.

Here they are. Surprisingly, most were in the same topic arena. If this doesn't surprise you, it did me, and confirmed that I'll be continuing author interviews because readers and writers alike continue to enjoy them.

AUTHOR INTERVIEWS!

#1 Lorraine Carey
#2 Cindy Hogan
#3 David Belt
#4 Mikey Brooks
#5 Nancy Kyme

The only blog post that didn't fit into the above category was my post entitled, SHOUT IT OUT! What you can do to promote your writing without being obnoxious. It tied at #3 with David Belt and can be found here.

Part of the reason for the higher ranking top posts I think is the simple sharing of it. Not only do I share these posts, the writers themselves share them, so my readership doubles, and often, triples.

I also think that readers and writers enjoy reading posts that help them in their own writing. They also like to learn more about the writers they read.

Two of the five authors were also a part of the Write Here in Ephraim Conference, and that additional tag might have helped them in place standings #3 and #4, though it's interesting to me that in places #1 and #2, the tag of the conference didn't seem to be needed.

My findings:

Author signings in general bring in more readers if the author is also willing to promote along with me.
Strange titles, like SHOUT IT OUT! What you can do to promote your writing without being obnoxious, continue to garner in readers, simply because they stand out. The subject itself probably didn't hurt either.

Try this on your own posts. Find out what is being read and move forward with similar posts to keep your readership happy.

Looking for Interviews

I have started some new things this year on this blog. I tried a Friday video, which, I found after a couple of posts, really wasn't working.

I started some reviews; which I have to say I enjoy, though I have recently discovered that saying yes to too many people at once just adds to the stress. I have backed up a bit. You should see my review of Memory Lake, soon.

Another thing I've tried is an author interview segment. Trust me, with all that I have going, it hasn't always been easy to keep this one going.

Photo by: koalazymonkey, courtesy of Flickr

And so I'm asking for help.

If you're a published author and want to be interviewed on my site, please drop me a note at: kathy@ariverofstones.com. Keep in mind that I interview family oriented writers. I don't want to post anything on my site that doesn't reflect family values.

That said, please feel free to contact me.

Interviews are one of the ways an author gets the word out about what they write, and I love getting to know new people!

Thanks!

Kathryn