I've Got An Author Page On Goodreads!

One of the recurring pieces of advice every author gets these days, "You must have a platform on social media." is repeated almost as often as, "Write hot: edit cold."

I've played on Facebook, Pintrest, Plague, and Twitter and yet never quite got the hang of how social media works for marketing books. I usually just end up reposting, retweeting, and repinning stuff, and making a lot of new friends, (mostly other authors) and spending a huge amount of time lost on the screen.

Then it hit me. I need to connect with readers. Guess where most of the readers on the internet are?  Goodreads!  Yep, only took me about four years to figure that out.

Anyway, having an Authorpage allows me to do giveaways and lots of other fun stuff.  Right now, I have a giveaway running for a signed copy of Pangaea. Go ahead and enter if you'd haven't yet. The other neat thing is that each of my blog posts shows up on my Authorpage along with books I'm reading and any reviews I'm posted for books. So far, I really like having everything all in one place like this.

Here's the link if you'd like to check it out. Anna Questerly on Goodreads

I'm also going to change things up a bit on my blog. Like I said, I've met a lot of amazing writers, both online and in my store. Starting next month, I'll be introducing them to you each Friday. I've learned so much from these folks, or simply enjoyed their writing, and can't wait to share them with you.

Right now, I'm getting ready for the Tucson Festival of Books. Just made our hotel reservations, Yay! This is Arizona's largest book fair with more than 500 authors and 100,000+ readers attending the weekend event. Last year, I had a young woman come up to see if I had anything new out. (I didn't.) and the look of disappointment on her face, forced me to set the deadline for Pangaea so it would be available for the festival. If you're going, look me up. I'll be in booth 106 along with about twenty amazing authors.

Oh, dear! We just received a huge collection of children's books into the store and I need to get busy shelving them, We'll talk again soon.

What Exactly is a Beta Reader?

One of my Twitter friends recently asked me this question, and since it takes more than 140 characters to answer, I thought I would share it here.

Beta readers are God’s gift to authors. These are the folks who read through an early draft of your novel, looking for the holes and gaps, you, as an author, are too close to see. They can be writers or readers, but ideally they enjoy the kind of book you are writing and are familiar with its genre.

Keep in mind, there are two steps in the editing process. The first is a story edit also called ‘Chunking Edits’ where major changes take place. The second is more of a line edit, focusing on word choice, descriptions, grammar and the like. Beta readers are perfect for your first round of editing.

They should be people you trust to tell you the truth, both good and bad about your book. What’s working, what’s not, what’s missing, what’s repetitive, and so on. They may offer suggestions and may even send your story in a different direction, as happened to me with The Minstrel’s Tale.

Whether you take their suggestions or not, their feedback is invaluable to authors. It’s your first glimpse at what readers think of your story.

They’re not looking for grammatical, punctuation errors, although they may find a few for you. They’re really great at making sure your story arc is on the mark, or that your characters have unique voices and don’t all sound the same. They may draw your attention to facts you have wrong or let you know when something isn’t clear. They will tell you if your character is doing something that doesn’t make sense. In short, they’ll find all the things Amazon reviewers will find if you publish without a good edit.

I use 5-7 beta readers with my novels, but I was able to have an entire 5^th grade class beta read The Minstrel’s Tale.  They’re the ones who made me take the second book in a new direction.
  

So where do you find these readers?

I rounded up my first few Beta readers from authors I enjoyed working with in my critique group.  I also corralled friends and family members, and I captured a few at my bookstore when I noticed they were reading something similar. 

Do you need both a critique group and Beta readers?

I don’t think so. I loved being part of a critique group in my early attempts at writing. Their suggestions made me a better writer, but it takes a long time to get an entire novel through the critique group process. After my first book, I switched to Beta readers exclusively.  I know some authors who have always used critique group feedback, so there is no one right answer. Find what works for you as an author and keep tweaking your system.

What should I expect to pay a Beta Reader?

Most Beta Readers don't charge, thank goodness! But if you're asking an author to Beta Read for you, expect to reciprocate at some time in the future.

How do you keep your Beta Readers?

Once you find a few Beta Readers you respect and can work well with, don't forget to thank them in your acknowledgements and gift them a copy of your book upon its release.  

So what's an Alpha Reader?

An Alpha Reader is the person you trust the most to read your writing first. A spouse or best friend who gets you and can give you an almost unbiased critique works well. After making changes my Alpha catches, then I give the book to my Beta Readers.

Hope this helps! Feel free to add your opinions or experiences with Beta Reading in the comments.

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The 'Other' Pangaea

I was in 5^th grade the first time I heard the word, Pangaea.  At the time, it seemed to me to be a magical place that once existed right here on Earth. This wasn’t another planet, only another time. To my young mind, this was a world filled with dinosaurs and unicorns and so much more at a time long before man walked the coastlines of the continents.

I bumped into the word from time to time throughout the years. Even with its various pronunciations and spellings, Pangea, Pangia, Panjaea, the name still conjured images in my brain and led my imagination on exciting adventures.

When I decided to write my novel, I looked up the title on Amazon and found several non-fiction and new age type books, but no sci-fi/fantasy novels, nothing like what I was planning to write. Perfect. Curious to find out if the word held the same magic for others as it did for me, I decided the title of my book should just be Pangaea.

The big day came and Pangaea went live on Amazon. I looked it up to make sure all was right, and guess what I found? 

Another sci-fi/fantasy novel with the same name published a few weeks before mine.

Well, I had to read it to find out what journey the word took this author on and to find out if our books were at all similar.

To my relief, the two Pangaeas were nothing alike. I wrote a review for the ‘other’ Pangaea. Here’s the Goodreads link if you’d like to check it out. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1193745378