Website Announcement And Holiday Gift

Greetings and Happy Holidays.

I just wanted to take a little bit to make a few announcements that I'm very excited about. The make money writing in the 21st century blog started a few months ago as a place for me to share tips and tricks of the trade that I learned over the course of my own time as a writer/editor/publisher with those seeking to make more money with their writing because I became tired of seeing so many authors who were discouraged and roadblocked and wanted to see more writers use their talents to make money doing what they loved.

Since this blogs start a few months ago THOUSANDS of readers have visited here and many have sent me emails with additional questions and comments and mostly thank yous from authors who had started to implement the tips and advice they read here in the blog. It became apparent to me just how much of a need there was for this kind of information out there because of the sheer volume of responses and personal messages I received and so I'm proud to announce that I am taking the make money writing brand one step further with the make money writing in the 21st century website.
www.makemoneywriting21.com

The blog will still be going of course, but the website will help me post audio answers to questions that authors send in, showcase the best of the blog and offer more content and more information to help as many authors as possible make more money with their writing.

And as a special bonus for the holidays, I put together a 30 minute audio course entitled "The Writer's ReEducation." The course basically works to get rid of the old author mindset that making money with their writing is impossible and goes into exactly how the publishing world has changes in the last 15 years, why right now is actually a GOLDEN age for authors to be writing and making money with their work and how NOW is the time to get started.

 

Everyone can go to the homepage of the website where they can download the course for free through the holidays as a special gift from me to you.

Of course this gift is also a slight bribe because although I normally update the blog every week, I'm actually going to be taking a slight hiatus for the holiday season so I can spend time with my family and loved ones. So your gift is the free audio course, and my gift is a little time off!

But don't worry, the blog will resume in the new year and still be updated each week with free content. In fact there will be more free content because with the new website comes the additional feature of a new mini-podcast will be happening once a week as well., the purpose of which is to answer some of the emails I get with questions. So keep checking back for exciting things from the make money writing in the 21st century website.

Take care, enjoy your holidays and keep writing when you can!

~James P. Wagner

Readers Want To Know The Author

We've talked in the blog before about how the major difference between those who sell two copies of a book and those who sell two million copies of a book is that the person who sells two million copies has a perceived relationship with more people. Even if that person has never met his or her two million fans, the fans feel like they are familiar with the person and nothing sells more than familiarity.

To read that blog post, go here:

http://www.makemoneywriting21.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-some-authors-sell-2-copies-of-their.html

In the 21st century, there are more ways than ever before to let your potential readers get to know a little bit about you. Social networking and website design tools make it very possible to put your own creative spin on a website, blog, or profile. And it also brings an interesting twists to the things people consider when deciding to make purchases.

For a long time people expected a certain level of pure professionalism--no goofing around, no sense of creative self, just a product and a proposal and a price. And then the customer or potential buyer made their decision. It was simple, it was direct, it was business as usual...and it was boring. It became so boring that in recent years the average customer/buyer/reader has been trained to ignore all sorts of advertisements that companies pay thousands and millions of dollars for. While maintaining professional standards is more important than ever--the customers, the readers, the people want more. They want to know the who behind the people who are doing things. They want to know what drives a person, what motivates them and how they can relate to them. This is why DVDs are often loaded with behind the scenes specials and extras. This is why since Game Of Thrones became big on HBO interviews of George R.R. Martin have been surfacing everywhere. And this is a great opportunity for authors writing in the 21st century.

Author Commentary: Sometimes what an author has to say about his or her own work can be just as interesting to a potential reader as the work itself. Sharing a little bit about what motivated the author to write the material and what the author was trying to do can be the insight readers need to want to find out more about the work.

Personal Q and A's: I would stress this as being different from interviews because the questions would come from the readers rather than a commentator, magazine or host. Readers love these because they feel very connected to the author--after all, the author is taking time out of their day to answer questions from the readers and if you happen to answer a question from a particular reader odds are that reader will be a fan for life.

Interviews: A more rigid questions and answers where the person doing the questioning is a host, another author, a publisher or even the author themselves who put forth questions that they chose to answer.

And in the 21st century, there are more means than ever at our disposal to show that personal touch and get our readers to know us:

YouTube: Youtube and other video websites allow us to post our own videos without permission from anyone. Why not take advantage of this to the fullest extent possible? Video interviews go over quite well.


 

Audio Files: Some authors aren't comfortable on video. That's fine, because podcasts, radio segments and audio interviews with the author's voice answering questions and talking to the reader can be almost if not quite as powerful. They take less time than videos and can still show readers how much you care about them.

Pictures: This works particularly well if you have live events for your work. Potential readers online love to see pictures of author readings/book signings, and even the author hard at work. Text on a wall is boring, pictures say thousands of works.

Of course the benefit to all these methods is that they help the author greatly in handling the job of connecting to their audience while leaving the author with time to do their writing. After all, if an author has to spend 24/7 connecting with people it becomes exhausting and they will never have time to actually be an author and give the fans the material they love. The great thing about utilizing all these means in the 21st century is that you do the work once, and they do the work for you indefinitely.