:Social media really does matter to everyone, and authors are no exception. If you want to
stand out from the crowd you need to find an authentic voice that reflects who you are, but
that doesn’t mean you have to reproduce your latest work in its entirety. To show you how
you can use social media to your advantage, we’ve put together a whole host of hints and
tips you won’t find anywhere else. All you have to do is work your way through this handy
3-minute read and then get busy putting it all into practice.

Be brief and memorable, not wordy and boring.
With a subheading like that, it’s tempting to leave it here, but a few more words of
explanation never hurt anyone. If you want to bore your audience, then by all means tweet
press releases and 5-page excerpts. If on the other hand, you want to engage them and
get them talking, you need to be short and snappy with your content. Remember that
people are reading your posts in the palm of their hand in an idle couple of seconds, and
it’ll soon become obvious why you need to keep things short and sweet.

Use humor to humanize your content.
Your followers are following you to learn more about the person behind the words, not to
read the same types of reviews and bios about you that are all over the internet. The same
goes for whether you’re an author, copywriter, or any other type wordsmith. By using
humor, you can let people into your world by showing them a little more about you. Just
make sure you don’t overdo things, or tell one too many risqué jokes.

Create an aesthetically pleasing experience.
Your profile needs to have the same level of thought put into it as the front cover for your
latest release, or the image choice for your new blog that’s about to go live. The world of
social media is all about image, and that means even the best captions and bios are going
to be overshadowed by a profile that just isn’t up to scratch. Take a little bit of time to get it
right one afternoon, and you’ll be up to speed in no time at all.

Calls to action really do work.
If you want people to read your work, tell them. If you want your followers to subscribe to
your blog, tell them. And if you want people to commission you to ghostwrite for them, tell
them. Calls to action really are that simple, and they work too.
By being catchy and direct with your language, you can give your followers the gentle
nudge in the right direction that’s going to help them make up their minds. Just make sure
you avoid phrases like “limited availability” and “exclusive opportunity.” The hard sell just
isn’t going to work with the type of audience you’re looking to reach out to.

​Keywords are something must people forget on social media.
Virtually everyone has heard about how important keywords are for their homepage, but
hardly anyone seems to apply that same thinking to what they post of social media. With a
few keywords seamlessly woven into your posts and captions, you’ll be helping take a step
closer to the spotlight with every passing day. Just make sure your keywords are both
natural and relevant because there’s no bigger turn off in the social world than reading a
post that’s really more like a clumsy ad.

Drop the cliches and buzzwords at all costs.
If you want to really connect with your audience you need to be original, which means
dropping the cliches and buzzwords. There are so many of them bouncing around right
now that doing so can feel a little like navigating your way through a minefield.
Take the time to write authentic and personable copy, and you’ll find you naturally start to
move away from the tired old phrases that seem to be all over Facebook and Twitter right
now.

Tailor the content to each platform.
When you’re trying to build a following on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, it can be all too
tempting to copy and paste content between the various platforms. The problem with this
is that you won’t be playing to the strengths of any of these amazing promotional tools,
and you’ll be doing your writing skills a disservice in the process. By all means, keep the
topics and broad themes the same across platforms, but take the time to write fresh
content from scratch.

Keep everything current and up to date
There’s nothing worse than building a following with months of hard work, only to see it
gradually fade away because you ran out of steam. Keeping your profile up to date is the
best way to show every prospective follower and customer that you have something
relevant to offer them. By scheduling in a monthly audit of what you’re posting, and what’s
in your bio, you can ensure you never make one of the most common social media
mistakes.

Let your personality loose
This one is something that comes naturally to some writers, but that others really struggle
with. You need to think about it as how you would talk at a book launch or fan convention if
you’re an author, and how you would describe your job to someone who was interested to
learn more if you’re a copywriter.

Avoid corporate and overly formal language on the one hand, and ditch the overly familiar
approach on the other. It’s all about striking that balance, so take the time to get it right in
your mind by drawing up a draft content calendar for your own review.
​
Laser target your niche rather than chasing every viral trend.
No list of tips for aspiring authors and writers would be complete without this word of
caution. Social media is the place where viral sensations explode into life and fade into
insignificance, every single day. Rather than chasing followers and likes, take the time to
speak the language of your audience so you can give them what they really want from
you.

Final Thoughts:
Now that you’ve read all about how you can power your writer profile on social media, it’s
over to you to make it happen. Take your time, don’t force it, and make sure you adopt a
consistent and authentic approach. It’s far more productive in the long run to express who
you are as a writer than it is to chase likes and retweets.

​In honor of the re-release of BROKEN CHORDS, I wanted to share some of my inspiration for the book. This post will definitely appeal to music lovers out there. Anyone play the fiddle or mandolin? Cello? Anyone sing? Then stay tuned. But, my very first inspiration for this book started elsewhere. I’ll start at the beginning.

BROKEN CHORDS was born because I had to pee in the middle of the night while camping on Martha’s Vineyard with my husband. Literally.

If you’ve ever gone camping, you know the bathrooms are never conveniently located. The fastest route from our site was through the property’s playground. So, there I am, wee hours of the night (no pun intended—okay, pun intended), and it’s all cold and misty; and I think: If those swings start moving right now, I’m so out of here.

Lucky for me (and my bladder), that didn’t happen, but once I was safely back in my tent, I knew I’d write a story about a haunted playground someday.

The second inspiration for BROKEN CHORDS is musical. I wanted my book to feel the way certain favorite traditional acoustic songs sound.

​Before I get into the songs, let’s talk about the third inspiration for my book: Greyfox Music Festival. If you’ve attended and you read BROKEN CHORDS, you will recognize it all: the layout, the campgrounds, the crepes and gyros, the unique and creative individual site set-ups, even the creek behind the clearing in the woods—it’s all inspired by that festival.

Back to the music. Once I decided on that the book would take place at a music festival, certain songs just called out to be included. I mention three bands in particular in BROKEN CHORDS: Crooked Still, Nickel Creek, and The Greencards. They’re probably best described as New Grass or Progressive Bluegrass, and OMG, all three are awesome!

The two songs that were my biggest inspiration are “Wind and Rain” and “Undone in Sorrow.”

“Wind and Rain” is based on ballad that is literally thousands of years old (here’s a great article about it), and it’s so creepy. The content has remained largely the same over the years, though it’s known by several names including: “The Twa Sisters,” “Rollin’ a-Rollin’,” and “Binnorie.” It’s about two sisters, and the older one pushes the younger one into a river because they’re both in love with the same man, and he happens to prefer the younger sister. Not surprisingly, the sister drowns, which is twisted by itself. Then a fiddler comes out of the woods, and he takes the drowned sister’s bones and hair, and he makes a fiddle out of them. When the fiddle is played, it reveals the identity of her murderer.

One line goes like this:
And he made fiddle pegs of her long finger bones.
Oh, the wind and rain.

I mean, shiver. Right? That song is the anthem of some of my creepiest entities in BROKEN CHORDS (actually, the very ghost children who haunt my playground). Probably the most chilling version of “Wind and Rain” is THIS ONE, an acapella version, by Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, & David Steele. But if you want to hear the one Crooked Still did, which also features a fiddle—I mean, apropos, right?—you can hear that ​HERE. (This version also features Rushad Eggleston, their original cellist, who is incredible.)

The other song that features in this book is “Undone in Sorrow,” which was originally written by a woman named Ola Belle Reed. That one is still under copyright, so I couldn’t use the words in BROKEN CHORDS, but when you read the book and Lenny and Jeb talk about playing their song, that’s the one. Crooked Still’s version is my favorite. It’s so haunting and sad. There’s a cello in their band, and the cello solo is one of my favorite musical moments of all time. Then the fiddle comes in and it literally sounds like the embodiment of a tortured heart. Add Aoifa O’Donovan’s ethereal vocals, and it’s a chiller of a song.

Those of you familiar with this genre will know that the cello isn’t typical for bluegrass, but it’s their inclusion of a cello that makes some of their songs so haunting. And readers of BROKEN CHORDS will know that I gave a nod to this when I made Lenny’s mom a cellist.

​I also mention the song “The Fox,” which is a Nickel Creek icon and the first song Lenny and her friends played at the first bonfire of the festival in BROKEN CHORDS. That band is made up of three geniuses of music who all started as kids. (Literally, one member, Chris Thile, won a Macarthur Award. Joining him are siblings, Sara and Sean Watkins.) You can see them at it when they were wee ones right here.

Lastly, I mention the Greencards, an Australian-based band, that definitely takes the progressive in Progressive Bluegrass to the next level. As they like to say, some of their songs are “weird ones.” But they’re incredible too. Here’s one of my favorites from them, “Wind and Water,” and this version also happens to feature Brittany Haas from Crooked Still on fiddle. Their version of “Davy Jones” is another of my favorites, and it definitely crosses the line into more progressive territory.

Of course, BROKEN CHORDS was also inspired by some of my favorite horror themes and films (I like to call it acoustic Poltergeist), but the heart of the book is its setting, and there’s so much that I love captured within it.

If you check out any of the performances or artists PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE tell me what you think. There’s nothing I love more than sharing music I love with people who love it back. (And if you want more song recs from these fabulous artists, I may just have a couple more where this came from. Hehehe.) 

OCTOBER 12: Indie Author Day
Norwalk Public Library, Norwalk CT, 8:30AM-5PM
Join me and a whole SLEW of authors at the Norwalk Public Library for their third annual Indie Author day, which is a worldwide event. Each year, libraries and organizations around the world welcome local indie authors, writers, and their communities in for a day of education, networking, mingling, writing, open mics, panels, and so much more! There, you'll find writers speaking about and reading from their books. Plenty of opportunity for Q&A, and it's FREE. More details HERE.

OCTOBER 21: CECA/CASL Authorpalooza
Hartford Convention Center, Hartford CT
Authorpalooza is part of the CECA/CASL conference where attendees will have an opportunity to hear readings and engage in Q&A with authors from all over the country. More details, including author reading schedule, visit their website.

OCTOBER 25: Book Signing and Author Chat
Barnes & Noble, Milford CT, 9AM-3PM
Benefiting Madison Middle School
Join me at Barnes & Noble in Milford, CT for a book signing and author chat to benefit one of our local schools, Trumbull's Madison Middle. Treats and Swag for all! 

OCTOBER 28: Shoptalk on WHOLEHEARTED WRITING: Practices for maintaining persistence, perseverance, and productivity.
Willoughby Wallace Library
Stony Creek, CT, 6:30PM
The life of a writer is immensely rewarding and exciting, but the journey to publication can be equally long, challenging, and discouraging. In this talk, I will draw from my psychology background to share psychologically-valid, evidence-based concepts and action steps to enhance motivation, increase productivity, and to fuel perseverance for writers and illustrators at any stage of the writing journey. Whether you are struggling with finishing your manuscript or portfolio, trying to maintain enthusiasm as you face the query trenches, or are wading through the world of post-publication, you will find something here to inspire you and concrete steps to apply to keep your whole heart in the game. This is a free event, but call 203-488-8702 to register. Or, visit wwml.org or the event page HERE.

DECEMBER 5-8th: Book Signing and Author Chat
Wicked Weekend Horror Festival
Palace Theater, Stafford Springs, CT
Join me and Patrick Moody, author of the creepy, fun, and heart-filled MG novel, THE GRAVEDIGGER'S SON for a very wicked weekend. This is a horror lover's dream. All weekend long, the Palace Theater will be invaded by horror lovers of all sorts, from movie actors, to cos-playing fans, to writers like Pat and me who love to spin spooky yarns. This event has it all! Movies, Food Trucks, a horror art exhibit, and giveaways. SPECIAL GUEST JOE MANGANARO! You can shop till your heart's content, talk with horror industry pros, and spend a little time with me and Pat. Swag and treats for all!

Visit the Wicked Weekend page for more details and full schedule. Kids under 12 enter free.