Tuesday, May 27, 2014

ARMCHAIR BEA for Tuesday, May 27th, 2014 - Author Interaction


TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2014: AUTHOR INTERACTION & MORE THAN JUST WORDS

Author Interaction 
Let’s talk interacting with authors IRL (in real life) or online. This is your opportunity to talk about your favorite author readings that you have attended. Or, you can feature your favorite author fan moment (i.e., an author sent you a tweet or commented on your blog). Maybe you even want to share how your interactions have changed since becoming a blogger or share your own tips that you have learned along the way when interacting with authors as a blogger. 


OR
More Than Just Words 
There are so many mediums that feature more than just words and enhance a story in a multitude of ways. Examples may include graphic novels and comics, audiobooks, or even multimedia novels. On this day, we will be talking about those books and formats that move beyond just the words and use other ways to experience a story. Which books stand out to you in these different formats? 


Today I am choosing to talk about Author Interaction
I've never had the opportunity to IRL (in real life) to attend an author event as not many authors seem to come to Michigan. I've never run into one at a bookstore, either. Our local Barnes and Noble doesn't have many author appearances, either. We are kind of well off the beaten path, unless you need to cross the Blue Water Bridge to Canada, then we are a HUGE town! Other than that, we have a population of 30,000 people, which still seems a little small town'ish because inevitably you always seem to run into someone you know from somewhere. Other than that, there is not ONE other bookstore within 50-60 miles from here. With my disability, I am unable to drive, so that really limits my ability to be able to GO and see authors I love when they are within driving distance. 
So how do I have Author Interaction? I am subscribed to ALL of my favorite authors' websites, and have one author in particular, +Suzanne Woods Fisher  (thank you, Suzanne!) who sends me postcards to let me know when she is coming to my state, but the sad part about that is when she comes, the bookstores she is appearing at are so far away from where I live, I am not able to attend. Bummer! Hopefully, one day, I WILL get to meet her in person! You may know her from all of the Amish books she writes!
Instead, I interact with authors through the internet, as we all do. Thank gosh for the internet! Or, a better way of looking at this is what would we do without the internet?!
I have been so blessed to meet so many amazing authors and get to know them from communicating with them on Facebook, at their websites, and especially through email when they request a book review from you, and through their books, you become friends with them. I love that! A great way to interact with them is by doing Blog Tours for their books and especially when they stop by your blog on your Tour Date and leave a comment, that is the BEST!!! That just happened to me last week, again! It was not a Blog Tour, but a book I found interesting from NetGalley called "In The Mirror" by +Kaira Rouda This was a new release I reviewed, and you can read her comment HERE! I LOVE when that happens! (PS. I LOVED the book! The premise of the book was, "What would you do if you knew you were dying?" WOW! She truly connected with the reader through her characters, too! Her writing is AMAZING!
I've also had a lot of other authors come by my blog and comment on my reviews, too! Other authors such as +Colleen Hoover +Melissa Foster +Catherine Ryan Hyde +Cora Carmack and many others! I am friends with all of them on Facebook, too, and we follow each other on Twitter. Friend these authors and follow them on Twitter! They LOVE it!! You will find it rewarding, too! 
I cannot think of anything else that is more flattering than when you write a review and the author of that book comes to your blog and leaves a comment about the review you wrote! That makes me all warm and fuzzy inside!  
Twitter! Twitter is AMAZING! I love posting the links to the book reviews I write on Twitter, and I have had such amazing feedback from the authors of the books! They have retweeted my tweets to their Followerss, too! Some have marked them as Favorites!
Other than book reviews, we still want to support our authors, and I do that with Twitter and Facebook. I'll tweet and include an authors name if I see something on another blog and include that authors name so they see it! They'll tweet back to me thanking me, otherwise they would have missed it. We just say 'hello'!
Advice for interacting with authors, 'just DO IT'! I have not run into one author who does not like to interact! None of them will bite your hand off! LOL! They 'want' the attention as it brings attention to their books.
A GREAT way to tweet an author is when you buy their book on Amazon! (I don't know if other places you purchase ebooks from allow you to do this as I only own Kindles and a Fire) but instead of just sending out a Tweet that you bought the book, or you put it on your Wish List, go to Twitter and look up their name! Go back to Amazon, and where the message says 'by', delete that and put the @ sign! That is a GREAT way to advertise their books!
Author Interaction is SO important because it TRULY helps to get their book/books noticed! They want that, WE want that because if we love their writing, we want MORE of their writing! Let's help them be successful so WE can be successful at getting MORE of their writing!
This has been my Armchair BEA for the day this week! Hope you ALL had a great day doing this today! I have!
Till tomorrow!
Laurie

8 comments:

  1. Great post and it's very true, authors are often very nice! It's great to interact with them. I love blogging about books! I've only recently started, but it's so much fun!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Librarian Lavender!
      Congrats on recently starting! Blogging about books IS so much fun! That is the BEST thing about blogging about books, and that is the author! I find them amazing how they get an idea for a story and turn it into a book! I've tried writing, and what holds me up is conversation! ALL those quotation marks! YUCK! LOL!!! I'd rather enjoy reading others' work anyway! I can't wait for you to have your first anniversary! You probably already have a TBR list a mile long! Have FUN at this! BEST advice I can give you! Don't let it become 'work', and only read what you like! You'll LOVE it and will be blogging a long time!
      Congrats, again!
      Laurie

      Delete
  2. I feel your pain about author's not visiting your area. The nearest town to me has about 700 people. So I know what you mean by small. There isn't much interaction with author's in my state. I do wish I could travel to meet more author's but the cost keeps me here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tia!
      Yeah, money, money, money. Bummer!!! There never seems to be enough of it for the things we LOVE and want to do!!! On the PLUS side, this is why the internet is even better because we get to meet our favorite authors, and not only meet them, but we get to talk and interact with them even more so than if we were going to an event to meet them! As I've been thinking about this all day today, I think we get more of a relationship with them online because we stay connected over time, are closer, and everyone has more access to each other even easier. It doesn't get any better!
      Thanks for stopping by, Tia!
      Laurie

      Delete
  3. you've definitely made lemonade out of lemons! what a great reminder to us all that we can connect with our favorite authors no matter where we are and through a variety of mediums

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aw, Stacy! Thanks! Yes! It is SO GREAT that there are so many different ways to be able to connect with our favorite authors! I LOVE it! I've been to a few blogs today in which they are afraid to contact or even talk to the authors. They have put authors in comparison to 'celebrity status', and I tried to build some confidence in them telling them they are just people like we are, and yes, they have a talent to write, but we are all people and we essentially do the same thing when we write reviews. We write, too! The best part is they want us to reach out to them, talk to them, learn more about us because they LOVE it, too! They love their readers! Not only that, but it is us bloggers who help to get their books seen and out to the public, so they want us to reach out to them!
      Authors today rely on us bloggers, and us bloggers rely on our favorite books to keep writing!!! Please!! LOL!
      I pointed them to my post, and I hope I took some of the scare out of them! They are regular, ordinary people just like us!
      Connecting with them is such a PLUS! The EASE and variety of ways is amazing!
      Thanks so much for stopping by! It's hard to get to everyone's blogs, but I'm trying!!
      Laurie

      Delete
  4. I've never really interacted with authors in person, either, despite many, many opportunities. These things usually happen as "events," which means lots of people and lots of waiting around, two things I do not enjoy. I also interact with authors via social media and blogs, which has been pretty awesome. Catherine Ryan Hyde is one of the authors I wrote about today too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Adam!
      I am at your blog right this minute! LOL!!!
      I have to agree with you on this one! There are to many people at the events! It's a huge crowd! I don't like crowds, either, nor waiting around. I think we do have the BEST of both worlds by having a relationship with them on all the different social media outlets available! Heck, even the US Postal Service! We get surprises in the mail sometimes, too! Swag, books, etc.! I think we bloggers are SO LUCKY!
      That is amazing how you talked about Catherine Ryan Hyde today, too! She IS AMAZING!!! Everything she has written has been and is for the good of people! Taking a bad situation and making it better! She TRULY LOVES PEOPLE! Her writing clearly shows it, and we see it! She's amazing! Well, I'm going to finish reading YOUR blog now! Thanks SO much for stopping by mine today! I'm honored, I really am!
      Thank you!!
      Laurie

      Delete

I LOVE Comments so please leave one! After I review the comments and make sure they are NOT SPAM - I HAVE BEEN BOMBARDED WITH SPAM - YOUR COMMENTS WILL BE PUBLISHED HERE! Thanks SO MUCH for your patience and for leaving a comment!!! Comments are ALWAYS welcomed, YET THEY WILL NOT LINK TO GOOGLE+ EITHER DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF SPAM!!! When I say this blog is experiencing SPAM, we are talking 30+ comments PER DAY that are spam! Please understand!! Again, thank you!!