Hello, SE Friends. Mae here today, ready to talk support and organizations. As authors when we sit down and peck away at the keyboard, it’s a solitary process. If you’re like me, you have a cat poking in every so often and strolling across your keyboard or curling up on your desk. Or maybe you have a playful pup dropping a toy at your feet and demanding attention. And of course, there are interruptions from kids and spouses, but for the most part, when we sit down to create it’s us and our characters.

That’s all well and good during the creation process, but what about learning, marketing, and brainstorming with other authors? That’s where we all need support organizations and those special author friends who make up our inner circle. In this article I thought I’d take a look at some of the backbone of support authors rely upon.

How much would you pay to reach a potential audience of say, a hundred thousand readers? And what if, instead, you could do that for FREE, with no strings attached?

Writers need to promote their work… interviews, guest posts, radio shows…they are all excellent ways of getting your work seen and, hopefully read. There are any number of sites willing to make holes in your hard-won and often meagre royalties by offering you advertising space, or nameless (and possibly non-existent) followers and who will charge you to appear on their blog or website. While everyone needs to make a living, and while there is nothing wrong with investing money, as well as your time to promote your work, why pay for what you are being offered for free?

There are very many people offering guest spots to writers. WordPress bloggers will also post their links across many social media platforms…

Hi, SEers. Forgive me for being a hypocrite, but today’s post is going to be a do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do post. Remember, I used to work in corporate communications, so I know marketing strategies. (That doesn’t mean I use them myself; it just means I know them.)

Okay… Unless you literally just decided to become an author today, you almost definitely have an author website. Hopefully you’ve included the basics:

• landing page to advertise news and collect email addresses
• blog to share content, generate interest, and remain fresh in the minds of your fans
• book pages so your work is well-defined and easy to find
• about page to introduce yourself to new visitors
• social media links so people can find you elsewhere online
• contact page so your readers can reach you
• platform-wide cohesion and pleasing design

Many authors stop there. Okay, let’s be honest—many readers fall short in some/most/all of those categories.

• Their…