Author Archives: Kristin Luna

About Kristin Luna

Kristin Luna has been making up stories and getting in trouble for them since elementary school. She especially loves young adult literature, fantasy, Nic Cage, literary fiction, magical realism, and wouldn’t even be opposed to reading yeti erotica. She has written book reviews for Urban Fantasy Magazine, writes for this very blog your eyes are glued to at this very moment, and her short stories have appeared on Pseudopod and in anthologies about unicorns and dragons published by WordFire Press. She lives in San Diego with her husband Nic and eats way too much Taco Bell. Learn more about Kristin at her website www.kristinleighluna.com.

The Secret of Social Media Marketing

Kiev, Ukraine – October 17, 2012 – A logotype collection of well-known social media brand’s printed on paper. Include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Vimeo, Flickr, Myspace, Tumblr, Livejournal, Foursquare and more other logos.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret today. It doesn’t just apply to marketing–it’s kind of a secret to living your best life. No doubt you’ve heard it before, but maybe not applied to marketing and social media marketing.

Be Yourself.

There’s a wide range of advice out there when it comes to managing your social media as an author. Don’t post about your work so often. Engage with those who engage with your posts. Post often. Don’t post about anything political. Avoid posting anything too racy or could potentially be divisive.

While I think that advice is sound, and have definitely agreed with it in the past, I’d argue now that all of that advice does not set you apart. You will not be a memorable presence on social media if you follow all the rules.

So does that mean you should break all the rules?

No. Absolutely not. In fact, you can still follow all the rules I listed above and still be a very memorable presence on social media. How? By being yourself.

That’s very easy to say, but how exactly do you express who you really are on social media? Do you have to start letting your followers in on your deepest secrets? Do you need to share pictures of your children when you don’t feel comfortable doing so? Absolutely not.

The golden rule of Being Yourself on social media is: only post what you are comfortable posting.

But can that make you stand out? Sure it can.

Think about the things that make you unique. Even more: make a list of things that you’re nerdy about. Make a list of your hobbies. Chances are, you have a lot of knowledge in those areas. And, of course, they are important to you! So why not share your knowledge? If you like to garden vegetables, share pictures of your harvests. Recommend products that work well for you. Post videos sharing tips about how to save beets from a late spring frost.

Do you love 90s R&B? Geek out over it. Post your favorite playlist. Share pictures of your favorite groups and little bits of trivia about them. Go to their concerts and share you experience online!

Do you watch a lot of cop TV shows? Compare them. Which shows get it right? Which are inaccurate? What are some common themes and writing techniques that the writers use in those shows, and how can you apply them to your own writing? These would be fascinating topics to share.

The point is, your fans and potential fans will love to see what you’re into, especially when it’s beyond the obvious (of course you’re interested in writing, Game of Thrones, and books! We all are). Some might not know how to engage because they’re not into what you’re into, but I guarantee they will find it interesting and fun to follow you on social media anyway. They’ll love to see that you’re nerdy about other things. Not to mention all the people who ARE into what you’re into and will bond with you over TLC and Blackstreet, will thank you for your tips on how to grow juicy tomatoes, or will love putting in their two cents about the best cop show on TV right now.

You can have an interesting and fulfilling social media presence if you choose to. Just be yourself, have fun, and only post what you’re comfortable posting.

Friends and Family as Your Street Team

As a new writer, it’s absolutely vital to have people in your corner. People who believe in you and your writing and want the best for you. Sometimes, these people are coworkers and friends, though they may just be your family members for now.

No matter who they are, they are your core group. These are the people who are going to help push you when you feel like giving up, and who will read your work and recommend it to others.

But this group doesn’t assemble by accident. You must assemble them. But how?

  1. Talk to your close friends and family about your dreams. If you haven’t sat these special people down yet, now is the time. Tell them that writing is your ultimate goal, and tell them more about what you like to write. Tell them your plans. Tell them what you’d be open to doing in the future – writing for companies, screenplays, blog writing, etc. Tell them your ultimate goals for your career.
  2. Ask them to help keep you motivated. This might mean different things for different people. One person may want their support network to hound them, constantly ask them if they’ve been writing and how much they’ve accomplished. Others may just want a casual check-in here and there without the pressure. Figure out what is best for you, and then ask your close friends and family if they would be willing to be that for you in your quest to be a writer.
  3. Ask them if they’ll commit to reading your work. That means when you have something polished and ready to self-publish or send off to an agent or publication, that they’ll read it. You want your core group to be intimately acquainted with your writing and style. This step will also refine your core group – you might find that someone in your group doesn’t like the genre you’re writing, or doesn’t like your writing (GASP!). Don’t be alarmed – you can’t please all the people all the time. Give them a break and let them go. You want the people who really love your work in your core group.
  4. Ask your core group to spread the word when you have something published. After your team has read your work and once it is published, ask your team to tell others about it. This might mean blasting out a link to your book on social media, putting up flyers at their work or local coffee shops, or simply telling a few people they think would enjoy your story.
  5. Let your core group know that you appreciate them. Take care of this group of close friends and family. They’re putting in quite a lot of effort to help you build your dream. Not only give them sneak peeks of your work early, but also buy them ice cream. Take them out for dinner. Thank them over and over and over.
  6. Repeat. Continue writing and spreading the word through your street team, even if that team remains just close friends and family.

The truth is, many of us do not have the luxury of an immediate audience who loves our work. Basically, none of us do. However, you do have loved ones who care about you and who care about your work, and those people are not to be underestimated. They are the ones who care about you the most, and can help you start your street team and watch it grow with you into a healthy, large audience of fans.

Conquering First Draft Fear: How to Proceed with the First Round of Revisions

You’ve done it! You’ve written the first draft of your book! A very merry congratulations to you, and you deserve a beer. Maybe even a vacation. At the very least, a trip to the gas station to buy three packets of candy. If you feel proud of yourself, you absolutely should. If you don’t feel very proud of yourself, then congratulations again, that just means you’re a writer.

Any good writing website or book worth its salt will tell you your next step is to revise the sucker. Yes, you must do this step. Yes, everyone else hates it, too. Some books or fellow writer humans will advise you to put the book down for a set period of time to let it “rest,” like a good yeast bread needs a good rise. Unfortunately for your book, it doesn’t keep getting better in that resting period like bread does. No, no. It’s still the piece of crap you left a few weeks ago. So instead of the story rising like bread, think of it this way: YOU’RE doing the rising. You walked away for a few weeks and grew wise enough to rise above the piece of crap you made in order to come to a place where you can look past your subjective love of the story and objectively say, “Ah yes, indeed, this is a piece of crap.”

That might sound a bit dreary, but I know you. *winks* I know you because you’re a writer like me, and although you see what you’ve written as a piece of crap in front of you, you still love it and will do the work necessary to make sure it’s a remarkably great piece of crap instead of just a regular, old piece of crap.

First, may I just confirm what you’ve already been feeling? Yes, it’s hard. It’s going to be difficult at times. But let me reassure you as well: if you’ve already written the first draft, you can certainly complete these revisions. Not only that, you can do it in less then ten years. Maybe even less than five. If you’re lucky and ignore all of your adult responsibilities, a month.

Let me tell you the secret of doing revisions. You’re going to be surprised, because you’ve already learned this lesson when you were writing the first draft.

Ready?

Here it is.

You make yourself do them.

Just like you made yourself sit down and write when you didn’t feel like it, when you didn’t feel inspired to do so. You get yourself in the zone however you did when you were writing. You sit down with your cup of tea. You put on the music that gets you going, and you do it.

Everything else is just details. Should a comma go there? Is her hair dark brown or more of a medium brown? Do I italicize internal dialogue? Is the book long enough? Will people like it? Will I ever make it through all these stupid edits?

All of those fears and questions? Just the details.

Keep yourself focused on the big task in front of you: Just. Do. The. Revisions.

Undercurrents: An Anthology of What Lies Beneath

Today is a big day for a few of us here at The Fictorians. Today, WordFire Press publishes an anthology that many of us are featured in! Read exciting stories from Gregory D. Little, Mary Pletsch, and Kristin Luna in Undercurrents: An Anthology of What Lies Beneath!

Photo by Lauren Lang http://jacobinphotography.zenfolio.com/

All of the proceeds of this anthology go to the Don Hodge Memorial Scholarship which helps new writers afford to go to Superstars Writing Seminars, a yearly conference in Colorado Springs which teaches the business of writing.

Undercurrents: An Anthology of What Lies Beneath

Fear is primal. Instinctive. Unavoidable. And right now, there is something you fear–and you can feel it. Creeping up behind you. Lurking in the darkness that lives under your bed, or in your closet. A nameless dread.

In Undercurrents: An Anthology of What Lies Beneath, twenty-three talented authors, including New York Times bestsellers Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, and Jody Lynn Nye, have stood on the shores of their psyches and looked out over the ocean of possibility and wondered “What lies beneath?”

The sea creatures and sea monsters that answered their calls range from a giant kraken that rules the deepest ocean to the smallest puffer fish that creates intricate works of underwater art. Creatures of classic mythology–mermaids, sirens, and sea serpents–swim alongside more unusual beasts–underwater cats and singing whirlpools. These stories dive deep into the fears many of us face, including loss, abandonment, death, and physical, mental, or emotional danger. When the fears we keep buried beneath the surface rise up and threaten to consume, we must make a choice: conquer or be conquered.

This anthology is the fourth volume produced by the alumni of the Superstars Writing Seminar, and all royalties benefit the Don Hodge Memorial Scholarship Fund.

The anthology is now available online with all major book retailers. You can order your copies here:

Amazon Paperback

Amazon Kindle

Kobo

Nook

More information about the book: https://books2read.com/u/bMrOoV

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