Seven Tools For Writers

The Mysteries of a Writer's Instagram

My email has been full of how to harness social media for the upcoming year. It’s exhausting. I delete the emails before I even open them. Does anyone need more stress right now? Hell no.  

Before I confuse anyone, let’s be clear about the fact I’m still learning. I’ll show you what I do when I remember to do it. Got to be honest in saying, I try to be consistent. But I miss sometimes. I’m human. 

All the calls to engage and connect with readers on various platforms scares the pants off me. Strangers in my private space aren’t a warm fuzzy. If I had to pick one to learn, I would go with the more visual medium.  

Instagram is my speed. I love dogs. That’s what hooked me. They offered beautiful and funny dogs. Sucked me right up. Immediately I started collecting beagle dogs in my feed. Next, I started taking pictures of my two. Nice people who loved animals and had fun. No brainer. 

I still have that beagle feed. It’s my space for taking things down a notch. But, I knew I wanted to do more.  

I had some art friends who were doing only art pictures in their feeds, so I opened a new account and started posting arty type things. There was nothing wrong with that, but I didn’t feel the same happy with the new feed. Plus, I had an inkling I might be missing something. 

While I was percolating about what to do social media, I caught a live eight-week course On Instagram for Writers. It was so good. I will not reteach that class. That’s not my skill, but you can go over to Ninja Writers and look into what they offer. I think they have a $10.00 workshop on getting started on Instagram.  

Photo by energepic.com from Pexels

As part of the course, we were asked to look for examples of other writers on the platform. Try it yourself. Think about your niche and do a search. Might be a spoiler, but I’ll say results are abysmal. I’m in love with alien romance at the moment. The search turned up two of the authors I enjoy. Cynthia Sax and Evangeline Anderson. Later, I found Grace Goodwin.  

None of them have very many followers. Right around 2k for all of them. Most of them only post once per day. Grace Goodwin’s feed is a sales ad. Not much to connect with but her books. Cynthia Sax is about the same. She posts captions about her life. It’s a stab at being more personal.  

Four or five months ago Evangeline Anderson started hitting Instagram hard. She’s been branding more. Making these posts with video. Her face  in a split screen and the other side is some hunky man candy. Nothing like a hottie with no shirt and low rider jeans to spice up your day. This is also on brand. She writes sexy books. She has been very consistent. Plus, fun. There are some sales ads, but you don’t mind because there is another post with a hot man. I’ve not asked her what she’s doing. I’ve wondered if she hired a social media manager. Whatever got her here, she has the most followers of the three writers. You see her face, then you make a connection, and you buy her books, then you come back for more.  

The number one advice I could give writers is to be more than a sales ad. Be as open as you want to be, but be real. It’s fine to push your books, but there needs to be more to engage with.  

Here are some practical things I’ve learned from various classes: 

• Make a business account. If you already have an Instagram account, you can change your account type in the settings.

• Be consistent. People expect content from you at regular intervals. Some writers only push Instagram when they have a sale or a new book. You can do better than that.

• Start with photos. There are other things to do on Instagram, but first take photos.

• Learn to leverage hashtags. There are several places you can learn from. Ubersuggest is the most straightforward. Dig around over there and see what you can figure out.

• After you’ve conquered photos, you can lean into Stories. These are short burst videos that disappear after 24 hours. You can play with how you look, what you have to say and lighting, video and such. I’m not comfortable with them being about me. I love having them be about one of my dogs.  

• Reels are Instagram’s attempt to keep people from being on Tiktok all the time. They created a place for short videos. I’ve got to confess. There’ve been days when I lose an hour or two watching doggy reels. It’s one of the first things I do in the morning. I need a giggle or an aww to start my day. Then I watch it before I fall asleep. A good laugh before bed.  

• Create a visually pleasing grid. This has been hard for me. Getting a consistent color or coordinating colors isn’t something I'm good at. I’ll need to work on that.

• That’s some broad strokes for anyone who hasn’t played around on Instagram. 

Let’s talk about what I’m doing over there right now. Three days a week. M, W, F, I post beagle photos. Funny or just a sleepy puppy and such. On Tu, and Th, I post first lines from books I’ve read. It has been a challenge to get traction for first lines. What hasn’t helped is the dearth of good writer content on Instagram. I’m not sure if I want to post blog announcements. That’s a future thing I’ll need to ponder.  

Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile from Pexels

Last, you need a scheduler. There are gazillions. I recommend Later, Plann (what I use) and Hootsuite. I schedule a week out. That’s my brain speed, but I know some who set up an entire month of content in one big go. Maybe that’s faster. I’ll have to try it sometime. A scheduler also lets me look at my grid outside of Instagram. I still struggle, but it's helpful.  

Once you’ve been around Instagram a minute, you can start trying to gain more followers. I’ve tried a few things, but I’m don't want to spend all day on Instagram. Well, I do, but I want to be watching dog videos. One of the best places I can send you is over to this guy. The $1.80 is a strategy many use to grow their accounts. I will warn you, it’s tedious as hell.  

I want to throw one more author in here. Sarra Cannon. Her Instagram is gorgeous. Her branding is on point. She does photos, videos, carousels, and stories. Her feed is about her and her writing and her books. It’s delicious. She doesn’t write in my niche, but I don’t care. She’s engaging with readers and gathering a huge following.  

I’m sure I’ve not covered everything even in this long a post. Social media changes every day. New features, new ways to reach people and new ideas for how to grow your audience.  

Being human may be the biggest takeaway from all of this talk of social media and the weighing and judging of other people’s lives. We’re all just trying to figure it out. Be gentle and kind. It’s free and spreads good vibes. 

I’d love to hear how others are leveraging Instagram. If this article helped you, let me know so I can keep making this type of content in my regular rotation.

P.S. Everyone is hailing Pinterest as the next big thing for authors. Yeah, I’m going to need a class on that.

Writing Software I've Said Goodbye To

Canva

There are so many choices for writers now. Writing software languished for years. Clunky, messy and sometimes so confusing, I picked up pen and paper. Today I’m going to talk about three top shelf pieces of software that I kicked down the road.  

Most new software finds me one of two ways. Nanowrimo and writing friends. Occasionally there will be a Facebook ad for something new, but other writers are always so excited to tell another writer about some outstanding thing they’ve found. Word of mouth rules. 

Scrivener 

This was the first writing software I bought myself. Since I own it, I can write books forever and never need to pay again. I’m not worried about a subscription or losing work because I want to end my writing relationship with said software. Subscriptions drive me bananas. 

 I liked Scrivener. I still open it from time to time. Two books live in it. I have scene cards, research, and chapters. I can export out to Word or format it (this is tricky and sometimes a waste of your time), character information, locations, a scratch pad for ideas or pieces you’ve cut out but want to save for later.  

It’s meaty. It’s all there. They released an updated version recently. It improved many features. They may tease me back over to their side of the street. 

Reason I left it? Learning curve. I’ve taken several classes on Scrivener. There are still things I don’t understand how to use well. Like metadata. No clue. I believed once I understood it, I would love it. That didn’t work for me.  

If the world ended tomorrow, and that’s much scarier a line than it used to be, I would use write in Scrivener. I own the IOS app. I used it infrequently. But I own it. That’s key in my list of requirements.  

Bruno Bueno

Save the Cat 

Everyone has been on the Save the Cat wagon. The book is a quick read. If you haven’t picked it up, you should. It’s worth it.

A guest came to our writers’ group and talked about Save the Cat. She said her book that followed the STC formula outsold her other titles. Then she said she never used it again. Yeah, that fell pretty flat in the room.  

The software received a recent update. There have been some changes in their team and they’ve pushed the software everywhere they can. That said, I used it for half a book. They have tutorials which I watched dutifully. It’s easy to use.  

STC made me want to learn how to use databases more efficiently. You can track items, people, places and such. Things run as scenes in sequences familiar to you if you’ve read the book. I didn’t ever really write in Save the Cat software. It didn’t flow for my mind. Not its fault or mine.  

If you are writing for television, theater, movies and such, you’ll be at home. Even some of you who write novels will like it. It is a subscription. When I quit STC, I took screenshots and downloaded what I could out of it. There has been information lost. That frustrated me. I don’t see myself using this again. 

Plottr 

There has been some buzz about Plottr. I want to be clear and upfront that I’m not sure it’s even meant to write in. But when I used it, I thought using it just for plotting and outlining only sort of weird. It's disconnected somehow. 

The software bills itself as plotting tool. And it is. Here again I’ll say it’s meaty. So much to dig into. Timelines, characters, and places. I didn’t find a way to add in items. I’ve always used items as touchstones in my books. So, when Save the Cat had items as a feature, I knew I wouldn’t want to do without it. 

It has templates based on several of the best systems including The Hero’s Journey, Romancing the Beat, Save the Cat and others. It also integrations with Word, Scrivener and such. The developers are active and spit out improvements all the time.  

If you need something to help you hold all your info, this might be the place. Such a beast. A pantser would contemplate bits and bobs of a plot inside Plottr.  

Kaleidico

This one may suck me back in at some point. I’m using Notion to hold all my info for the book I’m writing now. If it doesn’t go well, I might pick this one back up. It’s got a very nice interface, hefty features and offers a lifetime option if you find it invaluable. That means you’re not at the risk of needing to recreate things down the road if you stop paying them a subscription. 

I’m still not sure I’ll ever find a piece of software that does it all. But I’m not afraid to try out something new. Sometimes new software makes me aware of an aspect of my writing I need to improve or treat with more importance. Give something new a whirl and see what shakes out. I bet you learn something.

Is there a new piece of software I must try? Let me know about your favorites.

Gamify Your Writing

Bruno Henrique & Canva

I’ve been more productive in 2021 than the last six years. I’ve already written more words, made more blog posts, learned Canva and fell in love with Instagram. It’s only June. I’m determined to keep my momentum going. How can I tweak my productivity? Being a gamer and an efficiency nut, I knew what I wanted.  

Many authors use word count as their carrot on the end of a stick. Nothing wrong with this style of tracking. I love Nanowrimo. The 50,000 words I output every November are an outlier. If I write all five days a week, I can get to 5k to 7k. About half of what I crank out for Nano.  

If word count motivates you, try out Pacemaker. You create your goal and then check in every day. You can set up descending goals for editing. It gives you little rewards and shows your writing chain. I love a good streak. This site has a free component. I’ve always stayed on the free plan.  

Matilda Wormwood

I love to test out new writing software. Almost all of them have a word count tracker. Nothing fancy most of the time. I use Dabble for fast drafting. The software has a word count tracker that sinks with Nano every year. Thinking about it, I have drafted my last four books in Dabble. Guess I like it or I’m getting superstitious about completing manuscripts? Scrivener has a tracker, as does Papyrus Author. You may have to hunt for it, but it’s in there somewhere.  

I love statistics. They are a great motivator. Seeing that I am forty-five percent through a draft kicks my motor over. While spreadsheets are outstanding, I’ve been using Notion to track fiction versus nonfiction writing along with how long I take to create either. We can link the databases to master pages where I take all the data and leverage it into seeing patterns.  

Pick a prize. Who doesn’t love prizes? For my last writing goal, I had something picked out. Jetpens makes so many of my dreams real. When my pen got to me, I loved it. Plus, when I use the pen, I grin about finishing edits on that manuscript.  

Take classes. They don’t have to be writing related. For instance, I took a canva class to learn new ways to brand my website. It’s a work in progress, but it’s helped me stay motivated. You can checkout Skillshare or Udemy and such. Learn something new and plump up your writing arsenal. Easy way to gamify continuing education. 

How many rejections can you get? Keep track and give yourself kudos as you rack up the no thank you emails. If you don’t have a way to track, create a spreadsheet or keep a word document.  

If you’re self-publishing, are you making your production schedule? There are always hiccups, but if you look at the project as a whole, you’ll find you’ve been working your butt off. Maybe you want cheesecake or more things from Jetpens? Because you deserve some acknowledgment for releasing your baby out into the world.  

What it comes down to is you have to find what makes your engine purr. I like physical things. Planning supplies, stickers and all the pens I can horde make me grin bigger than an Orangutan. It doesn’t have to be big things. In a planning group I saw some Animal Crossing: New Horizon stationary. That’s an awesome prize.

Sharad kachhi

Maybe you work best in spurts. I love a ten to fifteen minute sprint. Small goals help get me over the finish line. If I write for fifteen minutes, I get ten minutes on my Nintendo. Or a phone game. Ten minutes of your favorite show. Chain the small sprints into a productivity game of your own making.

What works for you? What motivates you? Maybe you have something sitting in your online shopping cart. When you need a jolt to get you over the hump, click buy. Now let the joy spread over into your writing.  

For many, writing is a career they fit around whatever job pays the bills. It’s lonely, rigorous and often self-defeating. You can write one hundred books and only a handful will hit the lists. Are you writing two books a year? Then a fifty-year career comes out to one hundred books. Long days with writing shoehorned around other obligations. How old are you? Do your math.  

You don’t want to spend your writing career miserable. No one can expect happiness from outside yardsticks. Give yourself a bonus when you need to. That boost can help you never give up on writing. Respect yourself and your work and learn how you can use what makes you tick to get your story told.  

Gamify the crap out of your writing if it will help you. If it sounds too weird, keep doing whatever is working for you. But only if it’s working. If you’re shaking your head but the writing is abysmal and nowhere near consistent, give something else a try.

Create your own success. Everyone has different benchmarks. Find yours. Make it work for you.  

Keep it simple.  

Write. Write. Write.