TopTips on Social Media for Authors and Illustrators

Insta Post!

Social media - love it or hate it, it's part of our modern lives and a big part of the deal of getting your book to readers.   Not everyone takes naturally to it, and not everyone has an instinct for using the technology.  If that's you, this post aims to give a simple guide of how best to make social media work for you without swamping your life. If you've any questions, pop them in the comments and I'll do my best to help.

Website.

You probably need a website. It doesn't need to be all singing all dancing but it needs to showcase you and your work in an appealing way so that if someone searches for you, they're going to be mildly impressed. This is especially important if you're an illustrator.

Here's mine: www.kathrynevans.ink

Who does it reach? Anyone searching for you - potentially agents, editors, reviewers, readers, librarians.

How to use it?  

1. I've written a brief how to on my own website that you might find useful for the very basics. You'll find it here. 
2. Keep it updated and fresh. Post public appearances, news,  information about event bookings - have a look at other people's websites for inspiration.
3. Put links to booksellers on your posts - make it easy for people to purchase if they want to.
4. Check your website is usable on phones, tablets and desktops. Wordpress has a facility that will allow you to see how it looks across all of these.
5.  Check in so you can answer any comments or have them sent to your email.

Facebook

This is probably the best known of all the western platforms. It's also, possibly,  the most highly visible in terms of ethical issues such as misuse of data and the spreading of fake news. I won't go in to those here but our own Candy Gourlay discusses that here. Aside from those issues,  in terms of promoting yourself to an audience, is it worth being on Facebook?

I get very little traffic to my Facebook Author page - I keep it because there is some traffic and because I don't want to bore my friends and family rigid with all my book news on my personal Facebook page. In truth though, most of my Facebook followers ARE my friends and family. And that is what I find Facebook best for.  I am a member of several private groups and I love the community space they provide. I can see what my wider family are up to and dip in and out when  I want to.

Here's mine: https://www.facebook.com/kathrynevansauthor/

Who does it reach?   Mostly friends and family. Good for chat groups like SCBWI and other writer groups.

How to use it: 
1. Post regularly, aim for at least every other day.
2. Check your messages so you don't miss anything. Block any horrible people without engaging.
3. Interact with comments at least once a day if you can.
4. Don't push your book at people, give them interesting relevant content such as news articles or reviews.
5. Use the cool things Facebook gives you - there's a Book Now link that you can set up to take your readers straight to  your website.
6. Link the account to Instagram if it helps, (so if you upload to Insta it'll automatically post to the face book page you  select).

There are alternatives to Facebook but I'm not hugely familiar with them and so far, adding extra platforms is just a bit too much for me BUT you'll find a few Slushies, including me occasionally, on MeWe.

Twitter.

Fast paced and furious Twitter can be a bit bewildering and shouty as well as fun and dynamic.

Here's mine: @KathrynEvansInk

Who does it reach? Librarians, book sellers, bloggers and other authors cross paths. If you want to reach industry professionals, Twitter is the place.

How to use it:
1. Don't shout BUY MY BOOK, no one  will follow you.
2. Be wise, pertinent, funny and sharp. You need to be generous - share good things you've found, help promote others - if someone asks for advice, try and give it.
3. Follow people, interact with them. Be interested and interesting.
4. If you get embroiled in an argument stay calm , block anyone who is outrageously rude to you.
5. You can't retweet a tweet over and over without commenting on it but it's easy for a single tweet to be missed so Retweet with comment - you can use ICYMI ( In Case You Missed It) so you can RT (retweet) again later.
6. Use a service like TweetDeck to organise your tweets - you can create search columns and schedule tweets.
7. Use appropriate hashtags - #amwriting #amediting are really useful ones !
8. Use your author name so people can find you easily.

Instagram. 

I was advised to join Instagram by my publicist. I didn't think I'd like it. Turned out, I LOVE it.

Classic Insta story post!

Here's mine: @KathrynEvansAuthor

Who does it reach? Readers and bloggers and librarians. This is the primary place my readers connect with me - I write YA so that  may skew the figures - do comment if you write for a different age group, I'd love to know where works best for you.

How to use it? 

1. Post regularly without swamping people's feeds. Aim for once or twice a day.
2. Be interesting and relevant but don't be shy - the posts that get most likes on my Instagram are usually pictures of my new hair colour!
3. Think about what you're presenting to the world and try and keep to the same themes - I post about my life so it is a bit eclectic - books, hair, pets and fencing mostly.
3. Use hashtags - that's how people find you- #bookstagram #amreading are good ones.
4. Stories allows you to take a reader on a journey through your day without swamping their feed - they have to choose to look at stories - look at how Juno Dawson and Alwyn Hamilton do it. I find their story threads really fun and engaging.
5. Make your pictures as good as they can be - the edit features in Instagram allow you to turn your pictures the right way around and brighten or sharpen them. Take time to get to know how to use them.
6. Interact with people - this is almost more important than posting - comment, ask questions - aim to do so around 5 times a day.
7. Use an app like Repost to share other people's cool posts - ask permission first, they usually love it.
8. Go to settings and connect your account to twitter and facebook - then you can choose which images to share across all platforms.

YouTube

I am on You Tube but creating content takes such a long time I don't use it enough. Still, it's fun and another place for people to find you. Youngsters search YouTube all the time, they use it like a search engine to locate 'how to's' and information about things they're interested in. It's a platform I should make more use of! Though I don't feel qualified to help you with this one but have a look at my channel if you want to see what I do.

SnapChat

I thought Snapchat would be a great way to connect with my teen readers. I hated it - I got sent a lot of pictures of willies and my son deleted all the people I'd inadvertently befriended.

Here's mine:

Who does it reach? Who knows? I only use it to keep in touch with my son these days!

How to Use it: Sorry, it's still a mystery to me BUT it has really fun filters and you can save the images and videos and post them wherever you like. Here's a snapshot  of a virtual reality video I made with a Snapchat filter and then posted on Instagram.

That's it - there are many other platforms but for promotion purposes, these are the main places to be. My final bit of advice though - if you hate it leave it. Choose the place you feel happiest and make the most of that one.


 Kathryn Evans is the award winning author of More of Me. Her new book, Beauty Sleep, ( Black Mirror meets Sleeping Beauty) is out now.  Kathryn loves faffing about on social media: find her  on Facebook and Instagram @kathrynevansauthor and tweeting @KathrynEvansInk.  

The Writer's 4 Stages of Learning

by Em Lynas
I'm a big fan of the Four Stages of Learning and I apply them to EVERYTHING, Life, Learning, Writing etc. 


They keep me on track, stop any feelings of being overwhelmed, help me keep a balance between the intensity of learning new skills and relaxing with old skills. I've talked about them before on the Slushpile but for those who have never heard of them, here they are:

Stage One

Unconscious Incompetence

I don't know what I don't know but I am going to... Write a book/learn to drive/start a relationship/take up skydiving etc

Stage Two

Conscious Incompetence.

I have had a reality check and I am learning what I don't know (which is taking much longer than I expected) so that I can... Write a book/learn to drive/start a relationship/take up skydiving etc

Stage Three

Conscious Competence

I know what I need to know and now I am going to practise applying it so that I can... Write a book/learn to drive/start a relationship/take up skydiving etc

Stage Four

Unconscious Competence.

At this stage I may have the impression that I'm an expert. I've reached the top of the learning curve and embedded the learning so I can... Write a book/learn to drive/start a relationship/take up skydiving etc

  

When I began writing I was obviously at Stage One. I had no idea what I needed to learn (lots). I also had no idea where to go for help. (SCBWI BI). I had no idea how steep (or how long) the learning curve was going to be but I went through the stages and, eventually, published a series of books with Nosy Crow.

So now I am at the beginning again. Writing a brand new thrill a minute, surprise a second, series. And I started thinking about the Four Stages and where I was with this new work because I feel I am right back down at Unconscious Incompetence in everything.

But that can't be right. I'm an author. I can write. I have proof! Look!

So, I've made a list to get a sense of perspective and hopefully a bit of confidence in the new stuff.

Things I am Unconsciously Incompetent at:

• This new plot.
• This Story.
• Who the characters are.
• Their motivations.
• Their voices.

I still don't know what I don't know but as the story develops I will discover this and need to research the things I don't know such as the world I set my book in. Currently reading:

So there's a clue as to what's coming next, hopefully.

Things I am Consciously Incompetent at:

Writing the synopsis

Urgh! Yuck! Please no. Don't make me do it!

Verbally pitching

I recently attempted a verbal pitch to my agent, Amber Caraveo.
Me: blah blah blah
Agent Amber: Er ? Er.
Me: I'll write it down and send it.
Agent Amber: I think that's best.

The marketability triangle.

Nailing age group plus length plus subject matter is easier said than done and there are lots of rules about different lengths re- chapter books and middle grade books.

Time management.

• Should I have a daily word counts and stick to it?
• Should I have a time slot and stick to it?
• Should I sit in the sunshine with my 'thinking face' on and tell everyone - this is WORK people - WORK!

Scrivener.

I can't get the hang of formatting when compiling and switching to Word. The width doesn't match and the text disappears off the right hand side.

Ignoring the REAL BIG WORLD that is going crazy at the moment. I struggle to hide in my story away from the harm that is being done to the world.

Things I am Consciously Competent at:

Plotting using plotting cards.

Structure

• Using the Hero's Journey as a base and (hopefully) disguising it.
• Kicking the protagonist into Act 2.
• Escalating the plot and story
• Planning from the midpoint.
• Kicking the protagonist into Act 3

Characterisation

• Creating personalities.
• Creating relationships.
• Using idiolect.

Pitching

I may be weird but I love writing the short pitch.

Em wants to write a book but her incompetence gets in the way. Can she crawl up the learning curve in time to meet the deadline? Of course she can!

Things I am Unconsciously Competent at:

The tools of the trade

• Grammar
• Punctuation.
• Syntax

Analysis: I LOVE analysing mentor texts looking for:

• Structure
• Voice.
• Characterisation.
• Openings
• Endings
• Midpoints

Editing: I LOVE editing.

• The big edit for structure.
• The big edit for consistency of character and motivation.
• The close edit for clarification.
• Then the proof-reading - picking up those little things like - Twink Toadspit has six brothers and I've listed seven! That was a close call.

Technology

It's been a huge learning curve but luckily it was one step at a time over a few years so now I know, among lots of other stuff:

• The norm for submitting
• Font - Arial or Times New Roman, 12 p double spaced.
• Layout - Don't indent first paragraph, indent the rest at .5cm
• Write THE END so agent/editor knows for certain - that's it.
• To BACK UP!
• Whether that's on Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Memory Stick (Beware -some can deteriorate), emailing to myself, printing off.
• How to create a website and blog.

So - are we always In Stage One: Unconscious Incompetence?

I think so. I'm published but I still devour the How To Books, I go to kidlit conferences, I sign up for courses, I attend critique groups.

Why? 

Because I still don't know what I don't know and the authors, course leaders, conference keynotes, fellow critiquers might know what I don't know and the great thing about Kidlit authors is they will share what they DO know. Then I'll know it too. What a fabulous profession to be in.

Em Lynas is the author of The Witch School Series staring Daisy Wart aka Twinkle Toadspit and published by Nosy Crow.

*Reference from Wikipedia

Management trainer Martin M. Broadwell described the model as "the four levels of teaching" in February 1969.^[1] Paul R. Curtiss and Phillip W. Warren mentioned the model in their 1973 book The Dynamics of Life Skills Coaching.^[2] The model was used at Gordon Training International by its employee Noel Burch in the 1970s; there it was called the "four stages for learning any new skill".^[3] Later the model was frequently (but incorrectly) attributed to Abraham Maslow, although the model does not appear in his major works.^[4]

Further Adventures in Illustration

By Nick Cross

Vintage book cover from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature

It’s been a whole year since I last shared my experiences as a budding illustrator, so I thought it was high time to inflict more of my art on you give you an update.

The submission process for my illustrated YA novel has been taking its toll (see my previous post for more about that), and my writing has been on hiatus recently. To the extent that I’ve started to dread that question you get asked at writing events: “So, what are you working on?” Anyway, to compensate, I’ve been devoting more time to my art and illustration work.

Since I started illustrating two years ago, I’ve found my slow progress frustrating. A reasonable person might say it takes time, effort and patience to learn a new skill, but clearly I am not that person. As a type A perfectionist who is starting to feel the sands of time running out, I want instant results and I want them now! This intolerance for imperfection is, frankly, not helpful when trying to learn a complex new skill.

Do I enjoy drawing? Sometimes, although I still find it very difficult. I remember a long period of writing where I couldn’t make the words on the page come out how I wanted them to, and drawing has been the same. Except with drawing, I felt extra pressure because someone else could look at the source photo and see just how far my representation had fallen short.

Because I wasn’t enjoying drawing, I also wasn’t doing the one thing that everyone recommends, which is to draw every day. I would draw half-heartedly occasionally but never with a consistent goal. It occurred to me that working in Oxford, I had all these fabulous museums on my doorstep, including the Ashmolean, Natural History and Pitt Rivers. I resolved to take my pen and sketchbook, and spend a couple of lunchtimes every week drawing stuff.

There were pros and cons to this approach. On the plus side, there are lots of things to draw - you can pretty much wander into the Ashmolean and find something totally new every time. On the minus side, there are a lot of visitors and tours - I would regularly look up from my sketchbook to find a group of people blocking my view! But I did learn some important things about my method. Take these drawings of the same statue as an example:



The sketch on the left was something I did very rapidly, just as a warm up. I found that once I had got some of the perfectionist anxiety out of my system, I could concentrate on really “seeing” the subject. The sketch on the right (though the proportions are a bit iffy) reflects that enhanced concentration.

Although I went museum sketching for a couple of months, the very public nature of the process started to grate on me. I’m intensely protective of my creative process, and didn’t like the fact that people could watch me as I worked. Rather than use it as an excuse to show off, I became intensely paranoid and my work started to suffer. It was time to pivot again - I started booking empty conference rooms at work during the quiet lunchtime period, and working in seclusion.

This worked a lot better for me, removing prying eyes and the pressure of working quickly. I decided to stay with similar subject matter, selecting photos of Greek and Roman statues to draw from. Here are a couple of my sketches:





I was much happier with these, though at the end of the hour, the desk was always covered with grey crumbs from rubbing out. However, I read a recent interview with the late, great, Judith Kerr where she said (after a very long career as an illustrator) that she still rubbed out more than she actually drew. So maybe I’m not such a weirdo after all.

I started to realise that I wasn’t interested in landscapes or architecture like I'd thought - I wanted to draw people! My wife and I were watching the Sky TV show Portrait Artist of the Year, and I was encouraged by the contestants who used gridding to transfer the dimensions of a subject’s face onto the canvas. I decided to attempt a portrait (something I had previously thought way beyond my skill level) with a grid built using a helpful online tool. The photo itself was something I found on Unsplash, which is a copyright free image site:

I found using the grid to be a revelation! By reducing the size of the problem, it allowed me to concentrate on just what was happening inside each square. Any preconceptions I had about the shape of a person’s face could be safely ignored - I just had to draw what was in front of me. Once the pencil sketch was done, I wanted to shade it using fineliners, but it was clear from my tests that it would take a long time. So I opted for Winsor and Newton ProMarkers, which I had used for my earlier illustration work. Here’s the result:



It’s good, right? I was a bit amazed when I finished it to be honest! It was the first time that the lines on the page actually seemed to match the photo.

For my next drawing, I resolved to do a bit of fan art, based on the noughties TV show Veronica Mars, which we were rewatching. Kristen Bell is totally awesome in that show, and it was fun to try to capture her likeness. With the gridded pencil sketch done, I made a photocopy to try out different ProMarker colour choices:




I’d recently bought some Bristol Board to try out, so I used it for the finished picture. As well as being fairly expensive, It’s also quite shiny, but the alcohol-based ProMarkers work on practically any surface. The best thing about Bristol Board is how easy it is to rub stuff out! Despite the cost, I may have found my perfect medium.




I was less satisfied with this final artwork than my earlier portrait of the butterfly guy. Although the likeness is recognisable, something about the face just isn’t quite right, though I couldn’t tell you exactly what! It’s definitely much harder to draw someone whose face you’re very familiar with. I also had a lot of trouble with the blonde hair - in retrospect the black hair of the previous subject was very straightforward.

I did start a third portrait, but had to put it to one side because I wanted to tackle the optional task for a recent SCBWI illustration masterclass called The Wonderful World of Non-fiction Illustration. I’m also writing a review of the session for Words & Pictures, so I’m working on both posts simultaneously to avoid repeating myself!

The task was to make an A3 double page spread showing a creature in its natural habitat. That meant museum time again - I went to the Oxford Natural History Museum and took photos of various specimens.



I decided to pick the Japanese spider crab, because I liked the bright colours and the way it would fill an A3 page. The brief made it clear that the research was as important as the finished work, so I made various sketches and an A4 dummy.

To mimic a lift-the-flap book, I made the artwork in two layers. The top layer was drawn on tracing paper:



So you could lift it away to see this underneath:



In order to get everything to line up, I scanned my pencil sketch, added the text in Photoshop and printed just the text on the tracing paper. Then I added the crab’s body and missing leg on the top sheet in ProMarker. This allowed me to keep the bottom layer drawing as just the pure artwork. Working on top of tracing paper was still quite difficult though - if I’d had more time, I think it would have been better to draw the body and leg on a separate sheet, scan them in and composite the top layer digitally.

The bottom layer was drawn on lightweight marker paper rather than Bristol Board, as I needed to roll up the drawing to take it to London.

Later, as I inspected the other illustrations at the workshop, I had to wonder why I'd picked something so terrifying to work on rather than a nice fluffy mammal. There were a number of occasions while researching spider crabs that I had to stop Googling them because the photos were putting me off my lunch! And yet, my chosen style and medium wouldn’t have worked half so well on something with fur or feathers.

I pushed myself really hard with the task for the masterclass, even working on it the morning of the session (by which point I was terrified I would screw it up). I knew that I wouldn’t be able to avoid comparing myself with the other illustrators, so I wanted to make a good show of it. Which I feel I did in the end, and I got some useful feedback from the tutors. I was pretty exhausted that evening, as you can imagine!

I feel that I’m slowly becoming better at illustration and that’s a positive thing. Honestly, all I’ve ever aspired to be is competent! I’ll keep you posted on where the muse takes me next...

Nick.

---

Nick Cross is a children's writer/illustrator and Undiscovered Voices winner. He received a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award, for his short story The Last Typewriter.
Nick is also the Blog Network Editor for SCBWI Words & Pictures magazine. His Blog Break column appears fortnightly on W&P.