Though many authors don’t have the budget to embark on a national tour, most of us, travel for pleasure at least once or twice throughout the year. Whether you’re visiting family at the holidays or taking the kids on a summer road trip, here are a few easy ways to turn every trip into a business trip.

Visit area bookstores. No matter where you go, you can usually find at least one bookstore. Be sure to stop by, introduce yourself as an author, and offer to sign whatever stock they have on hand. If they don’t have your books in stock, don’t get offended. Just chit chat about the publishing industry, the store’s clientele, even the local sports teams. Anything to create a relationship and make yourself memorable.

Contact the local media. Depending on your personal ties to the city your visiting, being a guest on the local radio station can often be a long shot. But in media markets where they don’t have a lot of “celebrities,” it may be possible to book yourself as a guest on the local TV news program or radio show. Simply contact the producer, introduce yourself as an author, and let them know you’d love to come on as a guest while you’re in town. Contact them about 4 weeks in advance to ensure the schedule isn’t full and to give the producers enough time to review your materials.

Meet with the local book bloggers. By now, you’ve probably cultivated relationships with at least a dozen bloggers. While your relationship was built online, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t meet face to face. Whenever I travel to a city, I always look through my virtual Rolodex and see which bloggers are in the area. More often than not, they’re happy to meet for lunch or a cup of coffee.

Research. As writers, everything you do is research. Whether you’re touring historical landmarks or driving through the Rockies, everything is fodder for an upcoming novel. When you visit a new place, don’t forget to take it all in and experience the sights. You never know when inspiration will strike.

Think your book appeals to women, particularly parents? Here are a few blogs to add to your outreach list and reasons why these bloggers are so important:

Courtesy of Mashable

It’s no question that blog reviews are the next frontier. As books sections dwindle and newspapers go under, books coverage will continue to move online and more blogs will continue to emerge. As an author, I highly recommend cultivating relationships with bloggers and seeking out opportunities for them to review your book.

As more book blogs are created and more authors receive online praise, you may wonder, what’s the etiquette? Here are a few tips:

Treat the blogger like any other reviewer. You can pitch your book and offer them a review copy, but don’t nag, stalk, or harass them. Just because they request a review copy does not guarantee they will review the book. It’s perfectly acceptable to follow up to ensure the book arrived safely (and with the reliability of the postal service, I highly recommend that), but if they confirm receiving the book, leave it at that.

Don’t just pitch, read! In the months after you sell your book, I recommend becoming a regular reader and commenter at a variety of book blogs. This will give you a sense of what books the blogger enjoys and commenting with expand your name recognition.

Email, don’t comment, on your review. My thoughts on this have changed (as I mentioned in a previous post), but when the blogger reviews your book positively, resist the urge to comment with a thank you. They may feel like it’s stalking or that they’re audience won’t speak freely if they know they author is reading. I would, however, recommend emailing them a thank you note. Everyone likes a thank you note.

To share or not to share? Bloggers do love it when you tweet or post the review to Facebook. It helps increase traffic to their sites and expands their name recognition. But if the blog reviews are pouring in (and hopefully they will!), I would recommend being selective of which ones you post to your social media pages. If the blogger offers a long form review with a great pull quote, share it. If it’s just summary with 1 line of commentary, skip it.

Authors and bloggers, feel free to share your own etiquette tips in the comments section. You can also feel free to disagree with mine!

As a blogger, we love comments. After all, without comments, we’re just standing on a soap box preaching. Without comments, there is no conversation. It’s also validation that people are reading what we write and are interested enough to participate in the discussion

For a while, I’ve been advising my authors to read blogs and always comment with a thank you when a blogger posts a positive review. This engages the blogger and cultivates the relationship. I feel that it shows you appreciate what the blogger does and it makes you available to address readers’ questions.

But recently, I’ve heard from other authors that bloggers don’t like this. They feel that it’s spying, and often, not sincere. And since the last thing I want to do is offend book bloggers, I’m advising my authors to take a step back.

Instead, I recommend commenting on posts not related to yours. Start a conversation, cultivate that relationship. Plus, when you comment on blog, it increases your exposure. It’s a win-win, that is, if you’re sincere.

I am curious though, have any authors heard this from bloggers? Bloggers, do you like it or hate it when authors comment on their reviews? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments section, because as a blogger, I love receiving comments.

Today, I had lunch with a former intern of mine who recently completed a comic book series. He’s preparing to go out on submission, and wanted to discuss different angles he could pursue. I can attest that he’s a talented writer, but in this publishing climate, is talent enough? The question was raised, query now or build a platform first?

For nonfiction authors, demonstrating a platform and following is a necessary part of the book proposal. It’s absolutely necessary. For fiction authors, most agents will tell you it’s all about the book. Platform and following is just icing on the cake. I predict comics falls somewhere in the middle, and honestly, publishing is probably heading there too.

Right now, publishers are scared. Budgets are tight and everyone is becoming risk adverse. Sure, it could be a great book. But will it sell? Pitching publishers used to be all about the story and the comps (successful books similar to the submission), but now, I’m not sure that’s enough to seal the deal.

For authors, it’s never too early to start building your brand. Whether you’ve written the first paragraph or the last sentence of your manuscript, you can begin building an online presence. But if you’re an author who has written a wonderful manuscript or book proposal but doesn’t have an online presence, do you move forward or wait?

Like I said, nonfiction authors have no choice. You won’t get a book deal without a platform. If you write fiction and have a manuscript ready to go out to agents, I wouldn’t hold off a year to build a platform. Then again, beefing up your online presence is the perfect thing to do while you wait for agent responses. If you’re currently working on a manuscript, and your goal is to get published, then I recommend starting early. Build a website, sign up for Twitter, create a Facebook page. Cultivate a following now, because a year from now when you shop your manuscript, you may not get a book deal without it.

According to She-Economy, 85% of all brand purchases are made by women. Women make up a similar percentage of book buyers, so even if you’re writing masculine books, you still need to appeal to a female audience.

Mashable posted an interesting article about marketing to women via social media. I think authors can benefit from the tips, but more than that, the article helps put a face to the audience. When you’re tweeting and posting to Facebook, consider your female audience. Will the content appeal to them? Turn them off? Will your content attract female readers? Encourage them to follow you?

If your content mainly appeals to men, you’re only reaching 15% of buyers and cutting yourself short. You may have more male readers, but chances are, they heard about your book from the females in their lives.

Although I often have the mind (and the bedtime) of a 60-something, I am indeed, still in my 20’s. However, when I read this poorly written and misinformed blog post, I really wished I wasn’t a part of this generation:

Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25

To be honest, other than Justin Bieber fan clubs and collegiate organizations, I’m not convinced that anyone under 25 should manage anything. It’s just too young to have enough life/work experience. Even me, who has worked at least 1 job and as many as 3 since the day I turned 14, did not understand business and management when I was under 25.

So, I was excited when I read one “older” social media manager’s perspective:

Why Only People Over 40 Should Do Social Media For A Living

Marcy beautifully pinpoints the holes in her argument and explains what the older generation brings to the table. Just because someone is young, doesn’t mean they immediately understand social media. They also probably don’t have the work/life experience to manage a full campaign, know how to react in a crisis, or see a long term plan. A more mature social media pro could offer all the creativity and understanding on social media, while bringing in a deeper level of strategy and management.

She also notes one major mistake on the part of the college co-ed:

I appreciate her passion and excitement for the medium. And I think it is kinda cute that she doesn’t even realize that she just pissed off every single person in the industry who be a would be employer. “So you are Cathryn Sloane. And you want to work for me? You know I am over 40 right? So you think I am an IDIOT?…don’t call us. We will call you sweetie.”

Like I always say, be careful what you post online. It could have repercussions.

Yesterday, author Roni Lauren posted a cautionary blog. She had been sued for photos she used on her blog, despite the fact that they fell under the “fair use” umbrella and she had a disclaimer under each post:

Here’s what I learned about Fair Use:

It DOESN’T MATTER…

• if you link back to the source and list the photographer’s name
• if the picture is not full-sized (only thumbnail size is okay)
• if you did it innocently
• if your site is non-commercial and you made no money from the use of the photo
• if you didn’t claim the photo was yours
• if you’ve added commentary in addition to having the pic in the post
• if the picture is embedded and not saved on your server
• if you have a disclaimer on your site.
• if you immediately take down a pic if someone sends you a DMCA notice (you do have to take it down, but it doesn’t absolve you.)

NONE OF THAT releases you from liability. You are violating copyright if you have not gotten express PERMISSION from the copyright holder OR are using pics that are public domain, creative commons, etc.

If you blog or are active on Facebook, chances are, you’ve violated one of those terms above. And although the likelihood of being sued is slim to none, Lauren is proof that it’s not impossible.

If you’d like to incorporate photos into your blog, I would advise you take those photos yourself, or use a site like iStockPhoto or Deposit Photos to purchase royalty-free stock photos. They don’t cost much, way less than legal fees, so there’s no point risking litigation.

Earlier this week, I posted an infographic illustrating how social media is replacing traditional journalism. Interesting on its own, but I thought it required some elaboration.

First off, I believe the media already works too fast. The 24-hour news cycle reports on stories before they have the facts, stories break and spread through social media like a horrific high school rumor, and with platforms like WordPress and Typepad, everyone can be a news source. More often than not, the stories that come out of these markets hold inaccuracies and conjectures. Newspaper journalists have to check their facts with three sources before putting anything in print, which leads to more accurate reporting. But by taking the time to do that, the story has already broken.

I think journalists should focus less on being the first to report the story and more on being the first to report the story correctly. But that’s another post…

The point of this one is to caution authors on the speed of social media. The blog post you wrote badmouthing your former publisher or saying “traditional publishing is dead” can spread through the interwebs before you had your first cup of coffee. Worse, it can spread inaccurately. Your words can be taken out of context and rearranged easily. And because of the rapid speed at which information is shared, it may be too late to send in a correction.

For those of you blogging or actively tweeting, take a pregnant pause before hitting “post.” What if it was shared with thousands of people? Could anything you’ve written be taken out of context? What tone or message are you conveying?

I think if more people – journalists and otherwise – asked themselves this before hitting “send” there would be less need for damage control (and the PR pros could be out of a job!)

As an author, you are not entitled to media coverage. Sending out ARCs doesn’t guarantee reviews or interviews and just because a blogger requests a book does not mean they are obligated to review it.

Today, I read a blog post from Addicted 2 Novels charging bloggers with an obligation to review books:

“Plain and simple- If you request or accept an arc/book, you need to review it. The publisher/author didn’t send it to you so it could sit on your shelf and collect dust. They sent it to you because they wanted you to review it, give it some publicity whether good or bad.”

If every person I sent an ARC to gave my books publicity, good or bad, I’d be out of a job. Any yokel with a UPS account can ship books to members of the media. But it takes a skilled publicist to cultivate relationships and understand the reading tastes of their media contacts.

When I was a book critic, I received an average of 100 books a month. Of those, I started reading 12-15 and only finished 6-8. I reviewed all the books I finished, but only a fraction made it to the big papers (Chicago Sun-Times, Time Out). Others were placed in mystery magazines and the rest were reviewed on my blog. I did the best I could to publicize the books I felt were worth publicizing. But just because a publisher or author sent me a book does not mean I owed them anything.

That being said, there are a handful of bloggers and “reviewers” who are only out for free books. That is unacceptable. Don’t take ARCs only to sell them on eBay or read them before anyone else. But those individuals only make up a fraction of the book bloggers and freelance book critics who do their best to read and write about as many books as they can.

Authors, never expect that sending an ARC guarantees a review. Bloggers and book critics, you don’t own the authors and publishers anything. If you enjoy the book, do your best to review it. If you don’t enjoy the book, put it down. Life’s too short to waste on bad books.