Welcome back readers! We’re coming up on a long weekend here in Canada, and I am hoping to gets lots of reading in. If you’re in the same boat, here are a few things we found around the web this week to get you started. Fictional Bookshops It’s independent bookshop week in the UK and Ireland. To celebrate, The Guardian shared a quiz on fictional bookstores. Try your hand at answering the questions, and share your results with us in the comments. Speaking of bookstores… Hamilton Gets a New Indie Bookstore Quill and Quire shared that Hamilton is getting its own specialty bookstore soon. The new store will be called King W. Books and will focus on books art, design, and local titles. Read mo

In the previous post, we discussed whether an active social media presence was for you. If it is, there are things to keep in mind to improve your results. Here are a few tips: When deciding which social media channel to focus on, think about what drives you—if you’re an avid Facebook user, your posts will be more authentic and engaging than if you’re trying to be a Facebook user. If you’re going to invest time into growing a following on any social channel, you want to be fully committed since it’s a long-term investment. It could take 1-2 years to develop the following you’re looking for. Also, follower count isn’t everything. 1K engaged followers is better than 1M unengaged followers. In

We're very excited to announce that A.T. Balsara's The Great & the Small is a Purple Dragonfly Book Award winner! The Great & the Small came in second place in both the Fantasy & Science Fiction category and in the Young Adult category, once more proving the quality of Balsara's writing. The Purple Dragonfly Awards are sponsored by Story Monsters LLC. View the full list of winners.

There are two key ideas to consider before we get into the nuts and bolts of the "how" of social media. First and foremost, the key word here is "social" and Rule #1 (and the only hard and fast rule if you want to be successful) is that the purpose of all of the different social media platforms is for you to build a community of like-minded people. People who, after they get to know you a bit and you show and interest in them, might be interested in the book you’ve written. Simply sharing links to your own books on social media—which some authors still commonly do—comes off as spammy and isn’t going to get you anywhere. Secondly, social media isn’t for everyone. There is no rule that says yo

Hello everyone! Hope you’ve been enjoying the week. I sure have, and that’s because I’m getting ready for the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair! It’s tomorrow, and if you’re around you should definitely come say hi to me. Anyway, between packing books and getting things printed, here’s what caught my attention around the web this week. Gender Equality in Literary Criticism VIDA has released its 2017 VIDA Count, a report on literary publications in print that looks at the statistics of who gets published. If you’re interested in gender equality, this is a really interesting examination of which voices are given space to discuss literature. In the Main VIDA Count, only two of fifteen publications p

Book bloggers are becoming increasingly more influential and they have now become a key component of the book launch, the book marketing process, and blog tours. Pitching to book bloggers takes time and dedication. However, they can generate significant buzz for your book. There are a lot of book bloggers out there with followings of various sizes and book blogs start up and close on a regular basis. When you’re building your list of bloggers to approach, it is wise to do the following: Determine if the site is relevant for the subject matter of your book. You are wasting your time to pitch a memoir to a book blogger who covers middle grade fiction. Check if the site is still active by check

Hi. I wrote Threshold. Now I’m writing about writing it and a question often asked in this regard is, “Where did you get the idea for this book?” Unfortunately, my answer to that question pretty much boils down to ... I really don’t know. And since you can’t say that out loud because it makes you look like an idiot, I usually say, I was working on a nonfiction essay about the environment, got bummed out by the horror of what we’re doing to the natural world, and decided to write something about it that was less dense and more, what you might call, user-friendly. And that answer is totally true, it actually happened that way, but that was more the motivation for the book rather than the idea

An author recent asked me if Amazon book reviews were really that important—wasn’t it word of mouth that sold books? The answer is that book reviews are important for customers, book sellers, and libraries. On book marketing sites, like Amazon, book reviews feed into algorithms and they, along with sales numbers, are responsible for the book’s ranking on the site. They are also a form of digital "word of mouth" and can influence the customer’s purchase decision. But Amazon reviews are not the only review game in town and different types of reviews impact different types of purchasers. There are four main types of review: Customer reviews: These are peer-to-peer reviews on the book sale sit

Hello again dear readers and happy Friday. This week we have another quiz and some more interesting articles for you to check out. Enjoy! Which Anne of Green Gables Character Are You? Last week, we shared a quiz to find out what Little Women character you were. This week, we’ve got another character quiz for you. This one based on the famous Canadian classic, Anne of Green Gables. Speaking of Anne… New Anne of Green Gables Musical Yup, Anne may have already found her way to multiple screens and stages, but she’s not about to stop. CBC shared that there’s a new Anne of Green Gables Musical by two New York City Playwrights in the works. Anne of Green Gables: A New Folk Rock Musical will be at

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life” - Muhammed Ali It’s a common occurrence. We decide to take The Champ’s advice and tackle some book marketing because we know that our personal involvement boosts both profile and sales. We get all gung ho thinking about all the wonderful things we’re going to accomplish. Maybe we even take a few tentative steps into this strange new world. And then, the excitement fades and we go turtle…retreating to something, anything, else that feels familiar. And that’s the end of our marketing initiatives. What just happened? For many authors, book marketing is a new skill to learn and anything new takes us out of our comfor

A. T. Balsara's The Great & the Small has been listed as a finalist in the 2018 National Indie Excellence Award and it has been featured in the Spring issue of Best Books for Children and Teens. To celebrate these wonderful recognitions, we’ve set up a reading and signing event at Let’s Talk Books in Cobourg. Reading and Signing at Let's Talk Books Date: July 28, 2018 Time: 11 a.m. Location: 45 Covert Street Cobourg, ON K9A 2L7 (289) 252-2214 RSVP to the Facebook Event. We're also planning two signings at Indigo Oshawa and the Clarington Public Library. So stay tuned for more opportunities to meet A.T. Balsara!

We are excited to share that we have some great events coming up with The Boatman author Kat Hawthorne. Kat will attend two reading and a signing events in August. The first will be at Moonbeam Books in Toronto and the second will be at Fincher’s in Kincardine on August 18. We're still finalizing details, so be sure to check back here for more information Reading & Signing at Fincher’s Date: August 18, 2018 Time: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Location: 816 Queen Street Kincardine, ON N2Z 2Y2 (519) 396-7012 Reading & Signing at Moonbeam Books Date: August 24, 2018 Time: 2:30 p.m. Location: 335 Jane Street Toronto, ON M6S 3Z3 (416) 901-0832 More signings will be coming in the future, so check our

Hello, everyone. Happy Monday! As publisher of Common Deer Press, I receive a lot of questions from authors and authors-in-waiting (that’s everyone who does not yet have a book released). Most of these revolve around marketing and publicity and there are many questions, misconceptions and beliefs in common. From the macro "I don’t even know where to start," or "when I think of book marketing I get overwhelmed and panic," to the micro "can you tell me how to organize my book launch?" Many concern other worries like "book marketing is expensive⎯how can I make sure I’m not just wasting my money" or "I don’t know anything about marketing" (you do, you just don’t realize it yet⎯more about this in

We'll be attending the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair! The fair takes place on June 23, 2018 in room 203 of the Jack Purcell Community Centre. We'll have a table with books for sale and some fun freebies. So if you're in the area, come by to skip out on shipping fees and pick up some great CDP titles! Or if you're an author and you have a project that might fit with us, stop by to chat. For more information, check out the Facebook event or the Small Press Book Fair website.

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve been having a fantastic week and that I can make it even better with some of this fun stuff from across the internet. An Illustrated Guide to Book Expo As you may be aware, BookExpo and BookCon wrapped up over the weekend. Both events can be quite busy and full of fun, books, and perhaps a bit of stress. So if you couldn’t make it to New York City and want to catch up on what you’ve missed, Bob Eckstein’s illustrated the events and you can check them all out on Writers Digest. Tackling Your TBR We’ve all got one, don’t we? The ever-growing to-be-read pile (or shelf, or closet, or room, perhaps). If you’re in danger of being crushed by yours, perhaps some of thes

Mary Woodbury interviewed Threshold author Patricia J. Anderson on Eco-Fiction.com, a site that covers environmental authors and their writing. Anderson discusses fables, ecological collapse, and the power of storytelling. Read the full interview on Eco-Fiction.com.

Welcome back to Around the Web everyone! This week, yours truly spent some time traveling, which meant a fair bit of internet surfing while I waited for flights. Here’s what caught my attention. Book Expo This week the Javits Center in NYC is once again hosting BookExpo and BookCon . Book Twitter is, of course, buzzing with news about ARCs, panels, sessions, and stories of meeting authors and industry professionals. And the FOMO is so, so real! Those of us who couldn’t make it to New York have to make do with watching from the sidelines. Luckily, several outlets are covering the events. I, for one, have been keeping an eye on Publishers Weekly, which is sharing news from some of the panels.