Humans have always been fascinated with rainbows, yet these days it seems AI rainbows are uniquely alluring. Rainbows lead to that magical pot of gold, right? Even as an adult, I can’t help but see a rainbow and muse over treasure at the end. It is one of those stories that can get so ingrained in a culture, that it almost runs as a subroutine in our brains.

Like when your palm itches and you think about money. Or you hesitate and walk around a ladder instead of under it. The way you might flinch when cracking a mirror. Seven years of bad luck.

While these might be silly superstitions, we’d be naive to believe we’re immune from their influence…or the childlike hope of easy treasure.

We have been down this path before many times with different rainbows: the internet, websites, social media, Facebook fan pages, self-publishing, etc. We’re not immune to the lure of easy treasure…and right now, the shiniest rainbow is labeled “AI”.

The “AI Rainbows” Distraction

Might as well begin with pointing out the ugly truth. To be really excellent at any skill, one has to suffer. We humans, deep down, don’t respect what took nothing to learn, create, or do.

It reminds me of a debate I was having with Spawn (teenage son) about the movie The Matrix. All of us were wowed at the superhuman feats one could “learn” in that movie with just a flash drive plugged into your HEAD. Need to know Kung Fu? Don’t have a couple decades to haul water up the stairs to some monastery while the master hits you with sticks?

No problem. Let’s just give this a download….

I extended the logic with Spawn, though. While this idea of “instant skill” might be novel and exciting initially, what it steals is far more insidious. What if tomorrow, I could download how to play masterful piano? Who really would want to listen to me play? Or come to a concert? Buy my music? Seems to me they’d all be busy pushing their own new and shiny skills in similar fashion.

For a while.

Then it would all feel hollow, empty, cheap, and a lot like…cheating.

How long would I stick to playing piano? What takes nothing to “master” also takes nothing to “dismiss.” How quickly would I grow bored with my new and “perfect” piano skills?

***The same skills everyone else with that “piano mastery brain download” have, too.

It took me years of reading, writing, learning, practicing, sacrificing and showing up day after day even when I didn’t feel like it to hone my skills. Yes, AI can outline faster, organize faster, can even WRITE FOR ME! But why would I do that? Unused muscles either never develop or, if developed, will atrophy from disuse.

The AI rainbow is alluring but so were the sirens’ songs, and where, exactly was that song leading those sailors?

AI Rainbows & Fool’s Gold Fallacy

I have personally witnessed a MASSIVE shift in the quality of writing in the past ten years. With all the digital tools rainbows we have, the easy access to research, spell check, and grammar check, one should expect overall quality to improve. Yet, we are seeing the opposite. Unwatchable movies, unreadable books, soulless art, music without that human spark.

Do we need to mention the McDonald’s Christmas commercial that used ONLY AI? Yes, yes we do.

I’ll admit the Digital Age has been to blame for feeding this monster, especially once social media became such a cornerstone for relevance and market advantage. The relentless demand for more content, fresh content, relevant content to “captivate” audiences has chained many creatives to Hell’s Treadmill.

Companies are falling for this as well, which is why they’re leaning far too heavily on AI. AI can be controlled, monitored and writers become interchangeable pieces on a Monopoly board. Easy to plug in, duplicate and keep on a leash. Same for all creatives. Writers are picky, actors are divas, and artists are moody. Most inconveniently?

They expect to actually be PAID for what they do.

*clutching pearls*

Thus, in another staggering move to “increase profits” and “save money” companies are increasingly outsourcing to AI generated content. Content that is supposed to be bold, edgy, creative, compelling…and just happens to look, sound and feel just as “unique” as all the other “unique” content.

When everyone is special, then no one is, which was the point we explored in the last post, Counterfeit Creativity: The High Cost of Cheap Art.

Writers Who Know How to MINE

Mining is a mixture of skill, courage, tenacity, wisdom, and flat out insanity. It is a lot of tedium, toil, work, and thankless pain. Writing, like mining for anything, requires patience, endurance, innovation, and passion. But, last I checked, those weren’t for SALE.

Yet, what do we know about all “gold rushes”? Who gets rich? The ones wielding shovels or those selling shovels? Prospectors rarely struck it rich. Winners sold to the miners. BIG WINNERS (snakes) sold to those who liked the idea of being rich more than the work involved.

Whether it was reselling spent plots, phony maps, or sure-fire tricks to STRIKE IT RICH, it didn’t matter. There was always a naive/gullible market ready to throw their own gold down to skip the hard parts…and a snake to take their money.

It’s human nature.

Fast-forward to today, and AI companies, prompt gurus, “millionaire author” courses, content mills, “authentic human author” certifications. They’re the shovel-sellers. They profit off the rush without digging themselves.

But here’s where the metaphor flips in our favor. In every gold rush, a few stubborn diggers hit pay dirt. Over time, tests and failures, they eventually became experts at terrain and geology. Skilled prospectors learned invaluable tells that could lead to larger, richer strikes.

They learned to spot “tells” (signs in the geology/terrain like quartz veins, color changes in soil, or river bends that trap gold). Writers—masterful writers—do something similar. We notice the patterns, the trauma, the unevenness and how that all guides the way to the REAL story.

In my opinion, AI’s fixation on “perfect” is one of the biggest flaws in the system. Humans are messy, ugly, irrational, emotional, unpredictable and illogical, which—ironically—are all the ingredients of AMAZING WRITING!

AI is the CZ of our time. Flawless! Perfect! But still just a fancy piece of glass.

All Writers Should Be Wary of AI Rainbows

We have seen this play out time and time again. Whenever we invent a tool to make something better, faster, cheaper, easier, there is always, always a cost. We have film students in COLLEGE who cannot sit through a full-length movie, writers who never read, and Amazon and the internet is drowning us in AI slop.

Why?

Again, humans will always choose novelty and the path of least resistance (at least for a while).

Did spellcheck make a generation of better spellers? Nope. It masked errors so well that many never internalized rules—kids lean on it, brains skip the muscle-building, and we end up with adults who can’t spell.

Did grammar check transform us all into a society that understood the complexities of sentence structure and subject-verb agreement? Hardly. It fixes surface stuff on the fly, but deep grammar knowledge? The knowledge that allows a writer to wield grammar as another tool is something only a LOT of reading, studying and practice can train.

POV is an incredible tool. Why choose first-person, or third or even second? What emotional effect are we going for? In Caroline Kepnes’ You, she selected second-person POV which is almost never used…ever. Yet, when placed in a story told from the stalker’s perspective? Chilling.

T. Jefferson Parker broke with tradition and told the antagonist’s POV through first-person and Charlie Hood’s (the investigator) in third. Why? Because Jeff wanted the reader to bond emotionally with the antagonist to demonstrate the emotional complexity of the topic. There is no clean black and white and good and bad. Just messy, flawed humans doing the best the can when the deck is stacked against them.

That’s the magic AI can’t replicate. It can spit out “correct” prose, but it can’t feel the weight of those choices. It can’t draw from lived chaos to make a story resonate. The cost of chasing “perfect” shortcuts? We lose the very mess that makes writing human—and worth reading.

Keep Those Mining Skills Sharp

Tools in and of themselves can only do so much. Slight tangent but makes my point. I used to LOVE watching home improvement shows that demonstrated ways to decorate for super cheap. Initially, I was mesmerized. They did ALL THAT for under $1000! Then I realized it was a thousand dollars in supplies.

That money didn’t cover the saws, drills, guns, welds OR the SKILL to use any of those. When one hires a contractor, we aren’t hiring the table saw, rather the artisan who can use that saw masterfully. I mean I can use a table saw. Can watch a video. Most have guards that will mostly keep my fingers in tact…but I have zero skills.

I am far more likely to make a mess massacre than a masterpiece.

Same in writing.

While AI rainbows are pretty, what they lead to? Not all that glitters is gold.

Right now? I feel we are living this meme from Fight Club. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. Remember, earlier I stated that humans initially love novelty and convenience? That love wears thin super quick and the shine is already dimming.

There are no shortcuts and we’d all be wise to just leave the AI rainbows where they belong…on Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers.

What are YOUR Thoughts on AI Rainbows?

I know today is St. Patrick’s and we all want a bit of luck, but luck alone has never been enough without the skills to take advantage of opportunity.

How do you feel about what AI is doing to us skill-wise? Are new writers failing to mature and dig deeper because of the quick thrill of “perfectly packaged prose”? If they are “training” on recycled content, how valuable is the training? Are the younger generations of content creators driven by a desire to create meaningful art and expression or the need for a quick dopamine fix?

Is AI unwittingly eroding the very character traits necessary for great artists (Eg. tenacity)?

For writers who have been here more than a minute, are you concerned that your skills will erode? Do you find yourself constantly second-guessing skills you’ve used for years? Or does that compel you to train even harder to stand apart from the crowd?

For a profession that seems to UNIQUELY SUFFER from Imposter Syndrome, do you think AI only makes this feeling worse? It was bad when everyone assumed every published author was self-published, but at least they didn’t think a ROBOT wrote it. How does this make you feel? The shift of bad writing must be human and good writing must be AI.

I’d like your thoughts!

The post Chasing AI Rainbows & Fool’s Gold: Real Writers Know How to DIG appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

AI is the new buzzword. Everything is AI, has AI, offers AI. To be blunt, AI is not the problem. People believing the tool can replace the work is the problem.

Yes, I have been quieter on here far longer than usual. Not gone, just down and dirty in the trenches doing postgraduate work in AI/Machine Learning because y’all matter the world to me. You deserve more than an opinion piece.

For those who might be new to this blog, writers and tech are my jam. The “new shiny” is always something to be wary of. That was true with Web 1.0 and websites, Web 2.0 and social media, Web 3.0 and algorithmic alchemy, and it is truer now than ever in human history.

AI enters the chat.

In 2014, I introduced the concept of the SWOT analysis with 3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Writing & Increase Sales. Back then, the new tech shiny happened to be social media and algorithmic alchemy. Again, the tools evolve. If we want to remain in the game, stagnation equals death. What I said in 2014 is still relevant today, and we are all going to address the AI generated elephant in the room.

The AI Bubble is Already Here

I’ve been around since companies were tossing billions at anything with dot com at the end. I wrote very literally the first books on social media and branding back when writers were throwing holy water at email and snail-mailing agents.

Suffice to say, not my first rodeo.

Today, we are going to do a quick and dirty SWOT analysis because I want you to remember you matter, people matter and human voices matter.

I didn’t jump head first into AI commentary because I wanted to see how the pieces moved, how the machines “thought” and where we could spot and exploit the blind spots.

Because there are always, and I mean always blind spots.

SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Strengths. AI is an incredible tool for those who use it wisely. It can compress research time we might have once lost in a library, then later on Google. Using ChatGPT or Grok or Gemini or whatever can help us sort through sticky ideas and find our core through lines. This can save time, revisions, and stop us from spending months or—God forbid—years on a WIP that has no spine.

Weaknesses. If we fail to understand core AI concepts like hallucination, model confabulation, synthetic error, false interference, unverified synthesis, we can unwittingly train our chatbot to sign off on some really, and I mean really bad ideas.

Opportunities. Again, AI as a tool can cut down on time we spend chasing our tails. Additionally, AI can help us shoestring or outsource tech that we have to “know” to do this work on a professional level in a way that is incredibly cost-effective. For instance, need a basic website? When I started out, a basic website was outside of the scope of most people’s abilities. One had to drop five grand or more on just a simple web page that told the world we were actually being serious.

Threats. Mistaking the tool for the artisan who wields the tool.

Even the Big Wigs at Davos See This

Follow along the speeches at the WEF and the cracks are already showing. Many thought leaders pushing AI still cannot seem to make good on all the promises. And, personally, I am happy they’re admitting this.

AI can give the illusion of replacing real jobs—writers—but that is all it is.

An illusion.

Go hang around on LinkedIn and feeds are crammed with beautifully crafted posts that look great at a glance. But that is the problem. Beyond the glance, the reality is far more troubling. Yes, maybe social media posts before were ugly. Too many folks who misused your and you’re and goofed up there/their/they’re. But at least back then, despite the grammatical ugliness and typos, posts still had a human beating heart.

To quote The Incredibles, “When everyone is special, no one is.”

Social media sites have recently added AI as a feature so people could feel confident they were saying something thought-provoking and brilliant. Maybe we fell for it…for a while. It hit us (writers particularly) in the confidence because masterfully crafted sentences and proper usage of em dashes and colons once helped US stand apart.

Now? Everyone using an em dash properly has to prove they aren’t a bot.

No, the irony is not lost on me.

We have fallen into the AI Uncanny Valley where we wonder who and what is real. Who can we trust? Which people are doing the real thinking versus who’s offloading all their brainpower and human ingenuity? That is what we are going to drill into today.

Landman, Wildcatting & What Creatives Do BEST

For those who have yet to inhale watch the Paramount series Landman, no spoiler alerts. The irony of this wildly successful story is merely an illustration of exactly why AI cannot and will not replace authentic creativity.

All industries have blind spots. Multinational oil companies mistake decades of what they think they know while dismissing rule-breakers; entertainment does the same by churning out predictable, forgettable stories using outdated ideas of what “works.”

Landman is proof of concept. Audiences want great stories. They are wholesale rejecting formulas, especially formulas where investors and boardrooms hold more sway than the audience.

Maybe the reason Landman landed so hard with me (pardon the pun) is writers are wildcatters. We learn the emotional topography then drill. We pressure test, see what hits. What is a leak? When is a leak a sign we need to go deeper? How can we parlay that experiential intuition we know in our bones into a gusher?

When do we stop drilling and move on because the terrain is tapped out?

Many of us traipse off into the wilderness of story, trekking past the bones of countless who tried to strike it rich before us with only a dream, our instincts, and a stubbornness that can often look like madness.

AI cannot and will never replace that.

How many of you decided to become writers because you LOVE books? Back in the day, you queried agent after agent hoping someone would invest and kept at it despite rejection? Then with social media. How many of you risked everything starting a blog? Trying? Failing? Reinventing? How many of you self-published went indie or hybrid?

You, my lovely wildcatters, are the pioneers with a dream and the unconquerable spirit.

But let’s all be honest here. Maybe some of you never used AI or refuse to. Fair enough. Perhaps you’re in love with AI. Wonderful! Again, it can be a great tool. Yet, as I mentioned, the world has been drifting into a place that doesn’t need anymore drilling.

AI UNCANNY VALLEY is DRY

It might not all be “dry” but it’s either pumping out the predictable or it’s being worked over when it long ago needed to be ditched. Differentiation is the key, but this is where we need to reverse the mantra I’ve hammered for years.

Instead of working smarter not harder? It might just be time to also work harder not just smarter.

Just because Uncanny Valley is dry in no way means humans no longer yearn for great stories. The point is creative professionals might just have to go Old School to dominate the Brave New World.

Just like in the series, Landman, it is the person dismissed by “those who know” who often demonstrate exactly how much the power brokers are blind to.

AI is fabulous for optimizing, but that is the danger. It can over optimize exhausted terrain. This is where your instincts—instincts no machine can replicate—are going to be golden. While LLMs (large language models) can synthesize a human experience, they cannot replace them. They can’t translate humanity the way you can.

Many of us have been reading since we were children. We are the product of decades of novels, encyclopedias, lived experiences and we must get back to WHY PEOPLE LOVE WRITERS (Code for stories).

We see what non-writers cannot.

When we write stories about families, love, loss, murder, heartache, death, redemption there is a visceral nature to it that only other humans can recognize. Almost every human being has been in love, been betrayed, been misunderstood and the reason they read stories, watch movies, inhale series is that the artists are the ones who are the intermediaries.

We take the liminality of life and offer readers a vocabulary for what they feel. Why are they afraid, inspired, burned out, misunderstood? We put that into words and make it real, ironically…through fiction.

By definition…NOT REAL.

Why AI LOVING Your Writing COULD Be a Warning

Maybe it’s just me, though I doubt it. AI is impressive. It’s easy to start collaborating with your chatbot and finally feel heard, seen, revitalized. It is, however, also easy to suddenly feel replaced.

Maybe this AI thingy is better at this than I am. The writing seems cleaner, the ideas appear better, everyone seems to looove AI so do I even matter anymore?

*sobs into brownie batter*

It’s hard not to teeter on personal extinction. Creatives already struggle with feeling like we are “real writers.” In the early days, “real writers” had book deals out of NYC. Then the wildcatters struck out on AMAZON, hit big with self-pub, then suddenly how much money we made on a book—regardless of quality—became this new de facto benchmark of a “real writer.”

Now? Hell, we are trying to prove to a robot we are not a robot.

Then, if we post something that sounds sane, fun, imaginative that WE WROTE, deep down we are asking a new question, “Will readers think I am AI?”

Whether we were/are “real writers” has now literally transformed from our own emo-creative-insecurity talking to something tangible.

Are you a robot? *feeling the side eyes*

This is where we have to be careful with AI. Artists have always struggled with deep insecurity. It’s tragically the very quality that can make us damn good at what we do. We refuse to let go until something is “perfect.”

Until recent years, we understood that perfect is the enemy of the finished. Now? Perfect is no longer the enemy of the finished. AI can step in and “finish and perfect” a turd.

Enter in AI slop.

The next pivot around perfect is the enemy of the finished might just need to be that perfect is the enemy of authenticity/art.

Humans are Messy and So is ART

Remember the old films of oilmen who struck black gold? The gusher spewing oil everywhere and men cheering even though they were covered head to toe in sludge?

Why were they so happy?

***Took me a while to figure that out especially after getting covered in an oil spill in Corpus Christi when I was FOUR.

They were happy because they understood the value in that mess.

Humans are sticky. Our lives are rarely pretty and packaged perfect. Love, hate, loss, divorce, death, murder, intrigue is all ugly just like what comes out of the ground. But what comes out of the ground must be refined into what people use every day. Into what they VALUE.

Writers are the explorers, the drillers and the refiners.

Why so much that is coming out of the lazy use of AI is failing to keep our attention is that it is too perfect. It’s a food replicator synthesizing a five-course French meal without any of the messy pots and pans. Refuse to be intimidated by the food replicator. We want the real deal, dirty dishes and all.

The World Still Needs Us To Get “Dirty”

The new writing paradigm did a lot of great things for creatives. We were no longer solely beholden to gatekeepers. This was wonderful because gatekeepers had shareholders. They wanted what had demonstrably worked in the past from the next Twilight to Fifty Shades of the Same Old BS.

For those writers who didn’t fit neatly into boardroom projections, self-publishing and indie opened up areas of writing that had either been wholly abandoned (long form works, short form works) to what hadn’t yet been even tried (genre blending, mixed POVs, previously overlooked audiences).

And what happened? We suddenly had an explosion of some incredible works that never would have made it in any other market condition, E.g. The Martian.

Yet, algorithms stepped in and started lulling us into the same predictive models us wildcatters had hoped to shrug off. Suddenly, authors no longer had time to write thoughtful, deep, meaningful works because audiences wanted more and more and faster and faster.

Problem is? Optimization only takes us so far. Optimized garbage is still…garbage.

The market and technology has accelerated. This can be bad. We need to learn, grow, move, learn, pivot and somehow remain sane. Conversely it is also AWESOME. The cycles are getting shorter. Bad ideas are dying faster.

And THIS is where we drill.

Not every reader (or television audience) wants faster and faster if it is at the expense of quality. Writers are exhausted. We feel sold out and burned out and audiences now watch live streamers because too many plots are more predictable than my cat puking on the rug when there is TILE literally RIGHT THERE.

Refuse to Settle for Efficient When YOU ARE ESSENTIAL

No more low-hanging fruit. Yes, AI can help us plot, outline, turn bad ideas into better ideas. We can streamline what we do and nothing about that is bad. At no point will I ever tell you that spending a year or five or ten on an idea that needed to die on the cutting floor is a bad plan.

Being bad at managing our time does not an artist make.

Yet, the world doesn’t need anymore prefab “perfect” and utterly forgettable stories. Sure, we can use AI to churn out book after book after book and look super productive on the outside. Audiences might even bite initially, but AI is not our target audience.

PEOPLE ARE.

While AI might tell you everything you have is golden, AI isn’t spending time it doesn’t have and it’s hard-earned money to step through the wardrobe into another world so it can forget the world it lives in for just a little bit.

Again, people are.

And this is where y’all are going to shine and it’s how we “beat” the machines.

Or at least remember they work for US.

***DISCLAIMER: All em dashes are mine, any semicolons ethically sourced and plot bunnies raised humanely. Any and all typos are “certified organic” and run-on sentences are now “free range sentences.”

What Are Your Thoughts? I LOVE Hearing from YOU!

Where have you caught yourself optimizing instead of risking? Have you ever loved a piece of writing because it was a little rough? What part of your process would you never outsource—even if AI did it better? Have you started feeling the eerily perfect “sameness” of the AI Uncanny Valley?

I really DO love hearing your thoughts especially on AI. Again, I have missed y’all. Just learning to code, build LLMs, creating my own chatbots for school AND keeping up with the blog even been a bit much for me.

What are some of your fears? Expectations? Thoughts you’d like for me to explore? This blog is for you guys, so let me know!

The post If AI Loves Your Writing, Be Very VERY Worried appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

War of the Worlds 2025. What do I say? What can be said? Other than Orson Welles is probably going to start haunting Amazon warehouses or that it was the pandemic…and Ice Cube really needed the money.

If you haven’t yet seen War of the Worlds 2025, take the challenge. I merely recommend that you don’t watch alone, because this movie is so bad it is hilarious. And we could all use a laugh these days, right?

Sometimes the worst movies are the best teachers. In this post, we shall eviscerate dissect Amazon’s quietly released disaster, War of the Worlds 2025 — and what it reveals about POV, the fifth wall, and how technology reshapes the way humans tell (and consume) stories.

War of the Worlds…Words

For those of you who have been long-time followers of this blog and have read my books, I have dedicated God only knows how much time dissecting the ways technology impacts humanity. Not only does it shift cultural norms and attitudes, technology goes deeper.

It literally alters brain structure.

With every technological advancement, new art forms emerge and tastes evolve. Who wants to read War and Peace when you could watch your favorite streamer shoot demons?

We have all born witness to the vast changes just since the internet and social media swept the globe. In 2011, I couldn’t bribe writers into being on-line. Now? We all struggle to stay OFF.

Suffice to say, all of us know that AI is going to alter the storytelling landscape forever. How will it do that? What are the limitations? Are writers still even necessary?

Short answer is yes, AI will impact writers because…

…it cannot help but impact audiences.

Limitations? The human touch still required and AI (currently) still has a hard limit on how much it can learn/remember/process. Which is probably why Microsoft signed a 20 year solo agreement for all the power from a freshly renovated Three Mile Island.

***Because billionaire tech giants partnering with nuclear energy plants to power sentient computers is NEVER problematic.

So how did a serious movie about aliens leveling the Earth end up so unintentionally funny? I believe it was—in part—because the creators were trying to be serious. Imagine the creators of Sharknado making Sharknado…unironically. War of the Worlds 2025 takes itself so seriously and that just makes the laughs even better. Yet, it was more than just that.

They got BOLD and tried a new technique!

They Broke the Fifth Wall (and the audience’s brains)

In my professional opinion, a large part of what derailed this as a serious movie stemmed from the choice of POV. Point of view is a POWERFUL narrative tool that can totally shift the story tone. We’ve discussed this many times.

Perspective: POV Can Revive or Ruin a Story

Deep POV: What IS It & Why Do Readers LOVE It So Much?

And this is exactly where War of the Worlds 2025 jumped the shark.

I “get” the studios wanted to give audiences a “modern” War of the Worlds for a modern world. To do this, they decided to take a gamble and hired the edgy-outside-the-box producer Timur Behmambetov to give an old story a fresh angle.

Yeah.

For context, Behmambetov has been trying to make a micro-sub-genre within the found footage world—Screenlife—work for sooo long. And bro finally got his chance!

Screenlife is basically found footage’s awkward cousin — instead of handheld cameras, everything happens on a laptop screen (E.g. Unfriended).

So why did War of the Worlds 2025 suck? Other than the obvious answer that the scariest thing in horror isn’t aliens — it’s ninety minutes of Zoom meetings.

Because breaking the fifth wall has a cost.

Many of you probably know about the fourth wall. When actors break the fourth wall, they turn from the stage and address the audience. So what is the fifth wall you might ask?

WE are the audience behind the audience. The audience becomes part of the stage. Clear as mud, right? Now y’all know why this is a tar baby to write.

In the movie, Ice Cube stars as a grumpy Gen X analyst working on a Sunday alone at The Department of Homeland Security. When Ice Cube isn’t spying on his daughter, he is spying on everyday citizens with eerily omniscient powers. Homeland is on the hunt for a hacker known as The Disruptor…cuz it’s spooky.

Sounds “hacker-y.”

Suddenly, superstorms break out all over the globe and meteors crash through the atmosphere smashing into cities, and punching more holes in this plot than my teenager’s socks. We (the audience) watch the alien invasion, the “drama”, the chase, the suspense…from a screen. NINETY minutes of Zoom meetings, Facetime, texts, YouTube and stock news footage clips.

*groans*

Was War of the Worlds 2025 onto…Something?

Just because War of the Worlds fumbled the play, does NOT mean the movie didn’t reveal something we storytellers can learn from. Remember, they made this movie almost five years ago.

What is now more popular than ever?

Streamers.

In my day we killed the aliens ourselves. With our own plasma rifles and sticky grenades! These kids today watch other gamers kill the aliens! What in TARNATION?

Remember earlier I said technology reshapes the brain and changes our tastes? In 2025, I actually think Screenlife would be viable with the right story.

For instance, who would have ever believed found footage would have even been a thing until The Blair Witch Project? Which a lot of people hated until Paranormal Activity preserved what was excellent about the idea…and simply removed the need for Dramamine.

Which makes my point.

Found footage immerses us SO MUCH it is excellent for horror. But, add in a FIFTH wall, and there is enough emotional distancing to laugh.

A LOT.

Technology Shapes Storytelling

Yes, throughout history, technology has shaped and reshaped storytelling (VIDEO GAMES anyone?). War of the Worlds 2025 revealed both the limitations and opportunities of storytelling via digital screens.

As streaming and parasocial entertainment (e.g., Twitch, YouTube, VTubers) rise, using “fifth wall” techniques could theoretically work, but execution must account for audience psychology.

Sure AI can create the “perfect” story from a technical perspective, but we humans love messy. Perfect is boring and—especially after the Terminator movies—we aren’t too thrilled about our computers being emo.

Despite technical ambition, War of the Worlds 2025 proved that human intuition, humor, and risk-taking are essential for meaningful storytelling. What can creators specifically take away?

Clarity of medium matters: New formats (like Screenlife) should enhance, not obstruct, emotional engagement.

Audience psychology is central: Too much distancing results in detachment; balance immersion with accessibility.

Innovation requires iteration: Even failed experiments reveal future opportunities — this format may thrive in comedy or parody rather than drama.

Technology alone isn’t enough: Tools evolve, but audiences still rely on writers and storytellers to make sense of them.

In the End….

For all its flaws, War of the Worlds 2025 is a reminder that even failed experiments push the boundaries of storytelling.

The movie showed us what doesn’t work, hinted at what could, and gave us comedy gold along the way. Maybe Orson Welles is haunting Amazon after all, but if so, at least he’s laughing.

What are your thoughts?

Do you think AI will ever nail messy, human storytelling—or will it always feel a little “too perfect”? What’s one new storytelling trend (good or bad) you’ve noticed since the pandemic? What’s the worst “so-bad-it’s-good” movie you’ve ever seen? Do you think Screenlife films (everything on a computer screen) could ever actually work, or are they doomed to flop?

Since I could never do justice to just how bad this movie is, this is the video that convinced me to take a chance and watch. Pointlesshub is one of Spawn’s great finds. It’s a bit long, but it’s hilarious and breaks apart the story just brilliantly! But don’t take my word for it — grab some popcorn, watch the roast, and come back here to tell me if you survived.

The post War of the Worlds 2025: Is AI Ruining Storytelling? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

SEO, for those who might not know, stands for Search Engine Optimization. And right now, many of you might be like, “Well, great. THAT makes it clear as mud.” Today, we’re going to talk a little about search engines, how they work, and ways search engine optimization can make our content work harder so we don’t have to.

For the record, one of the reasons I don’t blog a lot on SEO practices is they change…a lot.

Though, I’ll add a correction.

The core concepts of WHY we’re doing what we are doing do NOT change. That’s more what we’ll talk about in this post. When we know WHY we are doing X, Y, or Z, then that makes it far simpler to keep up with shifts in how SEO hands out favor.

I will also talk to the NOVELISTS out there. Yes, SEO can be a game-changer for you guys as well. It’s okay. Breathe in a bag if you need to. I’ll make this super easy.

First, why do SEO tactics change?

Before we get to the BIG PICTURE stuff, understand search engines have three core imperatives. The first is to deliver results quickly, and the second is to deliver the most accurate and useful results that also account for intent. Search engines are also vested in keeping those searching safe. They do this by running interference between us and malicious actors.

So, one reason we need to keep on top of SEO changes is because those who design algorithms are constantly seeking to improve search results. We definitely want to make use of any advantage we can get.

There are also people who try and game the system and garner unjust advantage. SEO modifications help neutralize any cheating.

My advice has never changed. If it seems like a shortcut? Just leave it alone. For instance, a few years ago, I adamantly warned people against buying external links (pingbacks)—pages outside linking back to a website to buff up SEO. I posited that eventually the algorithms would improve and spot the cheat and those who engaged in this practice would deeply regret it.

Quite a few folks didn’t heed my advice and major search engines responded by essentially penalizing their sites or even ghosting their sites completely.

Okay, so WHAT IS this GOOGLE Voodoo?

As I just explained, search engines exist to help us sort the vast realms of the Internet for what we want/need in a fraction of a second. HOW do they do what they do?

No, not magic but close.

And, for the record, this is a 50,000 foot view. There are tons of experts who go into far greater detail in books, blogs and videos. That’s beyond the scope of my blogs, since I mainly focus on writing and bigger picture branding and social media.

Hopefully, after this post, though, you’ll make better use of SEO tips and tricks out there.

To garner search engine favor, we go back to the WHY. If we want search engines to connect those searching with OUR CONTENT, then it helps if we leave a clear and well-maintained trail for the search engines (and their webcrawlers) to follow.

Google isn’t very different from us.

If we were walking through the wilderness, which would we choose to do? Forge our own path, machete in hand, no compass or map, praying we didn’t slide off a cliff and into a roaring river? OR, would we take the wide path. Maybe the one with a smooth layer of stone, a clear border, signage and solar LED lighting?

Would we want the road that is simple to follow? Or would we trek off down the road that branches off in weird directions, circles back on itself, and has a lot of dead ends?

If our site—on the backend—looks like this (below), a webcrawler is likely to be as confused as any poor soul driving on this street.

If this kind of ‘signage’ is frustrating to you, then it’s also frustrating for Google.

This is, essentially, the heart of SEO.

With SEO, Content is KING

Most of my consulting over the years has, obviously, been with writers. I do, however, consult with companies and larger brands wanting to improve their digital branding footprint.

Believe it or not, we writers have the advantage because writers….WRITE.

Think of content like your building blocks for your road that directs searchers to what you have to offer. Roman roads anyone? They built those suckers to last!

We want to create content, but not all content is best for our goals. I still believe blogs are some of the most enduring building blocks.

Don’t shout me down yet.

A tweet is good for about a day. Facebook? Maybe a couple days. Instagram? Very good, but remember it’s primarily a visual medium. Can that work when it comes to selling books? Sure. But that’s for another day and another post.

While social media platforms are FABULOUS as a supplement, they don’t work as well for the main course. Some key things to understand about a blog is that blogs, done properly, are evergreen. Blogs can be an author’s BEST FRIEND.

We can tailor them to be attractive to our ideal audience and then use the blog to cultivate a passionate fan base. If people trust us to entertain them on a blog, they’re much more likely to trust us with a full BOOK.

Blogs are the gift that keeps on giving. I have over 2000 of those gifts out there still working for me. Can’t say that about my FB posts.

I still have people tweet out posts that are so old I’ve forgotten I even wrote them. YEARS later, those posts are still helping my SEO even though SEO rules have changed.

Taking on the Blogging Bullies—Ageism, Fear & Misbehaving “Old” Women. *sighs* That one was fun…#FeistyKristen

Blogging Power

Blogs are fabulous for writers because we are WORD PEOPLE. They’re also wonderful for SEO in large part because there are so many SEO goodies we can pack all in one place. Google likes to see a number of crucial elements:

• Posts that are rich in relevant keywords
• Images that are optimized
• Optimized video
• Audio you’ve optimized
• Internal links (links to other salient places on your site)
• Quality external links (links to outside pages with authority)
• Pingbacks (quality sites linking BACK to OUR page)

All these factors (and more) entice search engines to list your content above the competition. Obviously, we’re unlikely to use/have ALL of these in one post, but we can use quite a few.

That and I can pretty much promise y’all that no one is ever going to do a random Google search and find our witty tweet, our clever Facebook post, or our shiny Instagram. They WILL, however, find our blogs.

People LIKE to share great blogs. This is true for writers and even businesses. Blogs can inspire, entertain, inform, or, like this blog…teach. My blogs might be long for a blog, but—trust me—they are REALLY short for the BOOKS one would have to read to learn all this stuff.

Great posts help us on social media. Though we won’t earn any SEO for someone tweeting our post, these endorsements act as signage directing strangers to our content. Then, once they’re on our site, we have our chance to win them over and make a fan.

I write FICTION. Why do I care about SEO or a BLOG?

First of all, if you choose to blog, I STRONGLY recommend blogging off your own site so you get all the SEO credit. That and guess where you can SELL YOUR BOOKS? Um, your website. So YES, blogging is fabulous for novelists as well as NF (non-fiction) authors.

If I write mysteries, then what do you think my potential fans are interested in? True crime, forensics, famous unsolved cases, movies or series in that genre.

Or say I write science fiction. Again, what do people who LOVE science fiction also enjoy? We like to argue over Star Wars, who was the best captain in Star Trek. We enjoy stuff on science, futurism, androids, etc.

Profile your ideal audience for topics, then slap some SEO mojo on there. Trust me, after a day looking at spreadsheets, we are thrilled to argue about What Went Wrong with the Star Wars Prequels.

Sure beats book spam.

For more on specifically HOW to craft a fiction brand, I recommend my evergreen branding book, Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World. There is a detailed step-by-step that will save YEARS of trial-and error.

Now that I’ve established blogs are a great idea for juicing up your SEO and your brand, how does it all…um, work?

Keywords, webcrawlers and SEO

Keywords give search engines guidance as to what any piece of content is ABOUT. In my early days of blogging, I could use clever titles that hooked people to click and didn’t actually give away the topic. I still “can” but it’s better to cut to the chase and say IN THE TITLE what my post will address.

Years Ago: One Secret Ingredient to Work Smarter NOT Harder

Today: SEO—The Key to Working Smarter Not Harder

After search engines spot my keyword in the title, they then use webcrawlers to comb the page and sniff out certain cues this is a good path. If you notice, my first sentence uses the keyword I chose (SEO). Then, in the body of my first paragraphs, there are quite a few words that Google would associate with a post discussing search engine optimization.

The webcrawlers are in search of common synonyms or words one would expect like Google, Safari, Firefox, keywords, webcrawlers, etc.

They’re going to look at my H1, H2, and H3 level headers (think of an outline) to see if those headers also reference what I’m allegedly writing about.

While this might seem silly, think back to the early days of the Internet. I once looked up ‘Cuban Cuisine’ only to click and realize—to my horror—it was a p0rn site. There was A LOT of bait-and-switch before algorithms became ‘smart’ enough to sniff out the scam and refuse to list crap like that in a legit search.

What does it mean to ‘optimize’?

Optimization, to put as simply for the time we have, are all the bricks and breadcrumbs we leave connecting our content so search engines want to recommend us. We’ve left a really clear pathway, a better pathway than those with similar content.

I can put video or pictures on a post or a website, and it’s a great idea. The problem is that webcrawlers don’t ‘see’ the way humans see, so we need to help them out. One way is to add in ALT TEXT.

Most of us use the Visual Editor when working on a site like WordPress. But, if one looks to the Code Editor, you can see the ‘guts’ of the content (what search engines can read).

Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard and this is in the upper right-hand corner. At the bottom, notice I can select to see the actual CODE.

Notice how this block of code is bracketed with <!– wp:image at the front end and closes with <!– /wp:image –>

THIS is what tells a webcrawler this is an IMAGE. It’s also beyond what most of us regular bloggers will mess with.

A professional could go change the actual code, but that is a bit much for today. Suffice to say, if I have an image with a woman using a computer, I need to either describe that in the ALT Text (woman on computer) or go in and modify the code. I can also add a title (Woman on Computer) to help the webcrawlers out.

***Note: An image of a woman on a computer is in line with images that make sense for a post about SEO.

This works for video and audio as well. A search engine cannot SEE, so when we ‘optimize’ we are literally writing out WHAT that image or video IS and why it’s relevant to our topic.

IDEALLY…

In a perfect world, we’d use all our own images, video, etc. Granted, this isn’t the most expedient. Just know that if your images are uniquely yours (as in off your smart phone), you get more credit than an image from, say, a FREE use site like Pexels.

But, as I like to say, “Perfect is the enemy of the finished.” I’d rather y’all have ‘lesser images’ that help out your FANTASTIC blog post than a post with no images at all.

Keep in mind that many people are reading articles on phones. TINY font. That or they’ve been at a computer all day long. Their eyes are tired. Huge chunks of text are the equivalent of tossing their corneas into a digital iron maiden.

Adding in images can not only add a little SEO boost, but they can make posts more enjoyable and improve overall readability.

The Trick to Links

Links are wonderful for SEO. Visitors can easily spot the link. These are the clickable words in blue. These blue words are also known as anchor text. To make the best use of anchor text, make sure the words in blue clearly indicate where the link will take any visitor.

Example: This post gives us 10 Ways to Protect Your Personal Information.

Notice I wrote out the title of the post and it is SUPER CLEAR what anyone clicking will be reading about. No need to be clever, just be clear.

A few more key things to remember.

Whenever you add in a link (anchor text), make sure to choose the option for the linked content to open in a NEW page. The goal is to offer additional insight without directing visitors off of our website.

Visitors might back up and try to relocate our site, but do we really want to risk it? That and search engines can ding us for that.

Also, it might be worth your time to go through your site and blogs and get rid of any dead links (links that no longer lead anywhere). A lot of this I need to do, but what’s the old saying? A cobbler’s wife never has new shoes.

I’ll get to it…one day.

Then, we also want to offer internal links that expound on our topic but that don’t use the same keyword. For instance, earlier in this article, I linked to a previous post I wrote about blogs. Blogs are are part of SEO, but the post was not about SEO.

For my external link, I directed y’all to Pexels, which is one of my favorite sites for free images. Again, images are great for SEO, but the site is not about SEO.

This way my keyword is not directly competing with internal or external links that have the SAME keyword. Rather, they have related keywords.

As for pingbacks connecting back to ME? I have to earn those. If we post regular, high-quality content, odds are people will eventually link back to us. Remember, linking to quality outside sites helps their SEO, too.

Also, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

I know many of y’all blog and I give double points in my editing contest at the end for those of you who link to me in your posts. Not only does it help your SEO because my site is popular and trusted, but I’m offering an additional incentive in the form of a fun contest.

SEO is a LONG GAME

Keep in mind that search engine optimization really IS a long game. It will take time, trial and error to see results. Even after that? You’ll need to regularly tweak.

Of course there are all kinds of extra tools we can use to find the best keywords (Moz Keyword Explorer) and all sorts of high-end analytic tools to see how our site is performing.

I recommend adding the YOAST plug-in to help out. There’s a free version as well as a paid upgrade. This plug-in literally spells out all the stuff your post still needs. Headers funky? Yoast will nail you. Not enough external links? Again, Yoast will tell you. So if you’re a n00b at SEO, it’s a fab place to start.

Yoast also offers a ton of tutorials on YouTube from super-n00b to pro.

Just remember that small actions, over time, add up. It’s why we check in at certain key points over time. This will let us know if what we’re doing is working or if we need to adjust our approach.

Obviously there is a LOT more to this SEO thing, but knowing the basics goes a long way. This will help make sure that you can reap rewards from the hard work you put into your content.

We could have the spiffiest website or blog out there, but if we fail to create clear, well-lit paths to our content, then no one will know about it.

Thoughts? I LOVE hearing from you!

I ‘get’ this is a super-newbie post and there are way more gizmos out there. Did this help those of you out there who maybe heard about SEO or search engine optimization but maybe you were intimidated?

I really hope this broad perspective helps with the fear factor and if y’all want me to go into greater depth on anything, let me know! Any questions? Comments? Funny limericks?

I love hearing from you!

What do you WIN? For the month of MARCH, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice.

What do you win?

The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

***February’s winner is Barbara (a.k.a. bhussy)! Please send your pages double-spaced, Times New Roman, one-inch margins to kristen at wana intl dot com. Put CONTEST WINNER in the header so I SEE it, since I get a zillion emails. A page is 250 words. Feel free to go over a little if you need to finish a sentence or paragraph.

The post SEO: The Key to Working Smarter not Harder appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

A platform offers major advantage when it comes to selling books. Before social media, non-fiction authors had an edge. These authors already had an existing audience by the time their books were ready for sale.

Novelists, conversely, found themselves relying on a lot of pure luck, prayer, and alignment of the stars. The fiction author had little to no control regarding the business side of their business. The only way to build a platform was to not completely FAIL with book one.

Great.

Non-fiction authors, however, were not nearly as vulnerable because they had ways to cultivate a following ahead of time. Those ways also permitted them to KEEP growing the platform even bigger as they continued to publish more works.

For instance, if one happened to be an expert of some sort, it was far easier to build an audience interested in your topic. Therapists, psychiatrists, physicians, personal trainers, business owners, etc. obviously could begin with their ‘job’ (I.e. a private practice). Then these experts progressively expanded their platforms in a logical fashion.

They might broaden to speaking engagements, guest appearances on television and/or radio, serve as ‘experts’, and maybe even fold in lectures and seminars. With every expansion, the NF author added more numbers to their ‘platform.’

What IS a Platform?

When we think of a platform for the NF author, it’s simple. Dr. Jane is an expert pediatric psychiatrist with a thriving practice. She graduated from Super Fancy School. Dr. Jane has successfully treated X amount of children for social anxiety for fifteen years. You may have even seen Dr. Jane on daytime television or listened to her on NPR. Dr. Jane knows what she’s doing because look at her c.v.!

If we have a kid whose shyness is to the point of a neurosis, we (audience) feel confident Dr. Jane might have an answer. We buy her book(s).

For the NF writer, the platform is far more cut and dry. The point is to be an expert people trust to answer a question or solve a problem. If I want to learn how to start a business, cook French cuisine, lose twenty pounds, or train my cat to stop terrorizing my bed skirts, I look for an expert. Right? Thus the NF platform, in a nutshell, is measured by how many people trust you for information and guidance.

Again, What IS a Platform?

Right now I know a lot of you are scratching your heads (or panicking). Um, Kristen, I write paranormal. Am I supposed to be an expert in summoning demons?

No. First, because all writers know more than they want to about demons. They live in Windows 10 and Printer Possession is unusually common.

It’s why we creatives all marry or partner with ‘engineer’ personalities who seem to be able to coax possessed printers into cooperation. I no longer even try. My printer just shouts profanities at me, then uses up all the green and yellow ink so I’m rendered unable to print something in BLACK.

Squirrel…

I’ve seen many ‘experts’ answer this question, ‘What is a platform?’…badly. They’ll claim the novelist needs to blog (I agree) and become an expert in a topic (NO!).

To the first point, novelists are entertainers. Stories are RIGHT BRAIN. It makes no sense to sell a right brain product with a left-brain tool.

Blogging about writing, doing book reviews, conducting interviews is a useless time-suck. Yes, I blog about writing and social media because my audience is mostly writers. I’ve spent a decade demystifying the blog for the writer who’s solely an entertainer.

For the author who’s a pure storyteller, the blog is merely the watering hole where you can craft content appealing to your ‘tribe.’

If I write fantasy, then blogging on all things nerdy is a good idea. What are people who read fantasy interested in? CosPlay, ComicCon, Dr. Who, Dungeons and Dragons, etc. Talk about the same stuff you would with your other fantasy ‘geek’ friends.

That’s it. The platform then simply becomes the number of people who recognize your name and attach descriptors and emotional experiences to it (also known as a brand, which we discussed last time). If brand is what people know, then platform is how many people know .

Story Solutions

If our brand is our story (narrative) then platform is simply how many people have heard, know about, and follow our stories. How many people connect to us enough that they’d be likely to buy our books? In a world where consumers are drowning in choices, they’re gravitating more and more to people they know, like and trust.

Our goal is to gather as many of them into our virtual community as possible—platform. This way, once we DO have a book(s) for sale, other people KNOW about us and are vested in us.

Otherwise, we’ll have to pay for enough ad space to break through the din and that, my friends, is NOT cheap (and doesn’t work that great anyway).

For authors, the blog affords the most bang for the buck. First, writers write. It plays to our strengths. It trains self-discipline, which is essential for success. Blogging regularly makes us leaner, meaner, faster and cleaner writers.

We can cultivate our fan base before our first book is even finished because we’re posting merely to start a dialogue, create community, and chat about something we (and our audience) enjoys. Visitors aren’t feeling all weird that we’re only interested in trying to score a sale.

If we DO have a book for sale? It’s off in the side-bar. Followers can look…or not.

I wrote a post What Went Wrong With the Star Wars Prequels? seven years ago. People are still commenting. I get it. I am an ‘expert’ but I am also a free-range nerd. The brand is me—KRISTEN LAMB—and so I have flexibility to talk about other stuff, too. Topics I find fun. Like Star Trek, Wonder Woman, and Atomic Blonde.

Trust me. Nerds? We all feel very passionately about imaginary universes.

And like to argue about them.

A lot.

Just watch.

Loki is hotter than Thor *throws grenade and runs*

Posts that talk about what we enjoy are incredibly fun to write. It also takes pressure off us to sell, sell, sell. Engage, then go back to writing books. Our blog can be a fun place where people can join in on ENJOYABLE debates, discharge pent up psychic energy and have a good time.

Kidding! Cap is hottest *runs with glitter*

Using Time Wisely

No, you do not have to blog. No one is going to take you to writer jail if you don’t. Tricky thing is we still need a brand and a platform if we want to sell enough books to do this full-time.

I don’t know about y’all, but I prefer working smarter, not harder.

Yes, we can create this brand and platform on any social site, but the reason I remain steadfast in support of a blog is because of the following:

The blog is stable.

The blog has been around since the 1990s and was popular before Web 2.0 even existed. Short of the internet imploding, the blog will remain because it provides what humans have wanted since the dawn of time—information, entertainment, community.

In my opinion, the blog is an ideal way for writers to build a platform because it’s as stable as it gets on-line.

Stability is vastly important for any brand/platform, namely because we want to have control. It makes no sense to spend years building a massive following only for that entire following to one day vanish. I found this out the hard way by starting my blog on MySpace.

I lost a year of blogs and a large following (that took three years to build) when MySpace imploded almost overnight. After that experience, I vowed to never again be that vulnerable.

We control our domain.

If we build our entire platform on a social site, we are sitting ducks praying nothing will go wrong. Our author web site (blog) is very stable because we PAY for it. We own our content, our domain and possess a degree of immunity to outside shifts.

For instance, on a social site, some troll could gather all his/her troll friends and report us for nonsense just for the fun of being jerks. Our page is deleted and either we have to start over or pray whatever social site will let us have our stuff back.

Sometimes people are deleted without the social site even investigating whether the ‘complaints’ are valid or vicious harassment. It takes a lot of time, gray hair and hassle to get your stuff restored if this happens. Bad news is sometimes we lose and don’t get it back…ever. Trolls have a lot more power to do damage in places where we are not in charge.

Ugh, then Twitter. I have an author friend who recently lost SIX MILLION Twitter followers (built over the span of almost ten years) after Twitter changed their ToS. #OUCH

Don’t get me started on Goodreads.

When we are anyplace we do not control, trolls can say and do just about anything and we have no say about being abused.

Shifting trends.

Regardless how many fail-safes we put in place, it doesn’t matter. We could spend years building something HUGE….only for the social site to be sold, change the rules, change Terms of Service, or go cray-cray and finally piss off enough people that they begin to bail like rats off a sinking ship…and POOF.

GONE.

In light of Facebook’s grotesque privacy violations (the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Facebook’s botched plan to access confidential medical records), accusations of censorship, ‘news curation,’ and more, the social media behemoths are hemorrhaging users.

Nothing is ever too big to fail . In fact, I have been a social media expert so long I now believe I know how Plato felt writing The Republic.

*gets cramp feeling smart*

Cycle of Social Media Rule

Timocracy (Web 1.0) where only super wealthy could afford websites or computers to even look at websites.

Oligarchy—earlier social media where only those who could afford computers/internet could join chat rooms or social sites OR (currently) social sites where we might pay a fee to participate.

***On WANATribe (a Ning I built for writers), we meet every day M-S to sprint pretty much all day. I pay $70 a month of my own money to have a virtual workspace and a drama-free zone where I play benevolent dictator . There are no ads but that is because I fork out money to keep it that way. Book spammers (all spammers) are smited—smote? smoted?—without mercy. The point is someone is willing to put up CASH for the peace and quiet.

Democracy—FREE! Everyone can join! And do whatever they WANT TO DO! Want to automate 700 identities to post on the hour everywhere? GO FOR IT! You are free to do what YOU WANT, and mob rule is the only rule!

Oh, but remember the social site is free to do what they want to do, TOO! Free! Free to harvest our private information and sell to the highest bidder!

Eventually people (on both sides) go too far with their ‘freedoms’ and those participating need some sense of order and rules so they don’t lose their minds.

Rules start creeping in and the powers that be realize they DIG that kind of power and POOF–>Tyranny. The social site goes all nutso with power. Also, on the other side, jerks/trolls use ‘the rules’ as weapons to unleash mayhem on anyone unfortunate enough to cross them.

We (regular users) rise up against the social site bullying and revolt. Start a NEW site (a republic perhaps?) which won’t have ANY of those problems.

Yep.

Still waiting on the social media philosopher-poets to rule. Not holding breath, though.

Refuse to be an ad mule. Own your SPACE.

Any outside social network trades a FREE service then monetizes US. They use us for data mining, blast us with ads, make us pay to play (open up the algorithm so more than three people see our posts), and more.

FREE is never FREE.

Some social sites are paid to blast us with ads using our data. Conversely, creatives are being blatantly and unapologetically EXPLOITED. We are the ones creating the lure for the clicks that pay REAL MONEY…while we work for free.

Refer to my earlier posts about the exposure dollar grift and how places we can blog for exposure really are companies using us as a massive unpaid labor force. We generate all their content, content which cannibalizes our own SEO and brand. Meanwhile those in power make hundreds of millions…then write books about how money isn’t important.

Either way, whether we are using a social site or creating content for a blogging site, when we do not own our domain? We’re an ad mule.

Blog Gets Bigger With Time and Love

The blog gives back what we invest. I gain new followers daily from stuff I forgot I wrote. I began blogging just because I was a slacker who needed to learn self-discipline. Now? This blog gets 1.1 million hits a month. When I take out those who are likely spammers, I am still close to 100,000 visits a month from actual people.

This isn’t because of one or five blogs. It is because of almost 1,300 blogs. A little bit over time adds up. Search engines send people to my blogs. Google has yet to send anyone to my quippy tweet from June 11, 2011.

Newsletters by and large have the same open rate as direct mail (less than 8%) and unlike a blog, a newsletter can only reach those who subscribe (provided the newsletter doesn’t end up in the spam filter). It has no ability to go viral.

The blog does.

Blogs, unlike social sites, can also be harvested for content and made into books. Sure the content is on-line and FREE, but what is our TIME worth? Don’t know about you, but if I love a blog, I will drop the five bucks for a Kindle version that is neat and edited and easy for me to navigate.

Every angle you look at it, in my opinion there is no better ROI than a blog. And I mentioned the safe and stable thing already. And you can put troll comments in trashcan where they belong. Winner winner, chicken dinner!

Is What It Is

Now, I know I might have y’all feeling down (sorry), but this is just the way our world is shifting right now. I use social sites all the time. I just don’t build my platform on them. While fabulous for reaching others, they make a lousy foundation for my brand.

Too…shifty.

Social networks are great for…networking. Ideally, we can use them to encourage others to visit our site and LOVE it enough to hang out. Our website is OURS. We can monetize it, instead of IT monetizing US. The power dynamic shifts. We can add in merchandise, a shopping cart, or get large enough we might court advertisers to pay us.

Our hard work builds OUR SEO, not some mega-brand who expects us to work for free. If we’re going to work our tails off, then it might as well be for OUR benefit, right? This means we can hop on Pinterest or Facebook or InstaSnapPlus and meet and greet…but the party is ALWAYS at OUR place .

Then, once the book comes out, it’s far less invasive and weird to mention it. Like if you want to learn about social media, check out Rise of the Machines. Feeling bold? You can try my FICTION—The Devil’s Dance— a mystery thriller with even more inappropriate gallows humor and even higher body count than my BLOG!

AMAZING, I KNOW!

I can even mention classes, like my ON DEMAND Blogging for Authors.

Or the other classes (scroll down).

I dunno. Maybe you want to give it a try blogging or writing a novel and don’t want my ten-year learning curve . I know we writers are masochists but come on. There’s a limit.

Ready for Book Beast Mode? I Live to Serve…Up Some TRAINING!

For anyone who longs to accelerate their plot skills, I recommend my ON DEMAND Plot Boss: Writing Novels Readers Want to BUY. Two hours of intensive plot training from MOI…delivered right to your computer to watch as much as you like .

The Art of Character is also now available for ON DEMAND.

And if you’re ready for BOOK BEAST MODE and like saving some cash, you can get both Plot Boss and Art of Character in the Story Boss Bundle (ON DEMAND). Almost FIVE HOURS with me, in your home…lecturing you. It’ll be FUN! 

Have to write a query letter or synopsis? Conference season is coming!

Pitch Perfect: Crafting a Query & Synopsis Agents Will Love. Class is May 3rd 7-9 EST and $45 for over two hours training y’all how to do the toughest parts of this job.

I also hope you’ll pick up a copy of my debut novel The Devil’s Dance.

I love hearing from you!

And am not above bribery!

What do you WIN? For the month of April, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

March’s winner will be announced next post. I know I said this post but have STILL been sick and am a writer so I lie . Very sorry, but I will make sure I announce it. Been a rough few weeks.

The post Platform: What IS It? Why Do Writers Need One? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Branding is a word that seems to have one day—POOF—appeared out of the ether. In fact, when I began blogging in 2006 almost no one in publishing used the term. The rare few who did were hard-pressed to properly/clearly define what a ‘brand’ was.

In fact, many authorities believed authors didn’t need to be bothered with silly passing fads like ‘the Internet’ and ‘social media’ until about 2013. Why would authors need to build a brand?

All a writer needed was a good book. Facebook will last a year at best.

Yep.

Today, in 2018, the words ‘brand’ and ‘branding’ seem to be tossed around daily. Everyone and everything is or has or needs a brand. What’s funny is that branding might seem completely new, yet has been around since…people.

Granted how important a brand is, the need for one as an author, etc. is a fairly recent development. Yes, we need to craft excellent books (product) but we also must begin building our author brand EARLY.

***As in the first day we believe we might one day want to sell a book.

Ah, but calm down. There’s a lot of confusion regarding what a brand actually is. Many assume ads, marketing, and promotional campaigns are ‘branding.’

Yeah…no.

We can build a brand, but alas we cannot buy one. There are no shortcuts. Ads, promotion, marketing can help expand an existing brand, but cannot be substituted for one. This approach is akin to ordering a wife on-line from Russia believing one can buy true love with Visa.

In some areas of life, shortcuts end up a) a waste of time b) a bigger waste of money c) an episode of Dateline.

Branding Basics

I wrote my book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World to be evergreen information. In my POV, social media changes daily, but humans never change.

Just read Shakespeare or look at your ex’s Facebook page *rolls eyes*.

That’s why my social media/branding guide focuses a lot more on the science behind what creates what we recognize as a brand. What captures our attention? What turns us off? What renders a brand invisible (thus a non-brand)?

How can one brand launch into the stratosphere with little to no budget when another fails miserably no matter how many millions of dollars are poured into ad campaigns and celebrity endorsements?

Obviously, my book delves into far more detail about the science behind branding. But a little common sense goes a long way. Thus, today we’ll simply touch on why our everyday on-line behaviors collect into a larger pool we call ‘author brand.’

First…

Branding is NOT New

The thing is, humans have always had a ‘personal brand.’ Branding, in its simplest form, is what descriptors we attach to another person. It’s an innate habit we use to organize and transition the fuzzy and inchoate into the dramatic and memorable.

In the series I’ve been doing about story structure, I’ve reiterated over and over how we humans are wired for story. Branding is simply an extension of story.

That guy/that gal is too amorphous for us to remember. It also doesn’t provide enough detail for us to know how we should respond.

But, ‘That guy who’s been married four times, loves hunting, and collects sports cars’ provides a narrative (a story) that will either resonate or repel depending on the audience.

Humans dig labels, now more than ever before. It’s how we make our increasingly larger world somewhat manageable. Thus, people we ‘know’ are frequently tethered to a variety of descriptors—vegan, sports enthusiast, triathlete, cat lady, Cowboys fan, craftsy person, the comedian, etc.

There’s the perfect, put-together Pinterest moms and then there’s me….

This, in a nutshell, is ‘branding.’ Humans have been doing this ‘branding’ thing since the dawn of time. The only difference in a ‘personal brand’ and an ‘author brand’ is that the ‘author brand’ should eventually drive book sales. Also, branding is now more vital than ever before because of the sheer volume of information, people, choices, etc.

This is why author brands are essential, since a brand is basically a beacon drawing people (readers) to something they find familiar and that they already know they like.

Here is where science comes in handy.

The Neurological Shortcut

Our brains are remarkable organs that have the ability to adapt to our environment. Before the invention of the written word, our memory centers were far larger because we had to pass down information orally.

In fact, if you took an MRI of a tribesman from some isolated Amazonian tribe, his brain would look and act very different from yours or mine.

Then, with the advent of the written word, our memory centers shrank but we gained even larger areas for abstract thinking. This was around the time we start seeing major explosions in science and engineering.

Now we are in the Digital Age, and we’re bombarded with stimuli. Internet, television, radio, smart phones, pop-ups, etc. etc. We’ve lost our stellar memory centers and our ability to focus for long periods of time and have gained an unprecedented ability to multitask. Our brains must process massive amounts of information faster than ever before.

Think about it. We see ads on Facebook all the time. Or do we? Our brains have literally learned to un-see. We cannot manage all the input. So, if we (authors) are eventually going to advertise our books, how do we make our content visible? 

Branding with Intention

Since our brain is much like a computer processor, it must come up with ways to effectively manage all this input in order to maintain efficiency. To do this, it relies on what are called somatic markers.

Somatic markers are neurological shortcuts and are one of the most primitive functions of the brain because they are uniquely tied to survival and procreation. It’s the same shortcut that tells us the stove is hot. We don’t need to sit and ponder the stove. We likely learned when we were very small not to touch.

To give you an idea of how somatic markers work, let’s do a little exercise. Is there a perfume or cologne you can smell and it instantly transports you back in time? Maybe to that first love or even *cringes* that first heartbreak? A song that makes you cry?

Perhaps there is a food you once ate that made you sick and even though there is no logical reason you shouldn’t eat it now, the mere thought of eating it makes you queasy.

These are somatic markers. When it comes to branding, somatic markers are vital.

The Pepsi Challenge

If you are around my age or older you can remember The Pepsi Challenge. For years, Pepsi had been trying to gain an edge over Coca Cola, which had dominated the soda industry for generations. Pepsi—figuring it had nothing to lose—came up with the idea of setting up a table in stores and shopping malls and encouraging people to take a blind taste test.

The results were astonishing…to Pepsi more than anyone.

In a blind taste test, people preferred the taste of Pepsi. Coca Cola was rattled by this news. They performed the same test and it turned out, people preferred the taste of Pepsi…and this led to brilliant ideas like ‘New Coke’ which was one of the most epic brand failures in business history.

Why did New Coke fail?

Coca Cola reformulated to make the drink sweeter. In blind taste tests, New Coke was a clear winner. So then why did it tank so badly?

Somatic markers.

What Happened? Branding Basics

Years later, neuroscientists decided to see if they could demystify what happened in The Pepsi Challenge. They conducted the exact same experiment, only this time they hooked participants up to an fMRI machine so they could witness what areas of the brain lit up.

They held the taste test the same way it was conducted in the 70s—a blind taste test. To their amazement, participants preferred the taste of Pepsi in almost the exact same numbers. According to the fMRI, the ventral putamen, the area of the brain that tells us something tastes yummy, lit up like Vegas.

*Some have speculated that when it is only a sip, people will prefer the sweeter drink.*

The ‘Human Factor’ in Branding

The scientists then decided to try something a bit different. They did the test again, only this time they told the participants what they were drinking. This time, Coca Cola won BIG.

Ah, but something strange happened in the brain. Not only did the ventral putamen light up, but so did the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain associated with emotion and memory.

See, when it was based on taste alone, Pepsi won. But, when the brands were compared, Coca Cola won. The human brain was in a wrestling match between two very different regions—taste and emotional.

Coca Cola had the advantage because of the vast reservoir of fond memories associated with the brand. In short, Coca Cola had a STORY for sale.

Norman Rockwell Americana, cute polar bears, I’d Like to But the World a Coke, every BBQ, summer vacation, rollerskating parties, Friday nights with pizza and on and on all were part of the Coca Cola arsenal. The fond memories (positive somatic markers) associated with the brand literally changed the taste and gave Coca Cola the winning edge.

Somatic Marker Meets Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Ever run into a term you KNOW you’ve never heard in your life, then hear it at least four more times in the next week? Or see something you know you’ve never seen before, then suddenly it’s everywhere? Reverse-harems? Punk-Rockabilly-Zydeco? Kombucha?

I’d never heard of Bikram Yoga until a friend told me about it and then…it was everywhere. Following me with sweaty mats…and Kombucha O_O .

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is also known as the frequency illusion or the recency illusion. At first glance, one might think this is why it’s a great idea to automate everywhere! Churn out lots of ads! Exposure! The more people see me, my name, my face, my book, the BETTER!

Follow them to the BATHROOM!

Not so quickly.

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon seems to kick in strongest when there’s some kind of an emotional response tethered to the ‘thing.’ Interestingly, the stronger the emotional response (positive or negative), the more likely we will see that car, food, book, name, that we suddenly believe is now everywhere, surrounding us.

Ah, but when it comes to OUR brand, what emotional response are we creating? Are people seeing our name because of some good encounter? Or do they see it and silently rage because we keep crapping up their feeds with automation? Are we all take and no give?

Ads That Pop-Up & Ads That POP

We see ads all over. More than ever before in human history, which is why our brains are getting so clever with shortcuts. Most ads we literally do not see.

I could take any random person and have them click through twenty pages of BuzzFeed memes and they’ll remember the memes (emotional), but are unlikely to remember most of the ads plastered all along the sides. Though most ads will be invisible, some are not. Some might even leap off the page. Why?

What makes us ‘see’ the advertisement?

When we have a highly positive or vastly negative experience, we’re far more likely to notice the ad.

If we see an ad for a book, we may or may not notice. But what about an ad for a book written by someone we know? Someone perhaps we talked to and liked? The ad practically leaps from the page. We might even buy it because we SAW her ad and OMG! I know her!

Ads alone have very little power to compel a purchase. But, couple them with a brand (story/narrative/emotional experience), and the odds of a sale greatly improve. This is why ads and promotion alone do very little to impact sales. Until there is a narrative (emotion) attached to the name?

It’s white noise.

Keeping the ‘Social’ in Social Media

Now that y’all have had a Neuroscience 101 crash course—and I guarantee you will see Baader-Meinhof OR Kombucha at least three times in the next week—let’s get down to what’s most essential. Branding is all story. It’s a collection of emotional experiences that tie our name to some set of descriptors (hopefully positive ones).

Eventually, with love, care and nurturing, followers can become friends and even FANS.

So have fun. Relax. Show up. Be present and engage authentically. Find your tribe and bond. And a great tip for on-line as well as in life?

It is far better to be interested than interesting .

Feel free to ditch the non-stop jazz hands. It’s all good. Go write more books and enjoy the people you meet along the way.

What Are Your Thoughts? 

Do you now feel way better now that you know why you’ve also heard the term ‘reverse harem’ six times in the past week? Feel extra sassy that you know the term ‘Baader-Meinhof phenomenon?’ Are you already planning ways of using this word in everyday conversation?

Does this take some of the pressure off ‘creating an author brand’?

Ready for Book Beast Mode? I Live to Serve…Up Some TRAINING!

For anyone who longs to accelerate their plot skills, I recommend my ON DEMAND Plot Boss: Writing Novels Readers Want to BUY. Two hours of intensive plot training from MOI…delivered right to your computer to watch as much as you like .

The Art of Character is also now available for ON DEMAND.

And if you’re ready for BOOK BEAST MODE and like saving some cash, you can get both Plot Boss and Art of Character in the Story Boss Bundle (ON DEMAND). Almost FIVE HOURS with me, in your home…lecturing you. It’ll be FUN! 

Have to write a query letter or synopsis? Conference season is coming!

Pitch Perfect: Crafting a Query & Synopsis Agents Will Love. Class is April 19th 7-9 EST and $45 for over two hours training y’all how to do the toughest parts of this job.

For more inappropriate laughs—fine, a totally gallows humor but fast-paced mystery suspense—I hope you’ll pick up a copy of my debut novel The Devil’s Dance.

I love hearing from you!

And am not above bribery!

What do you WIN? For the month of April, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

March’s winner will be announced next post. I know I said this post but have been sick and am a writer so I lie .

The post Branding & The Brain: How Social Media Changes but Humans Never Will appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Hey everyone! Remember me? It’s Kristen and I’m back and yes of course I missed all of you dearly. In this blog, I’ve always worked to be transparent with you guys so you knew it was okay to be human. Lately, I’ve been very very human as in seriously exhausted and burned out. Working is easy for me. Resting?

That requires an intervention.

Hey, I’m a work in progress too!

I’m bad about having two speeds, GO and GO HARDER. Three years ago I pushed and pushed until I ended up with a nice case of Shingles that laid me out for months.

Yeah nothing to make a gal feel young and sexy like Shingles.

One would think I learned from that. Sigh. No *hangs head in shame* So I’ve been going going going for months. Launched a debut book, blogging, teaching then went to present at a week-long retreat…where I worked 10-12 hour days. I LOVE my work. Sitting alone in the woods in the quiet? When there are writers I can HELP??????

*snorts plotting like line of cocaine*

I love it a bit too much and so it never feels like work. Ergo, easy to overdo it.

To make matters worse, though the retreat catered to food allergies, either they screwed up or I did and I got glutened which means I was viciously ill when I returned home. I would have gone to an ER if euthanasia was an option. But it wasn’t.

Only time, lots of water and sleep would make it right…meaning I spent a week in bed. I would grow bored and instead of permitting it, my instincts were to immediately seek stimulation of some kind.

I’d get on-line, hop on Facebook and, of course, see stuff like this…

 And then I of course would “be forced” to respond with, “Sure, because our ancestors ate THIS!”

*backs slowly away from computer* *returns to blanket fort* I didn’t need to give into my craving for stimulation. I didn’t need to get on Facebook and educate the world about food allergies. I was already exhausted and that was just draining away the tiny little reserves I’d managed to build by resting.

I didn’t need Instagram or Pinterest or Facebook or Candy Crush or an audio book or a movie. I needed rest, QUIET, and a serious attitude adjustment (which would probably come with some rest and quiet time).

Unplugging

I miss being a kid and having three months of vacation. Now THAT was unplugging.

Y’all remember summer vacation? It was all joy and fun and excitement for about a month and then you spent the next two months bored out of your skull? Of course usually, for me, those last two months were when I ended up in the most trouble because nothing will make you creative like being BORED.

This was when it seemed a good idea to see if I could walk along the tops of fences, up over rooftops and make it all the way down the block without ever having to touch ground. This was also when it seemed a good idea to convince my little brother he could jump off the roof with an umbrella and that he’d just float down like Penguin in Batman.

#Oops

We spent weeks building, making up games, exploring and getting dirty, but all of that is gone now. Gone for me because I am an adult but also gone for the new generations.

We are a culture who values entertainment, but I’m going to posit some food for thought. Entertainment is not rest. It is not relaxation. It is also NOT a synonym for play (which is also important but a topic for another time). We are seriously overstimulated then wonder why we can’t seem to think straight.

There’s a lot to say about being bored and with the influx of social media and games and apps and streaming video, when was the last time anyone was really…bored?

As a kid isn’t that when we became our boldest? Like our regular friends weren’t available (probably grounded because they got caught three rooftops down) and so we had to reach beyond our comfort zone. Talk to that kid we didn’t know?

Before I went to the retreat I went to get my hair done (turn my gray back to blonde). Beauty shops when I was growing up were always hubs of chatter. Gossip, advice, laughter, talk, strangers becoming instant BFFs.

Now? It’s gone quiet.

If video killed the radio star then smartphones killed the beauty shop. Fifteen years ago, if forced to sit for 30 minute while my hair processed, I would have walked away with three new friends, dating advice and a couple recipes to try.

Now, it’s a wall of grown women staring at phones and tablets with white cords dangling from their ears. Short of razor wire and a KEEP OUT sign? Yeah. With all the stimulation, no “connections” can be made.

Hold onto that thought.

When I’m not working I’m still working. I read tons of books, listen to audio books, watch documentaries, movies, series and study, study, study to get better and better. Yet, though filling my mind with all this information is necessary and good, it does little good if I fail to get quiet.

And even get a little bored.

A good dose of quiet boredom (quiet) is magic for the imagination. There are many scientific benefits to being bored. It defrags the brain, helps us be able to discern the urgent from the important, lowers stress and cortisol levels (stress is bad juju for creativity, btw).

Our minds need quiet time to be able to think, to imagine, to create. To make connections. Think of all those juicy tidbits of trivia, conversations you’ve overheard, news headlines, stories, pictures, questions, documentaries, things you read. Now imagine they are all sitting together in a beauty shop and this beauty shop is between your ears.

Take away their Candy Crush, their email, their audio books and streaming news. Take out their ear buds and make them sit together in the silence. Give them nothing else to do and guess what? They’ll start talking, and gossiping, and sharing and….CONNECTING.

This is when the magic is gonna happen. This is when all those meaningless scraps are going to start coming together and assembling into order and then…into beauty. Lately, I’ve been putting my phone on Airplane Mode a lot. I don’t need the constant beeping and siren’s call to look at FB. Been making time to just lie in bed in the dark and be quiet even if for only 30 minutes. I even moved a couple classes (AHHHHHHH!) because I was exhausted and to give my best I need to be at my best.

Baby steps .

So if you’re stuck, your writing is stuck, your muse is stuck? Maybe it’s time to let her get a bored .

What are your thoughts? Do you struggle with rest? Do you feel guilty? Is it hard to let yourself unplug? Hey I get it! What are some things you do to unplug? Hey I am all for suggestions!

Talk to me! And MAKE SURE to check out the classes below and sign up! Summer school! YAY!

For the month of JULY, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

NEW CLASSES WITH CAIT REYNOLDS!

Obviously, I have my areas of expertise, but I’ve wanted for a long time to fill in some gaps on classes I could offer.

Cait Reynolds was my answer.

She is an unbelievable editor, mentor and teacher and a serious expert in these areas. She consults numerous very successful USA Today and NYTBS authors and I highly, highly recommend her classes.

OMG, Like How to Write On Fleek YA July 7th $40 with Cait Reynolds

Research for Historical Writing – Or, How not to Lose Six Hours on Pinterest July 8 $35 with Cait Reynolds

How to Dominate Your Sex Scenes (No Safe Words Here) July 14th $40 w/ Cait Reynolds

Shift Your Shifter Romance into High Gear July 15th $35 Basic/ $75 GOLD/ $125 PLATINUM

Gaskets and Gaiters: How to Create a Compelling Steampunk World July 21st $35 w/ Cait Reynolds 

Lasers & Dragons & Swords, Oh MY! World Building for Fantasy & Science Fiction July 28th w/ Cait Reynolds $35/ GOLD $75/ PLATINUM $125

Classes with MOI!

Plotting for Dummies July 13th $35 ($250 for GOLD)

Blogging for Authors July 20th $50 ($150 for GOLD)

Branding for Authors  July 27th $35

Classes with Lisa Hall-Wilson

Growing An Organic Platform On Facebook July 22nd $40

The post The Creative Benefits of Being BORED appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Kristen is recovering from a couple of all-nighters spent caring for a loved one. I’m sure she’ll have plenty to say about it over the coming weeks. She should be back tomorrow. I take that back, she will be back tomorrow,even if I have to drive to TX and make her write a blog post Weekend-at-Bernie’s style.

Today’s post is an excerpt from a bonus lesson from Lisa Hall Wilson’s six week Facebook course. Lisa is a fantastic teacher and one of my favorite online people. She is currently teaching four classes at WANA Intl:

Building A Tribe Using A Facebook Profile
Using Your Facebook Profile to Build Platform
How To Write In Deep Point Of View (POV)
How To Get Them Talking – Interview Like A Journalist

Thanks Lisa for giving us a sneak preview at this new lesson!

WANA Facebook Maven Lisa-Hall Wilson

Facebook Groups

Indie authors especially are very good at innovating and finding creative solutions to problems they face trying to connect with their readers/fans. Recently, former lit agent Nathan Bransford posted about the ongoing bully/gang-mentality that’s become prevalent over on Goodreads. People were leaving bad reviews of books they’d never read, or just didn’t like the title or subject matter of. (Read the post here.)

Authors had no way of policing their Goodreads pages, and real fans were turning away because of the bullies and bad reviews.

So they innovated.

How Authors Are Using FB Groups

I often get people inviting me (or force adding me) to closed groups which are really just book launch announcements. Not cool. That’s just spam. Don’t do that. However, some authors are using groups the proper way with amazing success.

Growing a tribe or community around your writing is usually a common goal for all writers regardless of their genre. Easier said than done. Building a community or tribe takes time, effort and intentionality.

To combat the lack of control over on Goodreads, authors have turned to closed FB groups instead.

Street Teams

When an author is about to launch a book, they may create (or fans create for them) a street team. I’ve seen these used as incentive to pre-order books. These are the most dedicated and enthusiastic fans you can have. They are your mavens, they generate word of mouth enthusiasm, share your work, post reviews, buy copies for family and friends. This is marketing gold you can’t buy.

Author Strategies

These closed groups are well organized and only genuine fans of the books are accepted as members. Some authors use these groups to send out information to join a street team, help get the message out about their books, events, coming soon and cover reveals, help name the book, etc. Some of these groups have tens of thousands of members. It’s a vibrant hidden community free of trolls because the author admin has the power to turf those who break the rules of the group. There’s no spamming, and readers find it a much safer environment than Goodreads right now.

Authors show up daily to talk to fans, to give that glimpse behind the curtain – they want to see Oz. Authors are growing these groups by placing links to them in the back of their books – as opposed to their websites. It’s an insider club.

Benefit of Closed Group

The big benefit for a closed group is that you have to be a member to see the content. It may show up in your news feed because you’re a member, but your friends won’t see it unless they’re also members. This way members can also share inspiration photos of guys (etc.) and it doesn’t show up on their walls or their friend’s news feeds. You can’t use a group with your Page though, only your Profile. Many Indie authors have what I call a place-holder Page but are only active on their Profile.

Book Promotion

Authors are inviting fellow Indies into these groups to help promote the upcoming book launch often. So XYZ author is invited to participate. The group members are alerted that “XYZ author will be here to spend time with you all. She’s giving away a copy of her… book.”

The author admin creates a thread linking to the free giveaway. The protocol is that XYZ author never mentions their own books. They talk about their favorite heroes/heroines in author admin’s books, etc. This helps promote author admin’s books and helps XYZ author get new readers – and nobody gets spammed!

Author Cooperatives

Authors are teaming up with others who write in their genres, etc. to offer book promos together, boxed sets, etc. This is all being done in closed FB groups.  Authors are sharing info and insights into marketing, promotions and ads. They’re working together to support each other. That’s the WANA way.

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Lisa has been using Facebook since 2007, and has been a paid administrator, content creator, and consultant for more than three years. She manages Pages for non-profits and small businesses in Canada and the United States. She’s a freelance journalist with nearly 100 articles published, and has counted non-profits such as World Vision Canada as clients. You can find her hanging out on the WANA Intl Facebook Page most days or at her website.

The post When Spammers and Trolls Take Over – Authors Innovate – Facebook Groups (WANA Class Excerpt) appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

In her seeming desperation, she handed me the keys to her blog. Again…

You’d have thought she’d have learned after I hijacked her site last time. Then again, knowing Kristen, she’s aware that I ‘sampled’ a couple glasses of wine while TechGirl and I made lasagna. Kristen’s call for help at an ungodly late hour is most likely a ploy Sun Tzu would be proud of.

Regardless, challenge accepted!

Actually, this is a fantastic chance to catch everyone up on the goings on in WANAville.

First off, thanks to everyone who joined us for the October WANACon Writers Conference. We appreciate your trust in us and hope you had as good a time as we did. For those who couldn’t join us, the session recordings are available for On Demand viewing here.

The next WANACon will be Friday February 21st and Saturday February 22nd, (hopefully) far enough from the chaos of the holidays that a conference track on what to do next with your NaNoWriMo creation makes sense, and close enough to Valentine’s Day for one on writing romance.

Keep up with all the details by visiting WANACon.com or joining our mailing list.

WANA Classes are going On Demand

We’ve heard you. And finally the technology allows us to bring you an “On Demand” class experience that is good enough to receive the WANA… ->

We’re not moving away from live classes, but with busy WANAs all over the globe, we’re structuring classes to be more flexible for those who can’t attend live.

We’ll be adding dozens of classes by amazing instructors over the next few months. Click for our Current Class List or to join our mailing list.

And a shameless plug…

Book Tours in Your PJs

On Friday, my company, TechSurgeons is adding an new Author Service – Virtual Book Tours. They’ll use the same tech WANA uses for WANACon and live classes. At an introductory price of $50, you can rent a virtual room for 6 hours for you and up to 10 others at a time.  You’ll be able talk to your readers, share web cams, instant message with the shy ones, display PDFs of sample chapters, extras, and ‘out takes’ or whatever creative ideas you have. Contact me for more details.

Remember WANATribe, -the- private social media site by authors for authors.

We have Tribes for all genres and interests. And if you don’t see the one you want, you can create it. Joining and using WANATribe is free.

As a thank you prize for reading putting up with my post, here’s a video of (I believe) George Clooney and Brad Pitt dueling with a flamethrower and fire extinguisher.  Inside sources claimed this was filmed just before they went to their respective makeup artists.

Okay, that was mean. Here’s an amazingly cool video of the Ohio State band performing their “Hollywood Blockbuster” Show.
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Geek in His (un)Natural Habitat

Jay Donovan is the official WANA Tech Guy and takes care of all WANA’s technology needs. He’s writing an “Expansion Pack” on the proper use of pen names to supplement Kristen’s “Rise of the Machines” and should be working on it instead of hijacking blogs and talking about himself in third person, but where’s the fun in that?

Jay’s company TechSurgeons LLC provides the geeky magic for WANACon and  WANA classes. TechSurgeons also hosts the WANAIntl.com & authorkristenlamb.com websites. He’d love to be your tech guy too.

Find him on Twitter at @jaytechdad or on Facebook

The post Blog Hijack Part Deux – WANA Goings On appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Yesterday our nation reeled from a senseless attack on innocent people. I know here at home, we were desperately reaching out for answers. My husband had family in Boston and I had friends who were participating in the race. We were scrambling to make sure our loved ones were okay (all is fine, btw).  We mourn as a nation, as humans. We are grateful for the brave people who ran toward danger to render aid to the suffering.

There were nurses, doctors and other medical professionals participating in the marathon. Despite the fact they were at the end of running over twenty-six miles, they still dove in to assist those injured in spite of their own exhaustion and pain. Carlos Arredondo, who lost his son in Iraq, bravely jumped a security fence into a pile of fallen bodies and immediately rendered aid.

I am awed, humbled and amazed by the many stories of everyday heroes.

Image of Carlos Arrodondo via The Washington Post.

Yet, in the midst of all this chaos, one story in particular caught my attention because, oddly enough, it made headlines along with all other reports piling in from the blast site. My husband and I were searching for breaking news to see if any of our loved ones might be among the victims when I saw this:

Kim Kardashian Attacked on Twitter  for Self-Promotion During Boston Marathon Tragedy.

I’m not a political analyst and I’m not law enforcement, but I do teach social media. This headline caught my attention because it brought up a new angle I’d not previously contemplated, a new dark side to social media for us all to be wary of. I hesitantly bring this up today, but only because I believe this story is such a powerful cautionary tale for all of us who use social media. We must be responsible and authentic.

A World of Instant

We live in a world of instant communication and connection, and social media is a double-edged sword. Last year, social media saved lives and helped keep my family safe during a sudden outbreak of 22 tornadoes in one day.  Since our power was out, all we could hear were sirens but we couldn’t tell if they were warning our area, or somewhere nearby. I rushed out front to listen closer, and that’s when I heard that unforgettable freight train sound and watched an F-2 lower out of the blackness.

With no power, we had no way of knowing what might be headed our way….and the tornadoes kept coming and coming, one after another. Twitter is what kept us informed. We huddled in the bathroom and used my cell phone to watch Twitter.

Once the power returned, I got back on Twitter to return the favor. One woman who follows me had taken a moment to peek at her Twitter feed at work. I’d just tweeted that yet another tornado was on the ground in Dallas and headed straight for them.

Later, I found out the woman worked in a virtually windowless building and they had no way of knowing DFW was experiencing a tornado outbreak of historic proportions. Had I (and others) not tweeted the warning, the woman and her coworkers wouldn’t have known to seek shelter mere minutes before they were hit.

I bring this up to show that social media is amazing, wonderful and powerful, but we have to be careful how we use it. I’ve talked at length about how I am adamantly opposed to automation, particularly automation that is meant to “appear” as if there is a real person present.

The World Can Turn on a Dime

News breaks in an instant. These days, when disaster strikes, the public knows within minutes, often before anyone even knows what’s really transpired. Social media is used to relay instant news, connect family to loved ones, warn of further danger, etc.

A Perfect Storm

When we preprogram “chatty self-promo” messages, most of the time, people won’t notice, especially if the person injects real tweets in between. Yet, the world can go so dark so quickly, that chatty self-promo automation can become an instant nightmare. Kim Kardashian tweeted her condolences to the victims of the Boston tragedy, but then a little over 20 minutes later tweeted:

“Check out @krisjenner on @QVC’s PM Style Show at 7PM EST tonight!”

Fans were livid and went on the attack. According to the article (linked above) via Hollywood Life’s Emily Longoretta:

One tweet read: “America is in the midst of a tragedy right now. F— you.”

Another similarly responded: “WE DNT GIVE A F— RIGHT NOW KIM.”

Shortly after Kim’s tweet, her mom Kris Jenner sadly followed her insensitive lead.

“Dolls! Don’t miss me tonight at 8pm ET on @QVC! I’m debuting my gorg new scoopneck tunic on PM Style!! Join me!” Kris wrote on her Twitter, receiving a backlash just like Kim. However, then she removed it.

To me, it is clear that some intern probably just got fired. The Kardashians have a legion of media people to clean up the PR nightmare, yet this highlights a point I’ve been trying to make for some time now.

People are on social media to be social. Ads, promotion and automation from people are resented in general, but they can spark a wildfire of backlash if automation meets with poor timing as it did in the case of the Kardashian family.

I don’t think most of us believed the Kardashians were actually tweeting those promos. I feel the Kardashian fans, for the most part, just accept that promotion goes along with “keeping up with the Kardashians.” But when that automation met the perfect storm of tragedy? It was ugly.

I believe the ill-timed self-promotion eclipsed the genuine condolences Kim offered the victims, and that’s very sad.

Not Everyone Understands the Ins and Outs of Twitter

One thing we are wise to consider is that a lot of regular people use Twitter, but many don’t understand it the way those of us building a platform do. Many people don’t realize it’s possible to automate, so when they see in ill-timed tweet in the middle of disaster, they react as violently as they would toward someone trying to sell vitamins at a funeral.

We Take a Risk

Humans remember the negative far longer than the positive. If we automate, we are gambling that we can run to Hoot Suite and shut down the chatty auto-tweets before we “tweet” something that makes us look like insensitive jerks. It’s a big gamble with high stakes. What takes years to build can only take seconds to destroy.

Boston, We Love You

I am grateful for Twitter. It kept us and others safe last year in the tornado outbreak. It’s allowed me to reach out to friends in Boston and be there for them, to make sure they’re all right. I think social media is a blessing, but only when we use it with love, wisdom and prudence.

Our hearts and prayers go out to Boston. We love you, support you, we mourn for you and we are here for you.

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