Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

We are continuing our analysis of various website services, keeping authors in mind as we review! I have the WHOLE LIST HERE. So this is it, folks. My subpar analysis of all of these options…from one person who doesn’t speak geek, to another:

WEB HOSTING ANALYSIS FOR AUTHORS

Hostgator.com –

• PLANS: for an author website, you would probably only need the Hatchling or Baby plans.
• PERKS: Compatible with WordPress; Unlimited usage space; 24/7 support; weekly backups; Free website transfer (not totally sure about this one)
• COST: Hatchling is $3.96/month when you order 36 months. Baby is $6.36/month. They also try to sell you other things like web backup, SEO help, and site security. The domain is roughly $12.95/yr should you purchase it from them.

BlueHost.com –

• PLANS: shared hosting plans: for an author website, you’d want  the Plus Plan or the Business Pro plan. WordPress hosting plan: for an author website, the Blogger plan looks great.
• PERKS: $29.99 for 45-minute 1-on-1 help session; Free domain name; $99 website migration
• COST: $5.95/mo for 36 months for the Plus Plan; $13.95/mo for 36 months for Business Pro plan; $24.99/month for WordPress Plan

TigerTech.com –

• PLANS: Gold and Platinum
• PERKS: A set monthly cost that doesn’t seem to fluctuate; Free domain; No outsourced support
• CONS: they have limits on usage, and they tout free setup, but most companies also offer this
• COST: Gold Plan $9.95/mo; Platinum plan $19.95/mo

iPage.com –

• PLANS: Essential Hosting; WordPress Hosting
• PERKS: Seems SUPER cheap, but beware of how prices may skyrocket when

Hi, I’m Jenny B. Jones, and I’m an indie author. It feels weird to say. Even weirder to say it on a literary agent’s blog. Chip (who is the literary agent who helped me land my traditional publishing deals) asked me to stop by and share a bit of my story. I asked him if I could share my Worst Date Ever Story, but he convinced me this one was more relevant. Before I jump into a discussion about why I went rogue, let me say this is just my story. For every point I make, you can find an author who can disprove it with her own experience. Traditional publishing has done a lot of things right by me, and I’m grateful for most of that season, cow book covers notwithstanding.

WHY DID I CHOOSE TO GO INDIE? 

I wrote nine books in traditional publishing. It’s humbling to admit, but I was not the queen of the bestsellers. I was more like the lady’s maid who helps the queen get into her corset and says things like, “No, that bustle does not make your butt look big.” I once heard Debbie Macomber say something to the effect of, “I’m not called to preach. I’m called to write.” Amen and testify. My gift is not in delivering spiritual messages, but in creating a story often about Christian characters and always from a Christian world view. I was always too secular for CBA and too sweet for secular. I heard this so often, I thought about working it into my next tattoo.

Almost four years ago I left publishing. I thought at first I would take a year’s absence, then that year turned into “probably forever.” I had a full-time day job, and years of doing both gigs just wore me out. The last few years of traditional publishing wore me out. The return just wasn’t enough, and I was swimming

Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Alight, folks. Here is round one of analyzing the various website hosting services that were recommended to me. All in the name of finding the PERFECT fit for an author site.

Now remember, I don’t really know much about tech stuff. I’m your run-of-the-mill person who can stumble through it without totally understanding what’s going on. So, my analysis reflects that! I’m sure there will be important things that I’m going to miss, and if you spot them, be sure to let me know! Especially if I have missed an important item that would be a deciding factor for an author website.

WEB HOSTING ANALYSIS FOR AUTHORS

Hostgator.com –

• PLANS: for an author website, you would probably only need the Hatchling or Baby plans.
• PERKS: Compatible with WordPress; Unlimited usage space; 24/7 support; weekly backups; Free website transfer (not totally sure about this one)
• COST: Hatchling is $3.96/month when you order 36 months. Baby is $6.36/month. They also try to sell you other things like web backup, SEO help, and site security. The domain is roughly $12.95/yr should you purchase it from them.

BlueHost.com –

• PLANS: shared hosting plans: for an author website, you’d want  the Plus Plan or the Business Pro plan. WordPress hosting plan: for an author website, the Blogger plan looks great.
• PERKS: $29.99 for 45-minute 1-on-1 help session; Free domain name; $99 website migration
• COST: $5.95/mo for 36 months for the Plus Plan; $13.95/mo for 36 months for Business Pro plan; $24.99/month for WordPress Plan

TigerTech.com –

• PLANS: Gold and Platinum

If you caught last week’s post, you’ll know we’re going to be talking about author voice for the next few weeks in the hopes of demystifying a crucial yet often elusive piece of the writing puzzle. Now that we’ve discussed what elements contribute to the presence of author voice on a page, we’re moving on to some ways to identify what characterizes your voice so that you can direct your writing energy towards refining and strengthening it. To help you in evaluating your voice, I’m going to break down a passage of writing from an author with a terrific voice and then talk you through doing the same for yourself.

In examining the writing of an author with strong voice, I’m forced to revisit an oft-referenced author on this blog, Mr. P. G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse’s brilliant comic novels and short stories very often have similar subjects and settings– the British aristocracy, the English countryside– but the content similarities don’t characterize his voice as much as the way he tells his stories. Don’t confuse topic with voice. To get a better idea of what I’m talking about, let’s look at the opening passage to Wodehouse’s Money for Nothing.

“The picturesque village of Rudge-in-the-Vale dozed in the summer sunshine. Along its narrow high street the only signs of life visible were a cat stropping its backbone against the Jubilee Watering Trough, some flies doing deep-breathing exercises on the hot windowsills, and a little group of serious thinkers who, propped up against the wall of the Carmody Arms, were waiting for that establishment to open. At no time is there ever much doing in Rudge’s main thoroughfare, but the hour at which a stranger, entering it, is least likely to suffer the illusion that he has strayed into Broadway, Piccadilly, or the Rue de Rivoli is at two o’clock on a warm afternoon in July.”

Okay, so, just by dissecting this

I was pleased to be named ACFW’s “Agent of the Year” for 2014. A bit of history… I had a great career, working as the senior agent at another literary agency, Alive Communications in Colorado. But then, ten years ago, I left that job to become a publisher with the old Time Warner Book Group (in a shrewd career move). I was at Time Warner just a couple years, never really feel like I hit my stride, then was cut loose not long after the company was sold to Hachette Livre.

It was July. and I was scheduled to speak at the ACFW conference that September. So I had to send a very tough email to the conference director, explaining that I had been given the boot, and telling her that I’d understand if the organization wanted to un-invite me and get someone else to take my place. I wanted to do the right thing, and let them know that, if I were to attend, the conference would no longer be getting a publisher from a Big Six house. I figured it was the right thing to do. So I sent it off, and about 48 hours later I heard back from them. The president of the organization sent me a very gracious note, telling me that she knew who I was, and they’d still be happy to have me speak, and that the invitation was still in place. It was a lovely gesture, from a great organization, and I realized at the time they were being exceptionally kind to me.

So I went. One of the things I did at that conference was to emcee a general session, in which I asked literary agents like Steve Laube and Lee Hough some questions about industry trends, the role of agents, and the usual stuff people want to know about at panels. Then at the very end of the session, after

Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Looks like I’ll have to postpone my promised analysis of website tools. Sorry! I’m at a conference, and haven’t had time to do the intended research.

Next week we’ll be back on track, but in the meantime, if you haven’t done so already and are really in the mood to read about marketing, check out this post I did some time ago on Jane Friedman’s blog.

5 Ideas for Using Pinterest as an Author

How do YOU use Pinterest? Is it worth your time?

Here at the Chip MacGregor blog, we receive thousands of questions from readers every week. Okay, maybe more like dozens. At least ten. While a majority of those questions have to do with the publishing side of writing– the editorial process, finding an agent, understanding contracts/rights/etc.,– someone occasionally sends in a question related to craft, and probably a fourth of those questions have to do with author voice and how to define/develop it.

Most frequently, readers’ questions on voice are very similar to this one:

“I would find it helpful if you would say more about ‘voice.’ What does that look like? How does one develop and improve ‘voice?'”

I understand the frustration some authors have with the lack of definitive answers about voice– I’m as guilty as the next agent or editor who rhapsodizes about a “great writing voice” or fantasizes about finding the next great “voice” without spending a lot of time talking about this seemingly indefinable quality. That’s probably because author voice is a tricky quality to talk about without being too prescriptive– one of the best definitions of voice in a piece of writing is “the personality of the author as revealed through the writing.” That said, it’s hard for an agent to give specific advice about voice beyond general comments like “your voice seems inconsistent” or “your voice doesn’t come across very strong” without sounding like we’re suggesting you change your personality/writing style. In reality, all we really want is for it to present more clearly and strongly on the page.

What great voice “looks like” is a book that tells me in the first couple of paragraphs what the author’s style of humor is, how intellectual his writing is, how whimsical he is, how seriously she takes herself, how “safe” she is (does she write camera-fade-to-black fight scenes or no-one-under-17-admitted-without-a-parent fight scenes?)– regardless of the type of book being written, the answers

A few months ago, my wife and I took a weekend vacation to Ruidoso, New Mexico. At the outskirts of the small town of Roswell, we drove past a plain sign declaring Happy Jack’s, Beads—Books in front of a solitary building a hundred yards from the highway. My pulse quickened, my hands grew sweaty. I blurted, in the cracking voice of a thirteen-year-old, “Hey, is that a used book store?”

My wife gave me one of Those Looks. She knows me well.

“Do we have time to check it out?” I asked.

She sweetly mentioned that it would be nice to reach Ruidoso before twilight. Or midnight. Or Thanksgiving.

“We won’t stay long,” I insisted, turning the car around. “I promise.”

My wife is a trooper, a team player, an accommodating woman whose enjoyment of used book stores dissipates, on the average, about a hour and a half before I’m ready to leave.

I skidded to a stop in front of the building. “You stay here,” I commanded, using my Band of Brothers scout voice. “I’ll check it out. If it doesn’t smell like cat litter, the Dust Bowl, or the inside of a Marlboro, I’ll sound the all-clear.”

Flanking the building commando-style, I slipped through a side-door, eyes alert, nose sniffing.

And found Paradise.

The floors were clean, the aisles well-lighted. The cool breeze from a swamp-cooler wafted through the air. And everywhere stood rows and rows of paperback books, seen through the reflected, prismatic light of thousands of beads on display at the store’s front. Sublime joy suffused me.

I write and read Science Fiction and Fantasy. Unlike some genres, SF has traditionally been a collectors’ market; fans tend to seek out and keep specific volumes. For me, the time spent at Happy Jack’s (only an hour, I swear) was like stepping into the past, finding titles I had never seen before, studying the cover art, looking for

Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

A funny thing happened the moment I joined MacGregor Literary. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the moment I joined. Could have been a moment or two later.

Anyway, I became the “tech person.”

Due to what was probably a massive dose of ageism and the fact that I knew how to blog on WordPress (whoopty-do), I was soon the de facto knower of all things tech. So, whenever our website broke, the solution was to call Amanda. Or the posts weren’t showing up like they should–call Amanda. Or we needed to set up some kind of new account or change something on our site or figure out why in the world Twitter was being crazy–call Amanda.

Eventually, this responsibility was shared with another within our company, and rightfully so. Because here’s the truth…

I know little-to-nothing about tech stuff. I can’t write or read HTML. I have no idea what “Nameservers” actually means. Or if I’ve even spelled it correctly. I can barely navigate GoDaddy (in my defense, it’s the least intuitive, clunkiest website ever), and I’ve just now gotten the hang of a few website building tools through WordPress…and only because I painstakingly replicated what I saw a REAL webmaster do.

And yet…I’m one of the go-to tech people.

Yay me.

My husband always gets a kick out of this, because when setting up electronics or the like, I’m the type to refer to wires as “the blue one” and “the spirally short one,” whereas he says “input” and “output” or something of the sort. Or

My recent blog posts on trends shaping the publishing industry has led to a number of people writing to as about other new companies that are doing significant things in the world of books. Several people simply asked, “Who are the new companies I need to know about in publishing?” I can think of several…

BookBub — This is a site that offers a daily deal for certain ebooks, and they have a huge database of readers they market to. Publishers and authors suggest titles and pay a fee to BookBub, and the company has an editorial team that selects the titles they want to offer. The price is usually very low (sometimes free), they send out an email advertisement to a couple million followers, and authors have been raving about the results. Another company, Riffle, is trying to do the same thing, only by offering more choices by letting the readers select the books they want to see discounted.

Oyster — A company that is the ebook version of NetFlix. You pay them a monthly fee, and you can read all the ebooks you want. They’ve recently signed a couple of deals with publishers, and their popularity is growing. (So much that recently Amazon created Kindle Unlimited, which does the same thing, only with a larger number of self-published books.) And, if you’re not familiar, Entitle is another company that does something similar. Right now these two and the company below are leading the way with ebook subscription services.

Scribd — They also offer a monthly subscription service to ebook titles, but they’re best known for document sharing and digital distribution. What you may not know is that Scribd does a nice job of working with authors, offering a bunch of analytics on who is reading what, which ebook device they’re using, which genres are most popular, etc. In my view, this is one of the key companies to