C. M. Skiera's Blog

A frequent misunderstanding in some of my blog posts is that because I'm writing about a topic, I'm promoting or endorsing it, which is not the case. This topic in particular, I discuss online tools that I use, but am somewhat on the fence over their actual value or effectiveness. I'm not a fan of spam-style marketing and although this post describes automated online social media posting, I'm a proponent of everything in moderation. Part of me fears these tools are the first step in turning people into spam-bots. However, these services only broadcast to your 'followers,' so ultimately, misuse can come back to haunt the user if they alienate their fan base with mindless spam. Because indie authors need to market their books, having an online social media presence is a popular way to do this. And as you know, the sheer volume of social media outlets can be daunting. Deciding which ones to use and how often to use them can be time-consuming, to say the least. Af...

This July at Comic-Con San Diego, I attended a wonderful presentation titled "Epic Fantasy." Colleen Lindsay moderated a panel featuring some of the genre's biggest authors: Robin Hobb (Blood of Dragons), Raymond Feist (Magician's End), Django Wexler (The Thousand Names), Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn and the Wheel of Time series), Melissa de la Cruz (Frozen), Christopher Paolini (the Inheritance cycle), and Daniel Abraham (The Tyrant's Law). I admit I was a bit star-struck and would have enjoyed listening to these authors talk about any topic under the sun, although hearing them wax poetic on epic fantasy proved pure bliss. The moderator led with a question to the authors about the importance of world building and how she felt it was the singular identifier of epic fantasy; however, the authors' responses echoed a different perspective. Robin Hobb was quick to point out that while world building is an important part of epic fantasy, no world, no matt...