Nicole offers the following lineup of online/virtual workshops for authors that she can lead for your writing group or organization. Contact her to discuss details.
keywords: author workshops, workshops for authors, authors who lead workshops
WordPress Websites for Authors: Wow Your Readers With A Professional Website Without the Web Designer Price Tag
You don’t have to be a web developer or designer or fork over a ton of cash to have a sleek, professional, well-branded author website. All you need is a little guidance and an idea of what readers are looking for when they come to your page. By the end of this course, you’ll have an easy-to-navigate, professional-looking website built to convert visitors into readers, subscribers, and fans.
In this course, we’ll discuss:
- Setting Up a Self-Hosted WordPress Site
- Themes and Customizations that fit your Author Brand
- Core Web Pages Every Author Website Should Have
- Must-Have Plugins for Authors
- Author Newsletter Integration
- To Blog or Not to Blog – What Does An Author Blog About, Anyway?
- What to Include When You’re Not Published Yet
Course Format: 4-week workshop, 2 posts a week with videos and homework assignments, Q&A, and handouts.
Instructor Bio for this course:
Being a self-published author since 2013, Nicole R. Locker (she/her) has learned a thing or two about getting things done and figuring things out. A director of a nonprofit child welfare organization by day, author of contemporary romance by night, Nicole learned early on that you have to dress for the job you want, not the one you have, and you have to learn from people who do the work to learn it best, or just get in there and try and fail until you get it right and teach yourself.
In the time since publishing her first romance book, Nicole has not only created multiple evolutions of her own author website, (remember that time I tried Wix?), she has also created Romance Books, a multi-author marketing website for Romance Authors; New Books | Romance, an automated website for Romance authors to share their new releases; Online Writer Workshops, a clearinghouse of writer workshop offerings from various writing groups and organizations; as well as her own reader book blog, One Woman Reading, and her own food blog, WW Nicky. She also recently overhauled the website for Contemporary Romance Writers as they became a standalone professional writing organization and implemented a site registration and community for their membership. Her degrees are in Psychology – absolutely nothing to do with web development or web design, but she has learned a thing or two along the way that she’s eager to share!
Mailerlite for Authors: Connect With Your Readers On a New Level
Newsletter subscribers are an author’s greatest asset when it comes to marketing and connecting with their readers. Using Mailerlite to build your subscriber list makes it easy to customize, find out where your subscribers are coming from so you can put your precious time and energy into things that you know actually work, and tailor your subscribers’ experience to get the best outcomes for your goals.
In this course, we’ll discuss:
- Setting up the basics
- Author brand and your newsletter design
- Automations, Drip Campaigns, and why you need them
- Segmenting your audience
- Looking at the numbers/analytics, what they tell you, and what to do with that information
- Blogging and RSS Campaigns
- Newsletter Content Best Practices
- Building your list with quality over quantity
Course Format: 4-week workshop, 2 posts a week with videos and homework assignments, Q&A, and handouts. Can be adapted into a 90-minute webinar if needed, but won’t go into as great of detail and depth as the 4-week course.
Instructor Bio for this course:
Being a self-published author since 2013, Nicole R. Locker (she/her) has learned a thing or two about getting things done and figuring things out. A director of a nonprofit child welfare organization by day, author of contemporary romance by night, Nicole learned early on that you have to dress for the job you want, not the one you have, and you have to learn from people who do the work to learn it best, or just get in there and try and fail until you get it right and teach yourself.
After a brief stint with Mailchimp and testing out several other newsletter providers, Nicole began using Mailerlite and now manages lists for her author newsletter, RomanceBooks.us (a multi-author marketing site), New Books | Romance (new romance releases shared to segmented reader subscribers), Online Writer Workshops (for writers and writing organizations), her book blog RSS newsletter for One Woman Reading, and her latest venture, her food blog RSS newsletter for WW Nicky. She’s had lots of practice in learning the features Mailerlite has to offer, and is eager to share how authors can make use of them to level up their marketing game.
Organizing Multi-Author Promotions: Using Power In Numbers to Reach a Wider Audience
Whether you are traditionally or independently published (or hybrid), growing an author platform is a vital piece of building your author business. While writing is more often than not a solitary activity, growing your author platform doesn’t have to be, and in fact, teaming up with other authors in your genre can help you cast a wider net and reach readers you may not have ever reached otherwise.
In this 90-minute webinar, we will discuss:
- What does multi-author promotion consist of?
- How to find other authors to cross-promote with, and why you should be picky about it.
- What steps authors should take to organize a multi-author promotion.
- What pitfalls you should look out for, and ways to counter them.
Course Format: Webinar (live event – 60-90 minutes)
Instructor Bio for this course:
Nicole R. Locker has been a self-published author since 2013. In January 2017, she created what is now called RomanceBooks.Us (formerly romancebooks.blog), a multi-author marketing site for Romance authors, where she and some awesome author friends have been organizing multi-author, platform building promotions on a monthly basis since the site’s inception. In that time, she has learned the ins and outs of organizing multi-author promos, has learned from a mistake or two, and has built connections with amazing authors across the US and the world in the process.
Find Nicole at https://nicolerlocker.com.
Other sites Nicole has created for Romance Authors, in an effort to give back to the writing community include: