An Author and Reader Guide to StoryOrigin - Part One - Signing Up with SO and Integrating Mailing Lists

Hey all! I hope you're doing well and staying out of the way of the mess hitting the fan right now. Today, I'd like to introduce you all to a platform that's been getting a lot of traction called StoryOrigin. I'm not gonna lead in with a bunch of yakkity, so just grab your coffee or tea and let's get going!

*******AS ALWAYS, THERE IS NO COMPENSATION FOR ME TO DO THIS AND NO AFFILIATE LINKS ARE USED****** That being said, know that all opinions are my own, and I'm free to give them. ;)

First off: What is StoryOrigin?

StoryOrigin is a platform for authors to gain new subscribers to their newsletters through group promotions and swaps, give out ARC copies, have a universal book link page, and distribute audio codes. Newsletters are a huge part of most authors' marketing efforts, so you need to know how to make the most out of every tool available!

But there's more! I know, right? StoryOrigin is also a site for readers to find ARC copies and keep up with how they're doing on their reviews.

If you don't have a mailing list and want to use StoryOrigin for some other reason (ARCs, audio code distribution, etc...), this post isn't for you. Scroll to the bottom of this page and find the links to the next parts!

Best of all, right now, it's free, so let's get you enrolled!

There's a lot to go over, but we'll start with signing up, integrating all the mailing list types, and press forward from there. All posts will be listed and linked on all posts for easy navigation.

Start by going to the StoryOrigin homepage:

Click Login in the top right hand corner.
Click Signup! Where it asks if you're new to us. If you've already gotten this far, feel free to skip to the relevant content. :)

Enter Name and Email Stuffs. I'm making dummy accounts that will be deleted once this tutorial is done. If you have an author website, feel free to click to add it. You also need a privacy policy IF you have an email client that requires one, so go ahead and link it.
Next, you'll see a page that looks like this. We're gonna start at kinda the bottom and work our way up.

Go all the way to the bottom and click Author Profiles.

Right now, you have to have a new account to manage more than one profile, but hopefully, this functionality will be available soon. You should see your author name and website (if you added one) listed.
Let's go one higher and click on Integrations. This is where you'll connect your mailing list and a VERY important function of the site.

MAILCHIMP

Click the blue button to integrate and select your provider from the list. I'm going through each one, starting with MAILCHIMP, so if your provider is different, scroll down until you find that instruction. Select Mailchimp from the dropdown and click Authenticate Mailchimp.

Sign in to your Mailchimp account and click Allow.

There you go! All done! You should be taken back to the page on StoryOrigin that shows your Integrations. Your Mailchimp account should be listed like so:

MAILERLITE

On to the next one: MailerLite Click Integrate Email Provider and choose MailerLite from the dropdown. You should see this:

Your API key is found by clicking your name in the top right hand corner on MailerLite, selecting Integrations, then clicking USE next to Developer API. Will look like this:

Copy it. Go back to StoryOrigin and paste the string of letters and numbers in. Click save. MailerLite is now on your list. You should see it back at your Mailing List Integrations page.

ACTIVECAMPAIGN

Now, we'll go on to ActiveCampaign. Click Integrate Email Provider and choose ActiveCampaign from the dropdown. StoryOrigin walks you through this one:

Follow the directions (copyable text on ActiveCampaign is a little difficult to see, but it DOES copy):

and click Save. ActiveCampaign should be added to your Mailing List Integrations page.

AWEBER

Now we're headed to the next one! AWeber! Click Integrate Email Provider. Choose AWeber from the dropdown.

Click Authenticate AWeber, log in to your AWeber account, click Allow Access, and it should appear on your Mailing List Integrations page (I couldn't do this one because they want a credit card up front).

CONVERTKIT

But we're moving on to ConvertKit! Integrate Email Provider. Choose ConvertKit from the dropdown.

Click on the hyperlink: Click here in the text. It will bring you to the page shown below. You can also get there by logging into ConvertKit, choosing Account, then Account Info. The arrows show where the info is on the page. You have to click SHOW to get the API Secret.

Click save, and ConvertKit will be added to your Mailing List Integrations page. And that's it! Super easy to add your mailing list(s)!

Next time, we'll go over the next two tabs up: Subscribers and Posted Mailing Lists.

Links to all other posts in this series will go below this line (I'll add them as they're completed).
Part Two - Subscribers and Posted Mailing Lists

Thanks for reading, and remember to WRITE ON!

Jo

Facebook Page Basics - Getting Ready for Likes

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Today is a post for the newer authors, those who don't have a Facebook page or those who are thinking about starting one. If you're an old hand, feel free to skip this one. For all of you sticking around, grab a pen and notebook and let's get going!

Okay, in order to have a Facebook page, one must first have a Facebook account. If you don't have one, go to Facebook.com now and sign up.

Done? Good. Now, look on the left hand side of the screen. You'll see this:

Click it.

Here's where the fun begins! When you click Create a Page, you'll be taken to a screen like this:

Each of the squares you click on will open a dropdown with a number of choices. Because we're focused on author pages, you want to click the bottom left box (Artist, Band, or Public Figure) and choose Author. Type in your name and click Get Started.

I'm going to pause here for a moment and talk with you about your name choice. There are a ton of first time authors who create a page for their book or series rather than their author name. This is amazing if you only plan to write one book or one series of books, but what happens when you have fifty or more books out? Are you going to have fifty pages? Why not keep all those fans in one place and just have one page to keep up with?

Now that you've thought about it, let's move on.

I typed in Forexampleonly as my name, because I plan to delete this page once we're done here.

Now you'll see this:

This first tab is the basic stuff you'd expect. You add a description of what your page is about (don't use your author bio, please) in about 200 characters, and what fans can expect to find there. Add your website address, too.

I know you "can" skip it, but please don't. Let's just get it done and over with, okay?

VERY IMPORTANT: Once you SET your PAGE URL, it can only be changed ONE time. People will be notified if you ever do--that screams, "I had no idea what I was doing when I set this up." Choose this wisely (should usually be your author name, as simply as possible), so you won't have to deal with all that.

Here's mine:

Now, click Save Info and let's move to step 2:

Ideally, your profile photo should be square (1:1 ratio) and around 200dpi. As you can see, you can either upload one from your computer or grab one from the web. Do that now. Mine is 6" X 6" at 200dpi in RGB colorspace. I added some graphics around the edge so you can see how nicely it fits.

See? No crop!

Click Next and go to step 3:

Yes, add it to your favorites. That way, it'll show up on the left side of your main feed at the top rather than under the word Pages.

Click Next and go to step 4:

This is where you define your target audience. Hint: "everyone" is not a target audience. Be specific. These are the folks who will be shown your page most often.

Age range goes from 13 to 65+. Choose their location(s). Add their interests. Be specific! I know I said that already, but it bears repeating. For this one, I'll do age 18-35, men and women, with interests in publishing, who live in the US, UK, and Australia.

Click Save and admire your new page!

Facebook will walk you through looking around at all the "stuff" you now have to play with. Go ahead and get clicky with it, and then come on back here and I'll show you a couple more things.

You back? Okay, cool! Now, on to your banner! Here's the size requirement: 851px wide X 315px tall at 72dpi. If you make the resolution any higher, Facebook will resize it, and it'll look janky. If you need a template, you can use this one:

Once you get your banner made, click Add a Cover and upload!

Before I go, I want to show you Settings and how to schedule a post to publish in the future. Click Settings.

Be sure you go through every single tab and set your page up exactly the way you want it. This is also where you can add other people to your page as admins, block specific keywords, and turn on profanity blocker. Yes, it's a lot, but it's worth it.

This page's URL is: https://www.facebook.com/forexampleonly/

That's it. No string of numbers or all that other shizz. Why? Because we took the time to set it when we created it.

To create a post that'll publish on a future date, click in the box that's ghosted Write Something... and type in what you want to share. DON'T CLICK PUBLISH. Instead, click the arrow next to publish and get the dropdown menu. Looks like this:

Click on Schedule.

Choose the date and time you want the post to go up. You have to actually click on the boxes and type in the time manually, but the calendar is a dropdown select.

Guess what? You're done!

You're now ready to share your page with the world. Get out there and get busy. Don't forget to invite your friends to like your page!

Once you have a handle on how all the basic tabs work, take a look at the Insights. Here's a post I wrote that'll walk you through all those cool features.

Did that help? Any of this you didn't know?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo