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In this episode we answer questions from listeners like you. If you would like to ask a question for a future Q&A episode click here.

Question 1

“I was recently divorced and remarried and now I have a new last name. Should I change the name on my website and future books or use my old name as a pen name moving forward?” Sarah

Question 2

“Must I market myself in a specific genre? I know not to say, “I write everything.” I understand the value of marketing to a specific genre, but is OK to be general fiction or must I narrow down to Christian YA steampunk romance? I made that last one up.” Darren Sapp

Question 3

“I recently read the Author Media blog post, Why Your Blog Should Be Your Book’s First Draft, and have been busily planning a campaign to serialize a story on one of my blogs. Have you changed your mind?” Carrie Lynn Lewis

Question 4

“Hi I’m enjoying your podcasts. The Car Talk of novel marketing! Having just listened to the NaNoWriMo one I want to know what suggestions do you have for novelists who wrote their first draft with NaNoWriMo in regard to using it for marketing? (I see that they feature “mighty catalyst” books on their site, which I assume are published Nano books, but how to get one’s book there isn’t clear, and they’re pretty buried.) Might there be other ways of connecting, doing outreach, etc. based on having a Nano origin?” Juliana Barnet

Question 5

“A friend gave me the name of her distant cousin (who is multi published) as a possible contact. I’d like to get in touch with this cousin to see if she can help me, but I’m not sure what to ask her. Read my book? Ask for a review? I really don’t want to “waste” an opportunity to have someone help me by asking too much or too little.” Christy Esmahan

You also might be interested in Episode 7: The Secret to Getting People to Love You.

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