Mya Kay's Blog: Self-Pub Swag

  Hey everyone! Thanks so much for reading my blog every week. Sometimes, we just need something refreshing to read and not always a prescriptive way on how to do something.    My first book under Royalty Publishing House, Concrete Stilettos: A Love Story, is still in the top 100 in urban fiction and women's fiction on Amazon. I have my readers to thank for that. So today's blog post will be an excerpt from my upcoming romance novel, The Cost of Love, which drops November 17th.    Please enjoy

  I love it. Whenever I crawl over to a favorite website of mine and they have all of their social accounts accessible to their customers. My jaw drops when I click on the lovely twitter bird and I see that they haven't tweeted since Twitter and Facebook last fought. Life happens. I get that. But with mobile technology advancements, there's no reason you can't dish out 140 characters to keep visitors to your site engaged. Especially new prospects who may be interested in what you have to say. No[image error]

  I had a conversation with a friend a few years ago. He's a businessman and had a new product that he was ready to launch to the world.   In the midst of the conversation, Twitter came up. I noticed that he hadn't been tweeting from his personal account in the past, so I asked him about the account for his new product. I didn't even know he had one.    I asked him "Have you been tweeting and engaging with people on Twitter yet from that account?" His response, "No. I don't know what to tweet. I[image error]

I spoke at my graduate school Alma Mater yesterday, Arcadia University, and my theme was The Blueprint. Check out the video below and please, please, please comment!       

  Last week, we touched on some very important topics including, when do you know you need management and what to look for in a manager. Today, we'll focus on: should a female client sign with a male manager what contacts your manager should have if you're an author creating a contract with your manager why working with friends may not be the wisest idea First, when it comes to management, I don't think gender matters. However, if you are a married woman or your manager is a married man and

  You have been writing, slaving at your computer, selling book after book and actually, doing pretty well at it.  Now you're ready to start getting out there to do speaking engagements and signings at schools (especially for my YA authors).   So how do you go about securing management for your author career (or any kind of career involving the arts)? How about we start with do you even need management? Here's five ways to find out if you are at the level where you need management. 1) You are

Being Business Minded Is Key, But Being Money Minded is Essential   You run a business. So it’s supposed to be hard? Right? Or not. Most of the time, we make running a business hard because we don’t keep the promises we make to ourselves.   We say we’re going to find two new prospects to work with by the end of the week. Somehow we settle for the one we went after relentlessly and landed, convincing ourselves that we did our best. Don’t get me wrong. Having a new client is a great thing and not

5 Ways to Love My Flawed Character   Oftentimes, writers find themselves caught between a love/hate relationship with their characters. A month later, they’re abandoning their story, without even realizing that it’s not their character’s that may be flawed. I’m saying it – it’s the author. Our characters are created by us. We have to remember that they will bother us and not respond the way we think they should just like one of our children or for those lucky women out there, our hubbies. Taking

The True Poetic Justice
 
They say a woman with class and favor showcases it in her walk and the way she carries herself. But when you have a multi-dimensional woman that can’t be placed in a box, you just call her a WOMAN. Nina “Lyrispect” Ball, the gifted spoken word artist from Baltimore Maryland, has been seen showcasing her talents on stages, known and unknown, yet many really know her.
A woman that enjoys the finer things in life, like fishing and horseback riding, Nina loves that people enjoy her craft. But she wants people to understand that she has no limits when it comes to her art. Her fluidity when she steps behind a microphone is serious. But the words can catch you off guard. If you wanted to compare her, although you can't, you could say she reminds you of Lauryn Hill – the talented singer/rapper who used conscious lyrics to awaken our thinking. Or maybe a female version of Lupe Fiasco – the Chi-town born rapper who leaves people stuck with his lyrical content. 


Regardless of who you want to compare her to, she’s creating a lane for herself that not many people twice her age have been able to travel. A lane that has led her to open for acts such as Mos Def, Eric Benet and Raheem DeVaughn; facilitate a poetry workshop for the young girls of Black Girls’ Rock and host ReelBlackTV. She’s able to do all this because she is a multi-dimensional woman.
“I have a lot of stuff still up my sleeve,” she said in our face-to-face interview on Sunday.
One of those things includes writing a book. A book that would of course, include poetry. It’s obvious our poetic sister won’t ever stray away from that. That’s why the monthly open mic that she hosts with four other dope poets, collectively known as Spoken Soul 215, has increased in numbers since it’s birth a year ago. The Harvest is held every first Wednesday of the month at World Café Live in Philadelphia. It brings together every form of art on one stage. From dancing to rapping, from music to tapping, the performances at the Harvest render many proud to be a part of the arts culture. 

"Everyone is represented on the mic," said Nina. "You really never know what you're going to get. You can go to any other open mic you like, but you will not have a harvest experience anywhere, except at The Harvest."
And when it comes to giving back, Nina can be found doing it locally and nationally. As a career counselor for YouthBuild charter school, the angelic help that gets young people, ages 18-21, back in school to get their diplomas, she helps young adults stay motivated and transition to the working world. It was Beverly Bond who chose our gifted Nina as a program facilitator for Black Girls’ Rock. Although the recently televised award show recognized black women, young and old, Nina is a part of the ongoing movement. She helps every other weekend facilitating her own poetry workshop. 


“It generally takes up my whole weekend,” she stated. “Taking the bus to New York and then coming back to Philly. But I can honestly say it’s one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.”
When asked about the girls: “They are so great. They are really smart and talented. I absolutely love working with them.”
An alum of Temple University, Nina has honed her craft beyond the four walls of a college classroom. A gift like this is birthed, not learned. To say she teaches is an understatement when you hear what she has to say. Whether teaching our young black women to embrace who they are and love that they are a "black woman" or stepping on stage to perform her latest spoken word piece, Nina has placed a significant mark in the arts world.


"You have to own that you are a black woman," she said on what makes a strong black woman. "It's one thing to know it, but you have to own the fact that you are a black woman. So many woman don't like being black and may not even appreciate their womanhood, but once you own it, that's what makes you strong."

It's safe to say that Nina "Lyrispect" Ball has definitely proven her strength as not just a black woman, but a strong, multi-dimensional woman who embraces her ethnicity.

For more information on Nina "Lyrispect" Ball, step into the arts world at the links below:

http://www.spokensoul215.com/
http://www.youtube.com/ (Lyrsipect)http://www.facebook.com/ (Lyrispect)

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Yesterday, we touched on some very important topics including, when do you know you need management and what to look for in a manager.

Today, we'll focus on:
should a female client sign with a male managerwhat contacts your manager should have if you're an authorcreating a contract with your managerwhy working with friends may not be the wisest ideaFirst, when it comes to management, I don't think gender matters. However, if you are a married woman or your manager is a married man and you're single, just consider how much time you'll be spending with them and make sure the respective mates agrees with it. 
Remember, you'll be spending a lot of time with your manager. For authors, it probably won't be as much as if you are a singer or actor, but it's still a significant amount of time that you don't need any drama surrounding your career. As a single woman, I actually always seem to deal with a team when I was considering management. There was only one case where it was a guy and I felt very comfortable with him. He is very business minded. 
There were several of my friends that I thought would be a great manager just because they had business degrees and were looking to branch out into entrepreneurship. But I never made the call. I personally don't think you should mix friendship with business. You don't need any extra reasons for you and your friend to bump heads. 
I had a friend who was the Vice President of my mentoring organization while we were in college. Whenever I tried to correct her, I felt she took it personal. Once, she hung up on me. That's not cool because as the President, if I'm calmly addressing an issue, why would you handle it that way? So I've learned to not work with friends on that level. 
Plus, it may be hard for your friends to separate the business side of you from the personal side of you. They have to know not to base decisions based on your personal life, but from a business perspective. 
So, what contacts should your manager have if you're an author? I'll use myself as an example. I write children's fiction, from picture books to young adult. I wanted someone who had contacts at schools, the Boys & Girls Club of America, other non-profits that cater to youth, especially young girls and churches. 
That was important to me. And my management team has that. One, my mother has a degree in non-profit management and she has done massive research on non-profits. We also have strong ties to churches in my hometown. My west coast manager has ties to non-profits, colleges and education systems. The first conference call we had, she emailed my mom and I a document with all the college radio stations from A-Z in the country. That's being resourceful. 
If you are a non-fiction writer who writes about health and fitness, you want someone that has connections in the health and fitness world. Having a manager who manages actors may not help you much. Or if you write about animals and animal health, you may want to get someone who has strong ties to PETA or animal hospitals. Trust me. You don't have time to help someone build their Rolodex. As you go along, you guys will add contacts, but they should definitely come with a strong list upfront. 
Now, here's the tough part.Creating a contract. If you sign with a company, they will already probably have contracts set up. But if you just sign with an individual, there are some things you want to make sure are clear. One thing that steered me away from one management team is that they wanted me to sign for two years. Why? "Because the first year, we're just getting to know each other and nothing may happen in the first year, year and a half."
Sorry. If it takes you a year or more to book one speaking engagement for me, I'm good. I'm not looking for microwave success, but I don't want that slow global warming success either. I do agree with one part they said - it does take some time to really get to know someone. Even in a relationship, it can take 6-8 months before you really feel like you know your significant other. 
Since contracts are so important, I'll touch on this with a more extensive blog post next week. 
Questions or comments about securing management for your career? Have you found management? What was your journey like? Comment below or shoot me an email.  [image error]