Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts

Social Media Secrets for Authors, Part IV: How Not to Spam


If you've ever wondered why unsolicited Internet advertising is named after a perfectly innocent meat product, blame Monty Python. In a famous 1970 sketch, the customers in a café are constantly drowned out by a chorus of Vikings singing "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam... Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!" Conversation is impossible because of the "spammers."


But whatever it's called, we don't want to generate it.

This is because:
As I've said before, social media is social. It should not be used for direct marketing. For more in my "Social Media Secrets" here are links to Part 1: How to Avoid Twitter-Fritter and Facebook Fail, Part 2: How to Blog Your Way Out of the Slush Pile,  and Part 3: What Should an Author Blog About?

Here's the "secret" about social media that marketers don't tell you: it should be used for making friends, not direct sales.

As I keep saying, you wouldn't wear an advertising sandwich board to a Chamber of Commerce mixer, but a lot of authors are doing the digital equivalent.

  • An ideal use of social media is when a digital friend picks up your new book because she loves your genre and she's watched you agonize over getting a publisher or struggle through all the hoops of self-publishing. Then she tells all her friends how the book made her laugh/cry/escape when she was going through her recent crisis. You connect emotionally with people, which is why your book takes on meaning for them.
  • A bad use of social media is when people go to follow you on Twitter and find nothing but a stream of identical tweets saying "buy this book"...and nothing to suggest you're anything but a self-involved artificial life form. 
  • Or they visit your blog and it has nothing but posts bragging about how everybody loves you and your books and you're just so doggone...full of yourself! Yes, it's possible to spam your own blog. Don't do it. 
But it's not always so easy to tell if you're spamming. What is the line between "savvy marketing" and spam?

Truth is: the rules can be different for each site. But finding them can require tech savvy and knowledge of legalese (and good eyesight: they're usually written in a flyspeck font.)

Here are the rules I've managed to discover, mostly by breaking them. As Ruth and I say, we make the mistakes so you don't have to.

How not to Spam on Facebook

1) Don't link to your blog or website from anything but your own page or a designated thread. Links to your blog or website are considered spam on Facebook, no matter how useful. They'll put you in Facebook jail (freeze you out of your own page) if you post links to your blog more than a few times a week, even in a private group.

This happened to me. Somebody in a group asks at least once a week about using song lyrics in fiction. So I used to post a link to our guest blog piece from Michael Murphy that tells you how to get rights to song lyrics .

But I was wrong on that. Unwritten Facebook rules say you can't do that, and a self-appointed vigilante will click the "report for spam" button and you're off Facebook for a week or more and your blog is flagged forever as "spam." Much hoop-jumping is required to get reinstated. Don't take the chance.

2) But Facebook has NO problem with links to your buy page on Amazon or other retail sites. So it's fine to put "buy my book" posts on as many Facebook pages as you like. Just make sure they're promotion sites like Canadian Free and Promoted Books, Authors 99c E-Book Promotion , or Free Books 4 U and follow site guidelines.

3) Don't friend more than a few people a day. Even though Facebook is constantly hounding you to "friend" people, it's a trap. If you actually do what they say, you'll end up in Facebook jail.

4) Don't post a promotion of your book in a group without reading the rules first. Many groups will kick you out for it.

5) Posting promos on somebody else's Facebook page is serious spam. It's a violation of personal space. Nothing will make people unfriend you faster. It's like posting a billboard on somebody's lawn without permission.

6) Never market through a FB direct message. If you're not friends with the person, it will go in the "other" folder with all the proposals of marriage from men with poor English skills and a photo they stole from some CEO's bio page. which means they're not likely to see it anyway. And besides, it's rude. Never use personal messaging for advertising. A direct message is like a phone call. Do you like getting unsolicited "cold calls" from marketers? Yeah. Nobody else does, either.

7) Never add somebody to a group without permission. There's been a trend to add random people to book launch "parties" and other "love my book" groups. Your targets will start to get dozens of notifications about you and your book which will be unwanted 99% of the time. Facebook won't punish you for it, but you're likely to get unfriended. And lose possible sales. Thanks, Tymber Dalton for the addition.

How not to Spam on Twitter

1) Never send those automated direct messages that say, "Now that you've followed me, go like my Facebook and author pages, follow my blog, buy my book and pick up my dry cleaning, minion! Mwahahah."

They're against the Terms of Service as well as causing an auto-unfollow from practically everybody. For more on why not to use automatic direct messaging, here's a great post from social media consultant Rachel Thompson: Death to the Auto-DM on Twitter.

2) Do NOT send direct messages to people you don't have a relationship with. Not even to say "thanks for the follow." A follow is not a relationship. If you must thank for a follow, sent it in a @Tweet. (Not an automated one.)

3) Don't tweet your book more than a few times a week unless you have news like a great review or a sale or freebie run. Otherwise, it's just noise that gets ignored.

4) Don't tweet somebody else's book link just because they ask. Make sure it's in a genre your Tweeps will enjoy. (DO hit the button that says "I just bought [title] by [author] on Amazon when you buy a book. That's a great way to recommend it.)

How not to Spam on Amazon

1) A link to your own book in a review is spam. It can get you banned from Amazon. You can have a title in your signature and post as "Susie Scrivener, author of Scribblings," but without a link.

2) Do not mention your book in the Amazon Forums. Better yet, don't go there. It's troll habitat and very anti-author.

3) Link to your blog ONLY in a designated thread in Kindleboard forums, even if your blog is full of useful information to writers. I learned that the hard way.

How not to Spam on Blogs

1) Never, ever subscribe to a blogger's newsletter just so you can hit "reply" and send an ad for your book. It's happened to me a couple of times. It's insulting and pointless. The ad doesn’t go to the mailing list. It goes to the blogger—who will put you on their list of authors to avoid, especially if the genre has nothing to do with the blogger's interests. Remember this is about making friends, not enemies.

2) Don't link to your buy page from a blog comment. I don't mind links to a blog or webpage—in fact I find them useful—but some people don't like links of any kind from a blog comment, and they'll delete the comment as spam, so be wary.

3) Don't talk up your book or blog in a comment unless it's relevant to the conversation.
  • "I respect your opinion on prologues, but I've got testimonials from readers who love prologues—the longer the better—over at my blog today" is fine. 
  • "This discussion of Marcel Proust reminds me of my book, Fangs for the Memories, a zombipocolyptic vampire erotic romance, $3.99 on Smashwords." Not so much.
How not to Spam on Forums

1) Lurk. Every forum is different. So never say anything in a forum until you've unearthed every rule and hung out for a good long time.

2) Beware "share" buttons. I made the mistake earlier this year of sending out my blog link to a number of sites via the "share" button Blogger provides. This apparently sent it to forums where it should not have gone on Reddit, StumbleUpon and Digg. A nice moderator from Reddit informed me all my posts had been deleted as spam.

3) Better yet, stay out of book-related forums altogether, except small, well moderated, author-friendly ones like Nathan Bransford's, Red Room, She Writes, Critique Circle, or Kristen Lamb's WANAtribe. The bigger and older the site, the more likely it will have resident trolls, bad-tempered vigilantes and anti-author groups.

How not to Spam on Goodreads


1) Don't join a group just to promote your book. Spend a long time talking about other books before you bring up your own. In fact, on Goodreads, it's best not to mention you're an author at all. Take off your author hat and discuss books you've read, not ones you've written.

2) Don't send mass friend requests. This is true on almost all sites. You will be flagged as a spammer.

3) Don't thank a reviewer or someone who has put your book on their "shelf." The new Goodreads author guidelines prohibit it.

4) And especially: never, ever, ever engage with somebody who has given you a bad review or put you on a hate "shelf." Not for any reason. Goodreads reviews are notoriously unpleasant, unhelpful, and snarky. But authors need to learn to live with them.

How not to Spam on Google+


(Updated) Google Plus users seem to be mostly techies and business people who are too busy to engage in a whole lot of childish behavior, so you don't have to be as afraid of troll-vigilantes as on Facebook and Goodreads. But:

1) Posting a link on more than one community page can get you marked as a spammer by Google Plus algorithms.

2) Posting a link without at least 100 words of introduction can mark you as a spammer. Personally, I think that's a shame because I used to just hit the Google + share button along with the Tweet button when I read an article I thought might interest writers.

Google+ is soooooo slow that opening my page and writing 100 words about every link means I can't post as many links. But I guess they want more exclusive content written for Google Plus alone. 

There has been a kerfluffle in the tech world this week because Google+ has changed its TOS and is going over to the dark side, and wants to invade your privacy like Facebook, and may even use your comments and profile pictures to promote products. But there is a way to opt out through this link.

Next week we're going to have a guest post from Google+ guru Johnny Base, who's going to tell us everything an author needs to know about Google+

What about you, scriveners? Have you ever been criticized or punished for spamming when you didn't realize you'd broken the rules? What kind of spam bothers you the most? Do you think spam marketing sells books? 


Book Bargain of the Week

NOW AVAILABLE ON NOOK!! 
Sale extended! No Place Like Home is back to 99c this month since being chosen as "Book of the Month" by the BoomerLit group. Still only on Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CA ,



"A warp-speed, lighthearted comedy-mystery"...Abigail Padgett
"A fun, charming novel about the rich and less so" ...Karen Doering
"A cross of dry British humor and American wackiness, and it all adds up to a fun read." ...Deborah Bayles

Opportunity Alerts

Writers Conference Alert! The James River Writers Conference returns to Richmond, VA on October 19 and 20 with an extensive lineup of big name agents, authors and literary professionals. They're featuring award-winning book designer and writer Chip Kidd, National Book Award-winner Kathryn Erskine and best-selling author Christopher McDougall. Literary Publicity Firm JKSCommunications, Book Doctors and Pitchapalooza founders Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry will be on hand for advice. You can pitch to agents including April Eberhardt, Deborah Grosvenor, Victoria Skurnick and Paige Wheeler. For details and registration, JamesRiverWriters.org

EBUK Bargains UK now has a blog! Get all the most up to-date info on the international book marketing scene from the guys who wrote one of our most popular guest blogposts ever.

The Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award from the Mid-American Review. $10 entry fee for a story up to 6000 words. First Prize: $1,000 and publication. Four Finalists: Notation, possible publication. You may submit online or snail mail. Details at website. Deadline is November 1, 2013.

J.F. POWER PRIZE FOR SHORT FICTION  NO ENTRY FEE. The winner will receive $500. The winning story will be announced in February, 2014 and published in Dappled Things, along with nine honorable mentions. The word limit is 8,000 words. Deadline is November 29, 2013. 

MYSTERY AUTHORS! The Poisoned Pen Press, one of the most prestigious small presses, is open for submissions for one month. They open for submissions twice yearly, once during the month of October, and once during the spring. During October, they will accept submissions for regular publication. During the spring submissions period they open for the Discover Mystery first book contest. Please note their entire submissions process is electronic via the online submissions manager, Submittable. Mailed or e-mailed submissions will not be read. They will be accepting regular submissions during the period between October 1 and October 31. 

posted under , , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Social Media Secrets Book Marketers Don't Tell You—Part I: How to Avoid Twitter-Fritter and Facebook-Fail


First: many thanks to Indies Unlimited, which named this blog to its 10 Blogs and Websites Every Indie Should Know. If you're an indie, or thinking of going indie (self-publishing or small-press), do follow them for great tips and news from a very savvy team of writers.

Most writers these days know a good book isn't enough to get you successfully published. Any agent, editor, or book reviewer is going to Google you first—often before they'll even read to the end of your query. Certainly before they request a partial or a book to review.

What comes up on that Google search can make the difference between getting an agent, publisher and reviews—or languishing in obscurity.

Yes, of course it's possible to become a successful author without an online presence, the same way it's possible to get hired for a corporate job if you write your resume on parchment and send it by carrier pigeon.

But your chances are a whole lot better if you conform to established standards.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about how authors spend too much time doing meaningless busy work trying to "build platform." 

But I didn't say authors can ignore social media entirely. Social media is our most important tool for getting our books discovered.

Being on social media takes you out of the confines of your own backyard and puts you into the global marketplace. It makes the difference between hawking your book on a local street corner and getting it in front of millions of readers all over the world.

Thing is: we need to learn to use this tool effectively.

Unfortunately, a lot of marketers don't seem to know how to do that, so they bully authors into wasting a huge amount of time playing meaningless number games.

Understandably, some authors are getting annoyed. Last week, much-lauded literary author Benjamin Anastas quit Twitter and vented in an eloquent blogpost. It got a lot of cyberink and sparked some interesting pieces by Jane Friedman and Porter Anderson.

Mr. Anastas voiced his many quarrels with Twitter, most of which boiled down to: Twitter is no good for selling books, and therefore a waste of time.

Thing is, he's right on the first point, but not on the second.

To me, it sounded like somebody saying he was going to get rid of his phone because it's not good for selling aluminum siding to strangers who are just sitting down to dinner.

Mr. Anastas is a smart man, so I suspect the problem is he was never told what Twitter is really for. (Maybe because his marketing department doesn't know either.)

So...ta-da!

Here is the big secret about Twitter: 


It is not a direct marketing tool. It is a method of communication.

Kinda like a phone. Here's some stuff Twitter IS good for:

1) Quick communications with a large number of people. 

Example: When I was in despair trying to get this blog's Feedburner email program to work last week, I Tweeted asking for help. Within minutes, I had several suggestions, plus a step-by-step guide for converting to a free Mail Chimp email service. (Thanks, Molly Greene!)  I hope I've done it right. Do tell me if you've subscribed and you're still not getting your email notices, or if it's missing from your rss feed.

2) Getting up-to-the minute news from anywhere on the globe.

Example: When there was a tornado in Tuscaloosa, and I wanted to know if my Tuscaloosa friends were OK, I went to #TuscaloosaTornado and found hundreds of real-time Tweets telling what neighborhoods had been hit.

3) Giving your friends a shout-out (and occasionally yourself.)

Example: When I saw that a friend who's a newly minted agent had been mentioned in Publishers Lunch, I Tweeted it, with a @ message to her. It was the first she'd heard of it, so it was a two-bird stone. I informed her of the good news and at the same time let a lot of people know about her new agency.

And yes, you can toot your own horn occasionally. You can certainly Tweet "my book was just nominated for a RITA" or "I got a rave review from Big Al."

But only do this a few times. Imagine you're phoning your friends with the good news, not cold-calling everybody in the phone book.

However, the most important Tweets might be for a friend's triumph. This week, a Tweep posted a link with an @ message congratulating us on our Indies Unlimited kudos. I thought—"what a nice thing for her to add a special Tweet to me. Who is she, again?" I visited her blog, was intrigued, and bought one of her books.

Yeah. That's how it works.

4) Connecting with people. 

Example: Somebody asks a question on this blog. I take some time with the answer and want to let the commenter know there's an answer waiting. If her name leads to a Twitter profile, I tweet her a heads-up. Yes, I could send an email or DM, but a Tweet lets other people who might be interested know the post is there, too. I might add a hashtag like #blogging if that's what it's about.

That way we've made one connection on the blog and another through Twitter. That means we'll take more notice of each other the next time we meet online.

5) Sharing information and talking about it.

This can be anything from Tweeting a tsunami warning for your patch of coastline to links to your own newest blogpost or an article about the new Veronica Mars movie (especially if your tweeps are mystery lovers.)

Example: A few days ago I Tweeted a link to an article about the copy of J.K. Rowling's pseudonymous book that sold for $6000+ and added I thought this thing was getting silly. A few people Tweeted back their responses, including Tweep AJ Sykes who said "Agreed. Or maybe it's ugh-greed."

Clever and funny. And I remember him saying some wise things in a comment on Jane Friedman's blog last week. So now he's on my radar as a clever, funny guy. I see he writes steampunk. Not my genre of choice right now, but I ever make the steampunk plunge I know where to go first.

See how that works?
  • Notice I did not say anything about telling strangers what you had for lunch. 
  • Or hammering them with "buy my book" messages. 
  • Or Tweeting endless snippets of text from your opus. (I know marketers love that, but it's so overdone it's all just noise to most of us.) 
Yes, you can tweet that a great book is free or on sale. And that book can be yours, but don't do it more than three times a day. In between other stuff.

And you can Tweet other people's books, too—but only if you genuinely think your followers will like it. Tweeting books you haven't read may seem to be "friendly" to your fellow authors, but it's not friendly to your Tweeps. And it can backfire if it's not a book you'd recommend to a real life friend. Somebody who writes violent thrillers has no business asking a writer of children's books or cozies for a Tweet. It's OK to say no.

Especially since simply Tweeting book titles at strangers does not sell a lot of books anyway. That's what Benjamin Anastas was right about.

But exchanging information can make connections. It's those connections that will get you known so that somebody might want to buy your books some day.

But you don't have to spend a lot of time on those connections. Mr. Anastas complained of Twitter being a time suck—and it certainly can be. But only if you let it.

And that's another way Twitter is like your phone. A phone can't dominate your life if you don't turn it on. Don't dump the phone, just don't pick up if you don't want to talk.

And those marketers who say you should be adding 20 random Tweeps a day so you can amass half a million followers?

That's like saying you should buy a phone with the numbers of 500,000 strangers programmed into it.

If they don't want to talk to you—what exactly is the point?

For more on Twitter—especially for newbies—see my post on Twitter for Shy Persons.

And for some info on how some clever people are making Twitter more useful for book marketing, check out Julie Valerie's review of BookVibe.  It's a new program that analyzes Twitter streams for book discovery. It sounds as if there still are some bugs in it, but it may mean that Twitter will be a better place for direct marketing in the future than it is now.

Now for some Facebook secrets…

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Facebook. I'm kind of a Facebook hater. But that's partly because it's taken me so long to learn to use it. For at least a year I didn't post anything but links to my blog, bits of publishing news, and announcements of my book launches (Yeah, I launched 7 in a year, plus 3 anthologies. I guess I didn't have much else to talk about.)

But this year I started posting literary cartoons, inspirational stuff about books, and a few jokes. All of a sudden, I started having fun conversations on FB.

And this week I saw a great post from Kristen Lamb that gave me an a-ha moment.

It solidified all the stuff I've been learning by trial and error for the past six months. (Lots of error.)

1) Don't just "friend" people.

BE a friend. Connect with people in a non-phony way. NOT writer to fan. Person to person.

2) A personal "friend" page is more valuable than a "like" page.

You can stop humiliating yourself begging for "likes." They mean absolutely nothing if people don't make return visits. And why do you want that Christian picture book writer to like your BDSM erotica page, anyway? It will do nothing for you and will signal Facebook to send some very unwelcome advertising her way.

People would rather be your friend than worship at your feet. Don't expect people to "like" you if you don't do anything likeable.

3) Nonstop bragging isn't especially likeable. 

How weird is it that I have to say that? But I do. That's because marketers tell us to advertise 24/7. When what we should be doing is joking around and getting to know people.

4) LOLCats, Oprah-quotes, and funny stuff from George Takei will sell more books in the long run than all those "book launch party" pages, pleas for tweets, or those links to Publisher's Lunch. (Yes, I'm seriously guilty of that last one.)

As Kristen said in her post: "People can’t connect emotionally to yet another DBW article about how Barnes and Noble’s stock is tanking. They CAN however connect to kittens, Sharknado, tales of missing socks, superheroes, kid stories, pet stories, Mayhem and Grumpy Cat."

5) Facebook author pages don't get much traffic because you can't use them to interact with people. They just sit there saying "worship me." All most of us do is post news about our books. Which snoozifies pretty much everybody if it's non-stop.

Here's Kristen again. "There are writers who seriously believe that Facebook is out to get them because their fan pages are being hidden. NO. It’s just that, in the Digital Age, there is a steep price for being boring."

I wish I'd read Kristen's post three years ago when I started on Facebook. I've wasted a lot of time being boring. Here's another quote:

"Engage us, talk to us, stop selling to us and guess what? We will like coming to your page. And we will have fun and "Like" stuff, comment and SHARE your content." It's worth reading her whole post.

6) The most important Facebook pages aren't your personal pages or your author page. (Or those endless promotional "event" pages.)

They are your friends' pages.

If you visit your friends' pages and make them feel like equals rather than minions, and encourage them through their triumphs and crises, the way you'd like them do do for you, they will reciprocate.

And they might even be interested in reading your next book.

Yeah. That's how social media works. It's, um, social. And as with all social interactions, the best rule is always the Golden one.

In August, I'm going to post Part 2. I'll be talking about how blogging revived my career, and I'll divulge the #1 blogging secret no blogging guru will tell you. 

So what about you, scriveners? Have you been feeling the way Benjamin Anastas does about Twitter? What do you think you could teach marketers about social media? Any tips to add about Twitter and Facebook?

THIS WEEK'S BOOK DEAL 

Sale extended! 99 cents for three hilarious mysteries. Thanks everybody, for keeping it in the top 50 in comic fiction on Amazon for five weeks!

Available on Amazon US, NOOK, and Amazon UK


"The Best Revenge, Ghost Writers in the Sky and Sherwood Limited are hysterical. Anne Allen will keep you laughing throughout, but in the meantime she dabbles her fingers in some topics worth some serious thought: sexism, weightism, lechery, murder, duplicity, homelessness & poverty to name a few. If you love to laugh, you'll like these three books. If you love to think, ponder AND laugh, be ready to fall in love"... C.S. Perryess


OPPORTUNITY ALERTS


1) The Alice Munro Short Fiction Contest. Entry fee $25 adult, $10 Teen. $2000 (Canadian) in prizes. 5000 words or less, unpubished work. More info at Alice Munro Festival Short Story Competition Deadline August 1.

2) Quirk Books "Looking for Love" contest. They offer a $10,000 prize for the best quirky love story of 50,000 words or more. Visit the Quirk Books website to download the entry form or for further information. Quirk Books was founded in 2002 and publishes around 25 books each year. Their bestselling titles include Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Entries close October 1.

3)  The Huffington Post's Huffpo50 is now publishing short fiction!   The rules: You must be 50 or older to enter. Writers can submit only one story per year, and all pieces must be 5,000 words or less. Send your original submissions, as well as your contact details, to 50fiction@huffingtonpost.com.

4) COMPOSE Literary Journal. Submissions are open for their Fall 2013 issue.  This prestigious journal was founded by Suzannah Windsor, of Write it Sideways, and she's put together an amazing editorial staff. They are looking for art and photography as well as poems, literary short fiction, novel excerpts and essays. Must not be previously published (that includes anything that has appeared on your blog.)

We love your comments! If you can't get through Blogger's hoop-jumping, send me an email at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I'll post it personally.

posted under , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Top 10 Questions from New Writers: Answers to Your Most Burning Questions


We welcome questions from readers, and we always try to offer an answer or at least steer you to a place where you can find one.

A good place to get more detailed information is a book I co-wrote with Catherine Ryan Hyde: How to be a Writer in the E-Age…and Keep Your E-Sanity. It addresses these and most other questions a beginning writer might have. It’s not a tech or self-publishing manual in spite of its techy cover. We may be changing that...

But I realized recently that I spend a lot of time answering the same questions in emails, so I thought it would make sense to put some of the answers here on the blog.

In fact, we could make this a regular feature if people want to send in questions. Just go to the “contact us” page for our addresses and put “Q and A” in the header. Remember the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

Here are ten of the most common questions we’ve been getting in our emails.

10) Q. Does Facebook count as a Blog / Website? If not, why not? And what site would you recommend?

A. Facebook does NOT count as a website and should not be your primary Web presence. Lots of reasons for this:

  • Facebook requires membership. Not all your readers are going to be members.
  • Facebook can kick people off for very minor infractions—or even if you've done nothing at all. If some troll reports you for spam, nobody checks on the troll, but you're outta there, and it's tough to get reinstated. It happened to me.
  • The site has probably peaked. Younger people are leaving, and lots of users are fed up with the ads and lack of privacy and the fact you now have to pay to have more than a few people see your posts.
  • An author needs a primary Web presence that you can control yourself. You need to establish your brand, with your own choice of colors, tone, photos, etc. It doesn't have to cost money. A Blogger or Wordpress blog is free.
I use Blogger (blogspot.com—owned by Google)  It's easy enough for a technomoron like me to use. And I like free. More tech-savvy folks prefer WordPress. Both are 100%  free and work for most writers. Look up in the right hand corner of this blog. See the button for "create blog"? Hit it—and in about 5 minutes, you're a blogger. I don't recommend you do that though. Get things assembled, like photos, ideas for a title, etc. You can get more info on HOW TO BLOG right here. and through some of my popular pieces in the sidebar.

9) Q. Does every new writer need an agent? And how much do they cost?

A. No, every writer does NOT need an agent.
  • If you write short stories or poetry, agents won't be interested. 
  • If you write novels or memoir, you shouldn't seek representation until you have at least one finished, polished book—and most agents would prefer two. 
  • If you've got a nonfiction book or two, an agent might help you, but most nonfic authors do better with self-publishing or small presses these days because most agents require a Dr. Oz-sized platform. 
But if you are Dr. Oz, or you have a couple of novels with a potentially huge global market—the kind that will appeal to one of the Big 5 multinational publishing houses or some of the larger “medium” sized ones like Harlequin (except some lines)—you definitely need an agent.

Small and some medium-sized presses do not require an agent (for more on which ones require agents, they're listed in my book How to be a Writer in the E-Age.)

Most self-publishers don’t have agents, although the role of agent is changing, and now many agents are helping authors self-publish. I think it's a good plan for most first novelists to query agents to see if there’s interest. Going through the query process is a great way to learn about the business and hone marketing skills and it keeps your options open in this rapidly changing business.

But if you do get an offer, always have a lawyer or knowledgeable third party look at the contract before signing. Some agent contracts these days can be predatory, even from legitimate agencies. As far as cost: agents charge a commission—after they've sold your work. They pretty much all charge the same: 10%-15% of domestic sales, 20% foreign.

And NEVER pay an agent anything upfront. It’s not considered ethical to charge a fee for reading your manuscript. The network of agents and editors is fairly small, and a fee-charging agent won’t belong to that network and won’t be able to sell your book to a reputable publisher. Here’s a blogpost with more on how to spot bogus and unethical agents.

8) Q. Do I need to set up my own store to sell a self-published title? How do I set up my blog so readers can buy my book?

A. You probably don't want to bother with your own store unless you have a whole lot of titles and a ton of tech and business savvy. Most authors I know who've tried it say that running their own store is more trouble than it’s worth.

Obviously getting 100% of your cover price instead of 35%-70% is very tempting. But unless you have high visibility already, you’re going to sell more on the retail sites like Amazon, iTunes, and Barnes and Noble to make up the difference. If you prefer not to work with mega-companies like Amazon, consider Smashwords for ebooks and Lulu for paper (but avoid Lulu's more expensive packages, which are operated by AuthorSolutions.) .

As far as linking to retailers, here's what you do on Blogger: 
  1. Click "design" in the right top corner of your blog main page (once you're signed in.)  
  2. This takes you to your “dashboard". 
  3. Go to the list of links on the left hand side of the page that comes up and click "layout." 
  4. A basic pattern of your layout comes up. 
  5. Then hit "add a gadget" wherever you want your book to be. 
  6. Then choose "image". 
  7. A window will come up where you can upload your cover image and there will be another window that says "add a link". 
  8. Paste in the link to your buy page at your publisher or Amazon or wherever you want.
It sounds like a lot of steps, but it only takes a minute or two.

7) Q. I want to know if I have the talent to be a real writer. Will you look at my WIP and let me know if I’m wasting my time?

A. No writing wastes your time. Writing is about organizing thought. It keeps your little gray cells well exercised. It’s like a gym workout for your brain.

As far as being a “real writer”—if you’re writing, and you’re not a puppet carved by an old Italian guy named Gepetto, you’re a real writer. A writer is a person who writes, full stop. It’s a long learning curve, but I believe anybody can learn if they’ve got the drive.

But we can’t give free critiques. Our schedules are jam-packed and we’re always on overload. Plus critiquing can be a thankless job. Lots of beginners aren’t ready to hear how much work goes into learning to write narrative. I recommend CritiqueCircle.com for exchanging critiques.

6)  Q. How much platform-building should I do before I sit down to write my first story? 

A. If you write fiction, NONE. Write a book first. Or at least some short stories. It takes a long time to learn to write good fiction.

You can read some great advice from Jane Friedman about platform right here. Don’t let yourself get obsessed with platform until you have a finished draft and you’ve written some short stories that are ready to send out to contests and journals.

Learning to write well enough to publish usually takes at least three years (or 10K hours.) If you waste that time playing on the Internet, your learning curve will be longer.

If you’re a nonfiction writer, it's a different story. It's a good idea to start right away with a blog. I think all nonfiction writers benefit from blogging and you might as well start building an audience while you learn your trade.

5) Q. I want to get my WIP critiqued, but I’m afraid somebody will steal my plot. How can I make sure it won’t get stolen?

A. Relax. This is the most common fear in beginning writers, but you can let it go.

All your work is copyrighted to you as soon as you write it. If you want it official, you can pay to copyright a finished work with the US copyright office, who have a handy PDF pamphlet to help you along. But make sure it's finished, edited, and polished or you'll have to do it again. Could get expensive.

The truth is there are a whole lot of things to be afraid of out there in the publishing world: bad contracts, fee-charging agents, vanity publishers that masquerade as publishers—but this isn’t one of them.

Most writers have more ideas than they can write down in a lifetime. The more you write, the more ideas you have. Nobody needs to take yours. No matter how brilliant it is. More on the rarity of plot stealing here. 

4) All I get is rejections. Should I give up writing? 

A. Every successful author gets tons of rejections, so only quit if you know you’d rather be doing something else. 

No matter how far along you are in your career, I guarantee somebody will hate your work and say that you “can’t write.” Look at the 140 one-star reviews of the Great Gatsby, which has become a #1 bestseller 90 years after its debut and has never been out of print..

All a rejection means is that you’re sending your work out there. Which puts you ahead of the writers who aren’t getting rejected yet. Ruth Harris has a great post on how arbitrary rejections can be. And here's a guest post on the subject from Catherine Ryan Hyde.

If your rejections are personalized—say you’ve had three that say your novel has structure issues, or point of view problems—you’ve been given a gift. Find a book, blogpost or class on structure or POV and work on your weak points. We all have them.

But if you find you really don’t enjoy writing novels, don’t think that giving up is “failure”. There are lots of other writing outlets besides the novel format. Short fiction is soaring in popularity. Or you may find that you’d prefer to put your energy into blogging. Blogs can reach a lot more people than a novel.

Novels are not somehow “better” than other formats. Writing is writing, and there are lots of ways to be successful at it.

And remember that learning to write takes time. How much time?  Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours are a reasonable estimate.

Or maybe you'd rather create in an entirely different medium. That's OK, too. Pablo Picasso was probably a lousy writer.

3) Q. What do you think of bloghops and will you join ours? 

A. Blog hops are a great way for new bloggers to network and form community—an essential thing when you’re starting out. If you have time to devote to daily blogging for a month or so, it can be a fun way to get to know your fellow writers and move your blog up in the search engines.

But personally, we’re kinda hopped out. Ruth and I have found the “hop” format doesn’t work well for this blog, because it’s a once a week “slow blog” (most blog hops require daily posts.) Plus this blog is more informational than personal. We don’t talk a lot about our writing process or characters unless they illustrate a point.

And remember other authors aren’t your primary audience. Blog hops are not going to sell a lot of books. They’re for building community.

2) Q. Should I use a pseudonym? 

A. Funny how many writers worry about this as soon as they set out to write their first fiction. Pen names are definitely a good choice if you write erotica or your real name is Donald Trump. 

But if you’re using a pseudonym so your family won’t know you’re a writing a book, you probably will get outed by the time you publish anyway, so consider the hassles of doing business as two people.

If you do want to use a pseudonym, choose one as soon as possible in your career and use the same one everywhere, so all your platform building and social networking can be done under your author name.

Do Google the name to make sure it doesn’t belong to another author, anybody who already has a big Web presence, or is wanted for a heinous crime.

Not everybody agrees with me on this, but I think authors can write under one name for all their books unless they write wildly incompatible genres like BDSM erotica and children’s picture books. These days lots of writers publish different genres under the same name. You can signal your genre with cover design, title and font, and you’ll save yourself a huge amount of time if you only have to build one platform. 

And by far the most popular question is:

1) Q. Can I write a guest post for your blog to promote my book/service? 

A. Probably not. Ruth and I take very few guest posters, as you'll see if you look around. Since we only post four pieces a month, each one has to offer a lot of value. It has to be informational rather than promotional. Unfortunately we've been seeing our stats drop off a cliff whenever we have a guest, even somebody wildly famous—and we've hosted Oscar winners and literary icons.

I'm not sure why that is. It may be that when we read blogs we're like schoolchildren with a substitute teacher: we want what we're used to or we don't feel we have to pay attention. In any case, this means we pretty much have to limit guests to people with their own online followings who can bring some audience with them or people who are pretty well known in the industry.

The best way to get on any blog is to start commenting and get to know the regulars. Readers are more likely to welcome one of their own. If we do start taking more guests, that would definitely put you ahead of the game. If you want to query us, there's more on guest posts on our "contact us" page and here's my post on HOW TO BE A GOOD BLOG GUEST.

BUT: If you have a contest going to promote your service, or you’ve got a literary zine or podcast and are looking for submissions, do send us the deets and we’ll put it in our “opportunity alerts.” That's why I created this section.

How about you, scriveners? Do you have anything to add to my answers to these questions? Do you have questions of your own you'd like us to tackle in future blogposts? 

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS:


1) COMPOSE Literary Journal debuts this week with their Spring 2013 issue. Submissions are open for their Fall 2013 issue.  This prestigious journal was founded by Suzannah Windsor, of Write it Sideways, and she's put together an amazing editorial staff. I'm so honored to have my poem No One Will Ever Love Him included in the debut issue. They are looking for art and photography as well as poems, literary short fiction, novel excerpts and essays. Must not be previously published (that includes anything that has appeared on your blog.)

 2) The Saturday Evening Post’s Second Annual Great American Fiction Contest—yes, THAT Saturday Evening Post—is holding a short fiction contest. Could you join the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald; William Faulkner; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; Ray Bradbury; Louis L’Amour; Sinclair Lewis; Jack London; and Edgar Allan Poe? $10 entry fee Deadline July 1, 2013

3) FREE book advertising to British readers from EbookBargainsUK Lots of authors and publishers have had huge successes with their free or sale books by advertising on BookBub, ENT, KND, POI, etc. But none of those target the UK, and their links go to US sites Brits can't use. But now there’s a newsletter for UK readers only. It links to all the big UK retailers like Apple UK, Waterstones and Foyles as well as Amazon UK. They don’t sell books direct or get paid for clickthroughs, so they don't have any restrictions on how many free books they can spotlight like BookBub and the others. So it's THE place to tell Brits about your book when it goes free or on sale in the UK. Since Brits have the highest number of readers per capita of any country in the world, this looks like a great idea to me: Plus: the site will be offering FREE book ads until May 31st, on a first come, first served basis.

And if you're in the UK, do sign up for their newsletter. It brings links to free and bargain ebooks—at the UK bookstore of your choice—in your inbox every morning. You can subscribe here.

4) The Lyttoniad contest for the WORST first sentence of a novel. The classic Bulwer-Lytton Contest makes news every year. Each entry must consist of a single sentence but you may submit as many entries as you wish. E-mail entries should be sent to Scott Rice at srice@pacbell.net in the body of the message, Ariel 12 font. One e-mail may contain multiple entries. Entries will be judged by categories, from “general” to detective, western, science fiction, romance, and so on. There will be overall winners as well as category winners. No prizes that I know of, but lots of admiration from your fellow writers.  Deadline is June 30th.


posted under , , , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

12 Social Media Mistakes for Authors to Avoid

Are you "building platform" or just annoying people?

This week, author Mary W. Walters blogged that promoting your books on Facebook and Twitter is a total waste of time for book sales.

That's because Social Media is not for selling books. It's for making friends—friends we hope will help us in our careers sometime. It's for networking, not a direct sales tool.

Mary Walters is right when she says, "Most book-reading folk...aren’t interested in advertising and promotional copy, or in watching writers pat themselves on the backs for winning awards or getting great reviews. They are interested in discussions and opinions about books. They are interested in two-way exchanges about literary matters – not in one-way communications."

One-way communication is a misuse of Social Media—and that's why it doesn't sell books. 

And why we find it so annoying. 

Author Elizabeth Ann West rebutted Mary Walters' post in a comment on The Passive Voice . She pointed out: "The problem is most authors start using social media in a professional capacity for the first time when they publish and guess what? It takes a large amount of time the first few months to figure it out and test it out and make social connections."

In other words, they blindly jump in and start screaming "buy my book" at everybody instead of making friends with people who could then suggest your book to readers in your target demographic. 

It's like going to a Chamber of Commerce mixer wearing a sandwich board advertising your restaurant instead of schmoozing a large company's event coordinator and getting her to use your restaurant's banquet room for future company parties. 

Don't wear a sandwich board to a cocktail party. Be subtle. Make friends. Anything else is misusing the medium.

I've made a list of some of my unfavorite misuses of Social Media here. I admit upfront that this is a very subjective list, so please feel free to vent your own pet peeves in the comments.

And if things I find annoying have made zillions for you in book sales, we want to hear about that too.

I think authors have probably learned their most irritating habits from “marketing gurus” who tell them they’ll make more money if they’re just “bold” enough to use social media “like an expert.”

Be wary of "experts" in new tech fields that are constantly evolving. What was OK a few years ago can be deadly now because it’s been abused or overused. Yesterday's "surefire sales tool" can be today's spam.

So here is my subjective and by no means comprehensive list of what NOT to do in social media.

1) Spamming* somebody’s Facebook wall. A person’s Facebook "wall" is like their home.  Posting something there is like putting up a billboard on their front yard. Do not do this without permission.

If you’d like somebody to share your promotional material or make a plea for charitable donations, send an email or DM. And don’t be surprised if they say no. I know your "Ban the Roach Brooch" cockroach rights foundation seems like the most important cause on the planet, but everybody has one and when they spam my wall, I make a note NEVER to give to any of these charities.

The only time it’s OK to post on a person’s wall is to send a personal message that's about THEM and will enhance their page. Stuff like: "Love all the cockroach cartoons on this page", "Congrats on your new book," "I’ll be at your book signing tomorrow—save me a cupcake."

2) Creating a Facebook page and Twitter account for every one of your books, short stories, launches, life events and rainy Mondays. No, I will not Like and Follow your 50 different Like pages and Twitter accounts. You are not respecting my time, so no—actually, I DON'T like you.

In my opinion, an author only needs one Twitter account, one blog and at most, two FB pages: one for yourself as an author and one for your personal page (FB now requires a personal page in order to comment on most pages, so the personal one is useful, if a little time consuming.)

But no matter how much you love to spend time on Facebook to avoid that WIP, chances are most of your readers don't. (Your ideal reader is busy reading books.)

But if you must put up a new FB page every time you finish a chapter of your WIP or whatever you consider  to be a momentous occasion in your life, don't invite random fellow authors outside of your genre. We're busy promoting our own books.

Do join supportive, non-spammy writing groups like Indie Writers Unite —where membership is by invitation. But forming a group and automatically adding names without permission is not a good idea—no matter how good your intentions.

Which leads me to…

3) Creating an “event” or “group” and adding people’s names without permission. At least ten people I know launch a book in any given week. When you include me as a "member" of your launch "party" so I have to opt out and say why I'm "not going," I'm sorely tempted to tell you the actual reason. Don't push me.

I realize that FB encourages you to add the names of everybody you know to all your "events", and may even disguise the addition of names as "invitations," but don't go there. Mark Zuckerberg should not be anybody's role model for good manners.

Unless you know I’m a fan and a reader of your genre, don’t tell me about your book at all. I’m not your audience. I can cheer you on if you get a request from an agent or a great review, but I’m not going to read a whole page of your BUY MY BOOK ads.

If you spam me, I’ll remember you, but not in a good way.

4) Responding to Tweeted links without reading the article. If I tweet a link to a brilliant post at “Mystery Writing is Murder,” don’t tell me I’ve ruined your day because you just started writing a mystery novel and you don’t want to hear that it’s “murder.” That’s the name of a top-rated blog by Elizabeth S. Craig. If you don’t like the title of a blog or post, tell the blogger—ON THE BLOG.

If you want to start a Twitter discussion with me, say something like, “I just started writing a rom-com mystery novel like your Camilla books. Any tips?” Then—when I have time—I'll be happy to help.

But clueless arguing with a title isn’t going to make you any friends. And that’s why you’re on social media. To make friends. Not rack up a list of people who think you’re a jerk.

5) Tweeting as a fictional character and expecting people to respond as a character in your own personal fictional world. I’ve had people tweet to me in Pirate-speak and then get incensed that I didn’t Pirate-tweet back. And it wasn’t even Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Or they take offense at one of my general-audience tweets because it isn't about their fictional time period or planet. I am tweeting for anybody interested in the publishing industry—not for you in particular.

If you like to be twee, find other twee Tweeps to talk pirate or baby or aardvark or whatever language you like, but don’t expect professional writers to have time to play games with you.

These days, most people are on Twitter for information. It’s the best way to find out the most current news on a given topic, like the latest merger of the Big 6-5-4, that strange sonic boom in your neighborhood or whether your aunt’s neighborhood is under 30-foot drifts of snow.

When you send somebody an @ message that demands some sort of game-playing, you are behaving like a spoiled child grabbing Mommy’s arm and saying “Mommy, Mommy, look at my Barbie!” while she’s driving in rush hour traffic.

6) Blogging your WIP and asking for critiques and praise. If I see that anybody is blogging pieces of a novel in progress on a blog, I skip it. I figure they’re clueless beginners. (A WIP can never be traditionally pubbed if you give pieces away, even in rough draft. You are violating your own future copyright.)

Update: Please note: I said Work In Progress. By that I mean the rough draft of  an unfinished novel. Blogging is self-publishing. It's fine to self-publish good, solid edited work on a blog as long as you realize you're giving away your first rights. No agent will ever be interested in it unless you get a following of over 100K—which is very tough for fiction. You are essentially publishing the book as a serial. That's fine.

What's not is composing your book online and expecting the general public to function as your editors and beta readers.

People who do this tend to be the same kind of newbies who will accuse you of “stealing their idea” of writing a novel about a lonely, brilliant, disaffected youth who can’t get published because the system is rigged against him.

When I catch a whiff of this kind of amateurism, I run.

If you want critique, join a critique group. I highly recommend CritiqueCircle.com

If you’re a published professional giving us free stories about your main characters, or edited-out scenes from a published novel, again, that's great—that’s for your fans and they’ll love it. (Although you'll want to run it by your agent or publisher first.)

But be aware where you are in your writing learning curve. Most people do NOT want to read a beginner’s practice fiction unless they're getting paid to.

7) Blaming people you’ve friended or circled because you’re getting email notifications whenever they post. Your notifications from Facebook and Google+ are YOUR responsibility.

Unfortunately the default mode for social media is they send you an email every time your friend’s cousin’s Beagle farts, so as soon as you sign up, go to your home page, go to “Privacy Settings” (via that tiny gear icon on the upper right.) Then click “notifications” and turn them off.

Some guy circled me on Google+ and I circled him back because he’s a writer. (I’m not doing that any more.) A week later I got a furious email from him saying I’d been spamming his inbox, so I should uncircle him. I did. Immediately.

But he kept getting my posts (I only post there once a day or less, but for some reason it was making him furious) and he kept emailing that I had to stop. Finally I told him that HE had to take me out of HIS circle (and turn off his notifications) and I had no control over his settings. It didn’t end well. He’s out of my circles and onto my list of Jerks to Avoid.

8) “Thanking” people for following you by sending spam. It might seem like good manners, but a thank-you for a follow is generally unwelcome. Especially if the “thank-you” is posted on somebody’s Facebook wall.  Or loaded with spam. If you really want to thank somebody, retweet one of their tweets.

An automated message that says “Thanks for the follow, now you  are my minion: so go like my FB Page, LinkedIN profile, circle me on Google+, follow my blog and BUY MY BOOK and I’ll teach YOU how to be the kind of successful author I imagine myself to be!! Bwahahah!!!” is not good manners in anybody’s world.

9) Following and unfollowing immediately after you get a follow back. People do this to rack up numbers on Twitter. Which is idiotic. Numbers on Twitter mean nothing without engagement.

It’s like re-calibrating your scale to show you weigh 30 pounds less and expecting that to make you fit into size zero jeans. Or turning off the fire alarm to put out a fire.

You want real people who respond and retweet your stuff. Not just ciphers you’ve duped into being one of your statistics.

10) Tagging a photo that’s an ad—or worse, porn—with the names of all your Facebook friends. People are doing this ALL the time. I don’t know if they mean to or if it’s one of those diabolical Facebook “games” where if you click on the answer to a stupid question, spam is immediately sent out to all your friends.

Never, ever tag a photo with a person’s name without thinking long and hard. Especially if the photo isn’t of that person. I guess it’s a way to game Facebook into posting the photo on that person’s wall—but what do you gain by that? Now somebody thinks you’re a moron. And that benefits you…how?

You can sign up to have no tagged posts go up on YOUR wall without your permission in your "Privacy" settings, but it will not stop that photo from being posted on a lot of other people’s walls.

And if the photo is unflattering or unprofessional, don’t tag it, ever. Ask the person first if they want to be identified in your photo. I’ve become a fat lady in middle age. Most photos of me are hideous. NEVER take a photo of me and put it on the Interwebz without my permission, or you're going on my $%*! list for a good, long time.

11)  Not posting share buttons or your @Twitterhandle on your blog. Even if you’re not on any social medium but a blog, you can have a social media presence if your fans tweet your links and post them to FB, Google+, etc. But you make that very tough if you don’t have a “share” button (They’re available in your list of “gadgets” or “widgets” on your dashboard.) I have a bit.ly icon on my toolbar that I can use to share your posts, but most people don’t. (If you want the handy share function and url shortener on your toolbar, visit bit.ly.com  for a quick download.)

Also, try not to make your title too lame to tweet. Even though your content is great, it’s not worth sharing if I have to take the time to make up a good title for you. Lame titles are things like "Blue Monday" or "Thoughts". Good titles are questions, lists and answers. Stuff like: "Can You Write a Publishable First Novel?" or "12 Tips To Get Out of the Slushpile".

And if you don’t have your Twitter handle on your blog, I can’t credit you and you won't even know I tweeted you.

12) Hiding your identity behind a whimsical name or avatar. Don’t put a picture of a baby rhinoceros in a tutu as your avatar. Or call yourself @HoneyBooBooFan or @SexyBeast247. If you’re an author who wants to succeed, you need to be professional. The Internet is not Kindergarten, a celebrity fan club, or your favorite bar. For a rant on bad avatars, read the quote from Porter Anderson in my Feb 3rd post.

Treat Cyberia as your workplace. Because that’s what it is. Look and act professional and show you’re proud of who you are. That means letting us know your name or pen name every time you Tweet or comment on a blog.

***

A word on *spamming. Most people know that Internet "spam" is an inappropriate, unsolicited advertisement for a product. 

But a lot of things that can be perfectly appropriate in small doses are not when they show up too often.

Like newsletters.

I know that some people who are very savvy—like self-pub guru David Gaughran—say that newsletters are the best way to reach your fans.

They may be. But personally, I'm not fond of them. Partly because newsletters are one-way communication.

Also, I think they have been overused to the point they have become an annoyance. I only read one in about 50 and the rest go immediately into the trash—even the ones from big name authors. Some newsletters I may have actually signed up for when I had more time, but many come from people who just took my email address off my blog or a group email.

I figure if I hate having newsletters fill up my inbox, other people do too. We can say what we have to say here on the blog and people know where to find us.

But you might love newsletters. If you do, I really want to hear about it. I may be totally wrong on this. I’ve been wrong before. If you’d like a newsletter from Ruth and me, do speak up. In fact, if there’s anything you’d like to hear more or less of from us, let us know.

I agree with the statement Mary Walters made in her post, "As writers, we should focus our promotional efforts on trying to get people to talk about our books (review them, read and recommend them, give them awards, take them to their book groups, write articles or blog posts about them) instead of trying to get people to buy them."

What we really need to focus on is connecting with readers who aren't necessarily writers. Social media Jedi Kristen Lamb said it very well in an interview this week with Alex Laybourne. "We have to stop expecting “readers” to come to us and we need to go to them. We are talking about query letters and Smashwords and Amazon and agents and then wonder why we aren’t connecting with readers. Try talking about some stuff THEY like for a change. We need to start a dialogue on mutual ground, then that leads to a relationship which will eventually translate into sales... Spend less time being interesting and more time being INTERESTED.

And what about your pet peeves? Let us know what annoys you in social media. How about newsletters? Like or dislike? 

If you have a comment and Blogger won't let you post for one of their unknown reasons (talk about annoying) don't hesitate to email me at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com. I'll post your comment with my response. 


WIN FREE TICKETS!!!


If you want to learn more about what to do and not do in building your platform, and you're in the vicinity of San Luis Obispo, CA, I'll be teaching a seminar called THE TECH-SAVVY AUTHOR with iconic author Catherine Ryan Hyde on March 2nd.

The organizers have given me two FREE TICKETS to give away this week! Each one is a $75 value and includes a yummy lunch. All you have to do is leave your email address in the comments or email me at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com  to say you'd like your name to be put in the drawing for the free tickets. I will then assign each of the contestants a number and go to Random.org on Saturday February 23rd to name the winners.

Contest closes at 6 PM Pacific time on February 23rd.

The winners will be announced in the post on Sunday, February 24th. More info on the workshop in the Opportunity Alerts below.

***

Milestone: This is the 250th post on this blog. Amazing. Especially since the first 50 or so were read by maybe a total of ten people. Now we have close to 1340 followers and a lot of very nice awards. Sticking with something really does pay off.

Opportunity Alerts:


1) BiblioPublishing is looking for submissions of out-of-print or new books for publication through their small press. This 25-year-old press (formerly called The Educational Publisher) is branching out from educational books to other nonfiction and selected fiction. They're especially looking for self-help and sci-fi. They provide cover design, formatting and distribution, but ask your ms. be pre-edited. They publish in print as well as all ebook formats

2) Tech-Savvy Author Workshop: If you live on the Central Coast of California and you’re interested in learning about blogging, building platform and everything a 21st Century author needs to know, Anne will be teaching at a seminar called THE TECH SAVVY AUTHOR with Catherine Ryan Hyde, screenwriter and radio personality Dave Congalton and a whole crew of smart techie folks on March 2nd. Students get in for half price.

3) Interested in having your short fiction recorded for a weekly podcast?There’s no pay, but it’s fantastic publicity if your story is accepted by SMOKE AND MIRRORS. They broadcast about three stories a week. Spooky, dark tales preferred. No previous publication necessary. They judge on the story alone.

4) Cash prizes for flash fiction. The San Luis Obispo NIGHTWRITERS are holding their annual 500-word story contest. Anybody from anywhere in the world is welcome to enter. Prizes are $200, $150 and $75. This is a fantastic organization that boasts a number of bestselling authors among their members, including Jay Asher, Jeff Carlson, and moi. (Well, some sell better than others :-) ) Deadline is March 31st. 

posted under , , , , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Social Media Overload: How Do Authors Reach READERS? Advice from Bestselling Romance Author Roni Loren



First: We have Contest Winners!

Thanks to everyone who entered our contest last week for free copies of How to be a Writer in the E-Age...and Keep Your E-Sanity! which I co-authored with Catherine Ryan Hyde. We assigned everybody a number (two numbers if you entered on both blogs) and put them into the random number sequence generator at random.org. (Timestamp: 2012-12-16 05:05:33 UTC)


The winners of the ebooks are: E.S. Ivy, Clare London, and Cheri
And the winners of the pbooks are: Stella Notte, Linda Gray, and Jlmbewe

Please contact Catherine at ryanhyde@cryanhyde.com with your address to receive your prize.

Today we have a visit from one of my favorite online author-friends. I knew her even before her name was Roni Loren :-) Roni is an awesome blogger who always has something innovative and thoughtful to say at her blog for the Fearless Romantic. She's become a bestselling author for Berkley Heat through her smart use of social media, so this is market-tested advice. My experience with Twitter and Facebook mirrors hers. I much prefer Twitter, but the readers seem to be on Facebook.

Social Media Overload: How Do You Reach READERS?
Guest Post by Roni Loren

If there is one question that all writers would love to have a definitive answer to, it’d be: How do I reach my current readers and attract new readers?

For many of us, the most practical place is online. We don’t have the funds to fly around the country for book signings or to pay for shiny ad campaigns in magazines or on TV, so we go to our computers.

But, of course, the choices are overwhelming. Facebook? Twitter? Blogs? Blog about writing? Blog about...other stuff that readers will like (and what the heck IS that other stuff)?

First, let’s tackle the biggie: blogs. I’ve had a blog going on four years now. I started out as a writing focused blog. That was before I had an agent or was published, so it seemed the obvious track to take. Over time, I’ve morphed into a more flexible blog. Sometimes I blog about writing, sometimes it’s about what I’m reading, and other times it’s just general life topics.

And the reason I made that gradual change was because I went from a blogger who writes to a published author who blogs. The focus changed. Of course, you can have a niche writing blog, and there are many authors like Anne and Janice Hardy who do a fantastic job at providing that to the writer community. However, I chose to go a slightly different route because (a) I get tired of writing about writing at times and (b) I wanted to provide my readers with something fun to if they happened to stop by.

So what should YOU do? Well, that is up to you and what you feel you can maintain and enjoy. If you do decide to stay focused on a more craft/industry type blog, then maybe make sure your website has “sticky” extras that readers can dig through if they stop by. (See my post Author Websites: Layering Yours With Sticky Extras for ideas.) I have photos of my heroes, pictures of The Ranch (the secretive, illicit resort my series centers around), and a music playlist for the books and characters. I also keep a list of what I’ve read that anyone can look through. Those are things readers enjoy. (And my web stats speak to that. The Ranch page gets a surprising amount of hits.)

So try to look at your site through the eyes of a reader stopping by for the first time. What are you offering them?

All right, now on to the two other biggies out there…

Facebook or Twitter? It's a question that people seem to have definite feelings on. Most people prefer one strongly and see the other as a pain. In the past, I've made it no secret that I'm a Twitter girl. I like the fast pace and the simple interface. I like that I can follow a bunch of people and get a little nibble of everything. And frankly, I use it as my blog reader now since I never seem to have time to keep up with my Google Reader.

However, over the last few months or so, I decided to put more effort into my Facebook presence. Many established authors swear by Facebook for connecting with readers, and I know that people are way more likely to be on Facebook than Twitter.

So I begin to put focus on FB and not just by copying tweets over there. FB and Twitter are inherently different in the kinds of updates that "fit." I also made the point of keeping FB more reader-focused than writer-focused. Twitter is filled with my fellow writers who don't mind hearing about word counts or craft-related things. But FB seemed to be getting more pure readers, so I didn't want to bore them with the technical side of writing.

And you know what?

When I did a poll recently, the difference in "crowd" became noticeable.

I posted a question on both Twitter and Facebook asking what I should put on a stamp I'm going to use when I send out signed bookplates. One option was my tagline "For the Fearless Romantic" and the other was "Greetings from The Ranch."

So the results were very telling. Almost every one of my Twitter followers said the Fearless Romantic one. Then on Facebook, every vote was for The Ranch. It was amazing how divided it was.

And then I realized the difference. My writer friends were going for the one that spoke more to "author brand". We've been trained to think that way, to have that marketing hook. But my READERS who are already fans of the books were thrilled at the thought of having "Greetings from The Ranch." One line is meant to "sell" the books to new people. The other serves to entertain people who love the series already.
So, it was an easy decision. Anyone who is asking me for a bookplate is already a fan. Therefore, this needs to be for them. It's not about selling someone new on the book. If this were for promo material at a conference or something, the fearless romantic line would be the better fit. So it was a lesson in knowing who your audience is for something.

BUT, back to the point, this also showed me the clear distinction. Twitter is where my writer friends hang out. Facebook is where more readers are. (At least from my own anecdotal evidence and what I've heard from other authors.)

So which one should you do?

Short answer: Both

Longer answer: If you don't have time for both, do which one you enjoy the most because that's the one you'll probably thrive at.

But here are some things to consider and make a good case for cultivating both...

Why Is Facebook Important?

■ It's the most likely place fans will look for you besides your website.

■ Not everyone is a social media addict (like we writers are). Your every day person may not read blogs regularly, have a google plus profile, a Twitter account, or a Goodreads account. But even the most social media averse person probably has a Facebook page. My grandparents have one, my parents have one, my high school teachers have them. I'm hard pressed to think of someone I know who DOESN'T have one.

■ It allows you longer updates because not everything can be said in 140 characters.

■ It gives you the chance to put up exclusive content and sneak peeks to give your readers something extra for following you and reading your books.

■ You only have to post an update one or two times a day. So there is more opportunity for interaction about one topic.

■ It's easy for people to share you with their friends.

■ And yes, I’m aware that the recent changes with the “promote” button make updates harder for all your followers to see. However, if you post interesting things that get good interaction, the algorithm spreads the message to more people.

Why Is Twitter Is Important?

■ There is an incredible writer community on there. Writing is a solitary business. Hanging out on Twitter is like the office water cooler. You can go there for gossip, encouragement, or just to vent to each other.

■ Some readers do prefer Twitter and that will continue to grow.

■ It is a wealth of blog link love. Like I said, it acts as my blog reader these days.

■ It's more casual than FB in my opinion. Since you can update throughout the day, each update doesn't have to be super profound. : )

■ It's easy to share things via Twitter.

■ It doesn't have all the restrictions like FB. And your followers see your updates--you don't have to pay extra to "promote".

■ You don't get a crap ton of emails anytime someone comments on something.

■ It's less of a commitment for someone to follow you on Twitter. Most people won't "Like" a FB page unless they are a fan already. But many people will follow you on Twitter just to check you out and see what you have to say. So it's easier to introduce yourself and your books to new people.

Each obviously has benefits and drawbacks. But I think if you can manage both, you're going to find you have a more well-rounded online presence. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you and connect with you.

So, if you aren't already there and want to hang out with me, you can find me on Twitter AND Facebook. ;)

And a quick note and PSA on Pinterest and Tumblr because I know someone will inevitably bring one of them up in the comments. If you follow me, you know that earlier this year I was sued for using a photo on my blog that I didn’t have the copyright to. Therefore, Pinterest and Tumblr scare the crap out of me because I know now the rules, and you are not protected. Anytime you post something that you don’t have clear permission from the copyright holder to post, you can be sued for copyright infringement. So use it at your own risk. All I post now are book covers, movie posters, and creative commons licensed pics. *end PSA* : )

So what do you think? Do you have a preference on your social media presence? To those of you on both Twitter and Facebook, do you find a difference in the "crowd"? As a reader, do you seek out authors on any particular social network? Do you read blogs?

Roni wrote her first romance novel at age fifteen when she discovered writing about boys was way easier than actually talking to them. Since then, her flirting skills haven’t improved, but she likes to think her storytelling ability has. Though she’ll forever be a New Orleans girl at heart, she now lives in Dallas with her husband and son. If she’s not working on her latest sexy story, you can find her reading, watching reality television, or indulging in her unhealthy addiction to rockstars, er, rock concerts. Yeah, that's it. She is the National Bestselling Author of The Loving on the Edge series from Berkley Heat. Website: www.roniloren.com

NEWS: Anne is visiting Louise Wise's Wise Words this week with some tips on fixing some of those pesky problems in your WIP that your critique group can't help you with.

posted under , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments
Older Posts Home
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
Powered by Blogger.

Followers


Recent Comments