Social Media Marketing and eBook Publishing

This is a guest post by Coral Russell, author, marketer and pretty cool all around gal!


I know I should consider myself a self-publisher because Indie is usually associated with Small Presses, but I think the new wave of authors taking the reins and publishing their own books via the Internet and specifically eBooks are Independents in the true sense of the word.

As a life-long reader, I was a die-hard paperback fan and thought I'd never switch to reading eBooks. All that changed last year and I haven't looked back. I love my Kindle and a survey revealed that once readers switch to using eReaders, they don't go back to pBooks. I fall in that category.

So when the fiction-writing bug bit after winning a contest (I've been writing non-fiction for a long time), it was natural for me to look into publishing eBooks instead of pBooks. That look lasted seven months and is still ongoing. Here's what I've learned so far:

Write a darn good story or at least a story that you would want to read or at least a story that you are extremely happy with.

Write a short story that compliments the genre you're writing your novel in, then give it away – feedbooks, wattpad, BookRix, and others sites are great for this. Include it in an anthology-you have writing friends don't you? Collaborate. Include it in an anthology for charity-everyone likes contributing to a good cause and there are a ton out there (i.e. No Trees Harmed for First Book).

It's good to be a control freak. If you enjoy every aspect of the process of creating an eBook, then the only thing you may have to pay for is a book cover and for sure, editing. Editing is a must. Editing separates the writer from the hobbyist. Also if you enjoy the process, then you will be happy no matter what the outcome.

Adopt the motto – I don't know any strangers. That is fairly easy and painless with the Internet and social media. Don't know the first thing about building a blog, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Technorati, Blogcritics, etc.? The Indie Book Collective has great seminars to get you on your feet. My daughter announced one day she wanted to build a homework robot. I told her, that's called the Internet, honey. If you have any problem or are unsure of how to do something, Google it. Someone, somewhere in the world has had the same problem and probably offered a solution for free.

Get to know your reviewers. You need good, honest, objective reviews and you can get them on shelfari, goodreads (eBook Giveaways group), LibraryThing (Member Giveaways), and more. Cozy up with blog tours – Novel Publicity, Nurture Your Books, Author Blog Tours, Indie Book Collective, BLB Book Tours – some are higher priced than others, so pick what you can afford. OR, you can go it alone. I add book review sites to my blog roll all the time and these three sites make it easy to find blogs that may be interested in reviewing your masterpiece – BookConnector, Step-by-Step Self Publishing, The Indie Book Blog Database.

Want to pay for reviews? If it's good enough for the first self-published million eBook seller, John Locke, it's good enough for you. He used 15 Dollar Reviews and BookRooster (I already went undercover at these two sites and blogged about it).

Support your fellow Indie authors. Tons of ways to do this through networking, collaboration, book reviews, exchanging forewords, linking to your books, sharing, retweeting, guest posts, etc.

And this is just the tip of the ice burg.

Sound like a full-time job? It is. I have a calendar set up with the times to do the different activities I need to do so I won't spend too much time on any one activity. But it is working, I sell every month and those sales are increasing every month. Good luck and feel free to connect with me, I'm always interested in meeting new Indie authors!

Coral Russell reads/reviews Indie authors on alchemyofscrawl.wordpress.com Check out her Stalker Package to connect. She has written The DIY Guide to Social Media Marketing and eBook Publishing, Playing with Fire , Twelve Worlds, Peace on the Peninsula, and Amador Lockdown.

Some love and ENDORSEMENT for Indie Authors



October Winner



I am looking for a few good Indie authors who want to participate in a FREE promo event.

Maybe that's you eh?



If you haven't noticed, the last few months I've been doing Indie Cover Art Polls. It's very simple. You say you want to be in on the poll, I'll let you know what month you are going to be in.

November Winner



Then I put up your cover art, a blurb and a link along with a bunch of other authors. Then you get your friends, tweeps and complete strangers to vote for your book and its beautiful/interesting/crazy/wild cover.

The winning author gets to be hosted on the other authors blogs for a single post. And 1 winning commenter gets to win a copy of EACH of the authors books. Pretty cool huh?



December Winner



Each Poll has so far gotten over 1000 hits each, plus a TON of comments. Out last poll had over 200 comments, many of which were where the commenters were excited to go and purchase a bunch of the books. Yay!

So, if you're interested in getting you book and its cover in one of the next Cover Art Polls (Indie Authors Only Please) contact me at motionsrider@yahoo.ca.



 

Grandma Mary Can't Market your Book

*This post was originally put on the #Amwriting blog.*

If all you want is for Grandma Mary to read your book, don’t bother continuing with this article. You’ve accomplished your goal and you don’t need me to tell you how to market your book.

But, if you one of the growing number of authors who has realized that the sole person responsible for marketing their book is . . .gulp . . themselves, then perhaps you should read on.

While I’m far from an expert, I can share with you what I’ve learned.

Let’s say you’re lucky enough to snag yourself a contract with a publishing house (and this could be a small publishing house or a large one, it doesn’t seem to matter) they really aren’t interested in doing much marketing for you- the author- anymore.

And if you’re like a growing number of writers and are considering (or already have) self published, then you know that the marketing for every book you write falls squarely on your shoulders.

Depressing, ain’t it?

No, no, no! This is an opportunity for you to get creative, to reach out to your readership and draw them into your world of writing and books.

I’ve broken this down into 7ish steps and added a chart for clarification.

1. Acknowledge what problems you might run in to while promoting. For me they’re always one of two things. Not enough time and not enough money. For you they might be that you’re shy, don’t like to network or think that promotional stuff is silly and a waste of time. Whatever it is, write it down. By identifying the problem, you can find ways to work around it within your promotional efforts.

2. Write down your goals; give yourself something to shoot for. Don’t write things like “Sell as many books as John Locke.” Be kind to yourself; give yourself goals that can be reached within reason. It’s good to have long term, high shooting goals, but if you aim for Locke or Hocking status right out of the gate, you may just derail not only your promotional track, but with your writing track too.

3. Next, fill out a budget. This budget should include how much you are willing to spend a month on your marketing and PR plan. Your budget will dictate to a certain extent what venues you’ll be using to get your book out to the masses. Along with a financial budget, also write up how much TIME you’re willing to spend per day on your marketing. This is very important as it is easy to get caught up in marketing and you may find yourself promoting at all hours of the day and night.

4. Make a list of all the things you could possibly do to promote your book. Brainstorm, look up ideas on the internet, see what other authors are doing, ask your friends, ask your network. Include anything and everything, don’t censure, you never know what might spark the fire for you. (See the Actions section of my Chart for a few ideas.)

5. Now you want to make a list of all the people you think might be able to help you promote. This can be friends and family, acquaintances, clients, or other writers you have helped out in the past. This is an important step in order to make your marketing move forward. Don’t try to do it all on your own. Where ever possible, outsource. Your network is a HUGE part of getting the word out to new readers, so take advantage of them, they want to help you!

6. Go through the list of possible Actions; decide what will work for you within your budget and your time frame. Remember that if it’s free, it will likely cost you more time so be ready to put in the hours needed.

7. An important step that I touched on earlier was that you don’t want to sacrifice your writing time for promotional time. Eventually you would end up with nothing to promote. Look at your day, decide when you want to write, when you want to promote and STICK TO IT!

After you fill out your own chart, you’re ready to make a plan for marketing your book. My suggestion would be to have a calendar where you write down your goals. You can check off what you’ve accomplished and can easily see what is next on the list.

As writers our focus should ALWAYS be on writing the next story; improving our craft. But if we want more than Grandma Mary to read our books, we need to take the initiative and start our own marketing plan, even if that means taking a little time away from our writing. In the end, when your books are being read by strangers around the world, you won’t have to promote so much. You can sit back with Grandma Mary and work on your next big novel.

Why Your Cover Sucks, AND it's killing your sales

Harsh, I know, but the truth often stings us in our most sensitive bits.


You know, right in our babies, our books, our belief that we have the BEST cover art EVER.


And, it's all a lie.


Now, you have to realize this has ZERO to do with your cover artist. That's right, zero. This problem has to do with YOU (and by you I mean me too) not being able to give your cover artist something to work with.

For instance, my book, Sundered, originally had a very cool cover. This one, right here.

It took TALENT to produce this cover, something I do not have. What I also didn't have was an understanding of what I would NEED to have on the cover in order for it to sell to my MARKET.

This book cover is great, but it really doesn't sell to my market, which is ZOMBIES and monsters. Much as there is a romance in the book, that is just a bonus.

It took some advice from Carolyn McCray, bestselling Kindle author and her Optimization Workshop to set me straight.

What I learned blew my mind. NO, really it did. As proud as I was of Sundered's cover, it wasn't helping me sell my book. It was scaring away potential readers because the book cover said one thing (erotic romance apparently ;) while the blurb said Zombies, Monsters and high action. A contradiction that scared readers off.

So I took Carolyn's advice and had a second cover done. Again, a talented artist, but THIS time, I knew what I was looking for. Zombie, monsters, freaky looking.  I knew my market better, understood what my readers were looking for and I gave it to them.

Now, what did the cover change do for me? It increased sales by 800%. Yes, you read that right.  Because now, what I show my potential readers and what the blurb says MATCHES.

All because I finally had someone tell me the truth. My cover art sucked because I didn't recognize my market and wasn't able to then give the ideas to my artist and it was KILLING my sales.

So, now that you see the two covers together, both by VERY talented artists, what do you think? Which one would you buy?

Marketing your E-Book

I had the distinct pleasure to write an article for the #amwriting community blog and the post is up today.

It's all about marketing your e-book, how to do it, a few how not to's; there's even a chart to help you get going on your marketing plan.

Check it out! Marketing Your E-Book and leave a comment. I'd love to have some feedback on how you market and what you find works.

It's All in the Title

The title of your novel is more important than you realize. Not only do readers judge a book by its cover (oh yes they do!) they judge a book by its title.

In a few short words you need to convey a sense of what the story's main ingredients are, the curiosity that will draw in the reader as well as the connection with an emotion, memory or sense that will make the reader feel something and that feeling will intrigue them enough to take your book off the shelf and purchase it.

We've all seen the books that have horrible titles and if we hadn't read the blurb we never would have realized how good it was, or maybe even what it was about. There are many books that never hit the bestseller list, not because they weren't well written, but because their readership couldn't find them, didn't even know they existed.

So keep it in mind the next time you give your book a title that you love, maybe you should look a little harder in the direction that will help you find your market, your target audience. If you write romance, make sure your title gives a romantic feel, horror, same thing. Give your book the best chance you can by titling it in such a way that the readers can find it easy, remembering that your title is your first step in marketing your book to the world.

Promotion vs Scaring People off

Promoting yourself is a necessity, something that every good little writer must do whether they want to or not. Some use Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, a blog, a website or a variety of other social media sites that they can put their name and their book beside it. But that is not what this blog is about.

When is too much promoting doing more harm than good? As in, you’re tweeting about your new book, blog or contest every hour for the entire time you’re awake and you wonder why you don’t sell more, get more followers or get more entrants. I think the reason is simple, when we over promote ourselves, we start to sound . . um . . desperate. Last I checked, desperation never sold a single book.

What to do though when you need to get the word out, but are afraid to turn people off? Well, first off, interact with people, don’t just pitch them. There are people I follow on Twitter that I never see any tweets EXCEPT those aimed at me buying their book. Guess what, I’ve never gone to any of those sites. I go to buy the books of those authors who take a little time to talk, share and interact. Those who've taken the time to promote not just their book(s), but who they are as well. Secondly, it’s okay to promote yourself, we all expect it, but try to keep tweets like, “Hey! Check out my new thriller/YA/fantasy/erotica for a limited time!” to a minimum.

Here is what a few of my Twitter friends had to say on the subject.

@Tanisharule Several times a day is okay as long as every tweet is not a shameless plug.

@jaimecallahan When it's the only thing you tweet about or if you mention the same thing (like a blog entry) more than 2-3 times a day.

@lisajanicecohen Too often is when most your tweets are about yourself, or RTs of what someone says about you, or links to your own content.

Siri_Paulson Oh, and too often = more than a couple times a day. Maybe a bit more leeway if you tweet a lot.

So there you have it. Promote yourself, absolutely. Every freaking post, tweet or status? Not unless you want to scare your potential audience away.

Making the damn Book trailer thingy

I decided last week that I would make my own book trailer. I've made power points before so it shouldn't be that much different, right? I can't afford a $2000 professional jobby so I must do it myself. With the popularity of book trailers and their effectiveness in selling books, this seemed like a good idea.Here's what I've learned so far, it ain't much but maybe it will help out someone else just starting to make their own trailer.

Hmm. First of all, I have to find music, music that I can buy and legally use on the trailer. This took several days of cursing and grumping as the music I wanted couldn't be found and when I finally did find it, EXPENSIVE! Like $150 for a 4 minute song. All because of a little thing called licencing. Sheesh!

What I've discovered is a site called Audio Jungle. It's where composers can go and put up their original work and you can purchase it for a minimum cost. I paid $13 for the song I chose and I actually like it better than the original song I had picked out. Happy day and we're off to the races.

Next comes pictures. Again I struggled and cursed only to find that no matter where I went, if I wanted good quality pictures and videos, I was going to have to pay for them. Voila, iStockphoto seems to have a good selection, not too high of price and it's fairly easy to navigate.

Now I just have to mash the music and pictures together, hopefully with a computer program I already have. . .I'll get back to you on how that goes.

Promoting Yourself and Your Book

This sounds simple, easy even on the surface. Of course, you don’t start promotions until you get a contract with a publisher or until your self-published e-book is on the shelves, right?

Wrong!

Any industry professional will tell you that you should be promoting yourself and your writing 2-3 YEARS before you ever hit the shelves. Which means that you need to be promoting yourself now, not when you get an agent, not when you get a contract, but before all that. It’s how buzz is built and you start to get some following now, people who when your book does hit the shelves are ready to buy it and perhaps even help spread the word.

So what can you do to promote yourself now? Blogs of course are huge in this arena as are Twitter, Facebook and numerous other social media sites. Networking is all about meeting people and how better to meet the world than on the world wide net?

Another great idea that I’ve seen is book trailers. One of my lovely gal friends that I met through Twitter, Natasha, has a book blog for her yet unpublished work. It’s an amazing trailer and she’s developing quite the following just from that, at last count she's had over 12,000 hits! There are, numerous sites that can help you build a book trailer if you aren’t savvy enough on your own. Animoto is a book trailer site that has won many awards for their work and has been recommended to me by those who have used it.

So how else can you promote yourself? Attending writer’s conferences are not only educational, and give you a chance to pitch your work, but they allow for person to person networking. It was at a conference that I met Sharon Lynn Fisher who has Robin Rue for an agent, Tor for a publisher and is a finalist of the Golden Heart Award. Not to mention that she is a fabulous lady who has been great to correspond with about my own bumps in the road. I’ve met people who’ve become part of my local writers group and people who’ve become part of my long distance writers group, all who have knowledge and experience to bring to the table. I’ve found this to be one of the most fulfilling ways to promote yourself and network and try to attend at least one a year now.

Of course, there are more ways than I can fit in a single blog on how to promote yourself, but I will leave you with two final tips.

1. Don’t just push your writing and your brand so much that you push people away from you. Make friends, even on Twitter where you only have 140 characters to write something. Reach out to others and help them promote their work, show your interest in them and it will be returned.

2. Don’t let the promotional/networking take over your writing time. This is an easy thing to have happen and when it comes right down to it, your writing is what sells you. No amount of great PR can make people love a book that isn’t well written, the characters are flat and the dialogue hum drum.

Any last thoughts? Promotional ideas that you’d like to share?

Call me Mayer, Stephanie Mayer

I want to start this post by saying it is not a bash of anyone, their writing or their choices. I know this author and I think highly of them.

We're going to call said author Bob Smith, if he chooses to comment that would be great and I will gladly give him a shout out. Bob is a great writer and has chosen to e-publish like so many writers have with the advent of that technology. The problem was, like so many going it on their own, Bob was struggling with selling his books.

Bob re-vamped his covers, re-named the books and gave himself a pseudonym. This is where my curiosity perked up. Sales improved drastically and Bob is very happy. Why would my curiosity perk up you may ask? Because Bob chose his pseudonym to be the equivalent of Stevie King. Meaning the name he chose was almost identical to that of a best selling author. Now, I wondered, was this a type of infringement on the national bestselling authors rights to their own name? If not, it's a very smart marketing move on Bob's part. I believe he writes in the same genre as the author who's name his pseudonym is so close to, and I think people would see it and think that they're related, most likely twins.

Please remember (you especially Bob if you're reading this) this is not meant as a critique. More only an observation that I found very interesting and really wanted to share with others. I mean hey, if this is a plausible way to drum up business, call me Stephanie Mayer ;P

What are you're thoughts on this? Was Bob making a smart move or do you think he might have given himself more trouble down in the long run?

Blog Posts worth Linking to.

Today is a day of links to some pretty cool blogs. Hence the chain link picture (it was the best I could do!)Informative? Yep. Funny? Oh heck yeah!

How to deal with bad reviews is explained so succinctly by Nathan Bransford. And he's kept to my rules about blogging short and sweet.

Ever had the desire to throw a book to a neighbours pit bull the writing was so bad? Wonder how in the world it got published in the first place? You better check out the Novel Doctor, it's a post that explains the situation perfectly.

In need of laughing till you cry? Stay away from Linus is one man's adventures into the doctor's office for a turn your head and cough kind of story. A little longer than I recommend for a posting but worth the time IMHO.

Inside the world of Literary Scouts. Don't know what a literary scout is? Don't worry, I didn't either until I read this fascinating post on the ins and outs of the job and what it means for authors.

Last but not least, here's Show me the Money a post breaking down the money made within publishing houses in regards to two genres and if that isn't quite what your looking for, try Kate Hart's post about YA genre's that are being bought and those that dominate the six figure market.

Blogging that Rocks your Socks Off.

Day one of my, self imposed, thirty day challenge. A few rules on writing a blog post that I have

A)Learned the hard way

B)Learned off of other blogs and

C)Used my good ol’ common sense

The first thing I’ve learned is keep it short and sweet. Get to the point and don’t dawdle while you get there. Some writers can ramble and it’s fun to follow along but those are few and far between. More than that, ask anyone who frequents blogs, most won’t read to the end of a Looooong post. So cut it off when you find yourself contemplating the meaning of life in a free flow form of writing. I try to keep it under 400 words if possible.

Use catchy titles. (This goes for your novels too of course. Think "Skinny Bitch".) Catchy titles get people’s attention and that will get them reading your blog. Hence the oh -so -snazzy header of this post.

Using pictures is great, but not thirty per post. One or two will suffice. Again, short, sweet and pertinent will rock it.

Controversy can be fun and make for great debates, but only if you truly believe in what you are writing about. Don’t dive into a trendy topic JUST BECAUSE. That’s just dang irritating.

Finally, try to keep it interesting. (This could get tough for me over the next thirty days) If you’re writing the same type of posts (Woe is me is another no-no) over and over and over and over again, people tend to notice. Mix it up a little. If you only write about writing, tell a story about your childhood and how you came to be a writer. Only talk about yourself? Do an interview with a new author, editor or agent.

A last thought. One thing that’s good to do is to ask your readers a question at the end of your blog to try to engage them and start a dialogue. That one I learned from Creepy Query Girl. Hence the next line! These are only the things I try to avoid, what have you learned either by reading posts or blogging yourself?

FLOG YOUR BLOG THROWDOWN!

This is your opportunity to FLOG YOUR BLOG! I thought it would be nice if my followers had a chance to show off what their own blog was about and gain some new followers through my blog here.

When you make a comment, don’t just put in your link, tell us a little bit about your blog. Do you write mostly book reviews? Talk about writing angst? Discuss current events? What’s your own writing genre? Are your published? This will help people decide if they want to follow you.

To be completely clear, this is not a contest, you won’t win anything by making a comment, but I am hoping that you will gain some new followers (me too) by participating in the FLOG YOUR BLOG throw down. The only rules are-

1. You must be following this blog, Wringing out Words to make a comment and . . .
2. You must do this on your blog too in order to give your followers a chance to gain new people.

My hope is that more people will not only get active here by commenting and participating but that my followers will get the same thing on their blogs. I think this sounds like a good idea, let’s see how it works.

Learning to Speak Tweet

I don’t know about you, but when I first started learning to use Twitter, I was dumbfounded by all the acronyms. A small few were obvious. LOL. Laughing out loud. Thnx. Thanks. But that was about where my understanding stopped. Months later, I have a far better grasp of twitter language. Or perhaps its called Twinglish now? Anyway, for all those just learning to Tweet, here’s a fairly comprehensive list of acronyms, both to use and decipher others Tweets.

ROFL – Rolling on the floor laughing

LMAO – Laughing my a** off

ROFLMAO – Combo of the above two

BTW- By the way

IMO – In my opinion

IMHO – In my humble/honest opinion

BRB – Be right back

FTW – For the win

FTL – For the loss

FTF – Face to face

YMMV – Your mileage may vary (Or your experience may be different than mine.)

JV – Joint venture

JK – Just kidding

LMK – Let me know

OH –Overheard

VO- Very obviously

YW or YVW – Your welcome/ Your very welcome

TIA – Thanks in advance

WTH – What the hell?

WTF – What the f ***?

IRL – In real life

ASFAIK – As far as I know

B4 – before

BFN – Bye for now

HT – Hat tip

JSYK - Just so you know


Phew! And that’s only the ones I know or could find out about. I’m sure there are more as the language seems to be added to daily. What are your favorite acronyms that you use all the time? Or are there some not on the list that you can add on with? Either way, I hope this helps you navigate Twitter but more than that, helps you to better understand your Tweeps. ; -)

Social Media, Here I come!

Getting onto all the social media sites in preparation for the day that my books are published is like treading some very deep water when I've only just learned how to swim.

But slowly, I'm figuring it out. Facebook, Twitter and Blogger came fairly easily. And now I can be found in Goodreads and LinkedIn as well. But the one I am really learning the most with is Digg. This is supposed to help with traffic to your blog and is also the newest social media to me. I'll let you know how that goes! So wish me luck swimming in the deep end, but more than that, come join me. It's much more fun to drown laughing with a friend than crying by yourself. :)

And if you like, post a comment about the social media tool you've found most effective.

Commenting on Blogs

Everyone that I've talked to the last few days have expressed their New Year's Resolution to me in one form or another. Most revolve around losing weight, a common theme. The other's I've heard : quiting smoking, being kinder, get education/better job, don't worry so much and so on.

I have a list of resolutions for myself a mile long, there are always improvements I could be working on, but one of the things in particular is blog comments. I read a lot of blogs, find myself laughing out loud, crying alongside and nodding in agreement. But I don't often make a comment. Which is weird because I LOVE comments on my blog, like I've mentioned to a few people, it makes me feel as if the blog is actually being read. And I think that others must feel the same way.

So, to all the blogs I follow now and will follow in the future I promise to make a comment when I read your blog. Even if it's just a nod of agreement. Or a cyber space knuckle bump. Or even just a happy face :D. Be prepared for the commenting to begin!

Writers and Money or is that Oil and Water?

Earlier today I tweeted that I was wanting to do a post on the average salary of a writer, started doing some research and got scared. Someone tweeted me this,

"It should scare you. Writers are getting hit HARD with this economic decline. Sad, but true."

Crap, that was depressing. So, I decided to go to Publisher's Marketplace and see what I could find there. Surely, someone must be making money as a writer? Perhaps they just aren't talking about it, perhaps they like their privacy? This was my hope. And here are my findings. Make of it what you will, it buoyed my spirits up and gave me a light at the end of the scary publishing tunnel.

All these numbers are for the last 12 months and include all categories, international rights and foreign rights.

1324 deals were made where the author earned $1-$49,000 with the top earning genre being Fiction followed closely by Women's/Romance.

233 deals were made where the author earned $50,000-$99,000 with the top earning genre being Fiction followed by Children's/YA.

194 deals were made where the author earned $100,000- $250,000 with the top earning genre being Children's/YA followed by Women's/Romance.

99 deals were made where the author earned $251,000-$499,000 with the top earning genre being Children's/YA followed by Fiction.

138 deals were made where the author earned $500,000 or more with the top earning genre being Children's/YA followed by Fiction.

And these numbers don't cover EVERY single deal out there, just the ones that show an amount of money made. So what does this tell us? Well, here are a few more numbers. 1302 deals were made under the Children's/Ya section. 342 were made in the Women's/Romance and in Fiction there were 1433 deals made.

Why you may ask, do these numbers make me feel better? 1. Books are still being bought, lots and lots of books. 2. The top three money makers are genre's that cover a lot of peoples MS's including my own. 3. Just knowing that it is possible to make good money at this very subjective business gives me hope. I for one, believe it is possible to make it as a writer.

Do you?

The Dangers of Social Media by Brenda Sedore

Guest post by Brenda Sedore


Social media can be your best friend or your worst enemy. It depends on how much you control it or how much it controls you. Let me explain.


As my husband, Daryl Sedore, and I prepared to launch our debut novels around the same time, we began exploring social media as a marketing tool. We discovered that it is imperative to the modern author.


What is social media? The main players in this new game are Twitter and Facebook. Twitter allows you to connect with others in the publishing industry as well as the readers of your books. You can both cross-promote other authors and reach your readers in a personal way.
I recently read The Tale of Halcyon Crane and did a review on it on Goodreads, another great social media tool. I gave it 4 stars and did a quick review on the high points of the novel. My review was posted to Twitter. Within a few hours, the author, Wendy Webb, sent me a tweet thanking me for my review and expressing her pleasure that I'd enjoyed her book.


I thought to myself how things have changed for the better. In the past, I wouldn't have had a personal note from the author. I might have taken the trouble to write a fan letter, which may or may not have been replied to, but not always by the author herself. How nice to connect with an author of whom I'm a fan. That's one of the beauties of social media.


The other big player in the social media game is Facebook. Facebook was started as a way of connecting to people you know or have known in the past. It is rapidly becoming a way of promoting books and other endeavors. My son, Dan Oig, is a musician. Social media sites such as Facebook have given him a much wider audience than he might otherwise have gotten in a small Canadian city.


Now, back to why I called this post The Dangers of Social Media. Everything sounds perfect, doesn't it? For everything positive, there is always a negative side. Just like anything with the Internet, it needs to be handled with self-control. If your reasons for using social media are to promote yourself, you need to have something to promote, yes? If you're promoting your writing, you need to take time to write. It's easy to keep Twitter open while writing, or stop in the middle of a scene to check Facebook and see how many new friend requests you have.

***DANGER AHEAD***

It is important to keep your social media to within a framework of time. When it's time to write, shut off Twitter and Facebook. If you need to, use a writing program that has a fullscreen feature. I use Scrivener. It's perfect for the job. The only way to do your best writing is to shut off all distractions.

You have to be careful to keep the writing as the most important part of what you do. If you don't, spending time on social media may very well take up most of your writing time.
There is another danger. It's easy to forget that the people you chat with every day are people you don't know. This is still a business and you need to act in a business-like manner. If you want to Tweet and Facebook personal things, you should have a separate account.

Too many people have Twitter accounts to promote their work and they end up talking about their personal life. I'm not saying to keep it all impersonal, but there is a point. One literary agent was tweeting about how her baby took off her dirty diaper and threw it against the wall. TMI (too much information) people.

So, if you have a lot of friends that you want to be personal with, have a separate account. I have an account for my cooking interest. I follow chefs and farmer's markets, etc, but with this separate profile. You want to present a certain image that will resonate with your readers. You need to be real, just not TOO real.

Social media is a tool like any other. A tool is only as good as the craftsman using it. Use social media wisely and it can be your best friend. Just remember, even a friend becomes annoying if you spend too much time with them. Taking breaks will only heighten the enjoyment.
I'd love to hear how social media has worked for you as an author, musician, or whatever your passion is. Do you see it as an important tool, or something you don't have time for? Please leave a comment with your thoughts. Social media and blogging is about connections and conversations. Thanks for reading.

Links to some great social media sites:

Twitter
Facebook
Goodreads
LibraryThing
Tumblr
Foursquare
Linkedin
Wordpress

Photo credit: Chris Wallace

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

Keep your eyes peeled folks, in the next few days I'm going to start the first ever, week long, Shannon's Friend Seeking Contest!

This may stem from the fact that as I child I had very few friends (a distinct possibility but not one I'm willing to give much thought to at the moment) or the fact that September 7th is the day that my agent, Carolyn Swayze, will be submitting my ms to PUBLISHERS! Very exciting and very contest worthy.

The contest will be designed to bring new followers to my blog and Twitter account. I want to be able to reach as many people as possible through my blog, Twitter and website. I expect that the new followers, and you who have been with me since the beginning, will all stick around long enough to buy my first book. In fact, part of being a follower of my blog or Twitter account requires the you must line up outside your local bookstore, at a minimum of the day before my book will be released. Really, it's in the fine print. ;p

And for you sceptics, THERE WILL BE PRIZES! I will have multiple prizes, because when can there be just one winner? Not on my shift! It doesn't matter where you live, Canada, USA or over seas, I will send the prizes to you where ever the winners are.

Shannon's Friend Seeking Contest will start as soon as I reach 500 followers on Twitter and as of this post I'm 9 people away. The details, prizes and start time to be announced when that magic number is reached.

Twitterpated!

That's right, I've taken one more step into the social media and twittered today for the first time. A new learning curve and for those who are in the know, they know that all of this social media stuff is very important for the burgeoning writer.

So tweet me.

If you dare!