Ria Stone
SWF Writers
Posts: 1,055
Joined: Oct 30, 2013 14:12:26 GMT -8
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Post by Ria Stone on Feb 21, 2015 8:48:34 GMT -8
Hello SWFers:
I am going to do an initial post, first, attempting to list various Social Media options. Then, ask for your input on which ones you use, how you use them and which ones you think are the most successful in marketing your works.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Google Plus+
Tumblr
Instagram
Flickr
GoodReads
Blogs
Personal websites
Personally, my main social media is Twitter. I started using it as a news aggregator, then created a separate account for Books/Writing. I do feel my tweets re: Gina's dream has produced traffic on SW, Amazon and my blog. I have a blog which I think is slowly building a readership. I sorta have a website on Weebly but I do not find it useful.
I just joined Facebook and then made a "Page", but at the moment, Facebook is still a bit confusing for me. I can't find other FB pages of interest using FB's "search" functions.
Other internet apps I find useful are: Google Alerts and blog feeds.
Whereas, I do not think my author page on Amazon has been useful.
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Post by Julie Harris on Feb 21, 2015 12:33:29 GMT -8
This may not help much, but I usually have an 'about the author' at the end of each book. Have now changed that to A Note for You, and there I link to my website - which links each book to various vendors - and to my Facebook page. After I did the BK Knights free promo and got 6K downloads I had a fair whack of new traffic and likes to my FB page. I follow a couple of authors on FB and get tired of seeing constant plugs for their books and not much else. I only post if necessary and I try to make it inspiring. I rarely do Goodreads. I don't bother with Twitter any more. Even thinking of all the others on your list gives me a migraine, Ria! The trouble with so much social media is that it really eats into writing time and is a major distraction. Distractions are awful. I made myself an outdoors office under the big pepper tree in the backyard, and my husband, bless him, bought me a 2nd hand Surface which will never go on the internet, ever. The day after it arrived, a cyclone hit. We missed the worst of it, and its been too wet to use my outdoors office. Maybe authors more dedicated to social media can help you out, Ria.
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Ria Stone
SWF Writers
Posts: 1,055
Joined: Oct 30, 2013 14:12:26 GMT -8
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Post by Ria Stone on Feb 22, 2015 10:47:18 GMT -8
This may not help much, but I usually have an 'about the author' at the end of each book. Have now changed that to A Note for You, and there I link to my website - which links each book to various vendors - and to my Facebook page. After I did the BK Knights free promo and got 6K downloads I had a fair whack of new traffic and likes to my FB page. I follow a couple of authors on FB and get tired of seeing constant plugs for their books and not much else. I only post if necessary and I try to make it inspiring. I rarely do Goodreads. I don't bother with Twitter any more. Even thinking of all the others on your list gives me a migraine, Ria! The trouble with so much social media is that it really eats into writing time and is a major distraction. Distractions are awful. I made myself an outdoors office under the big pepper tree in the backyard, and my husband, bless him, bought me a 2nd hand Surface which will never go on the internet, ever. The day after it arrived, a cyclone hit. We missed the worst of it, and its been too wet to use my outdoors office. Maybe authors more dedicated to social media can help you out, Ria. Thanks for the input Julie: Totally agree with the "social media...really eats into writing time...." I am allowing myself to experience the whole gamut of marketing and social media because I am getting ready to dive into a new novel and I know I will be absorbed for a looooooog time writing it, etc. So, when I am done, I want to have a marketing plan in place based on experience etc. Also, I like to be articulate regarding internet "stuff." I think marketing as an unknown is different than marketing when you have a following, yet even then there's room for widening your marketing exposure. It's what I love about writing, I am always learning. Love the idea of an "outdoor" office! Keep writing
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mickthompson
Junior Member
Posts: 44
Joined: Mar 15, 2014 19:19:45 GMT -8
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Post by mickthompson on Mar 16, 2015 3:16:57 GMT -8
I use a personal Weebly website for promotion and get about 40 page views a day and get about twenty downloads, free, a day from iBooks, B & N, and Smashwords. Weebly is good because they don't market my name and my website.
I avoid social media sites as they manipulate and market one's name in a degrading fashion. It seems like wise folk of all ages avoid these sites though for publicity I suppose they are okay, but I'm not that ambitious. Using Facebook is a form of prostitution.
The mainstream media won't touch anything I write for legal reasons and my lawyer advises me to appear in public as if I don't have much money.
When the big stars of writing do their tours and trot out their routines and get much applause I feel sorry for them as they are constrained by so many politically correct rules of limitation.
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Post by jaydax on Mar 20, 2015 7:41:28 GMT -8
TWITTER: I use Twitter a lot. I have five accounts including my main author one, @jchapmanauthor, and several anonymous accounts where I can be as sarcastic/foolish/opinionated as I want without affecting book sales. If I stop using Twitter I see an immediate drop in downloads of my free books, followed by a corresponding drop in book sales 20 days later. (That free book is big!) I tweet from a bank of items I've built up over the years - over 4,000 now. 15% are promotional tweets in some way. Each day I add new tweets and delete tweets from my list. I respond to those who reply or comment, tweet the books of those who RT mine. I aim to follow 125 new people each day and unfollow about 100 who haven't followed back in the last 4 months. I'm selective about who I follow see authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/do-you-want-me-to-follow-you-on-twitter.html. Buying followers? - waste of money. FACEBOOK: Is for fun and a few announcements. I play games and produce guides to the games which get me a lot of 'friends'. FB is a good source of items to tweet. PINTEREST: Is for fun ( ) and also a record of graphics I've used for promotion.(as in ) I'll also use it as a store of interesting items I may use in a book (that board is private) BLOGGING: I have several. You might like authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/ I favour Blogspot because it is picked up by Google instantly. Wordpress is a good alternative though. WEBSITE: Every author needs a decent website for his/her books. I used to work as a Web developer so HTML/CSS/Javascript hold no horrors for me. One thing you should do is to make sure you are using your own domain for it. No one will take you seriously if you are using free hosting. GOOGLE+: I have an account and suspect it will become increasingly valuable. At the moment I don't have the time for it though. GOOGLE ALERTS: YES! Essential for anyone who writes science fiction, technothrillers, military, historical GOODREADS: More bother than it's worth. A good source of troll reviews I decided. I seldom visit and don't take part. TUMBLR/INSTAGRAM/FLICKR: Never used them. Am I missing out?
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Ria Stone
SWF Writers
Posts: 1,055
Joined: Oct 30, 2013 14:12:26 GMT -8
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Post by Ria Stone on Mar 21, 2015 8:50:46 GMT -8
TWITTER: I use Twitter a lot. I have five accounts including my main author one, @jchapmanauthor, and several anonymous accounts where I can be as sarcastic/foolish/opinionated as I want without affecting book sales. If I stop using Twitter I see an immediate drop in downloads of my free books, followed by a corresponding drop in book sales 20 days later. (That free book is big!) I tweet from a bank of items I've built up over the years - over 4,000 now. 15% are promotional tweets in some way. Each day I add new tweets and delete tweets from my list. I respond to those who reply or comment, tweet the books of those who RT mine. I aim to follow 125 new people each day and unfollow about 100 who haven't followed back in the last 4 months. I'm selective about who I follow see authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/do-you-want-me-to-follow-you-on-twitter.html. Buying followers? - waste of money. FACEBOOK: Is for fun and a few announcements. I play games and produce guides to the games which get me a lot of 'friends'. FB is a good source of items to tweet. PINTEREST: Is for fun ( ) and also a record of graphics I've used for promotion.(as in ) I'll also use it as a store of interesting items I may use in a book (that board is private) BLOGGING: I have several. You might like authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/ I favour Blogspot because it is picked up by Google instantly. Wordpress is a good alternative though. WEBSITE: Every author needs a decent website for his/her books. I used to work as a Web developer so HTML/CSS/Javascript hold no horrors for me. One thing you should do is to make sure you are using your own domain for it. No one will take you seriously if you are using free hosting. GOOGLE+: I have an account and suspect it will become increasingly valuable. At the moment I don't have the time for it though. GOOGLE ALERTS: YES! Essential for anyone who writes science fiction, technothrillers, military, historical GOODREADS: More bother than it's worth. A good source of troll reviews I decided. I seldom visit and don't take part. TUMBLR/INSTAGRAM/FLICKR: Never used them. Am I missing out? Jaydax -- thanks for the input. Thanks for all the info. For me, re: instagram, is just another pinterest. But, what I do note is that it seems more people respond to visuals than text i.e. Twitter. I think I have a pinterest acct. but the pwd does not work? I think you are right about FB and pinterest being more about social fun than in-depth information a bit like Goodhousekeeping vs Wall Street Journal. I have a weebly website but I have had issues with them, so it is more or less inactive. See you on Twitter.
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