The Loneliest Planet by Randy Ross

Book Marketing: Resources for Getting Started

2013-05-14T14:24:00.000-04:00

Here is an updated list of book marketing resources and tools that I recommend to my "Self-Promotion for Writers" class.The list includes books, social media blogs, an old school PR blog, an SEO blog, publishing industry blogs, and some Web based tools that I continue to like -- even after using them for a year.

I) Getting Started

For getting started with a new technology or a social media tool, a book is the way to go. No dough? Borrow them from the library. Though most books are out of date by the time they hit the shelves, you can still learn the basics, then sign up for a blog to stay up to date.

Books:

- Good Overview of book marketing

"Online Book Marketing" by Lorraine Phillips

http://www.onlinebookbuzz.com

- Books for skeptics: "Social Media is Bullshit" by B.J. Mendelson

- "Talk up your book: How to sell your book through public speaking, interviews, signings, festivals, conferences, and more," by Patricia Fry.

http://www.matilijapress.com/TalkUpYourBook.html

- Dummies books and other how-to books on social media, blogging, twitter, e-mail marketing, public relations, are all useful and will save you a lot of aggravation.

Blogs:

Blogs on publishing industry: agents, trends, marketing

http://janefriedman.com/

Writer Beware: Sleazy agents, sleazy publishers, and other sleazeballs writer's need to be aware of.

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/

Self-publishing and book marketing

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/

Self-promotion for writers:

My blog: http://www.theloneliestplanet.com

Blogs on blogging:

- http://www.copyblogger.com/blog/ (lots of free guides on blogging and SEO)

- Article: Is Blogging a Waste of Time?

http://www.theloneliestplanet.com/2012/10/oh-no-experts-say-blogging-is-waste-of.html

- Article: types of articles that get traffic.

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/7-content-archetypes-that-generate-natural-links

Social Media Blogs:

- Facebook:

http://www.jonloomer.com

http://alwaysupward.com/blog/

- Linked In: http://www.linkedinsights.com/

- Twitter: http://blog.tweetsmarter.com/

- Article: Getting started with Twitter.

http://blog.tweetsmarter.com/twitter-tips/how-to-help-someone-get-started-on-twitter/

SEO:

- SEO Moz http://www.seomoz.org/blog

- Article: Keyword Basics

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2012/06/author-blogging-101-keyword-basics/

Old-School bookmaketing: PR

- publicity hound

http://publicityhound.com/blogs

II) Tools

Blogging:

- Easy, do-it-yourself blog platform (Blogger): http://www.blogger.com

- Find free, legal art for your blog: http://search.creativecommons.org/

- Free image editor (crop and tweak photos and art) http://www.irfanview.com

- Audio tools:

free audio editor; tricky to use: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

a Youtube-like storage site for audio: https://www.box.com/
- Capture subscribers for your blog: http://www.feedburner.com/
- Monitor traffic to your blog: http://www.statcounter.com

- Round-up of Blogging Tips, Tools, and Resources:

http://www.theloneliestplanet.com/2012/08/blogging-for-writers-tips-tools-and.html

SEO:

- Google Keywords Tool (you may need to sign up)
https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool

Twitter tools:

- Dump people who don't follow back: http://www.manageflitter.com

- Organize Twitter, pre-schedule Tweets, plus and easy tool to capture and Tweet pages you find on the Web. http://www.hootsuite.com
- Automatically post new blogs to your Twitter, Linked In, and Facebook accounts. Note: this tool will truncate your blog's headline and some of the text. Double-check posts once they appear in Facebook and Linked In to make sure the headlines read OK. http://www.twitterfeed.com

E-mail management service:

- Mail chimp: http://www.mailchimp.com

Toolkit image: By Davidpk212 at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-2.5], from Wikimedia Commons

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Promote Your Writing: 4 Tips for Public Readings

2013-04-23T12:57:00.001-04:00

This article includes tips that will help you read your work like a pro. Public readings are a great way to increase your following, boost your profile among other writers, and in some cases attract an agent. Two years ago, as an unpublished fiction writer, I read with a group of novelists. After my reading, an agent approached me. Of the five readers that night, I was the only one who had memorized and acted out his work. (Once I finish my novel, I will send it to the agent.)

<editors note: most of these tips were originally developed by professional actor and live-performance coach, Michael Mack. He is directing me in my one-man show, "The Chronic Single's Handbook.">

1) Buy a Mic and Stand and Practice at Home

Pros handle the mic, like, well, pros. Amateurs handle the mic like they're afraid of it, like it might bite. You want to be able to adjust mic height and remove the mic from the stand without having to enlist the host or audio technician. You want grab the mic with authority, like you've done this thousands of time before.

If you are reading multiple scenes, you can let the audience know that there's a change coming by either adusting the mic or -- better yet -- removing it from the stand. (This works best when you've memorized your piece -- see tip #4 below.)

I went to a local music store in Boston and bought a cheap mic, stand, and clip for holding the mic on the stand for $42. Before a reading, I set it up in my living room and practice adjusting the height, moving it around like a rock star, and removing and replacing the mic on the stand.

Here's what I bought (before sales tax)

- Cheap microphone: ADM1062 ($15)

- Cheap stand: Ultra Stand 6521bbk ($20)

- a $4 mic holder that affixes mic to top of stand. (no need to mention brand, just make sure it's the right size.

2) Use Props

You don't need a trapeze or a flame-thrower, simple stick drawing or other household objects will do. For one of my pieces, the narrator is discussing a spreadsheet he keeps that lists his past girlfriends. When I reach that section of the story, I pull out an Excel page I created on my computer. As I'm reading, I point to the spreadsheet. The audience probably can't see the spreadsheet, but just the act of pulling it out always gets a laugh. (I always keep it in the same pocket -- my front left pocket.)

Here's a video of me performing the piece -- I take out the spreadsheet at around the 1-minute mark)

In another section, that same narrator is offering different theories on why he's still single. During this passage, I put on a pair of nerdy glasses and show the audience child-like, stick-figure drawings to illustrate the author's different theories: The Fish Theory (a drawing of a fish with a frowny face) and The Valency Theory (a simple drawing of a molecule.)

3) Use Gestures and Voices for Scenes with Multiple Characters

Scenes and pieces in which two people are talking can be great for wowing an audience. Just be sure the audience is clear when each character is talking. Some tips for differentiating characters:

- Turn your head one way when one character speaks and the other when the other character speaks. Face forward when offering background or narration.

- Stay on the mic: even when you turn to face different directions, make sure your mouth is within four to six inches of the mic.

- Use different voices: most people can do a Southern accent, Northern accent, and a woman's voice/man's voice -- that's four different characters already.

- Put attributions and dialog tags at the beginning of changes of dialog so the audience know who is talking.

4) Memorize Your Work

This is the best way to stand out from the other readers. With poetry and comedy, performers memorize their work. For some reason, authors reading prose generally read from the page, which can be boring.

Also, if you memorize your piece, you can perform with the mic in hand without the stand. Nothing is more impressive that taking the mic out of the stand -- going bareback -- and moving the stand off to the side or behind you before you start your performance. This move let's the audience know something special is about to happen.

Tips for memorizing:

- Memorize a short segment. You don't need to memorize your entire reading: One three to five-minute section or scene is enough to impress.

- Start practicing a month before the reading. (That is more than enough time.)

- Read the story or passage you want to memorize several times from the page, out loud. Then try to do as much as you can from memory. (After a few tries, I can typically remember the first few paragraphs of a new piece. Remember: you wrote the piece, you know the story.)

- Try to memorize one-page a day. (You don't need to have it down perfect -- you just need to have enough in your head to practice. A double-space page is a little more than a minute of reading.)

- Memorize the plot: first he goes to the bar, the girl approaches him, they dance, he attempts to nibble on her ear, she slaps his face...

- Practice twice a day. Practice sessions can be as short as ten minutes. Practice while waiting for the bus, while in the shower, before meeting with your parole officer.

- Once you have the piece more or less memorized, hard-wire it into your memory by performing it as fast as you can without stopping, ignoring any errors -- just get to the end as fast as possible. This is a good way to eliminate pauses and show you where you still need work.

- Use gestures. The more you practice, the more you'll embed certain sections into muscle memory. You're body will know that when you raise your hand, that's the beginning of section X or section Y.

- Fear is good. If you're like me, you will be terrified. Before your performance, you'll be asking yourself, why do I do this to myself. Just let your mind go -- you've done all you can do, you just have to count on the material being there when you get on stage -- it will be there.

- While performing: If you forget a line or a passage, just keep going. The audience won't know. I recently performed a piece and, when I got a passage, I just blanked and couldn't remember the next section. As I stood on stage rooting around in my mind for the section, I said out loud: "Give me a second, it's in there somewhere." I just never remembered the section and moved onto the next section I could remember. After my performance, people still complimented me. Some asked me if I was an actor.

More Self-Promotion Tips for Writers

Original Naughty Humor from My New Site: ChronicSingle.com

Finding Your Match: The Five Romantic Types

The Online Date that Went a Little too Well

Art attribution: Microphone photo

By MARCUS NUNES [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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More Quick, DirtyTwitter Tips for Writers: Tweeting Tricks

2013-04-08T15:22:00.003-04:00

Here's a handful of tools that can save time posting to Twitter. These free programs let you preschedule Tweets and automatically add your Facebook, blog, and Linked In posts to Twitter. I've also included a freebie that adds links for your blog and social media pages to your e-mail.

Executive Summary

For those in a hurry, here's the list of the tools:
- Hootsuite for prescheduling posts. (I schedule a week at a time)
- Hootlet, a free Hootsuite tool that makes it easy to capture Web pages you want to post to Twitter, as well as Facebook, Linked In and social media groups you follow.
- Tweetdeck automatically posts your latest blogs to Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In. (There are some notable gotchas, noted later in this blog.)
- Linked In and Facebook include tweaks that will automatically post your activities to Twitter.
- WiseStamp enhances your emails with a signature that can include icons and links to your social media profiles. The tool has recently added some slick enhancements.
- The end of this blog has some additional Tweeting tips.

More Detail

Preschedule Tweets with Hootsuite and Hootlet

Hootsuite allows you preschedule posts to Twitter, as well as to your other social media profiles and groups, including those on Linked In and Facebook. (I apologize if I sound like a shill for this product. I use it and can recommend it. Other people use Tweetdeck, which has made some concerning announcements, and other Twitter automation tools.)

How the Hootsuite Scheduler Works In Three Steps

Create your Tweet. Here, I'm planning to promote a link from my blog. I want to schedule it for Thursday at 11:25 p.m..

Then, I choose where I want to promote the link. My options, which I previously set up in Hootsuite, include my two Twitter profiles, as well as some groups I've joined on Linked In. (The free version of Hootsuite limits you to five options.)

Hootsuite also includes a calendar where you can view scheduled Tweets and posts.

Hootlet, a free tool included with Hootsuite, lets you quickly share interesting Web pages and links with your followers. When I come to a Web page I want to share, I click on the Hootlet bookmark I created and it captures the link. Here are the basic steps for using this tool:

Hootlet is listed under Hootsuite's tools button. I installed it and then bookmarked it. When I see a Web page I want to share, I click the button on my bookmark menu bar. (top red-highlight).

Once I click Hootlet, it captures and shortens the link for easy posting to Twitter and elsewhere.

Automatically Share Posts from a Blog, Facebook, and Linked In to Twitter

Twitterfeed: Share Your Blog Posts

This freebie automatically forwards your blog posts to Linked In, Twitter, and/or Facebook. It's straight-forward and easy to set up.

Twitter has three simple steps and allows you to automatically share blog posts to Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In.

After adding your blog address, Twitterfeed lets you add social media for automatic posting.

Notes and Gotchas: Twitterfeed will grab your headline, description, and a piece of art and create a post for Linked In and Facebook. You are relying on Twitterfeed to decide how your post will look best -- the program may truncates text or do other weird stuff. For Twitter, I don't really care because I will post the same link multiple times with different headlines. Also, Twitter followers may be more accepting of text slop. But my Facebook Fan page is too important to risk a weird, computer-generated post. So, in the Feed Publishing screenshot above, I had NOT clicked the Facebook box. For my Facebook Fan page, I post my blog manually and write a custom description.

Automated posts can turn into a bit of a mess with Twitterfeed. It's probably fine for Twitter, but you may not want this type of slop to appear on Linked In or a Facebook Fan page.

Share Facebook and Linked In Posts to Twitter

Twitter for Linked In

Once you add your Twitter handle to your Linked In profile, you'll have the option to have your updates automatically posted to your Twitter account. Again, this is an automated process that truncates your post, but provides a link. Sometimes, comments you make to Linked In groups will also appear on Twitter. This helps provide a stead stream of content for your Twitter feed.

Adding your Twitter handle to Linked In lets you post truncated versions of your post to Twitter.

Twitter for Facebook

This tool is pretty straightforward. This link provides the details.

Other Tweeting Tips

- Don't just post links: Include some full statements or comments or musings that don't need links. I post statistics, one-line jokes, etc. Posting photos and videos is another good way to mix things up.

- Leave 15 or so characters at the end of Tweets, so people can retweet your tweet without cutting off text. (instead of using all 140 characters, consider using only 125.)

- Don't use too many hashtags -- three is a good limit -- in one tweet or it will look like gobbledy gook.

- Repost your own tweets. Post one at 9:00 a.m. one week and at 5 p.m. the next. You never know when people will be checking Twitter. By experimenting, you can find out which times are most effective. I've read that immediately before and after work are best times. I have no data to back up that claim.

E-Mail Freebie: Include Your Web Sites and Social Media Profiles in Messages

WiseStamp lets you add a fancy signature to your e-mail messages. I've been using it with Yahoo! Mail for over a year and haven't had any problems. Also, they recently added the capability to include a Like button for your Facebook Fan Page.

The WiseStamp interface is relatively straight foward and allows you to add icons and links for blogs and your social media profiles to e-mail messagess.

WiseStamp adds a signature with links and icons to the bottom of your e-mails.

More Social Media Tips

Quick and Dirty Facebook Tricks for Writers

Linked In Tips for Writers

Just for Fun

Chronically Single? You've Got Company (a recent comedy performance promoting my novel and one-man show.)

How One Group of Writer's is Making Living

Art attribution: Twitter image by Twitter_logo_initial.svg:en:User:GageSkidmore, modified by User:Cproderivative work: Zapyon (Twitter_logo_initial.svg) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

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Quick, Dirty Twitter Tips for Writers

2013-03-28T12:50:00.000-04:00

Tools and tricks for adding followers and spending more time on what really matters -- your writing. This article is for newbies and intermediate Twitter users who want to boost their platform.

One publishing expert claims that agents and publishers want to see authors with a total social media audience -- across Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc -- of at least 5,000. Used efficiently, Twitter is the easiest way to boost your numbers. (For fiction authors seeking an agent, having an impressive audience/platform is supposedly less important. Not sure I agree. Here's another article on author platform size.)

Tips for Adding Followers

- Make sure you're following good people -- people with lots of followers who are interested in your genre or book's topic. I'm building an audience of people interested in my topic "self-promotion for writers." (Confession: If I was smart, I'd clean out my Twitter account by dumping followers who are not writers. But I'm not that smart and I don't want to lose any followers at this point. To dump useless followers, use the free app, ManageFlitter, mentioned below.)

- Then, each day click on folks listed in the "Who to Follow" box on your Twitter page. You don't want to add too many people too quickly for two reasons: First, Twitter will slap your hand. If you ignore the slap, you may lose your Twitter account. Though Twitter won't divulge it's recommended ratio of following to followers, if you keep those numbers with in 10 to 20 percent of each other, you're probably fine. So, if you have 1,000 followers, you should be able follow up to 1,200 people without a problem. Also, if you follow a lot of people and have few people following you, you look like a loser and may have problems getting people to follow you back.

- Dump useless followers. Twice a month -- or whenever I get a nasty note from Twitter about following too many people -- I use ManageFlitter to dump people I'm following who are not following me back. The free version allows you to dump up to 100 people a day. Though there are other free apps, such as FriendorFollow, I found ManageFlitter to be the easiest to use.

Add too many followers too fast, and Twitter will slap your hand.

ManageFlitter offers a free, easy way to dump people who are not following you back.It also provides details on people, so you can think twice before giving them the heave ho.

Add Followers the Sleazy Way

There are numerous Web sites and schemes for adding lots of followers using follow back services. Google "twitter follow back" for a list. The problem with follow back schemes: you may end up with a lot of useless followers -- people who not interested in your writing, but only interested in boosting their numbers.

A search on Google for Follow Back services and sites. These sites also offer follow back for adding Facebook Fans and blog followers. Personally, I think these services are a waste of time.

My experience: I once used a follow back option on World Literary Cafe, a site for writers. It turned out to be too much work, so I abandoned it. (You're supposed to visit the site and follow a bunch of folks, who then follow you back. You're also supposed to mention World Literary Cafe when you follow folks.) The other problem with the site: if your audience is not writers, you'll be adding a lot of useless folks, which negates future use of strategy listed above in "Tips for Adding Followers."

World Literary Cafe offers follow back options Twitter, Facebook, and even blogs.

Follow me on Twitter: @rsquaredd

Image at top of article: "Emerging Media - Twitter Bird" by MKHMarketing

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If you write what you love will the money follow?

2013-03-04T15:01:00.000-05:00

This article discusses general strategies for making money as a creative writer, offers inspiration to keep going, and includes one writer's personal plan for the next 12 months. I've also included an unpleasant dose of old-school reality.

The genesis of this article came from two free consultations I had with a small business development expert who specialized in helping creative types make a living. (Make no mistake: If you're a freelance writer or book author, you are a small business person.)

His very blunt advice to me:
- You need to determine if the writing you love is going to be a nice hobby or a real job.
- To do that, you need objective third-party confirmation -- from people other than friends or relatives -- that you've got talent.
- For most creative types, if you do what you love, the money will NOT follow.

Note: The photo above is my car, which is now old enough to buy its own beer and cigarettes. Keeping this babe-magnet for 20 years has allowed me to save a lot of money on transportation.

I) Got Talent?

Third Party Confirmation

Writers can get third-party confirmation numerous ways, including:

- Winning a significant writing contest, grant, or award.

- Getting published in significant magazines and top-ranked literary journals.

- Being chosen for a prestigious fellowship or residency for writers.

- Finding an agent and mainstream publisher.

- Self-publishing and selling lots of books.

My Results

I have tried -- or plan to try -- all of the above. To date, I've had enough success to delude myself, but not enough to pay for a bag of groceries.

Specifically:

- I've applied to a bunch of contests and grants and had no luck with any of the majors. Many of the contests cost money, money that adds up. From now on, I'm sticking with free contests and grants, such as this grant offered to residents of Massachusetts. (Two friends won the Mass grant's top prize of $7,500.)

- I've also sent stories to literary magazines. Though none of the major ones took my stuff, several smaller ones did. Also, I was a finalist in a small, local fiction contest that had "dozens of entrants." I received no money, but my piece appeared in two very small literary journals. Upshot: Theoretically, I can say I'm a published fiction writer. However, the small business expert told me to quit noodling around with publications no one has heard of. Agreed.

- I've also applied for a fellowship at the prestigious MacDowell Colony. The application ($30), was pretty painless. I'm supposed to hear back in the next few weeks. (I know one unpublished writer who got accepted.)

- Recently, I pitched a one-hour, one-man show based on my novel to two fringe theater festivals. I was accepted to both festivals, but I'm unclear how selective they are. One festival chose entrants using a lottery system. The other will cost me $700, but I'll get to perform five shows over a two-week period. Fringe theater festivals look for new and/or experimental performance pieces. They also give out awards and you have the opportunity to earn money from box office receipts. A list of fringe theater festivals.

II) Chasing the Dream, Paying the Bills

There are a number of strategies for funding your writing. None are easy.

1) Work, Save, Quit Job, Write for love, Repeat as Needed

I believe this is what writer Richard Bach did. I remember reading something in one of his books about him working odds jobs, saving money, quitting the jobs, writing until the money ran out, and repeating until his first book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, took off (pun intended).

But according to What Should I Do with My Life by Po Bronson, once people start making decent money, it becomes tough to quit a job. That was my experience. I had always wanted to write a novel, be a stand-up comedian, and do a bunch of other impractical things with slim odds of making money. But I had a nice editing job at PC World magazine with a nice title, a nice salary, working with nice people. I'd probably still be there, if I hadn't gotten laid off after 15 years in 2007.

I also lucked out when it came to saving money: I've always been cheap; I lived in a rent-control apartment that I shouldn't had; I put money in the stock market during the roaring 90's, Did I mention I'm cheap? For inspiration on saving money, check out The Millionaire Next Door:

Note: Quitting a full-time job is particularly difficult if you're single. One bit of advice from Bronson's book: Get used to being alone. Since I started working on my novel five years ago, my dating life has gone down the tubes. It seems many women my age are not impressed by 50-year-old dreamers. Other don't seem to be impressed by my car. (I have plenty of other issues. For a full accounting, see "Why I'm Over 40 and Still Single.") These days, I frequently go 24 hours without talking to anyone except the check-in clerk at my gym.

2) Find Someone to Support You

I have several writer friends with generous spouses. I'm still looking. Other friends are living on family money. Several others are veterans who receive free healthcare. All of us are on tight budgets, rarely eat out, and most drive cars like the one in the photo at the top of the page.

3) Work part time, write the rest of the time.

This is also tough to do in the current economy. Making a living as a freelancer often means you have little control over your schedule and can't turn down jobs that come your way. In 2009, I lucked out and found a two-day a week Web marketing gig. The job was every Monday and Tuesday -- which left me three to four days to do what I wanted. It paid $35/hour and the guy I worked for was a pleasure. To finish my novel, I needed extra time, so last April I quit this job.

4) Work full time, write in spare time.

I don't know how people do this, but they do. And they finish books. I don't have the discipline to pull this off.

5) Develop more outlets and revenue streams for the work you love.

I have set aside enough money to squeak by for a year without working -- provided I can make some money. Here's what I plan to try:

III) Revenue Streams for Writers: My Approach

As a writer/small business person I have two product lines:
1) Self-promotion advice for writers.
2) Humor and naughty fiction.

Here are ways I could make money with each product line.

1) Self-Promotion for Writers

Online:

- Google Ads on this blog. I'm currently earning $10 a month. (If you click and ad, I get some dough. ) If I can increase my page views from the 3,000 a month I get now to 30,000, I'll make some money. Odds of making real money: slim.

- Ebooks: Self-publish excerpts of this blog as Kindle Singles, write an ebook on self-promotion for writers. Odds of marking real money: no idea, but probably slim.

Offline/Old School:

- Teach/Lecture at local adult education centers, colleges, any place that will take me. So far, this looks promising. I approached several instutions in Boston and am scheduled to teach seminars or be on panels. The pay rate is low: $20 per hour of teaching. One of the panels will pay around $200. This is also a good way to promote my blog and ebooks. Odds of making real money: best option, depending on your definition of real.

2) Humor and Naughty Fiction

Online:

- Ebooks: I'll repackage and self-publish my writing into three ebooks: humorous erotica, weird travel tales, excerpts from my novel. I've been selling the novel excerpts off my site using Paypal. Odds of making money: longshot.

- Video: I've recording myself performing around Boston and then allowed Youtube to post ads at the beginning of my videos. (I've earned $5 over the last year.)

- Audio: Recording MP3 files for sale is relatively easy. Using a mic, you can dictate directly into your computer or record to an audio recorder that records to MP3 format, and then upload to your computer. (Last year, I spent $80 for a Philips recorder that works pretty well. ) Decent recording and editing software called Audacity is free but can be a pain to use. Once the files are on my computer, I upload them to a site called Box.net, like Youtube but for audio. (sales to date: Zip, nadda, bupkis) You can also upload audio to a site called PRX.org that allows public radio stations to purchase your clips. (sales to date: zilch, nil, non-existent.) And finally, you can upload your recordings to iTunes for sale as podcasts. (I haven't done this yet)

Offline/Old School:

- Readings and Performances: I'll pitch more fringe festivals, colleges, and any venue that will have me. Also, a good opportunity to sell ebooks and printed booklets of my writing. Odds of making real money: best option.

- Getting a book deal with an advance. Odds of this happening or me making real money: Ha!

The Holstee Manifesto

For More Inspiration

- Books, Blogs, and More

- The Holstee Manifesto

Note:

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10 Quick, Dirty Facebook Tips for Writers

2013-02-18T13:27:00.000-05:00

As much as we all like to gripe about recent changes to Facebook, there are some good uses for the social media site that don't involve spending a lot of time or money. Here are some quick and dirty tips for writers that focus on: driving traffic to a blog, keeping in touch with a core group of fans, building your platform (Fans/Likes) numbers.

Using Facebook to Drive Traffic to Your Blog or Web Site

1) Post Links to Facebook Groups

From a Personal page, search for groups on your particular writing topic. For this blog on book marketing and platform building geared to writers, I searched on "writ" and generated the partial list in the screen shot below. Depending on your topic, you may also find some useful Fan pages. Some Fan pages will let you post links, others won't. Many may require you to Like them before you can post. (You can always un-Like them later.)

Note: If you post links to too many groups in one sitting, Facebook will warn you to slow down -- heed the warning or your account may get frozen.

2) Save Time Posting to Your Fan Page with the Auto Post Feature.

After you create a post, click the little clock icon beneath your post and schedule upcoming posts. For the week of Valentine's Day, I scheduled one post a day with blog links for single people who hate this particular holiday.

3) Post Photos

During a recent Boston snowstorm, I posted photos of the mounting snow outside my window. I posted photos of my dwindling beer supply as the night wore on. This was quick and painless and some fans reposted my photo to their Friends and Fans.

Want to add other types of free art, videos, and photos? Here's how.

Building Your Platform: Add Likes (and Caveats)

Big companies add Likes by offering freebies and product discounts on their Web sites and brick-and-mortar stores. You may not have that option. Here are some no-cost options.

4) Convert Your Personal Page to a Fan Page

Adding Friends is easy. Adding Likes/Fans is tougher. If you have a personal page, one relatively easy way to build a large number of Fans is to add a steady number of friends and then convert your personal Profile page to a Fan page. Over a year, I built up to 1800 friends and then converted the page to a Fan page. I don't recall any of them complaining or un-Liking my page after the conversion.

Notes:
*Facebook will warn you when you're adding too many people at a time to your Personal account. Heed the warning or your account will temporarily be shut down. Five to ten people a night is generally a safe number.

*To post to Facebook Groups, you will need to create another Personal page. Not a big deal, you'll just have to re-add the Friends you really care about. Just send them a note letting them know that you converted your previous page to Fan page and you're starting a new personal page just for close friends and family.

5) Add a Like Button to Your Blog, Web site, E-Mail Signature

I'm not clear how many Likes this has added for me, but it's worth doing. My version of this is in the right-hand column of this page, under "Pleading and Sniverling."
Here's how
*Note this is a convoluted process:
- You enter your Fan Page url (easy enough)
- Select the details you want to see (my choices in screen below)
- Next the fun part: when you click "Get Code," you'll get a bunch of choices. You'll need to paste this code onto your blog or Web page. For this Blogger blog, I chose the IFRAME option. You may have try a few options to see what works.

To add links to your Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In accounts to your e-mails, use a free tool such as Wisestamp.

6) A Word about Like Fests

If you already have a Fan page, like-minded folks on Linked In and follow-back sites may be interested in exchanging Likes. In my opinion, this is pretty worthless -- you'll add lots of people who probably don't care about your posts or your writing. It's also time consuming. But if you just want to see your numbers increase, here one site specifically for writers who want to add Likes.

7) A Word About Your Numbers

Even if you're not generating or reaching huge numbers of people, a Fan or Personal page is a good way to keep in touch with a core group of people who you know are interested in you. (The folks who comment or Like your posts are interested.)

Other Facebook Tips for Writers

8) Link Your Facebook Fan Page Posts to Twitter

This feature automatically sends your Facebook posts to Twitter with a shortened url.

How a linked to my Facebook Fan page appears in Twitter.

9) Ask Friends to Send Their E-mail Address to Get on Your Mailing List

Remember that Facebook can change its rules any time to limit the number of Friends and Fans you reach. One way around this is to pay to promote a post that reaches all your folks. In that post, ask them to send you an e-mail so you can add them to your mailing list. Add the e-mail addresses to a spreadsheet and then upload the names to an e-mail management program like Mailchimp. When you have important news or a book announcement, send them an e-mail.

10) How the Big Boys Add Likes

A good piece from the Social Media Examiner.

Note:

If you're receiving this blog via RSS feed, you may want to sign up below using your e-mail address to assure continued delivery in the event that Google unceremoniously kills Feedburner.

Also, sometimes screen shots do not appear correctly in the RSS feed. If so, go to my blog page.

More Social Media Tips for Writers

- Linked In Tips for Writers

- Facebook Fan Pages: Does it Matter When You Post?

Had Enough Book Marketing for One Day?

- Video of Me Bungee Jumping in New Zealand

- Finding the Love of Your Life: The Five Romantic Personalities

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Image attribution: Facebook photo from Flickr taken by Geekpulp.

The Bitter Single's Guide to Valentine's Day (aka Single's Humiliation Day.)

2013-02-12T00:08:00.000-05:00

The medical staff at The Loneliest Planet has assembled the following guide to get you through the night.

1) Nourishment: Pint of Ben and Jerry's or a pint of Jack Daniels.

2) Fiscal Aversion Therapy:

- Cost of an engagement ring: $4,600
- Cost of a wedding: $27,000
- Cost of raising a child to 18 (not including college) $227,000
- Cost of a divorce: $8,000 to $133,000 (fees for lawyers and accountants for a contested divorce that goes to trial.)
- Intangibles costs: Average weight gain for men and women after five years of marriage: 6 to 9 pounds.
*Note on Sources: Sketchy at best; I grabbed first semi-reasonable results from Google.

3) Cognitive Therapy:

a) Light Reading: "The John and Lorena Bobbit Story"
Heart-warming tale of boy meets girl, boy abuses girl, girl cuts of boy's penis and throws it out the window of a speeding car, boy becomes a porn star.
b) Movies:
- War of the Roses: Still want to get married?
- Fatal Attraction: Think your last girlfriend was a drama queen?
- Caligula: Think your last boyfriend was a jerk?

4) Self-Improvement

a) Personality Test: Are you marriage material?
b) One man's pathetic story that will no doubt make you feel better about your situation: "Why I'm Over Forty and Still Single"

tags: Valentine's day singles, valentines day singles, singles humiliation day, singles awareness day, single's awareness day.

Old School Book Marketing, 10-month Progress Report

2013-02-04T14:52:00.000-05:00

As harsh as the New England winter has been, the reality of book marketing has been even harsher. I’ve spent almost a year following the advice of book marketing experts – agents, bloggers, authors – and I’m coming to the realization that online marketing may not be the most efficient use of my time. My traffic and blog subscribers – my metrics for success -- have increased steadily, but will probably never yield the numbers I’d need to make a living or sell a lot of books.

As previously noted, my novel is not finished. If I were to get an agent and a publisher this might all change. "Might" being the operative word. If I were to self publish, I would likely not make a whole lot of money due to my current Web traffic numbers. However, I have not spent any time learning the ins and out of Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other book-selling sites, which would surely help sales, but I'm not clear by how much.

My Numbers

1) Web Traffic

Page views (visits)

- Nov 2012.: 3,000 (2,000)

- Dec. 2012: 2,900 (1,860)

- Jan. 2013: 3,340 (2,140) My most current numbers.

Revenue from Google Ads posted on this blog:

- about $10 a month for the last two months, my highest ever, enough for two beers. (However, Google will not send me a check until my total ad revenue reaches $100. I'm currently at $55.)

- Each time you click an ad, I get some money.

Subscribers to Blog

- Nov.: 142

- Dec.: 150

- Jan.: 180

Notes:

- January was my best month ever for traffic, but this is still not enough to impress an agent.

- The traffic numbers have been rounded off and include traffic to this blog, my resume site, and my travel site, which I no longer update.

- Subscribers, one of my metrics for success, continues to increase slowly but steadily. These are people who like my stuff enough to sign up, which means they would be more likely to purchase something from me.

- Free e-book offering: 38 downloads since September. I offer this free to people who sign up. The ebook includes sample scenes from my novel in progress. In theory, having your writing circulating around the Web increases your chances of a serendipitous event -- an agent, editor, publisher, or published writer sees my stuff and thinks, "This guy is a genius, we have to sign him." I'm not holding my breath on this one.

2) Social Media

Twitter: 1,337, up about 500 from 840 in November (I'm, skipping December due to holidays.)

- I found a painless way to run up my numbers with people who are likely worthwhile. (see Tips below.)

Facebook fan page: 2.047 Likes, up 4 from 2,043 Likes in November.

- For a typical post, I reach about 150 of Likes/Fans, down from 250 in September and 400 last April. This is because Facebook is now charging to reach all your Fans, which we all know is a rip-off.

- On Jan. 6, I had one post that reached 750 people because New York Times tech columnist David Pogue commented on it, which brought some traffic from his followers. This was a fluke and not something I can reproduce at will. Actually, this is the first time this happened.

Linked In: 1,227 followers, up 60 from 1,167 in November.

- This is still where I get about 75% of my traffic, but the traffic is from other writers reading my book blog. Will other writers buy a novel? Unclear.

3) Old School Book Marketing: Readings, Lectures, Publications, and Press

- I added an events page list my appearances for the last three years and upcoming events.

- I pitched myself as a author/entertainer to a chain of sex-toy shops. We talked on the phone, but nothing has come of it yet. (I've written some humorous erotica, some of this has been published.)

- I pitched a book marketing class called "Build your platform before you finish your book" to a local writing school, an MFA program, and a local adult education center. Results: I've been selected to appear on two panels and give a lecture as part of a self-publishing class.

- I pitched a one-man show based on my novel to three fringe/theater festivals. I'll hear back at the end of the month.

- I've submitted some of my book-marketing blogs and had them published on a self-publishing tips site. (If you've got writing/marketing tips, it's easy to submit to this site. Is this a good use of your time, if your book is fiction? Probably not.)

My plan of action for 2013

Manage my online time better:

- Spend even less time on Social Media: It's just not a good use of my time and, except for Linked In, these sites do not generate much traffic.

- Spend more time finishing my novel and on old school networking activities that will get me in front of people who might help me find an agent. (Supposedly, the best way to get an agent is by having a published writer recommend you to their agent. Hence, my appearances on book-marketing panels.)

- Stop submitting my work to small literary journals that are not widely read. I've had several pieces published in little journals, so I guess I can say I'm a published fiction writer. But now it's time to try for bigger journals, mainstream newspapers and magazines -- places where I may get some real exposure. (I've been submitting to the New Yorker, New York Times "Modern Love" column, and Harper's with no luck. McSweeney's, well-respected humor site, sent me one personalized rejection -- That and $5.00 will get me a beer and not much else.)

- I had a free meeting with a small business consultant from the local office of the Small Business Administration. He specializes in artists and their money woes. (As a writer, we're all basically small businesses.) My question for him: Can I make a living writing humor and fiction? I will discuss his comments and recommendations later this month in a blog called “If you write what you love will the money follow?"

Tips

1) Twitter:

- Quick and easy way add Followers:

Follow people who your followers are following. If you’re following the right people, chances are they’re following related people as well. I’ve been clicking on five to ten people a day, which takes about five seconds. (see #2) below

- Once I’m following 300 hundred more followers than I have, I use Tweepi.com's flush tool to dump people who are not following me. You don’t want to be following too many more people than follow you or you’ll look like a loser. Also, if you follow too many more, Twitter will not be happy with you. (see #1 below)

2) Rumors of Feedburner Disappearing (For geeks only)

- Feedburner allows blog visitors to subscribe to your blog. In October, Google killed off some features that have yet to affect me -- all I care about is providing an easy way for people to subscribe to my blog. (my sign up box below uses Feedburner). Feedburner still appears to be working.

- If you're worried about this, you can switch to another sign-up tool using advice offered here and here. (Note: I have not tried out any of these alternatives to Feedburner.)

- This whole topic makes my brain swell, so I've done the bare minimum: I've been backing up my subscriber list periodically. If I need to, I can upload the names to an e-mail management tool, such as Mailchimp, and send folks my blog that way. (I'd lose the 30 or so people who signed up via RSS.)
- Google seems to be noticeably absent from the online discussions regarding the fate of Feedburner.

- Note: if you're receiving this blog via RSS feed, you may want to sign up below using your e-mail address to assure continued delivery in the event that Google unceremoniously kills Feedburner.

More Book Marketing

- More Old School Tips

- Three Ways to Boost Blog Traffic

For Valentine's Day

- Bitter Single's Guide to Valentine's Day

- Are Men Doomed?

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Attribution for Boston Blizzard photo: Boston By Beau Wade from New York, USA [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Networking for Writers: Yes, It's Who You Know

2013-01-14T12:21:00.000-05:00

This article includes tips for expanding the network of people who can help you find an agent or publisher, increase your pool of potential readers, or make money with your writing. We're talking about connecting with real people not just adding more Twitter followers who couldn't care less what you do.

Full disclosure: I'm a writer and an introvert, so these suggestions -- which are commonsense to sales people and extroverts -- were not commonsense to me.

1) Stalk People Online

Found someone interesting or influential on a Website or in a social media group?
- Connect with them on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and other places they hang out.
- Like their posts, retweet their Tweets, comment on their discussions.
- If they're selling something inexpensive, buy it.
- Do this over a period of months, then ask for their help politely and directly. (See "Asking for Help" below.)
- Help you could ask for: posting or tweeting a link to your blog or about your book to their followers, advice on a publishing problem, a referral to someone they know who could help you.
*Real World Example: I haven't tried this yet, but I've had it done to me -- and I was happy to help.

2) Talk about Your Book When You're Out and About - in the Flesh or Online

*Real World Example: I belong to several Meetup groups that I attend for social activities.
- In my Meetup profile, I mention my book, which is supposed to be funny, and my Meetup tagline is the "The Comedian."
- A woman who is into books and reading, contacted me. We e-mailed and met for drinks -- we're just friends -- but she introduced me via e-mail to two published writers she knows. I spoke to them both on the phone. One wants to see the first five pages of my novel.

3) Host an Event and Invite Influential People to Speak or Read

*Real World Examples:
- A friend who is looking for an agent, is hosting a reading event. He invited a lot of big-name local novelists. He will also read at his event. If the authors like his stuff, they may offer to help him find an agent.
- In Boston, I co-host a monthly happy hour for local writers called Media Chowder. Since I'm a co-host, people know me or want to know me. A published author who came to a few events would e-mail me periodically and ask how my book was coming a long. One day, out of the blue, he offered to forward my query letter to his agent who said she couldn't sell my current book but would happy to look at future stuff.

4) Asking for Help

- E-mail etiquette: Ask politely and directly for what you want. Don't write a long-winded puffy letter full of compliments, and then ask for a favor as if it was an afterthought.
- Don't do someone a favor, and then immediately asking for a favor -- it's tacky.
- A great piece on this topic from writer Sarah Manguso
- A great book on this topic: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. (Don't laugh: I've taken the a Dale Carnegie course and read this book -- best plain-English advice I've ever gotten.)

5) A Word about Agents

- Authors are very proprietary about their agents and many will not offer to connect you to their agent.
- Personally, I would never ask for a referral to an author's agent. I'd mention that I'm looking for an agent and if they offer, great.

6) Make a Deal: More on Agents

- I know several writers who are also looking for an agent. I like their work and they like mine. We have an agreement: If one of us finds an agent, we'll ask our agent to read the other writers' query letter.

7) What Goes Around Comes Around

- Some of the people who helped me are either not looking for help or are in fields in which I can't do anything for them.
- But when someone contacts me and is polite, I try to help them. (I have also learned to say 'no' to people who are just looking for a lot of free advice.)
*Real world example: Several times I've been contacted on Linked In by people looking for an editor. At the time, I didn't have time. But I referred the people to people I knew -- one whom I had met on Linked In. The results: Two people I knew now have consulting gigs with Linked In connections.
*A number of people, noted earlier in this post, have helped me without me even asking.

8) Always Be Closing But Don't Be a Jerk.

More Book Marketing

- How Many Agents Should You Query? 50? 150?

- E-mail Lists and Newsletters

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*Attribution for networking image at top of post: This was a public domain image I found on Pixabay.

Image attribution: I couldn't locate creator of this image, but here's where I got it.

Quick, Dirty Book Marketing: Stuff that's Worked for Me

2013-01-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

Here's a quick overview of book marketing strategy based on things that have worked for me during the last six months. This article also suggests easy-to-use Web-based tools and a warning for users of Google's Feedburner blog subscription tool.

A key goal of book marketing is to drive people to your blog or Web site, and then get them to leave an e-mail address. Here's why: Remember all those Facebook friends and likes, Twitter followers, and Linked In connections you've spent hours collecting? They're not your friends, they are Facebook's friends.

If a social media platform -- for example Facebook -- changes its rules and want to charge you to reach your hard-earned connections, you're screwed. If the social media company closes it's doors, you're screwed. More on why Facebook sucks.

I) Blogging

1) Choosing a platform

For most people the choice boils down to WordPress or Blogger.

- Blogger is simpler

- WordPress is more powerful, meaning there are more cool things you can do with it.

Both platforms will allow you to create a blog that looks, feels, and behaves like a Web site. This blog was created with Blogger.

2) Content, Frequency, Length

a) Content:

- For Non-fiction writers this is easier: Focus on current events, offer tips, respond to reader comments.

- For Fiction writers: Pick some themes and topics mentioned in your book and treat them the same way a non-fiction writer does. So, If your book involves an exotic location, write about that location. If your characters are single, write about single life.

- Should writers blog about writing? There's a lot of conflicting opinions. Some experts claim you'll be diluting your audience and that writers don't buy books. Other experts, say that's hogwash. Try it and see if you get any clicks.

*Include a piece of art at the top of your blog! Posts will look more professional and be more attractive when you promote you links on Facebook, Linked In, and other sites. A good place to find free art: Creative Commons. A word on attribution: you want to give credit to artists. I've been grabbing the attributions and posting them at the end of my blogs.

*Be sure the first paragraph or your blog summarizes the content: When you post links to your blog, some social media sites will include the first graph. If that graph is cutesy, clever, and confusing, you'll lose readership.

b) Frequency

I was blogging weekly and it was too much work. Now, I'm blogging three times a month, which feels about right -- and my traffic has remained about the same.

c) Length

Some experts recommend no more than 250 words. I've been doing up to 750. Length doesn't seem to affect my traffic.

3) Capturing E-Mails

You want people who like your blog to sign up or subscribe. Suggestions for increasing sign ups:

a) Use a tool such as Feedburner, which does the following:
- Creates a sign-up box that lets readers add their e-mail or subscribe via RSS feed.
- Many people hate Feedburner because it doesn't offer any tech support -- like many free tools from Google, including Blogger, you're on your own. (For tech support, I always search on the problem I'm having and often other people have had similar problems and come up with answers. For example, I recently searched on: "Why does my Feedburner count fluctuate?" and found reams of answers.

b) Post a sign-up box at the end of each blog post. (See end of this post for how I do it.)

*NOTE: There are rumors that Google may shut down Feedburner. Here's what you can do to move your subscribers to alternatives to FeedBurner.

4) Include Google Ads?

If you are getting some traffic, say more than 3,000 page views a month, consider using Google ads. I just starting posting Google ads on this blog. The ads are in the upper right-hand corner and at the bottom of the page. The ads have not hurt my traffic and I earned $10 last month. I suspect that earnings will go up as Google starts posting more relevant ads.

II) SEO

SEO involves several steps:
- Determining the best Google-friendly keyword phrases that will make your blog posts easy to find.
- Inserting them into your headlines and first paragraph of your posts.
- Including those keywords in your blog description. (Blogger provides a Search Description box that you can fill out for each post.)

Humorous, useful pieces on Keyword phrases and SEO

More than you need to know about SEO

III) Driving Traffic by Posting Links

This is a key reason you are bothering with social media: To post links that drive people to your blog.
Facebook and Linked In have groups of people with similar interests. Linked In and Facebook allow you to search for groups by topic and will tell you how many members are in each group.
*Before signing up for a group: consider the number of members, then visit the group to how active those members are: If there are only a few posts from the same person or the posts are two weeks old, skip it.
*Linked In limits the number of groups you can join to 50. Posting links to 50 groups takes me about a 1.5 hours, but it generates 75% of my traffic.

IV) Managing E-mails

You have a lists of people in your personal and business e-mail. Any of them interested in your writing? If you have more than 50, you won't be able to e-mail them all at once from a typical e-mail program, like say, Yahoo! Mail.

For managing large groups of e-mails and for creating periodic e-mail blasts and e-mail newsletters use an e-mail management service. I've been using Mailchimp and, so far, have no complaints.

More on managing e-mail addresses and newsletters.

V) Offline Book Marketing

1) Public Readings

You don't have to be a big name author -- or even have a book -- to do public readings. I've been reading from my as-yet unfinished book at poetry slams (my book isn't poetry), story slams (I won one), a smut slam (don't ask), and public libraries (libraries in Boston pay readers.)

The key to giving public readings: Make sure you collect e-mail addresses from people at the reading. Add these people manually to Mailchimp or your e-mail management program.

Note: I'm an idiot, I've given more than 50 readings and didn't bother collecting e-mails until last month. Don't make the same mistake!

Tips on reading your work in public.

2) More on Public Readings

I once gave a reading at a store that sells travel gear (My novel includes a lot of travel scenes.) I am going to approach other stores related to other themes in my book:

- Humorous erotica: I'm going to pitch readings to lingerie shops, wine stores, stores that sell sex toys, sex conferences.

- More travel: I am gong to create a (PG-rated) presentation about my trip around the world and weave in readings from my book. I'll pitch hostels, hotels, and more stores that sell travel gear.

- Dating and single life: I have a lot of dating scenes in my book, I just need to find stores that cater to singles. This could also include wine stores, fancy restaurants, and singles clubs.

3) A-B-C: Always Be Closing

If someone asks you what you do, mention your book. If they seem interested ask if they want to be on your mailing list. If they had you a business card, be sure to ask them: "Is this the best e-mail for personal e-mail or information on my book?"

Had Enough Book Marketing?

- Vicodin, Klonopin, or Heineken: What do unemployed writers have for breakfast?

- Humorous Erotica: The Online Date that Went a Little too Well *

*Content Warning: This piece contains adult language, adult situations, and more adult language.

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Attribution for Book image at top of post: "This file is from the Open Clip Art Library, which released it explicitly into the public domain, using the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication."

How to Keep Going: Inspiration for Writers

2013-01-01T10:52:00.000-05:00

With all the bad news about publishing, writing, the economy, the Boston Red Sox, the New York Giants -- how do you keep going? Here's some inspiration that covers writing, the creative process, and motivation. Warning to atheists: Many of these writings describe creativity using terms such as channeling, higher power, and the gods.

Books

I borrowed most of the following books from my local library. If you're low on cash, you can, too. Many are pretty short. Some of the longer ones are quick reads because they're hard to put down. And one wasn't worth finishing but I enjoyed the first two thirds.

"The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard
All about the process, the frustrations, the blind alleys, cutting your favorite passages, writing for days and coming up with only a few useable sentences -- and then having to toss them.
Read the first two pages here.

"The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life" by Twyla Tharp
Though Tharp is famous as a dance choreographer, she offers practical advice on how to get the muse going: routine, routine, routine.

"Do the Work" and "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield
I read them both and liked the former better. My personal favorite is a passage called "Start Before Your Ready." In other words, don't waste a lot of time researching and preparing -- make sure the pool is deep enough, and then jump in head first. Read a passage on this Amazon link. (Note to readers in Acton, Mass.: I borrowed the book several months ago, lost it, and now have to pay the library $13. There are still a few other copies available.)

"On Writing" by Stephen King
The beginning offers some interesting bio information on how he King got started and his struggles. He's another guy who wrote and wrote, until he got a break. The middle third offered some useful tips. The last third of the book is a memoir about his motorcycle accident; it bored me and I didn't finish it.

Web Sites and Links

Free and just a click away. To read, the New York Times article, "How to Write," you may have to register. Sorry.

"If at First You Don't Succeed, You're in Excellent Company"
This Wall Street Journal article trots out a lot of the usual suspects -- Michael Jordan, Dr. Seuss, Julie Andrews, Winston Churchill -- but I found it moving and cut it out to hang near my desk. (Yes, I'm a corny, sentimental guy.)

"10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You"
A book excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal. Some great, quirky advice. My personal favorite:
"Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives."

"How to Write"
Eleven rules from writer Colson Whitehead. Not that useful but an amusing read. My personal favorite rule: "Have adventures.... Get out and see the world. It’s not going to kill you to butch it up a tad. Book passage on a tramp steamer. Rustle up some dysentery; it’s worth it for the fever dreams alone. Lose a kidney in a knife fight. You’ll be glad you did."

Brain Pickings
This Web site includes a slew of motivational articles and images for writers, artists, and anyone else who needs go out and kick some ass. My recent favorite: The Holstee Manifesto
Here's a quote for us single people gutting it out through the holidays: "If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love.”

Jonesing for Some Book Marketing?

- Book Marketing for Nitwits: Getting Started with SEO

- Easy, Sleazy Book Marketing Results

-Tips for Reading Your Writing in Public

Had Enough Book Marketing?

- Ski Trip to British Columbia: Local potheads, make mine a double, and who said Canadians are nice?

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Art attribution for liquid courage image: By Dirk Van Esbroeck (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Book Marketing and Publishing: Best Web Sites and Blogs

2012-12-17T12:34:00.000-05:00

Over the last year, I've subscribed to so many writing blogs that I'm overwhelmed, buried, and ignoring most them. Here are a bunch that I've found useful. These recommendations focus on the business of writing: book marketing, publishing industry news, or dealing with agents. Most of them are not daily, so they're easier to keep up on.

Book Marketing

- Copy Blogger: Great info on blogging and online marketing. My only gripe is that it arrives daily.
A favorite post: How to Increase Subscription Rate of Your Blog

- Publicity Hound: Lots of tips on P.R. that you won't find in most book marketing blogs. Fair amount of self-promotion by author, but, hey, she's giving away a lot of free stuff.
A favorite post: Authors: 9 things to do when you can’t afford a publicist

- SEOmoz: For geeks only, but some of the best info out there on search engine optimization and online marketing.
A recent favorite post: How Newsworthy Are Your Newsletters?

Writing and Publishing

- Anne R. Allen's Blog...with Ruth Harris: By writers for writers, not too frequent. I receive it as an RSS feed, which allows me to check recent posts at my leisure. Often she posts longer, detailed articles, which I prefer to other bloggers who post more frequent, short pieces that leave you with too many questions unanswered.
A favorite post: Beware the Seven Deadly Writing Scams, the title says it all.

- Business Rusch by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Also, written by a writer. She also will post longer pieces that fully explore a topic.
A favorite post: Why Writers' Disappear

- Jane Friedman: Former publisher of Writer's Digest, she does a great job and often has guest bloggers with interesting stories.
A favorite post: Getting a Traditional Book Deal After Self-Publishing

Agent Advice

- Writer Beware: A blog by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Offers useful advice for all writers, regardless of genre.
A favorite post: Literary Agents -- though it's a little old, a must-read for anyone looking for an agent. Warning: This is a scary piece that may keep you up at night or drive you to self-publish.

- Bent on Books: Lots of agents write blogs, some are decent, some are great for beginners but tend to rehash the same stuff after while. Agent Jenny Bent's blog is monthly -- so you're not overwhelmed and often includes encouraging pieces for writers.
A favorite post: It's not WHO you know, it's WHAT you write in your query

A Successful Blogger with a Unique Voice

- Penelope Trunk: Topics often all over the place, generally related to careers, but a good lesson in the captive power of a writer's voice. She includes personal stuff about her marriage, her kids, her period leaking through her yoga pants. Always self-deprecating, very honest, hard not to root for her -- even if you're a guy.
A favorite post: How she got a big advance from a large publisher and self-published anyway.

Tip for Avoiding Inbox Overload

Sign up for the RSS feed instead of the e-mail version. With the RSS feed, you can check the blogs and topics at your leisure, instead of having your inbox deluged.

Can't Get Enough Book Marketing?

- Book Marketing for Nitwits: Getting Started with SEO

- Easy, Sleazy Book Marketing Results

-Tips for Reading Your Writing in Public

Had Enough Book Marketing?

- Ski Trip to British Columbia: Local potheads, make mine a double and drink like Canadian, who said Canadians are nice?

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Image attribution: Hong Kong, Hong Kong (Overload!Uploaded by Fæ) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons Photo by Roger Price

Time for Old School Book Marketing? My 9-Month Progress Report

2012-12-10T16:47:00.002-05:00

I just finished a book called "Social Media is Bullshit," which confirms what a lot of writers have been suspecting: The Web is stacked against little guys like us. So, I'm going to try old school marketing tactics that involve: the telephone, in-person readings, collecting e-mail addresses, and attempting to get coverage in mainstream broadcast and press.

Executive Summary: Nine Months of Book Marketing Hell

My monthly Web traffic remains stable (about 3,000 page views and 2,000 visits) and I'm adding blog subscribers slowly, but steadily (now have 142 subscribers). But I doubt I'll ever hit numbers big enough to impress an agent or publisher. (Interesting article on how big your platform should be to impress an agent.)

My Numbers

1) Web Traffic

- Page views in July: 2,428       (1,779 unique visits)
- Page views August: 2,977      (2,139)
- Page views Sept.: 2,774        (2,017)
- Page views in Oct.: 2,783      (1,996)
- Page Views in Nov.: 2,956    (2,037)

- Blog subscribers at end July: 48
- Blog subscribers at end of August: 71
- Blog subscribers at end of September: 95
- Blog subscribers at end of October: 114
- Blog subscribers at end of November: 142**

What an agent wants to see: At least 20,000 page views/month. (For that many page views, I'd need about 14,000 visits.)

*includes this blog and about 150 page views for my resume and rarely-updated travel Web sites.
**includes 16 people who did not confirm their subscriptions. After subscribers sign up for my blog, they receive an e-mail asking them to confirm their subscription. For some reason, these folks never confirmed, so I put their e-mails into a Yahoo e-mail list and manually forward each blog post to them.

2) Social Media and E-Mail Addresses

Twitter: 840, up 35 from 805 last month.

- Posting links to my blog in Twitter generated 21 blog page views last month, an average month for me.
- What agents want to see: At least 5,000 Twitter followers.
- Note: This is easy to do by signing on to a Twitter follow group, where you agree to follow people who agree to follow you. The net result: you get a lot of people who have no interest in your work and will likely not buy your book.

Facebook: 2,043 Fans/Likes, up 7 from last month.
- I spent $20 to promote one of my Facebook posts to my Fans and 8,000 of their friends -- and added about 10 Likes, three of whom subsequently un-Liked me. My paid Facebook promotion was a waste of money.)

- Posting links on my Fan page generates very few visitors (33 last month). Posting links to appropriate Facebook groups is more productive and produced visitors (125).
- Worth noting: The "what agents want article" offered no stats for numbers of Facebook Fans and Link In connections. Hmmm.

Linked In: 1,167 connections, up 19 from last month

- Posting links to Linked In groups generated 457 visits, more than any other social media source.
- Note: In early fall, after I attempted to connect with a lot of people who declined my heartfelt requests, Linked In stopped allowing me to contact to people for whom I didn't have an e-mail address.
- As of this week, Linked In has restored my ability to contact people without having their e-mail addresses. However, Linked In wrote that it would revoke my account if I started spamming again.

E-mail Addresses: 439*
- Blog subscribers: (as note above) 142
- Newsletter subscribers: 7 (I just started this newsletter for Boston folks I meet at parties or readings. I added two more people last month!)
- Personal/professional e-mail addresses of people who might care about what I'm doing: 290
*What agents want to see: more than 5,000 addresses.

Banging Our Heads Against the Web-Marketing Wall?

For the next month, I'm going to focus my energy on old-school promotion and marketing.

Here's why:

- After reading "Social Media is Bullshit" I'm willing to believe that the days are gone when an average person can launch a blog and generate huge traffic. The book also says that most large blogs and Web sites are owned by large companies with large staffs and deep pockets that I don't have. Also, the odds of me producing a blog or other content that goes viral are non-existent.

- I worked as an SEO consultant for three years. The company I worked for spent $10,000 a month on a platoon of specialists (including me) who worked to drive traffic to the company's site.

- Social media is not designed to help the average small business person. Witness recent changes to Facebook Fan pages. Also, Linked In groups are increasingly filled with useless spam. Either people will stop participating in these groups or Linked In will come down on people like me who post links to multiple groups. Finally, have I mentioned enough times that I think Twitter is a torrent of crap?

- I am again considering some advice I got from a marketing consultant friend: "Find something you like doing and become good at it."

Old School Book Marketing

At it's most basic, marketing has two steps: Define your audience and reach them. Since I don't have a book to sell yet, I want to get people's e-mail addresses for the future. I can also sell them my chapbook of writing samples.

My Thought Process

1) Who is my audience?
Based on my Facebook Fan page stats, anecdotal evidence from folks who attend my readings, and the age and interests of the characters in my novel, my readers are mostly: aged 35 to 55, educated, urban professionals (modern yuppies.) Their interests include: travel, romantic relationships and sex, dining out, edgy humor, art and culture. (pretty broad, but enough to get me started.)

2) How to reach them
My favorite marketing technique is public readings and lectures. If I want to read to modern yuppies, where will I find them? Swank hotels, trendy restaurants, fund-raisers, corporate functions, adult education programs, retail stores that cater to them (furniture stores, erotic toy stores, wine stores, outdoor gear stores, sporting goods stores, and other stores with products related to themes in my novel.)

To reach a lot of potential readers, I need coverage in the mainstream media: radio, TV, and print. In the past my readings -- even at small venues -- have gotten some coverage in local papers. I've also gotten coverage on local cable TV stations.

3) What I plan to do this month:
- Send pitches for classes I could teach to local adult education centers. (I took a trip around the world and have lectured about that in the past. I could also lecture about the basics of book marketing.)
- Send pitches for my readings to colleges catering to older students. (I have organized my readings into what can be loosely describe as a one-man show.)
- Contact some event planners to see if they would consider me as "literary" entertainment at special events. (I would offer an alternative option to comedians, musicians, and Tarot card readers.)
- I posted audios clips of me reading to a site called PRX.com, which sells content to public radio stations. (It costs $50/year. I have gotten a few nibbles but no takers. However, a friend has sold a number of pieces through this service.)
*Note: I am well aware that some of these are real long-shots, but the odds can't be any longer than Web marketing. I am also aware that some of this is a little haphazard. But another piece of business advice that I like: Sometimes it is better to just jump and make your mistakes than to spend all your time researching.

Note: Another book marketing book for old schoolers: "Talk Up Your Book," by Patricia Fry. If you've done some public speaking and readings, skip the first nine chapters -- they're repetitive and rudimentary.

Can't Get Enough Book Marketing?

- Is online book marketing a waste of time? (readers weigh in)

- Do You Rate? Measuring Book Promotion Success

-Tips for Reading Your Writing in Public

Had Enough Book Marketing?

- One Day at Big Sky Ski Area: Encounter with a Snowboarder
"You're a grown man, you should know better than that," said the 20-something snowboarder as I lay face-down in the snow.

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*Attribution for "old school" image at top of page: PbakerODU at en.wikibooks [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

How Many Agents Should You Query? 50? 150?

2012-11-26T18:01:00.001-05:00

Agent Roulette

If you want a traditional publishing deal your odds are either 1 in 2,000 or 1 in 200, depending on whom you believe.*

But an article in the January issue of Writer's Digest called "Lessons from First-Time Novelists" offered some encouragement:
- Carter Wilson queried more than 60 agents before finding one. Then his first four books were rejected by publishers. Novel number five was published. He's had the same agent the entire time.
- Keira Peikoff received 30 to 40 rejections before finding an agent who submitted the book to about 10 publishers before getting a deal.
(As of press time, the Writer's Digest article was not available online.)

Personal Anecdotes

- In a recent writing class, the instructor told us about a friend who was rejected by about 70 agents before he found one.
- A friend of mine said he is going to contact 150 agents before moving on to Plan B.

My Plan B (If I Can't Find an Agent)

1) Contact Small and International Publishers Directly

- A list of small publishers by genre from Myperfectpitch
- A list of 250 small presses looking for manuscripts, according to Poets & Writers.

2) Contact Editors Directly

This tip came from Writer's Digest.

3) Enter Writing Contests

My friend Lee Doyle had her novel rejected by about 50 agents. Then she entered a writing contest that included publication as one of the prizes. Her novel The Love We All Wait For won “Best Novel” at the 2006 East of Eden Writers Conference. She says she's sold about 2,000 copies. She is finishing another novel that she plans to circulate to agents.

4) Self-Publish

I'll package excerpts of the novel into themed self-published e-books on humorous erotica, travel humor, and a bitter single's guide to dating. (After all this, I'm not sure I'll have the money or fortitude to self-publish an entire novel.)

*Some say the odds of getting a traditional publishing deal are better than you'd think. Others say that many of us are deluded and incompetent but don't know it.

My Personal Experience with Agents

I haven't finished my novel yet, but that didn't stop me from blowing about $2,000 on conferences and other shindigs where you can pitch your book to agents. (At one point two years ago, I had three agents -- out of about 20 I met at conferences -- who said they were interested in seeing my completed manuscript. Since then: One agent has left the business, another no longer handles fiction, and the third was still in business, as of press time. Yes, my manuscript is still not finished. But it will be done in March, I swear!)

- Query Letter Confusion: When One Agent Says A and Another

Says B

- Old Versions of Query Letters (Background for "Query Letter Confusion" article)

Had Enough with Agents for One Day?

- Vicodin, Klonopin, or Heineken: What Do Unemployed Writer's Have for Breakfast?

- Personality Test: Are You Marriage Material? (Yeah, I flunked this one with flying colors.)

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**Skull art by artist: Irwin J. Weill, Weird_Tales_volume_36_number_01.djvu: Weird Tales, Inc.derivative work: AdamBMorgan (Weird_Tales_volume_36_number_01.djvu) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Book Marketing: More on Facebook Ads and Promotions

2012-11-17T15:27:00.001-05:00

Last week, I paid Facebook $20 for a promotion that turned out to be a waste of money. Many authors who read about my experience concurred that Facebook ads and promotions are useless for selling books or driving traffic to a Web site. Should you bail on Facebook? (Not yet.)

What I Got for $20

In my experiment, I wrote a post on my Fan Page that was designed to drive traffic to this blog. As I was finishing the post, I noticed Facebook's Promote option, which promised to reach 10,000 people. Certainly, reaching 10,000 people would result in more Likes for my Fan Page, as well as traffic and new subscribers to my blog. A link in the Promote dialog box led to a confusing section in the Facebook Help Center. Busy writer that I am, I ignored the Help Center page, and spent the money.

Click the Promote button to increase the reach of one of your posts.

Here's what I got for my $20:

4 comments on my Facebook post

8 new Fans
8 clicks to my blog and no new subscribers.

According to Facebook, the post did reach 10,000 people, but a third of them didn't speak English and lived in India, Turkey, and the Philippines.

In addition, my subsequent posts to my Facebook Fan page, reached 50 percent more people than normal. (I typically reach about 200 people, which increased to about 300 probably because so many people saw the promoted post.)

Worth the money? No.

How to Improve Your Performance, How I Goofed (and My Excuses)

I didn't target my promotion. Period. To target your posts to say, English speakers in the U.S., is a multi-step process that wasn't obvious to me. Here's how to fix the problem, so you (hopefully) don't waste as much of your money as I did.

I still don't understand why my post went to so many non-English speakers -- virtually all of my fans are English speakers, most of whom live in San Francisco, Boston, and New York. Most of the people who saw my post, however, were from Manila, Amman, and Istanbul. Upshot: A third of the people I paid to reach were non-English speakers.

More Confusion: Promoted Post (what I did) vs. Sponsored Story (an ad)

A promoted post lets you pay to have a post reach more of your Fans, and in some cases their friends. Typically, one of my posts only reaches about 10 percent of my Fans. I paid $20 to reach all 2,000 Fans, plus another 8,000 or so of their friends. Note: You have to have at least 400 Fans to promote a post. More on promoted posts.

A Sponsored story is an ad that lets you reach people who are not your Fans. A sponsored story appears in the right hand column of the page, along with all the other ads. This is more expensive than a promoted post. More on ads.

Which is Better: A Promotion or an Ad?

In an informal test by a geeky Web site, the Promoted post was cheaper and generated more clicks. But the ad reached a lot more people. Which will sell more books? At least one of my readers, said that the ads were selling some books. Is your head spinning, yet? No? Then read this for more details:

Why it’s Worth Having a Fan Page (and a Personal Profile Page)

- SEO: You can include links from Facebook back to your blog and Web site, which may make you more visible to people searching for topics related to you in Google.

- Facebook Groups: A personal page allows you to post links in various Facebook groups, which for me have generated a lot more traffic than a promoted post.

Advice and Comments from Readers of Last Week's Blog

- One reader suggested promoting your Facebook page for free on sites other than Facebook. (I include a Facebook Fan Page link on all my Yahoo e-mails and on my blog page. Unclear if I'm adding any Fans this way, but the price is right -- free.)
- One author said that Facebook Ads had been useful for selling books.
- One reader paid for an ad on Goodreads that wasn't successful, but found that a free give-away of five books was worth the effort
- Two readers called me a racist.

More on Facebook Fan and Personal Pages

- You're reaching fewer of your hard-earned Fans and why you shouldn't care.
- Facebook is charging to promote posts on your Personal page.

Had Enough Book Marketing?

- "The Online Date that Went a Little too Well"
(video of me reading original erotic humor at a local library.)
Content warnings for foul language, vibrating ovals, and cruelty to beagles.

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Special thanks to the following readers:

Jerry:
Marquita:
Kevin:
Joshua:
Sharon:

Attribution for Thumbs Down image: Circle-Thumb.png: user:acadac derived from user:Pratheepps, user:Erin Silversmithderivative work: Provoost (Circle-Thumb.png) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Book Marketing: Is a Facebook Fan Page Useful?

2012-11-12T13:11:00.000-05:00

After a year of developing my Facebook Fan Page, I have more than 2,000 fans, a shopping cart for a self-published book (haven't sold one, yet), and dozens of applications. Last week, I spent $20 to promote one of my posts to 10,000 people: Unfortunately, many of them turned out to be from outside the U.S. and many didn't list English as their default language. Has Facebook been worth the time? Probably. Am I reducing the time I spend on Facebook? Definitely. Will I spend another $20 with them? Ha! Will my account be shut down because of this post? Stay tuned.

Facebook Fan Page Basics

Overview

A Fan Page is supposed to offer several advantages over the standard personal Profile page, including:
- Size: A Personal Page is limited to 5,000 Friends, while a Fan Page doesn't have this limit. (Are any of us ever going to have more than 5,000 Fans? Doubtful.)
- Analytics: A Fan Page offers basic tools for analyzing your audience. (I know that most of my Fans are between 35 and 54 about evenly split between men and women. If an agent or publisher asks about my audience, I could quote these stats and appear knowledgeable.)
- Applications: I have found at least two that I liked. (see screen shot below.)

Two apps worth considering: TabSite for adding custom Pages and Payvment for adding a shopping cart (Note: I haven't sold a single ebook using this app yet.)

Limitations of Fan Pages

You can't reach all you Fans
Facebook only allows you to reach a small portion of your hard-earned Fans -- unless you pay. (A Facebook Groups page allows you to send messages to members that go to their e-mail inboxes.) Facebook was (or is) also supposed to be charging owners of Profile Pages to reach all their friends.

It is difficult to add Fans
With a Profile page, you can pretty much add Friends willy-nilly, whether you know them or not -- as long as you don't add too many at once. Adding Fans is considerably harder and more time consuming -- you can't simply contact Facebook users and invite them.

How I got more than 2,000 Fans
I started with a Profile Page and over the course of a year added 5 to 10 people a night. (If Facebook warns that you're adding too many people, too quickly -- heed the warning or you may lose your profile!) Once I reached about 1,800 Friends, I converted my Profile page to a Fan page, which converted all my Friends to Fans. It was relatively easy to do: Here's how to convert your Profile Page to a Fan Page

For more than you really want to know about the differences between Fan Pages, Profile Pages, and Groups pages.

Now the Ugly Stuff

Though I now have more than 2,000 Fans, Facebook will only allow me to reach about 200 of them with my posts -- unless I pay $20. So, last week I paid up.

1) The process and my experience

- When you create a post on your Fan Page, there is an option to promote the post.
For me, Facebook indicated that for $20, I could reach 2,800 to 5,300 people, including my Fans and their Friends.

- You can pay with either a credit card of PayPal.
I tried to pay with my Visa and went through all the steps. After entering my Visa info, Facebook's credit card processing program crashed. Or did it? I couldn't tell. So, I sent a note to Facebook Help. (It's been four days and I've yet to hear back. Naturally, there was no phone number to call.)

So, then I paid with PayPal and the payment appeared to go through. I still never received any confirmation from Facebook, and when I looked at the details of my account on Facebook, it appeared that the credit card charge went through. What about the Paypal charge? Was I double-billed? I haven't had time to check.

2) The Results: Facebook claims I reached more than 10,000 people, such a deal!

But...

- According to Facebook's own statistics, many of those people were from the Philippines and India. Many of them didn't list English as their primary language. At press time, I didn't have statics beyond the first two days of the promotion, which extended for four days. (For information on how to target your promotions, see the follow-up to this article on Facebook promotions.)

At least 4,000 of the 10,000 people reached by my $20 Facebook promotion were from outside the U.S. Many didn't even list English as their primary language.

Another But...

- Very few of those 10,000 clicked the link included in my post. (Maybe 50 clicked. Regardless, there was no spike in my Web traffic)

And Another...

- I got about 10 new Fans, many of whom were from foreign countries, and at least one had a name that was not even in English. (Apologies if I sound like a racist, but non-English speakers will not help my book marketing cause.)


Some of my new Fans: Please welcome राजे विशाल सातदिवे

- The post received 28 Likes (the most I've ever gotten) and 7 comments. At least one comment was from someone who was furious about receiving my unsolicited post -- he had an American-sounding name. (I guess he won't be buying any books from me.)

Good Uses for Facebook

- Posting links to appropriate Groups drives traffic

And it's much easier than posting to Linked In groups -- for Facebook groups, just copy and paste a headline, a deck, and the link. In my experience posting to Facebook Groups for writers, the members click on my links, just not as frequently as Linked In group members click on them.

- Having a Fan page may be good for SEO

It's another searchable page that includes links back to your blog, Web sites, and Youtube videos.

- Fans are Fans

Even though my posts regularly reach only 200 or so of my Fans, those are people who are exposed to my writing regularly and may consider buying a book at some point. (Though, as noted above, I have yet to sell a single ebook on Facebook. To be fair, I haven't done much to promote them to my Fans, but the shopping cart is on the site.)

*Attribution for thumbs down image;
By Enoc vt (File:Botón Me gusta.svg) [Public domain or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Can't Get Enough Book Marketing?

- Three Ways to Boost Your Blog Traffic

- Eight Month Progress Report: Reality knocks at the door.

Had Enough Book Marketing?

- "Why I'm Over Forty and Still Single," includes the fish theory, the valency theory, and other medical excuses. (A video of me reading a scene from novel-in-progress before a live audience.)

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Book Marketing: My Eight Month Progress Report

2012-11-05T15:02:00.000-05:00

After several months of small, but steady increases, my stats for Web traffic, blog subscribers, and social media contacts have all leveled off. How to explain this lack of progress?
- Conservative viewpoint: This is the value the market places on my time and skills.
- Liberal viewpoint: I am not a big business with a staff nor am I celebrity with a drug problem (yet).

But the good news is that maybe we don't need millions of fans to make a living as writers. We only need 1,000 who really like our stuff. (Actually, 500 would do.)

Book Marketing Progress Report

I) Blog

Results*

- Page views in July: 2,428      (1,779 visitors)
- Page views August: 2,977     (2,139)
- Page views Sept.: 2,774       (2,017)
- Page views in Oct.: 2,783     (1,996)

- Blog subscribers at end July: 48
- Blog subscribers at end of August: 71
- Blog subscribers at end of September: 95
- Blog subscribers at end of October: 114

*includes a small number of visitors -- 100 to 180 each month -- that go to my resume and rarely-updated travel Web sites.

Latest Tactics

- Cut back to three blog posts per month instead of weekly

I'll use use the extra time to submit to contests, apply for grants, and pitch readings and performances to organizations, such as libraries, colleges, etc. As long as I'm getting 1,500 or so visitors a month, I'll be happy -- adding another 200 or even 500 is probably not going to make much difference.

- Added a table of contents to one of my most popular pages.
The page is called "Prostitution for Dummies," a tongue-in-cheek piece I wrote five years ago that continues to get steady traffic from guys traveling around Southeast Asia looking for naughtiness.The page now directs readers to some of my humorous erotica and to sites that offer what they're really looking for. Warning: the page has some racy, politically-incorrect content -- do not visit, if you find that kind of thing offensive.

- Created a list in Yahoo mail of people who subscribed to my blog but didn't confirm/verify their subscription. (When someone subscribes, my blog sends them a confirmation e-mail; for some reason about a dozen people didn't confirm. So, I manually forward each blog to them using a Yahoo mail group. These people are not listed in my Subscriber stats above.)

- Targeting different types of readers
In addition to book marketing, my blog covers four other topics -- erotic humor , weird travel, naughty travel for men, and life as a chronically single person. So, I am trying to target readers of these four other topics by offering monthly newsletters for each group. To get subscribers, I added sign-up boxes to blog posts frequented by these people. I created the sign up boxes using Mailchimp. If I get any subscribers for these four newsletters, I'll write them. Sign up so far: Zilch. (the new newsletters are the top four listed in the screen shot below. Two newsletters show one subscriber -- me.)

With a little fiddling, you can create e-mail sign-up forms for newsletters targeting different audiences.

II) Social Media

I just picked up a book called "Social Media is Bullshit." I will write a short review later this month. So far, the book is pretty disturbing but somehow reassuring for all of us who feel like we've been banging our heads against the wall with online marketing.

1) Twitter

Results: 805 followers, increase of 59 over last month.

Tactics probably worth considering:
- An interesting suggestion from a Linked In connection, Erik Deckers: retweet more of influential people's stuff.
"... find some major influencers and occasionally ask them to retweet your posts to their own followers. Make sure you do that for the influencers as well, about 5 - 8 times more than they do yours. They'll be more inclined to just do it for you out of the blue."

- Separate crap from cream in my Twitter feed. I'm considering making a list of the top 10 folks I want to follow, using Hootsuite to monitor their tweets, and focusing on commenting and retweeting their tsuff.

- I considered and then abandoned the idea of starting a new Twitter account or cutting useless folks from my existing account. I'm too insecure to cut my number of followers -- as small as it is -- because I want to be able to demonstrate to agents, publishers, and potential employers that I'm somewhat active on Twitter.

2) Linked In

Results: 1,148 connections, increase of 21 from last month.

- This is still the major source for my blog traffic. I belong to a slew of groups and manually post links to my blog to each group.
- Disturbing trend: I have started receiving spam from people selling book-marketing services. I'm giving them one warning to knock it off, then I will report them as spammers. A cynical part of me thinks that Linked In may not care, particularly if these spammers are folks who are paying for the Linked In premium service -- Is spamming connections included in the price?

3) Facebook

Results:

- Fans: 2,036, down one from last month.
- Reach (the number of Fans who actually see my posts) 200 to 250, about the same as last month.

I am expending less effort posting to Facebook.

4) Klout Score

Now 47, down from 48 from last month. Does anyone care?

III) Networking

- Personal e-mail lists: I went through my contacts in my personal Yahoo e-mail account and sorted out those who might care about my progress as a writer and who might buy a book. Then I uploaded the list --about 290 people -- to Mailchimp. I will send them a quarterly progress report.

- I continue to meet smart, nice people online. Erik Deckers (referred to one of my blogs in one of his blogs and offers good advice in Linked In forums.), Jen Zeman who retweets some of my tweets, Tzigane and Martha Moravec, two writers who comment on my posts.

IV) Minor Successes

- Interviewed on cable access TV show.
I did a one-hour interview for a travel show. Since it's cable access, there may be all of three viewers, but it was good practice, fun, and required minimal preparation. (I discussed a four-month solo trip around the world I took in 2007. The trip cost a lot of money and basically sucked, and I spent most of the interview kvetching and moaning about unfriendly locals, wine I drank made from pickled cobras, and Melbourne's fly problem.) Note: It wasn't hard to get on the show. If you contact your local cable access station, there's probably a show about local artists, writers, or other topics for which you might qualify as an interview subject.

- My previously published story, "Domination for Dummies," was accepted for an e-book erotica anthology (a small, independent press.) Due out later this year.

- A humor piece called "Productivity Secrets of a Successful Novelist" accepted by Calliope magazine for print and online (A small print and Web journal.)

- "Domination for Dummies" was also accepted by Bizzarocast, a podcast that I'm guessing reaches a younger audience. (I should have asked about the audience. Regardless, I need all the publishing credits I can get). Supposed to appear Valentine's Day. I'll get paid $5.

Attribution for image at top of blog: By aTarom [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Can't Get Enough Book Marketing?

- Five Month Progress Report: SEO works!

- Six Month Progress Report: A newbie gets cocky.

- Seven Month Progress Report: Reality knocks at the door.

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The Day I Was Almost Gay (original humor)

2012-10-29T17:15:00.002-04:00

This is an excerpt from my novel-in-progress that I performed for a story slam at night club in Cambridge, Mass.

I didn't win the slam, but it was fun, and I'd recommend this kind of event as a good way to promote your writing. For $35, I received a video that I uploaded to Youtube and inserted below.

Note: The piece carries content warnings for prescription drug abuse and men kissing on the lips. Also, animals may have been harmed making this video.

Oh, No! Experts Say Blogging Is a Waste of Time

2012-10-22T12:44:00.000-04:00

Recently, an agent wrote that blogging could be a waste of time for fiction writers. What she said made sense. Then I found dissenting opinions. They made sense as well. What's a fiction writer to do?

The Arguments Against Blogging

1) The blogosphere is too crowded, so the average writer will never generate impressive traffic.
I seem to have plateaued at about 1,500 visitors a month, my number of subscribers increases by about 20 a month -- I now have 102. I won't be impressing anyone.

2) It's time consuming.
I spend four to eight hours on each blog -- time I could be spending finishing my novel.

3) If you blog about writing, your audience is writers, not readers.
Hmmm. Where have I heard that before? Oh, right, in my own blog. And yeah, most of my traffic is from writers. A former agent I spoke to said I should focus on blogging about topics covered in my novel, namely dating and single life. He said I should be forming alliances with dating sites. I've taken some of his advice, but I'm afraid my traffic numbers will drop! (I watch my traffic numbers the way a cardiologist watches an EKG.)

Things I could be doing instead of blogging

- Trying Twitter, Yet Again

I can't stand Twitter, it seems to be a real waste of time, a torrent of crap. But it also seems to offer the best option for connecting to potential readers and, more importantly, people who can influence a lot of potential readers. So, I'm going to focus on connecting with people with clout in subjects of interest to my potential readers: travel, singles and dating, humor.

- Applying for Fellowships at Writers Colonies and Grants.

I'm guessing a fellowship at Yaddo or the MacDowell Colony would be more impressive than having 2,000 Facebook Fans. Here's a short list of writers colonies and a longer searchable list of Writers Colonies.

- Posting and Commenting in Forums and on Blogs Frequented by Potential Readers.

- Blogging about Topics of Interest to Potential Readers.

- Finishing my novel

(Have I said this a dozen times already?)

The Arguments for Blogging (At Least in My Case)

1) It builds the resume

I've gotten freelance job offers that I've had to pass on to friends because I working on my novel. Eventually, I'm going to for another Web marketing/Web writing job, so I'll have a body of work to show.

2) I enjoy it.

3) According to this post by indie writer Yesenia Vargas, some readers of a blog about writing, may buy your novel. If people like you're non-fiction writing, they may try your fiction.

4) I may self-publish an e-book for writers about one writer's experiences in book marketing hell.

5) I'm still hoping for the serendipitous event: Some agent spots one of my blogs in a forum or Linked In group, comes to my blog, sees my other stuff and...

What I'm Going to Do Differently (at least for right now)

- My blog covers multiple topics -- writing and topics of interest to potential readers. To target the audiences separate, I plan to capture e-mail addresses for different mailing lists using newsletter sign-up boxes at the end of individual articles. Once I get enough names, I send out short, monthly newsletters that cater to readers' interests.

- Post short audios of me reading from my novel. In the past my videos and audios have generated a fair amount of traffic and these will cater to my specific audiences. For a sample, here's an excerpt called, "The Day I Almost Became Gay." (This piece carries content warnings for prescription drug abuse and men kissing on the lips.)

*Full disclosure: I have time to experiment because I'm not working. I quit a contract gig in April to finish my novel. I drive a 20-year-old car held together with Bondo and will likely need to find a part time job in April.

*Distorted face image at top of blog by Miguel Angel Pasalodos

Can't Get Enough Book Marketing?

- Book Marketing: Seven Month Progress Report

- Book Marketing for Nitwits: SEO

- How Writers Can Earn a Living
(Content warning: men eating lightbulbs, being run over by cars, hit with sledge hammers.)

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Book Marketing: E-mail Lists and Newsletters

2012-10-15T18:17:00.000-04:00

Why Bother?

- You collect the names and e-mails addresses -- and you own them (not Facebook, Linked In, or Twitter).
- You can contact people directly via e-mail instead of waiting for them to view your posts.
- Historically, e-mail is supposed to elicit a higher response rate. (I.e. more people will buy your book or click your links.)
- You can collect names at parties, readings, and other face-to-face venues -- and add them manually. With a blog, you can add someone's e-mail address, but they have to verify that they want your blog or content, which, for many people, is an added hassle.
- Once your lists are set up, they're relatively easy to use.
- You don't have to post hourly, daily, or even monthly to stay in contact with people.
- Your hard-earned list is not subject to the vagaries and pricing schemes of social media sites.

Special Uses

- Create different e-mail lists for different types of subscribers. My blog covers a variety of topics ranging from humorous erotica to dating humor to travel to book marketing. Some experts say I should have a separate blog for each topic. Sorry. But by adding a sign-up box for different e-mail lists at the end of different types of articles, I can address different audiences. (For example, by posting a sign-up box, I can also see if anyone is interested in a particular topic. For example, if no one signs up for my "Humorous Erotica" newsletter, I won't write one.)
- On my blog, every month I have one or two people who sign up and for some reason don't verify their accounts, so they don't receive my blog. I've tried emailing, but some still have problems. I can just add them to an email list and forward by weekly blog feed to them.

How to Get Started

1) Create a List for Each Group of Contacts

- For small lists (less than 50 names), such as those who signed up for my blog but haven't been able to verify their accounts, I added their names to a "Lonely Planet" list I created in my Web e-mail service, which is Yahoo. Yahoo and most other Web-based e-mail services limit the number of people you can e-mail at one time.

- For larger lists, such as my list of former co-workers and other acquaintances who may be interested in periodic (quarterly) updates on my book's progress, I use a free e-mail service, called MailChimp. The free version of the service, allows you contact up to 2,000 people six times a month. If I ever have more than 2,000 people, I will gladly pay a monthly fee.

- Cleaning up and uploading e-mails lists is a time-consuming process that can involve saving your e-mail contacts to another program and then uploading them to your e-mail service. I use Yahoo! Mail and went to my Contacts page and exported my contacts using the CSV option. (CSV is a format that you can edit in Excel and eliminate worthless contacts and stray information. I kept only First Name and Last Name (if I had them), and the E-mail address. Then I resaved the file as an CSV and upload it to Mail Chimp.)

I downloaded my contacts using the Yahoo! CSV option, which allowed me to edit the file in Excel.

2) Create Content for Each Group

- The shorter the e-mail the better (My note to former co-workers and acquaintances will include a few highlights with links to a blog, a youtube video, and some publications.)
- I started a real e-mail newsletter for people who attend my readings. (Even though my book isn't finished, I've reading scenes from it for years.) This newsletter includes three sections: Local reading events that may interest readers, some links to recent blog posts, and links to a few weird Web links.

3) How Often to Publish?

- I assemble and the newsletter mentioned above once a month. (I collect tidbits throughout the month and save them to a folder. Assembling the newsletter itself takes about two hours.)
- For the note to colleagues, I'll send a plain e-mail quarterly or when I have big news.
- For the other topics (Humorous Erotica, Travel, etc), I'll publish monthly -- provided I get some people to sign up.

General Tips

- E-mail Services like Mail Chimp can track whether anyone actually opens your e-mail. If only a few people open it, you may want to resend it to people who didn't open it.
- Experts say the best time to send out an e-mail is Tuesday through Thursdays between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Experts say a lot of stuff. You might want to experiment with different times to determine your best response rate.
- Did I mention to keep the newsletter short, include lots of white space, and links? E-mail services have basic templates you can use for a semi-professional look without a lot of grief.
- Offer a freebie for people who sign up. (A free story, a free e-book of writing samples.)
- To collect e-mails on your Web site or blog, you'll use a service like Mail Chimp to create a sign in box that allows people to add their e-mails. If possible don't use the word subscribe in the sign-in box -- people will assume they have to pay for something.

The sign-up box on my travel site does not include the word "subscribe," a word that implies you have to pay.

For more information on e-mail and newsletters, here's a cheat sheet from E-Mail Marketing for Dummies.

*E-mail slingshot image at top of this blog by PCL-BO [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

Can't Get Enough Book Marketing?

- Three Ways to Boost Your Blog Traffic

- Linked In Tips for Authors

- Feeling Depressed? Be Glad Your Not a Guy: The End for Men

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Is Web Marketing a Waste of Time?

2012-10-05T17:49:00.001-04:00

I really wanted to title this piece, "Is Web Marketing a Load of Crap?" but I think the graphic would have turned too many people off.

But I'm really steamed:

- In the last two weeks, my Web traffic has dropped by 50 percent. As far as I can tell, I haven't done anything differently. But part of the problem could be my over-dependence on Social Media to generate traffic. These services -- Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter -- can and do change policies and features as they see fit. They also seem to be over-saturated with users generating useless crap. (OK, I'm as guilty as anyone) I'm investing a lot of time in these services, what if they go belly up? What if they decide they don't like me and cancel my account? What there's a technical glitch I can't figure out -- where's the tech support? (Typically, we're reduced to Googling for help from other users.) Maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that their loyalty isn't to us customers who aren't paying them a nickel.

Here are my specific beefs as they relate to my online book marketing:

- My Facebook posts are being seen by half as many people. (A statistic called Reach, which used to average about 400 people, is now down to 200. I still have more than 2,000 fans, but only 1/10 of them are seeing my posts.) Here's a possible explanation that proves that I'm not insane. All I know is bad news about the company's stock price appears in the WSJ all too frequently. The company seems very concerned about its shareholders, but seems to have no compunction about screwing over Fan Page owners by limiting the number of our own Fans that we can reach.

- Linked In just introduced what appears to be another useless feature called "Endorsements," for enticing users to spend more time on the site. So, now there's a nuclear arms race to get as many of your connections to endorse you for all of your skills. Excellent! Now, you can go to Linked In and just start clicking away -- endorsements will be about as meaningful as Followers on Twitter.

- I've been spending more and more time trying to figure out Twitter. I post regularly, follow influential people and topic hashtags that supposedly are also followed by potential readers. Most of the stuff I see on Twitter is crap -- spam, inane comments, links to inane images. And all these folks that have thousands of followers but never tweet? Very suspicious.

- And I'm constantly getting e-mails from folks smarter than I am asking for help with their social media marketing. Something smells funny. (If you insist on an image...)

Sorry for the rant. Am I just in a bad mood or does anyone else think that the only people getting rich from social media are the folks who own the social media sites?

The last time I whined about online marketing:

Is online book marketing a waste of time:

Part II: Is Online Book Marketing a Waste of Time?

*Clock image at the top of this page is by Didofficiel (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

*Link about Facebook changes provided by the very knowledgeable Carla Thornton.

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Book Marketing: Seven Month Progress Report

2012-10-01T16:20:00.000-04:00

Executive Summary

1) As my Web traffic goes, so do my moods:

- For the first three weeks of September, I had steady traffic and averaged about 100 page views a day, a new record. Then one of my stories was accepted by a small literary journal. I was interviewed by a local cable access TV station. I felt like I had turned some corner, a tipping point, agents and offers would soon fall from the heavens.

- The last week of the month, traffic tanked and I had several days with 30 page views. Had I angered the gods at Google? I considered forgoing red meat, giving $20 to the next homeless person I saw, and calling my parents more often.

- Yesterday, my traffic jumped above 50 page views. I blew the $20 at a local bar and watched the New England Patriots finally win a game. All is well in my world. (for now.)

2) Best New Strategy: Networking

This included:
- Posting personal notes and comments on other people's blogs.
- Retweeting properly and Tweeting other people's links with their Twitter handles.
- Talking on the phone with a couple of people I met online. (Details below)

The Numbers

1) Blog and Web Sites: Traffic Down Slightly, Subscribers Up

What I'm doing: Same as last month.

My traffic numbers include:
- This blog (95 percent of my traffic).
- A Web site called RandyRossMedia, an online resume that includes videos of me reading/performing, plus a query letter, platform details, and writing samples for agents and potential employers.
- A travel tips Web site called RossTravels, which I created a few years ago. The site contains mainly evergreen articles that are still useful for people planning a trip around the world. I've been posting links to the site in travel groups and related Twitter hashtags.

Results
- Page views in June: 2,292
- Page views in July: 2,428
- Page views in August: 2,977
- Page views in September: 2,774 (most recent month)

- Blog subscribers at end of June: 24
- Blog subscribers at end July: 48
- Blog subscribers at end of August: 71
- Blog subscribers at end of September: 95

2) Social Media

What I'm doing: Like last month, I'm posting links to my weekly blogs to groups and hashtags, as well as using Hootsuite every Monday to pre-schedule a week's worth of Tweets. My results:

Facebook Fan Page
- Fans: 2,037, up 5 from last month.
- Reach (the number of Fans who actual see each post): about 250, down from 400 last month.
- I'm posting the same types of items, just not posting as frequently, which could have caused the decline in Reach. Also, Facebook may have changed something. I can't worry about it, and I'm starting to question how useful it is to have a Fan Page. But posting links into appropriate Facebook Groups continues to generate traffic.

Twitter
- Followers: 746 up 29 from last month.
- I'm trying to focus on quality instead of quantity, but seem to getting neither. So, I borrowed yet another book from the library on Twitter marketing. (Did I mention that I think Twitter is just a bunch of noise?)

Linked In
- Connections: 1,127, up 22 from last month.
- I'm no longer allowed to add connections unless I have their e-mail address. If there is someone I really want to add, I go to their Web site or company's Web site and get their e-mail

Klout Score
Now 48, up 1 point from last month. (Big whoop, but at least it didn't go down.)

3) SEO
I haven't done anything new, but I continue to get several hundred page views a month from Google. My blog posts appear on the first page for Google searches for the following terms for which I have optimized my site:
- Book marketing
- Travel humor
- erotic humor
- humorous erotica

For the first time, when I search on my name, I appear at the top of the page in Google. Previously, the top spots were held by another Randy Ross, who is associated with Ross bicycles. I read somewhere that prospective agents and publishers may Google your name to check on your online presence.

4) Submissions and Publications

I had another story accepted by a small literary journal.
To date I've sent out six stories to about 115 publications. I've heard back from about 70 of the publications and have had four pieces accepted. (5.7 percent success rate.)

- Fall is when a lot of publications reopen for submissions -- do it now!
- If a publication rejects one of my stories, I immediately send them another one. (I've yet to have a publication accept a second piece after rejecting the first, but you never know.)

(resources and details in last month's progress report.)

Best New Strategy: Networking

This should be commonsense, but for me it wasn't: We're supposed to be having conversations with people online instead of constantly hurling our links at them.

So, here's what I did (results below the screen shot):

- Signed up for other people's blogs and newsletters.
- E-mailed blogs and Web sites I like and asked if they wanted to post any of my blog pieces, published stories, or videos.
- Offered advice and suggested resources to people in forums and groups.
- Commented on other people's blog and Twitter posts. I now make a point to include their Twitter handle, so they know I've mentioned them. This should have been a no-brainer, but it was something I wasn't doing.
- I set up Twitter to alert me whenever some mentions me or my links. (Here's how to do it)

Go into your Twitter Settings, then click Email Notifications to receive alerts when you get mentioned or retweeted.

Results:
- Another phone call with someone smarter than me who visited one of my sites and then proposed a phone call. He has a site offering advice for finding an agent and other services for writers. I was skeptical and expecting a sales pitch. Instead, we discussed ways of cross-promoting and he offered some good online marketing advice.
- I called a woman who runs a Web site called The Erotic Salon. Last month, I found her site on Twitter and we exchanged several e-mails. As a result of the phone call, she posted several of my videos and plans to include one of my published erotica pieces in an anthology she is publishing.
- I added a couple more people to my Blog List (see right-hand column) and they've done the same.
- Full disclosure: I also sent lots of pitches and e-mails that went no where.

*Roller Coaster Image at top of blog: Blue Streak at Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH, taken by Stratosphere.

For More of My Book Marketing Tips, See:

- "Tips for Reading Your Writing in Public"

- "Easy, Sleazy Book Marketing Tips"

- "Is Online Book Marketing a Waste of Time?" (My Two month progress report)

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What's My Genre? Positioning Your Book Even If It's Not Genre Fiction

2012-09-24T14:47:00.000-04:00

Even if you're not writing true "genre" fiction, you need to be able to position your book for readers and agents (if you're going to look for one). Specifically, you need to know:
- where your book fits in the marketplace (similar authors, comparable titles)
- on which shelf it should appear in a physical bookstore.
- in which category it should sell on Amazon or other online book stores.

For this article, we'll use my manuscript-in-progress as an example. The book's working title is "The Loneliest Planet: A Handbook for the Chronically Single."

At a writer's conference I pitched it as a comic novel offering "the personal journey of "Eat, Prary, Love" with the sexual frustration of "Portnoy's Complaint." One agent told me those titles were too old. Another said that all she could remember about "Portnoy" was the masturbation scene. I also worried that the term "comic" might lead people to confuse it with a comic book as opposed to a satire.

Tools for Finding Your Genre

1) Lists of genres

Wikipedia List of Literary Genres: Probably the best place to start. Scroll to the bottom of the Wiki genre page for clickable links with explanations.

Sparknotes: The top part of this article is a little tough to read, but the bottom offers a useful list with definitions.

Virtual Salt: More detail than most people need. This page includes a list of genres, styles, and other literary terms with examples.

2) Similar Authors

Literature Map: This site allows you to enter a popular author and the site generates a list writers considered to be similar in style and genre. In the screen shot below, I search Philip Roth, the author of "Portnoy's Complaint," found the contemporary author Jonathan Tropper, whose books are selling well and, much like my book, cover topics such as dating and single life.

A search on authors similar to Philip Roth produced both familiar and unfamiliar names.

3) Comparable Titles

Genres of Existing Books: The Library of Congress Web site allows you to search for authors and then drill down to find genres of their books. The results are not always helpful and the ease-of-use and speed are, well, what do you'd expect from the government, but the site is worth a look.

A listing of genres associated with "Portnoy's Complaint" from the Library of Congress Web site. I didn't find this that useful, but you might.

Live Plasma: Worth a look. When I entered "Portnoy's Complaint," the site generated a lot of older titles. When I entered a book by Jonathan Tropper, the produced nothing.

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Other Online Book Sites: Key Things to Look for:
- On Amazon: Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
- On Barnes and Noble: Related Subjects

More On Genres

1) Applying This Information to an Agent Search

Once you've got a list of comparable books and authors, Google the author's name and the word "agent" or "literary agent" and consider pitching that agent.

2) Hot Genres

Upmarket Fiction: I've been seeing this is a lot of listings for what agents are looking for. Upmarket is kind of a catch-all for books that are too smart to be straight commercial fiction but not smart enough to be straight literary fiction.

High Concept: Another popular, but confusing term. High Concept is really low concept -- a story that can be described simply and succinctly. I've developed a description for my book that might be considered high-concept: A never-married hypochondriac takes a trip around the world looking to change his luck with love. Click here for a succinct description from former agent Nathan Bransford.

3) How I Put This Together

At present, I plan to put the following sentence, which includes my genre and market positioning, high up in my query letter:

The "Loneliest Planet" is a satiric novel that will appeal to fans of Sam Lipsyte, Shalom Auslander, and Jonathan Tropper.

*Art attribution: Weird Tales image by Weird Tales, Inc. (Scanned cover of pulp magazine.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. (I put it down here because putting this text under the image creates a mess when the article is sent out over Feedburner.

For More of My Book Marketing Tips, See:

- Book Marketing: My Six Month Progress Report

- Query Letter Confusion: When One Agent Says "A" and Another Says "B"

- Twitter Tips for Those Who Hate Social Media

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Book Marketing: Spruce Up Your Site with Images and Video

2012-09-17T17:17:00.005-04:00

The image came from Wiki Media Commons. Proper attribution that is an eye-sore: "Giant Rubber Duck by Yoshimasa Niwa [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]."

Finding Images Made Easy

Adding art (images, screenshots, and videos) to your blogs and Web sites can be a pain, but it's worth doing for several reasons:

- Readers like art.
- Google likes art.
(Supposedly, adding art will improve your ranking in search engine. Be sure to add some descriptive text to the image properties.)
- Linked In and Facebook like art.
(When you add a link to a blog in Linked In or Facebook, a thumbnail of the art often appears, which makes the link that much more inviting.)

For one-stop art shopping, I like Creative Commons, which offers a selection of Web sites offering free images. I typically start with Wiki Media Commons. Finding a suitable image is relatively easy.

Creative Commons lets you search for images or videos from multiple sites -- but not simultaneously.

Using Images Made Hard

Figuring out how to give credit the photographer is tricky. (I just spent an hour looking for a consensus on proper protocol. Ha!)

My latest strategy (as of today)
- If the photographer issues long, involved instructions for using their image -- I skip it.
- The attribution I used above duck image is pretty standard and includes: the work's title, name of the author, and the specific license the work is under. But this creates a mess for blog subscribers. I will likely put the attribution at the end of blog posts.
- Here's the least mind-numbing discussion on using Creative Commons licensed images.

Editing Images

You can edit, crop, and resize images using a photo editing tool. The only problem is these programs can be slow to load and overwhelming to use. For resizing, cropping, annotating, and editing screenshots, I like a freebie called Irfranview. The program has a few quirks (or maybe I haven't bothered to read all the instructions,) but it's quick to download and use.

Video

Creative Commons also lets you search for videos, on services, such as Youtube.

This is same rubber duck in a video -- do not watch! It's ten minutes of the duck from different angles.

Uploading video from Youtube to a blog like Blogger is now pretty straight forward. Adding videos to a Web site can be trickier because it involves embedding and copying some code onto your site.

Note on Youtube copyright issues: It appears that if someone posts a video and enables the embed feature you can embed it. For a convoluted discussion that's more that you'd ever want to read, go to section 6C in Youtube's terms of service.

Another hassle: The videos are never the right size for my site. To get them to fit in a narrow space, I manually adjusted the height and width specifications as highlighted below in red. I always start by reducing the height and width by half and increase or decrease each measure by the same proportion. (Double, reduce by half, etc.)

To add video to your Web site, copy the embeddable code and then adjust the height and width by the same proportions for good fit.

For more tips on beautifying your site, see CopyBloggers' guide to basic page layout. (The piece is mentions WordPress in the title, but the tips apply to any Web page.)

For More of My Book Marketing Tips, See:

- Blogging for Writers: Tips, Tools, and Resources

- Query Letter Confusion: When One Agent Says A and Another Says B

- Greetings from Book Marketing Hell: SEO for Authors

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Book Marketing: My Six Month Progress Report

2012-09-10T14:12:00.000-04:00

How I'm feeling now after another month of book marketing. (Sorry to be a downer this week!)

Background for Those Visiting for the First Time

In April, I quit a contract job that was paying most of my bills to finish a novel I plan to send to agents next spring. At the time, I also vowed to boost my author platform by reading books and blogs, attending conferences, talking to people smarter than me, and following the advice of the experts.

Executive Summary

Since my five-month progress report last month, I've had small but measurable increases in page views and followers for my blog, but negligible increases in new connections on social media. During the course of a week, I spend about two days on book marketing and promotion.

Upshot: I'm getting just enough encouragement to keep going, but not enough to pay for a bag of groceries. Will you throw a quarter in my cup when I'm out on the street?

What's Working and What's Not

1) Blogging

What I'm doing:

- Blogging once a week, spending four to six hours on each blog. (Weekly seems to be fine. I couldn't do it daily. How can anyone with a full-time job blog daily?)
- To drive traffic, I'm posting links to new blogs to Social media sites (Linked in, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon.)

Results:

- Page views in June: 2,292
- Page views in July: 2,428
- Page views in August: 2,977 (most recent month)

- Blog subscribers in June: 24
- Blog subscribers in July: 48
- Blog subscribers in August: 71

Best finds:

- Groups on Facebook. I've been posting writing tips to writing groups and travel stories to travel groups. (My novel involves travel.) Note: to post to Facebook's groups, you have to use a personal account, you can't do it from your Fan Page account.
- In July, I added a sign-up box to the end of each blog post and it continues to encourage people to sign up. (To provide some benefit to subscribers, I started posting my blogs for them first and, a week later, posting to the various groups and forums. Does anyone care? Unclear.)

Biggest waste of time:

Posting to the bookmarking sites. The posting process is generally convoluted and the sites haven't produced much traffic. I no longer bother with them.

Search for Facebook Groups by entering a topic in the search box at the top of the page. The arrow on the left, shows the groups I've joined so far.

2) Social Media

a) Facebook Fan Page

What I'm doing:

- I post less frequently, maybe three times a week instead of daily.
- I quit participating in Likefests and other programs in which people agree to Like you if you Like them. Adding people who aren't really interested in my content doesn't really interest me. Also, if they don't interact on my page, Facebook will stop showing them my content, anyway.

Results:

I'm adding Fans at a much slower rate. I've added six fans in the last month and now have 2,032 and reaching 300 to 400 people per post. (Same as last month.). Facebook's Reach statistic measures people who interact with your page, people who are interested in what you're doing, people who might actually buy a book -- once I have one.

b) Facebook Personal Page

What I'm doing:

- Nothing, I don't have time for this.
- But as noted above, I use the page to post to Facebook groups, which generate traffic to my blog.

c) Twitter

What I'm doing:

- Abandoned Tweetfests and other programs in which you Follow people who agree to Follow you.
- Posting blog links and related news once a day to Hashtags frequented by travelers.
- Commenting on and Retweeting other people's Tweets.
- Still using Hootsuite to prepost and save time.
- Following more people and Unfollowing if they don't follow me back.

Results:

- Added 17 Followers in the last month. (Now have 717, which is not a whole lot.)
- I'm getting Mentioned and Retweeted by other people a few times a week.
- Twitter is not generating a whole lot of traffic.
- Why bother with it? It seems to be a key contributor to my Klout scores. My Klout score is now a respectable 47. Does anyone -- like perhaps a prospective agent or publisher -- care about Klout scores? In case they do, I'll keep up with Twitter.

Best Find:

-I use Tweepi and its Flush feature to remove people who I'm Following who aren't Following me back.

d) Linked In

What I'm doing:

- Still posting links to my book marketing blog to author groups every week.
- Began posting links to my travel stories to travel groups. (These people are travel professionals, who I imagine influence a lot of travelers -- or that's my fantasy.)
- Using Hootsuite to post important Web news to certain groups more regularly. (The free version of Hootsuite allows me to post simultaneously to Twitter as well as four Linked In Groups.)
- Using my Web analytics tools to see which groups are generating the least traffic and dumped them. (Linked In only allows you to join 50 groups at one time.)

Results:

- Busted! Linked In no longer allows me to connect with people for whom I don't have an e-mail address. (For a couple of months I was able to connect with people from groups I belonged to. As a result, I only added 15 new connections last month. (Currently have 1,105)
- Linked In groups continue to be my biggest source of traffic. If I write a book on bookmarketing, people might be interested. Would they buy a novel I wrote? Probably not.
- Continue to connect with some nice folks. Also, nice comments from readers keep me going. (OK, so I'm another lonely, pathetic wrier -- but I've got company!)
- Links posted to travel sites are not getting a whole lot of traffic. Unclear if these folks would buy my book. Also, some weirdos: I posted two unflattering pieces about Venezuela and each time the same guy writes me in broken English and calls me a coward. Will give it another month and then move on to another target market: Erotica. (My book has some sex scenes.)
- Was contacted on Linked In by a guy running a social media business. We spoke on the phone. He seemed to know his stuff and offered some good advice. We may be able to work together in some capacity in the future.
- Was contacted by a woman who needed some editing. I don't have time, so I forwarded her to the woman who edits my stuff. Unclear what came of that.

e) Goodreads

What I'm doing:

- Adding friends as I have time. But they are mainly other writers, as opposed to readers.
- Posting links to the book marketing forum and getting some clicks. In the future will post to travel and erotica forums.
- Question: Are there any readers on Goodreads or is it just authors flogging their books?

3) SEO

What I'm doing:

- I optimize my pages using keywords related to my posts.

Results:

- My blog appears on the first page of Google for searches on "Book Marketing," "Travel Humor," "Erotic Humor," and "Humorous Erotica." (My blogs are all optimized for these terms.) So, if I were to publish a book on one of these topics, people would find me. BUT not a lot of people search on these terms.("Erotic Humor" generated a total of 35 page views for me in August.)

4) Publications (another way to get noticed)

What I'm doing:

- I've taken scenes from my book and rewritten them as standalone stories.
- Using duotrope.com plus a listing of top literary journals ranked by Pushcart awards, I sent six of those stories to about 100 different publications. (Submitting online doesn't take that long.) Out of about 70 publications who have responded so far, I got two acceptances from small journals. (unfortunately, none were ranked in the top journals.) But I'll take it! One is going to pay me $20 for a piece.
- Guest posting on other blogs: I've had four of my posts republished in a daily blog by Grub Street, a writing school to which I belong; two blog links appeared on Carnival of the Indies -- it's easy to submit; and another appeared on a writing/editing site called Style Matters. These guest posts generate some traffic, but more importantly they create links back to my blog. Backlinks are supposed to be important for SEO.

5) Best Advice I've Gotten on Book Marketing

- Find stuff you like and become good at it. If I didn't enjoy fiddling with computers, I'd have bailed on a lot of this stuff by now.
- Online marketing can be a slow process. I've set aside time and money to finish my book, so I'll keep at this.
- Serendipity is an artist's best friend, so getting your work in front of as many people as possible is a good thing.
- Finishing your book is job one!

For More of My Book Marketing Tips, See:

- How to Measure Book Marketing Success

- Is Book Promotion a Waste of Time?

The Loneliest Planet by Randy Ross

Book Marketing: Resources for Getting Started

I) Getting Started

Books:

Blogs:

II) Tools

E-mail management service: - Mail chimp: http://www.mailchimp.com

Toolkit image: By Davidpk212 at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-2.5], from Wikimedia Commons

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Promote Your Writing: 4 Tips for Public Readings

1) Buy a Mic and Stand and Practice at Home

2) Use Props

3) Use Gestures and Voices for Scenes with Multiple Characters

4) Memorize Your Work

Tips for memorizing:

More Self-Promotion Tips for Writers

Original Naughty Humor from My New Site: ChronicSingle.com

Art attribution: Microphone photo

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More Quick, DirtyTwitter Tips for Writers: Tweeting Tricks

Executive Summary

More Detail

Preschedule Tweets with Hootsuite and Hootlet

Automatically Share Posts from a Blog, Facebook, and Linked In to Twitter

Twitterfeed: Share Your Blog Posts

Share Facebook and Linked In Posts to Twitter

Twitter for Linked In

Twitter for Facebook

Other Tweeting Tips

E-Mail Freebie: Include Your Web Sites and Social Media Profiles in Messages

More Social Media Tips

Just for Fun

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Quick, Dirty Twitter Tips for Writers

Tips for Adding Followers

Add Followers the Sleazy Way

More Twitter Posts from The Loneliest Planet

Tips for Managing the Twitter Mess

The Hater's Guide to Twitter

Follow me on Twitter: @rsquaredd

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If you write what you love will the money follow?

I) Got Talent?

Third Party Confirmation

My Results

II) Chasing the Dream, Paying the Bills

1) Work, Save, Quit Job, Write for love, Repeat as Needed

2) Find Someone to Support You

3) Work part time, write the rest of the time.

4) Work full time, write in spare time.

5) Develop more outlets and revenue streams for the work you love.

III) Revenue Streams for Writers: My Approach

1) Self-Promotion for Writers

Online:

Offline/Old School:

2) Humor and Naughty Fiction

Online:

Offline/Old School:

For More Inspiration

- Books, Blogs, and More

- The Holstee Manifesto

Note:

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10 Quick, Dirty Facebook Tips for Writers

Using Facebook to Drive Traffic to Your Blog or Web Site

1) Post Links to Facebook Groups

2) Save Time Posting to Your Fan Page with the Auto Post Feature.

3) Post Photos

Building Your Platform: Add Likes (and Caveats)

4) Convert Your Personal Page to a Fan Page

5) Add a Like Button to Your Blog, Web site, E-Mail Signature

6) A Word about Like Fests

7) A Word About Your Numbers

Other Facebook Tips for Writers

8) Link Your Facebook Fan Page Posts to Twitter

9) Ask Friends to Send Their E-mail Address to Get on Your Mailing List

10) How the Big Boys Add Likes

Note:

More Social Media Tips for Writers

- Linked In Tips for Writers

E-mail management service:

- Mail chimp: http://www.mailchimp.com