Down Time?

What does Debra do in between releases?

It's been a while since I've had a new release. My last release was New Year's Eve at The Corral which made its debut last December. The beginning of this year started out with a fairly major dry spell for me. I was away from writing for a really, really long time. I picked it back up in the summer again and was able to make enough progress to submit a completed story to a new publisher in October. As you know, now I'm in a holding pattern on that one until I hear back...probably in January or February.

In the meantime, I spent the month of November on a new project and won my first NaNoWriMo. At some point I need to finish up that mss and get it polished to send off...somewhere. It will all depend on what happens with the submission I have out there right now. I have to admit, I was a bit burned out after NaNo and haven't really been back at actual writing with any kind of consistent schedule at all. But I'll get back to it. The characters and setting are never far from my mind, I just needed a little break after the intensity of November.

In December I participated in a Facebook release party for a fellow TWRP author. I'd done a very simplified release party for myself once, but had never participated in one for another author with a multitude of 'hosts'. It was quite the adventure! I learned a lot. During the event I noticed that many of the authors have really neat 'promo ads' as I call them. (I'm sure they have an actual name, but that label works for me!) Since I've been trying to be a bit more active on social media, I've noticed a lot of these 'promo ads' as well on both Facebook and Twitter.

So I decided to give it a go. I'm a big fan of Publisher, so I did some copying, pasting, cropping, resizing, and downloading free clip art and graphics, and I've been creating my own promo ads. After creating in Publisher, I save as a jpeg and then I can just insert into posts on Facebook and Twitter as a picture. Here are the ones I've done so far:

This week I'll do one for my NYE story, and then probably put together ones for my other books as well. I also want to do one for my Corral series and one for just the holiday stories. They're pretty quick and easy to do. I don't spend hours and hours on them for sure. A professional graphic artist would probably do a bit better with design and layout, but for me, they work. And they're fun for me to do! I try to do each one a little bit differently, but I'm really digging the cover inside a e-reader device, so I tend to use that a lot. Sometimes I include a blurb or a tag line or a review.

I've joined some book marketing Facebook sites, so last week I was really plugging my Christmas stories. Even though they aren't new releases, it's been fun breathing new life into them with different posts and these 'promo ads'.

So, no, an author doesn't really ever have down time, it's all a matter of figuring out how to drive readers your way, whether your release is brand spanking new, or if you're just revisiting it to attract a new audience. Updating my web-site and taking a look at Instagram are also on my to-do list in the next couple of weeks.

Until next time,

Happy Reading and Happy New Year!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Instagram for Authors

Jennifer is trying a new social media platform...

In my continuing quest to try new marketing things, and while I wait for my galleys to be sent to me, I decided to try Instagram for my author account.

I’m on Instagram personally—I love posting photos of my family or events, and playing with the filters is fun. Because I do post photos of my kids, my account is private—if I don’t know you, and know you well, I don’t allow you to follow me.

But photos are popular everywhere on social media. Posts that include them get a higher reach. Readers like to get a glimpse into authors’ lives. And my publisher said that Instagram is the number one social media platform.

So I created an author account on Instagram—authorjenniferwilck. Not very creative, but there it is. Instead of making the account private, it’s public, so anyone can follow me. I post a photo a day of anything having to do with writing—my books, my blog, my writing space, a book I’m reading. And I hashtag the heck out of everything I post, choosing hashtags that are pertinent and popular.

So far, it’s been fun and seems to be working. In two weeks, I’ve gotten almost 60 followers (weeding out the creepy guys—FYI, if you’re going to use a hashtag with romance, make sure there is a word after romance, like writer or author. Otherwise, you get lots of men who think you’re looking for a date.). They are growing slowly and steadily.

I’m hopeful that this platform will increase my reach and enable me to promote my books to another group of readers. Since I set it up as a business account, I plan to run ads when my book is ready for release.  I’ll let you know how it goes, but in the meantime, feel free to follow me!

Trying Something New

Jennifer talks about a new social media tool…

As authors, we are always looking at new ways to promote our books and I’m no exception. This time around, I’m trying to be selective in how much I spend and what I do. I plan to really analyze what results I get and determine which strategies worked and which didn’t. That’s not to say I’ll be able to repeat any successes or avoid any failures, but I’m trying.

One of the things I’m trying this time around is Thunderclap and Headtalker campaigns.

Does anyone remember the shampoo commercial from the 1980’s—you tell two friends and they’ll tell two friends and so on (if not, click here to see it)? Basically, that commercial proved that your sales can increase exponentially the more people you tell about your product.

Enter Thunderclap and Headtalker. You create an announcement on their website—for me, my announcement is the release of my new book. You give it a title, a link, a photo and a little information, as well as a date the announcement is to appear and a goal of how many people you want to help you spread the news. Then you share that campaign with people. Those people click on the social media platform they’re willing to use to share your announcement. If you reach your goal (mine is 100 people sharing my announcement), the site automatically sends it out via the social media outlets people have chosen.

For mine, I am announcing the release of Addicted to Love. I set my goal at 100 people, and I’m setting the announcement to appear on July 21, release day. So far, I have 52 people signed up to help share my announcement using Thunderclap, and 26 people signed up using Headtalker. I have joined a couple of Facebook groups dedicated to publicizing these campaigns. Basically, I agree to sign up for yours if you agree to sign up for mine. The result is that my reach is much greater than if I just tweeted or put an announcement on Facebook or whatever myself. In fact, right now, my reach through Thunderclap is 118,000 people. On Headtalker, it’s 971,000. Those numbers are based on the people who sign up to help me promote, and the number of followers they each have.

It’s free. It’s easy. If I don’t reach my goal, the announcement isn’t made through those venues. But I can still announce on my own, using my friends, etc. So there’s no downside. I’ve attached the links below for you to help me if you’d like. Having helped other people do this, I have learned that there is no problem giving Thunderclap and Headtalker access to my accounts—they don’t post anything else other than what I’m specifically signing up for and they don’t send me spam or anything.

So if you’d like to help me out, I’d love it. And it will also give you a chance to take a look at these two methods of making use of social media. You might find you want to give it a try the next time you’re promoting something.

Headtalker

Thunderclap

Social Media: How Do I Make it Work for Me?

One thing I'd really like to get better at is using social media as a more effective marketing tool. Last year I did an on-line marketing challenge that gave all sorts of great tips. One of the best things that came out of it was setting up a Twitter account, which previously I hadn't had. I was super stoked about it, but now nearly a year later...it is sitting and languishing. I rarely post on it, so it's out there collecting cyber dust. And to be honest, I'm not sure how it's that much different than Facebook, other than you're limited to the number of characters you can use in a post. I'm sure I'm missing the point because I don't understand how it really works.

The same for my Facebook account. I rarely check that either. The biggest issue I have with Facebook is when I first set up my account, I did it as a personal account. What I needed to do was set up an author page. Does anyone who is more Facebook savvy than me know if I can switch it?

And will switching cut down on the endless stream of day-to-day from the hundreds of friends I have? I don't want to offend anyone, but what I'm looking for is a way to promote my books, not look at pictures of everyone's cats, babies, birthday parties, etc. I totally don't even know enough to know if having any author page would cut out the zillions of personal posts. Is there a way to use Facebook for strictly promo and not get an endless stream of everyone else's life?

Because I just can't keep up. There just aren't enough hours in the day. I am sorely tempted to go completely off-line with my Facebook account. I think, but again I'm so not up on how it all works, that I can put a 'hold' or 'stop' or 'freeze' on my account or something like that until I figure out how to switch it over from a personal page to an author/business page...if it's even possible to do that. Maybe I need to just 'erase' and start completely over. I just don't know.

What I need, me and every other author out there I'm sure, is a fresh approach. What's going to make me stand out from everyone else out there? I tried a promotion for my New Year's Eve release last year, but it didn't really pan out. I think I fell about 995 short in my #sellathousand 'challenge'. But in a sense, I don't consider it a complete failure. It got me to try something different as a way to reach readers. And as part of the promotion, I joined a few Facebook groups strictly for promoting books, which were great while I was running my contest and 99c book sale. The sale part of the promotion seemed to work better than trying to sell a thousand of a single title. I may try putting some of my others titles on sale in the near future, to see what kind of results I can garner.

What I need is to set aside time to really work at promotion. Part of the problem is I think of my writing as a hobby, not a 'real' job. Which means that other things in life always come first and take precedence over my writing. I know I'm not the only one. Everyone is busy and has a million things going on. I think I used to be better at balancing everything. I'm not sure what changed. Maybe just my attitude.

I don't mean to sound whiny...and I apologize if I do. What I'm really looking for here is to know how you use social media. Do you post on Facebook or Twitter everyday? Do you find there are certain types of posts that tend to draw more attention? How do you deal with the non-writing posts of Facebook? I'm not looking to steal anyone's unique and original ways of promoting, but if you're willing to share some tried and true strategies you've used, I'd be eternally grateful.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

U is for Using Social Media

Debra is a social media failure.

I will be the first to admit I am not very good at using social media effectively for promotion.

I really, really enjoy our conversations each week here at Heroines with Hearts, but as a marketing tool, I don't think blogs are very effective. At least for me personally. I've pretty much given up doing blog tours for my new releases. I found that I didn't get any new visitors, which means I'm not getting myself or my work in front of a different audience than I already have. Overall, my book sales have remained steady, so at least there hasn't been too much of a negative effect in not doing those tours. I still participate in one other blog, Book Beat Babes, but gave up the third I was a member of.

When I first got on Facebook, I was very careful to keep personal things off of my timeline. I only used my page for authory type news. But since many people who friended share personal information, I find my page filled with pictures of their kids, what they had for dinner, where they went on vacation, etc. Eventually the lines blurred for me as well, and I started posting personal things here and there. I am not on Facebook often, so again, as a marketing tool, it hasn't been effective. I do have a page, created by a friend, called "Fans of Debra St. John" which I really need to figure out how to use more effectively for book promotion. But again, if someone I've friended on there posts something personal, won't that appear on the timeline? Then personal and professional get all mixed up. This is something I need to investigate. I know many authors who have author pages on Facebook. I'll have to really study their timelines and see how it works for them to figure out how to make a page more professional than personal. With One Great Night, I tried a release party on Facebook, which was attended by several of my friends and fellow authors. But again, no one new. No one who wouldn't haven't known about my book already.

I haven't tried Twitter yet, although my publisher puts out a regular call for Tweets to share about our books on the TWRP Twitter feed. I think I may try giving Twitter a go this summer and see what happens. It will definitely be a learning curve, since I really am not familiar with it at all, but I'm open to learning something new!

Word of mouth...okay, so technically this isn't social media, but it can be a marketing tool. When my first book came out, my friends were so excited. They bought copies for themselves, their families, and other friends. Now that I have ten out, the excitement has died down a bit. When This Feels Like Home came out, I bought 30 paperback copies, thinking I'd sell most of them to my friends. Well, I still have a box of about 18 or so sitting in my den. I still let them know when I have a book out, but there doesn't seem to be a rush to buy them. Maybe they aren't romance fans. Maybe they don't like my writing. Maybe it's just that the excitement has worn off and it's 'same old same old' at this point.

I maintain a web-site, which I recently updated with a different theme and style. I have some ideas for adding a few more pages - pictures, a sub-page for each book, etc. - and I enjoy playing around with it, but I'm lucky to get half a dozen hits a month, so this probably isn't hitting any new readers either.

And I'm sure there are other things out there I'm missing.

What success (or failures) have you had with social media?

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Trying To Be Everywhere At Once...And Failing

Jennifer and her online presence.

When I first became a writer, I was told I had to market myself and have an online presence.  I’d already joined Facebook with a personal page, and I soon added an author page, which I’m only somewhat successful in directing people to. I soon followed with Twitter. Later, I added Google+, Foursquare and recently, Pinterest (although I haven’t done any publicity about that). And of course, I have a website and a blog, and I contribute to other blogs, such as this one, weekly or monthly.

That’s a lot of time to spend online.

Social media is fun. It gives people who mostly stay home a social outlet to interact with others, similar to the water cooler at an office. At least, that’s what I’ve used to justify my almost constant time spent switching from one form or another throughout the day.

Lately, however, I’m noticing that I spend more time than I should in a virtual world. I’ve also noticed I’m not as happy as I used to be. Now, there may be other reasons for my lack of happiness, but I think it’s time I started to do something about all of this. And perhaps there is a connection between amount of time spent online and happiness.

My website is essential for me as an author. My personal blog is essential for my mental well-being—it’s one of the places I vent, I kvell, and I publicize my writing achievements. It’s a mix of personal and professional, so I talk about everything that interests me—writing, religion, politics, parenting, the news. Maybe I shouldn’t mix those things together, but it’s who I am, and I’m not changing that.

The blogs I contribute to are important as well, because those are writing blogs and allow me to reach an audience I otherwise might not reach.

I like Facebook. I shouldn’t. It’s a huge time-suck. But I like it. It allows me to meet people, chat with old friends and be entertained. It also allows me to join online writing groups. And my author page is another way for me to get my writing out there.

Twitter is, for me, a necessary evil. I’m gaining a lot of followers who are reading my blogs and more importantly, retweeting my blogs to others. My readership is slowly increasing. I still don’t like it, but I’m learning to use it more efficiently and effectively.

I’m being very snobby with Pinterest. I’m only following other writers. I’m not posting much, but it’s a great way to create a visual storyboard for my books. And I find fun book hideaways and writing quotes.

I just deleted my Foursquare account. I tried it for awhile to see what it was like. Other than checking in to different places, I can’t find a use for it. Why do I need a record of restaurants I go to? Why do I care where others go? If my friends find a great restaurant, I hope they’ll tell me. Or better yet, take me there (especially if chocolate is involved). But there’s not professional point and it’s making me feel a bit stalkerish. So, I’m done.

Google+ is probably my next thing to get rid of. I tried it, can’t really figure out a purpose to it and am really just posting things because I think I should. But I haven’t seen a benefit and I’m connecting with a lot of strangers, without getting to know anyone. Oh, there, I just convinced myself why I should delete my account. J

Like anything, I think the key to all of this is moderation. Once I’ve pared down WHERE I am, I’m going to pare down HOW OFTEN I’m in any of these places. I suspect I’ll find myself a lot more productive.

And hopefully, happier.