Guest Blogger Autumn Birt: Putting the Social Back in Social Networking

 Putting the Social Back in Social Networking

It is not about the numbers. If what drives your marketing campaign is reaching 1000 Likes on Facebook, 5k followers on Twitter, or simply selling 10,000 books, well there are businesses that claim they will get you that. Give them your money and it will happen. When it does, get back to me and let me know how you feel. I’m guessing it won’t be everything you dreamed.

I won’t say marketing doesn’t have anything to do with numbers. Quantitative results are easy to digest. They are driven into us at a young age so that reaching a goal is equated with hitting a number, normally a large number. I understand that.

But would you rather have 100 followers who ignore everything you say or 10 that retweet, talk to you, and may actually read or have read your book? That is an easy answer for me. But then, I would define myself as a qualitative person.

If my goal was simply monetary, I’d probably be at a casino instead of writing. I wonder what the stats are on that: the chance of winning at a gambling table versus making it to the bestsellers list with one book out? My bet is on the chips and not the keyboard!

If you listen to the well established Indie authors you will hear them say that the chance of immediate success is about nil. It takes time to build a following, it takes multiple books, and it takes consistency in quality and originality. The rest is pure luck.

That is about as comforting as hearing the best way to lose weight is to reduce how much you eat and exercise, but they are both hard truths. Swallow it down and get over it.

Then take note that those same established authors are out there beating the marketing pavement and feel that cold seed grow in your gut. The marketing never ends!

Okay, go get a good dose of alcohol to drown that realization in and then we’ll continue.

The interesting thing about the perpetual marketing required of Indie authors is that it means there are well established authors you can watch and learn from. Isn’t imitation the best form of flattery?

Another nifty thing about marketing is that since there is no sure-fire way to get to the top (other than be good, work hard, produce lots of great novels, and find a way to tell everyone without turning them off) is that the potential for you to discover something that works really well is always possible. That smart mouthed shout out on Twitter might just net you a 1000 followers. The person who looks over your shoulder as you scribble plot notes between meetings might be your next big break. In marketing at least, the playing field is pretty level, especially for the inventive. It is also constantly changing. No set strategy will remain productive. Shout the same thing every day and people will tune you out. It is like nagging. I’m really good at ignoring nagging. A good marketing strategy should constantly evolve (this may explain the no tried and true path to success). Hey, at least you won’t get bored with it.

So this has become the slogan of my marketing campaign: quality over quantity. I do set milestones for myself. The next 10 or 50 new followers, reaching 500 will be great! But these just give me a small carrot to run for (and a reason to celebrate. I really like to celebrate). I’m also pacing myself for a marathon of marketing for the rest of my life (after that someone else can take over barring the zombie apocalypse. In that case I’ll keep running the marketing campaign).

The real core of my marketing though is something else entirely. I’m trying to be the best follower that I can. Really. Isn’t it awesome when someone retweets or likes a post? Better yet, comments? Oooh, or reads your book, loves it, and tells the world in multiple ways? I love those people. I love them so much I’m trying to be one. Good karma will come back around and at the very least, it gives me something else to talk about. No one wants to hear a writer talk about their work 24/7. People tend to avoid those sorts of people. Not a good marketing strategy.

So, if you see me online, say hi. Or I might just say hi. If you need something, let me know. I’ll see if I can help or if I know someone who can. I want every Indie author to hone their skills and write awesome books that set souls (especially the writer’s) on fire. Isn’t that what it is really all about?

Follow Autumn on Twitter  @Weifarer or check out her website and check out her books on AMAZON

Planning the launch party for "The Lies Have It"

Yikes! The launch party for "The Lies Have It" (book three in the Sasha Jackson mystery series) is only about three weeks away!

Fortunately, I've done two book launches in the last two years, so planning the third will be fairly easy.  

• I've ordered customized cocktail napkins again, as I did with the previous books.  The text will have the title and launch date beneath a lipstick kiss.
• I've still got 1000 feet of yellow crime scene tape to decorate the room.
• I've ordered "evidence" bags (both paper and plastic) for people who purchase books.
• The bags and the tape are both from Crime Scene - you can order all sorts of really cool stuff from them!
• I'll have the same three students working the event as I had last time.  They were good and they already know what to do, and I'm lucky to have them.
• This time, we'll be toasting with Goldschlager.
• Once again Iden Ford will take photographs of the party, plus SNAP photography will be there.
• My neighbour Patti will make 100 special cookies for the guests (see picture below).
• Michelle Elliott at The Pilot Tavern will handle things at her end (food, A/V equipment).
• And Moose the Florist will make dozens of customized roses to hand out to each guest.

I can't wait till November 3rd!

Book Promotion By the Numbers - Part Two...

Okay, so I've already talked about online book promotion.  Now, here's the lowdown on other types of book promotion:

My first book was Blood and Groom and it was published by The Dundurn Group in November 2009.  For that book, I did about 60 events in about 15 months: 

• Three TV interviews (all on Rogers Daytime, but different cities).
• Six libraries.
• About 30 store signings at Chapters/Indigo and other retailers.
• Some neat events such as "Murder in the Old Town" at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse and "Vino and Victims" at Swirl Winebar (great place!), plus a Read-A-Thon for Durham Literacy, and so on...
• A few book clubs.
• Some speaking events (Sisters in Crime, schools/writing classes, etc.)
• Several print interviews

I'm the one who thought of, planned, promoted, and executed each event.  Think of what is involved in doing each of those, for example a book signing at a store:  

1. Call or email the store and ask if they are interested in having an event with you and your books.
2. Call or email the same store a week later because they didn't get back to you to confirm the date.
3. Once the date/place are firm, tell all your friends about it.  Tweet the event, post it on Facebook, and (depending on the event) get it listed in local media "What's On" or "Happenings Around Town".
4. Call local media and ask if they would like to cover the event (community newspapers are good for this, especially SNAP).
5. Depending on the event, you may wish to send ahead some promotional materials (bookmarks, flyers, etc.)
6. Retweet the event.  Post a reminder on Facebook.
7. Call the store again to make sure they know you're coming and that they have lots of copies of your book in stock.

Now all of that may seem easy enough (?!?!) but add to that travel time to and from the event and time spent at the event itself (just about every event I ever did was at least two hours). So, if you say 2 hours for the actual event, and 2 hours for planning/promoting it, and 1 hour travel time to and from the event, you're looking at a minimum of five hours of your time for each event.  (Occasionally it's shorter, but often - usually - it's much longer).  If you take five hours time sixty events, that's 300 hours.  (Compare that to a forty hour work week... 300 hours would be 7.5 weeks at a "normal" 9-to-5 job).  Keep in mind - all of this is separate from the time it takes to actually write, revise, edit and proofread a book. 

With Dead Light District (the 2nd Sasha Jackson mystery), I have done fewer events, and I've concentrated mainly on store signings.  Part of the reason for doing fewer events with this one is that the next book is coming right on its heels. The Lies Have It will be out next month (just six months after Dead Light District), so I'll promote both of these quite a bit in the coming months. 

In any case, if you are a new or aspiring author, you'll likely be surprised at how much time you'll need to spend on book related stuff that has nothing to do with actually writing.  I've easily spent way more time promoting each book than I did writing any of them.  By far! 

Book Promotion: Crunching the Numbers

An author has to do a fair bit of work to promote his/her book(s), regardless of who the publisher is.  I knew that going in... sort of...

I'm happy to promote my books - hell, why wouldn't I be?  But I had no idea just what exactly promoting my books would entail.  Here's a few numbers:

SOCIAL MEDIA

• 245+ Blog posts since July 2009
• 6500+ Tweets since October 2009 (@JillEdmondson)
• ~2000 Tweets since May 2010 (@DeadlyLetters)
• 1060 followers @JillEdmondson, listed 70 times
• 330 followers @DeadlyLetters, listed 9 times
• 1200 "Fans" or "Likes" on Facebook page for Sasha Jackson Mysteries

That's a lot of time in front of a computer or chained to a BlackBerry!

Has it been worth it?  YES.  Is all of the above necessary?  YES.

In short, via Facebook I've gained or been introduced to a lot of readers.  I have fans in Hawaii, Texas, UK, and Amsterdam that I'd never have connected with wthout Facebook.

As for Twitter, I've gotten at least four reviews that came (even circuitously) via Twitter.  Maybe even five or six... And they were all very favourable!

As for the blog, it's helped me connect with many other authors, plus a number of readers.  I get about 3000 pageviews a month on the blog, so that`s good. 

So, okay, yeah, the effects of social mmedia book promotion are positive.  But keep in mind how much time it takes to get to those numbers:

• Each blog post takes anywhere between 10 minutes and 60 minutes to write.
• Tweets only take a few seconds to write, but 6500 of them adds up!
• Everything I put out there in cyberland gets plugged online here and there: blog posts are added to StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Gothise, Google+ and Facebook, and, of course, to Twitter (both accounts).  This takes time - even if it's only a few minutes (or even seconds!) for each thing, it adds up.
• I spend as much time "liking" or re-tweeting or mentioning other authors & their updates on Twitter et al as I do with my own updates.
• Even with RSS feeds, you still have to post or repost things hither and yon, and not every site can have an RSS feed attached to it.

So, even though I can tweet and post stuff online from the comfort of home, in my jammies, with a big mug of coffee and some cheesy music playing, it`s still a time bandit.  All together, I spend at least ten hours a week doing social media book stuff.  Often, it's more than that...

I could have written a whole other book in the time it took to promote the ones that have already been published!


 
More on book promotion - other than via social media - in the next blog post.

MIA and trudging along...

Hey there,


I've been MIA the last little while.  A combination of busy as hell at my full-time job (college prof... midterms...yikes) and doing book events (or planning book events) when I can.


Long before I was published, a writer acquaintance said the real work comes after the writing.  She meant all the promo stuff and all the effort that entails.  I'm not complaining, but I now get what she meant! 


The events themselves are usually fun and it's nice to talk to people about my book, about writing and so on.  The only bummer is if an event doesn't draw a crowd... but I guess that will happen at times - despite efforts to publicize the reading or whatever it is.


One thing I hadn't really expected is how hard and how easy it is to arrange an event, whether a library or a retail venue.  In some cases, it's all arranged in minutes via an email or two.  Date, time, place - poof!  Done!  See you soon.  In other cases, it's a series of calls, emails and faxes (who faxes anymore???) and a week or two before things get confirmed (or not).  I wish there were a recipe for this!


The one thing I am finding helpful and very supportive is local media, whether print or televised.  Community papers seem glad to cover events in their neighbourhoods, and local cable channels are eager to meet with you as well.


All in all, this has been one heck of a learning curve!

Book promotion article from NY Times

Hi Folks,

This is a quickie post. I have to share this essay I read in this morning's New York Times Books section. Some great ideas about promoting your book. Have a look; it's a really good article!


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/books/review/Elliott-t.html?ref=books

Libraries are your friends!

Hey there fellow authors and aspiring writers!

One thing I have seen little of (actually, almost nothing of) around the blogosphere is the topic of libraries.

As an author, I love libraries!

Now, writers out there may be saying: "But wait, why do you love libraries? People borrow your book for free. Wouldn't you prefer that people bought it rather than borrowed it? Don't you miss out on all those royalties?"

Hopefully lots of people borrow it!

Libraries are good to authors in three specific ways:

1. They usually promote new books, new authors, new titles. They often have newsletters offering blurbs on recent acquisitions. They frequently set up display tables with "new" books or "this just in," or they will sometimes set up a table by "Canadian authors" or other themes.

Unless you have a BIG budget, it would be next to impossible to get that kind of prominent display and/or publicity from the big chain bookstores.

Your book can and will get noticed because of any of these types of library promotion. For example, the Toronto library system ordered 14 copies of "Blood and Groom" and there are 33 holds placed already on returning copies. The Ottawa library system has ordered 7 copies of my book, as as of this morning, there are 24 holds placed on returning copies.

2. Okay, so you're not making huge royalties from each borrower, but the library users can spread word of mouth. People may notice them reading your book on the bus, or may see them reading your book during the lunch break. They may tell a couple of friends (or,hopefully many friends) about it ... and maybe some of those people will go out and buy a copy... When you're a new author, your main concern should be on getting an audience, building a readership, generating a buzz...

3. Libraries LOVE events: author meet & greet, readings, panel discussions, etc. Authors are generally welcome to bring books for sale and signing at such events. So, again, there's potential for word or mouth; there is an opportunity to build your audience; you might sell some books, and... I can't see any disadvantages.

As a new author, I am getting mixed responses from bookstores about having events. Some welcome the idea, but would prefer to wait until I have a second book out; some are more interested in having events with 2 or 3 authors. I can understand all this; it makes perfect sense as they're in business to sell books, and new authors might not be much of a "draw"... yet!

So, for now, I will keep plugging away at both, but I fully intend to spend just as much time promoting at libraries as I do with retailers.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

Jill (and Sasha)

Social media and your characters and your plot...

A question for all you writers out there:

Given the way that social media (Blogger, Facebook, You Tube, MSN Messenger, and so on) have infiltrated day to day life, I am wondering about their presence in fiction.

Do your characters use MSN messenger? Does your character have a profile on Facebook? Does your heroine send text messages to her friends? Is there an embarrassing wedding video of your protagonist on You Tube? Does anyone in your books send out "Tweets"?

Just curious... Jill and yes, I am now on "Twitter"... @JillEdmondson
Blood and Groom will be available in two weeks!!!

www.jilledmondson.com

Cocktails in Blood and Groom

Well, like the hardboiled dicks of yore, booze plays a part in Blood and Groom. However, unlike the old sleuth who pulled a fifth of scotch from his desk drawer, Sasha imbibes with friends at funky bars around town.

Sasha's tastes in alcohol are varied; it all depends on her mood, the setting and the company. On a hot summer day, she'll have a fruity drink with an umbrella, and on a cold winter day, she'll pour a coffee with Bailey's.

Sasha and Lindsey knock back a few martinis when they have dinner at Shane's restaurant; they get into the Jagermeister when they go on a tear along Queen West; Sasha hoists a pint of Creemore while at the Wheat Sheaf; and - of course - she enjoys the odd glass of wine... just so long as it doesn't get thrown in her face.