With another change in our Mommy Authors, I'll be writing each month as well.....Often times writers get comments like the ones listed here............
We all have to overcome this
I find that I really love to read about how other authors promote or write so these five tips were very helpful. I can't remember where I found them but here they are....
Five tips found to help promote books with social media
•Make connections before you need them. You can’t start a
Twitter account the day your book launches and expect to be an instant success,
said Natalie Lin, online publicist at John Wiley & Sons. You need to start
developing your audience long before you have something to market to them, she
said. New writers have the most to gain from social networks, said literary
blogger Levi Asher, since a social presence can help an up-and-coming author prove
to a publisher that their work has an audience. Asher cited author Tao Lin as a
rising talent who is gaining a cult following through his use of social
networks.
•Join conversations that aren’t about you. You can’t build
meaningful connections with fans by just talking about yourself all the time,
Lin said. If you want to make authentic relationships, trying joining in
conversations about other topics that interest you, she suggested. Lin also
suggested using your social presence to reach out to bloggers and other influences that you respect. Asher agreed, noting that when an author
approaches him about reviewing their book, he’s more likely to consider the
request when the author can send him a personal note and demonstrate a little
familiarity with his work.
•Use social media to feed your work. Your Twitter account
isn’t just a promotional vehicle, said A.J. Jacobs, author of “The Year of
Living Biblically” and other memoirs. Your social-networking experiences can
actually help you develop ideas. Jacobs recently tweeted about his wife waking
up in a bad mood after she had a dream about him flirting with another woman.
Jacobs told the panel that after he sent this message, several of his followers
responded that they’d had similar experiences with their spouses. What seemed
like a freak occurrence at first might actually be a common problem that Jacobs
could explore in an article.
could explore in an article.
•Stick with it. Shifting from the private process of writing a
book to the public process of promoting it can be a jarring experience for a
writer, said Asher. Many writers become frustrated when they don’t develop an
online following right away, he noted — or worse yet, when the people they
connect with first aren’t fans, but harsh critics. Developing a real following
takes time, and even then, your fans may still be critical of your work. Jacobs
said he routinely received notes from fans alerting him to factual errors in
his books. Authors need to be willing to open themselves up to critics and
trust that their fans will take care of them in the long haul, Lin noted. “You
need real stamina to make it work,” she said.
As an author, I'm always looking for ways to promote my book. This is an ongoing, uncomfortable job as authors are always having to push their writing... I haven't made a twitter account yet because I just don't want that much information on my phone but there are other ways to promote your writing with social media if you feel the same way as me.
One of the hardest things to do is to keep doing it..... sticking to a plan and then having the passion to keep pushing yourself is a feat in of itself... Just keep writing.......writing..... writing and just keep promoting...promoting....promoting.
Speaking of promoting...I found this really cool blog of Grant Snider's creative cartooning and he has a lot more of these very entertaining cartoons... See here for the rest of the blog....
Happy Writing
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