Social Media RipOff

I hereby declare this the biggest social media conference ripoff ever. Ok, maybe not ever. But I don't waste my time researching bogus social media conferences (and you shouldn't either). So there.

$1,000. One day. No confirmed attendee list. I don't see any one-on-one time...AND they're promising you you can learn "best practices." Which you can learn here, here, or here. And many, many other places.

The truth is "best practices" of anything are going to be fairly basic--don't spam, don't overuse the hashtag, etc. You can't talk about best practices of the higher level stuff: crafting a campaign or talking to your specific audience, because there are too many variables. You have to be, at a minimum, familiar with the basics to get anything out of a panel or conference.

Guys, panels are hard. As someone who's been on them and listened to them, it's rare that I come out of a panel discussion with much more than one or two insights to ruminate on (which is usually worth it, actually).

This is because you've got 3 - 5 people, all with different agendas, none of whom want to give too much away, plus an agenda-ed moderator, PLUS a crowd that runs the gamut from someone who knows a lot about the topic to those who just heard about it. And, worse, those who just heard about it who think they're in a tutorial on, say, best practices of social media.

This last group is, unfortunately, the most likely to get suckered in to paying a GRAND to go listen to the head of McDonald's talk about their Twitter strategy. Because obviously what works for them, what's even FEASIBLE for them, should be on your radar, too? No.

Here's the thing about panels and conferences: you have to be really well versed in the topic long before you go there. Ideally, you should have dabbled a little in it, too, so you know what the glitches are for your specific situation. That's why we encourage so much research into agents and publishing before just showing up at a writer's conference thinking you'll get an agent or a book deal. If you don't know what you don't know, how are you going to glean the information that will help answer those questions?

For all of you who've walked out of a panel or a whole conference feeling like you just listened to people talk about totally company specific, personally inapplicable things, that's what happened to you.

So as for these social media conferences? Put your cash into a reputable freelancer who works in your industry and can speak to you particular strategy.

Have you been to a conference before? Did you leave filling fulfilled and knowledgeable or confused and downtrodden?

The Lucky 7 Game

A fun game for writers, published and non, from my friend Liz Norris, author of UNRAVELING (out this month! Go preorder!). Here's the game:

1. Go to the seventh or seventy-seventh page of WIP.
2. Count down seven lines.
3. Copy the seven sentences that follow and post them on your blog.
4. Tag seven other authors (on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr--up to you!).


Enjoy!

Very Cool, Very Crowdsourced

I love this idea: Four regular guys on a mission to complete a list of '100 Things To Do Before You Die' and to help and encourage others to go after their own lists.

The guys crowdsourced an ultimate bucket list on Facebook and now it's going to be a book! You can check out the trailer here. And join the conversation on their Facebook page.

Learn to Blog in 90 Minutes!

Courtesy of yours truly and Writer's Digest. I'll be teaching a webinar about all the essentials and best practices for author blogs, including shedding some light on how agents use the blog to troll for potential clients. Then, I'll take a look at your own blog to tell you how to optimize for the most traffic, getting readers to come back and, of course, how to tailor the blog to help you get noticed by an agent.

Check it: http://bit.ly/x5MvJs

I've got my talking points, but I wonder: what are the most pressing questions for you? You can get as specific as you'd like.

Let me know in the comments! And, of course, you should also sign up for the webinar to learn the answers!!

Makin' Facebook Fancy

DO YOU KNOW how hard it is to integrate custom code into a Facebook page? VERY. Particularly if you're sort of making up/Googling the code as you go along. Which, most of the time, I am/do. But pretty well, I must say.

Working to customize Facebook is like that rule with chefs: you know that they're leaving at least one ingredient out if they agree to tell you a recipe--the most important one, usually. Yeah. That's what Facebook's instructions are like for coding on their platform.

But, just to prove that stubbornness and several sleeves of Ritz crackers will get you just about anywhere, behold. My custom Exclusive Excerpt tab for THE MARIA PARADOX. http://on.fb.me/wKPrOO

A Great Overview of How To Use Twitter...and Have a Job

I hope this sheds light on the fact that, while a lot of tweets from me and mine are organic, many are also posted ahead of time so that the pressure's off me during the busy work day.  I'm not slacking. I'm maximizing.

Which means you can't use "no time" as an excuse not to self-promote anymore. :)

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/5-twitter-secrets-to-become-highly-visible-in-your-niche_b7645

New Author Promo Idea

Use your Twitter bios as a "flash" query. You know how Flash Fiction is a full story in about 50 - 200 words (which, by the way, is a great writing exercise)?

Yeah. Do that, but a query, in your bio. It's like the ultimate log line challenge, and it just might get you noticed.

Some log line theory and examples: http://www.screenplayers.net/loglines.html

The Occupy Wall Street Generation

Well, this is totally off topic, but what do you guys think of this? The article is hilarious, but also has a lot of good insight about what's going on these days. In a nutshell:

"We talk a lot on this site about how geek culture has taken over the mainstream and I worry that another part of geek culture -- the social awkwardness and inability to deal with social settings -- is also going to become the norm. We've slowly killed off most of the activities where kids get together with other kids and have fun (and in the process, learn how to interact)."

Read more: 5 Ways We Ruined the Occupy Wall Street Generation | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation_p2/#ixzz1fJvdOYcc

Book Trailers

Today, the LA Times did a story about book trailers: their blockbuster-like budgets and their ability to sell books the way movie trailers sell tickets.

I don't know, though. I've enjoyed the book trailers I've seen, but I wonder if they really have an effect on sales.

What do you think? Has a book trailer convinced you to throw down at the cash register? Share your favorites in the comments!

Facebook as Promo

Authors are encouraged to establish an "online presence" these days, and that typically consists of some combination of a Facebook page, Twitter, and a blog (not always all three).

I think Facebook is the most difficult of those three to do well, because it takes a lot of effort to maintain the multiple types of media (photos, videos, wall posts) needed to make a Facebook page seem active, and also because it's hard to find the tipping point where your fans start engaging with your page and sharing it, which gives you viral marketing, which is where Facebook outpaces all other social media platforms.

How have you been using Facebook, if you have. What's been the best and worst part? Are there any Facebook pages that you think are really getting it right?

How to Get Twitter Followers

I've noticed a rash of "so-and-so is trying to get ## more followers by the end of the day! Go follow her/him!" tweets recently.

Why is this happening?

I've seen others taunting people: "I'll post XYZ picture if I get ## more followers!"

This is so completely backwards. Posting interesting content will cause people to want to follow you. Interesting content is not a weapon. It goes against everything organic about social media to use it to taunt people into following you. And those people are probably not going to return to your feed, so I hope you don't intend to ever use it to tell them anything else.

Twitter and Facebook followings are built over time, not crammed into one or two "follower drives." What sort of artificial timeline is making people do this all of a sudden??

Traditionally, marketing centered around "events" (hence Event Marketing). So, say, a book launch. A very clever marketer would arrange a series of appearances or reviews or other buzz-generating items slightly before, on, and after, a certain date.

Social media--the internet in general, really--is making Event Marketing a thing of the past. Which is not to say that it's not useful or that no one does it anymore. It still has its applications. But crafting an online presence is not meant to serve one date (although a good presence will give you a strong platform when there is a specific piece of info you need to disseminate). You have to create a reason for people to want to add you to the noise of the Interwebz, so make an effort. Followers drives ain't it.

MUST READ Online Marketing Post from Nancy Coffey Literary and Media Representation

It's sometimes hard to talk about online marketing because every book and every campaign is so different. The strategy changes 100% with each new project. It's easier to talk about what not to do, but that'll only get you so far.

Case studies, man. Case studies is where it's at.

Here's a great one from Joanna Stampfel-Volpe's client Boy Sees Hearts.

Online Author Marketing: Your Book Is Pubbing!

You're living the dream, man. An agent, a book deal...now your book is about to come out!

This is going to be AWESOME.

Publishers dedicate marketing and publicity staff to your book, with their biggest push focused around the launch. It's called "event marketing" in the industry.

What that means is that there's one big push, but no long term marketing strategy for the book...and this is where most authors (and some agents) get really grouchy. ("They're not doing anything anymore!")

But before we start Publisher bashing, as is so en vogue these days, consider that just as your book had some launch-time marketing (galleys printed, an ad somewhere, etc.) the next book on that publicist's list has to get the same attention. The publisher has to move on.

Which means that, at this stage, your own marketing efforts have to get more aggressive and your strategy more sophisticated. In post one, we talked about building the foundation of your online presence. On Tuesday, about focusing your online strategy. At this stage, you should focus on marrying your marketing foundation (blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) with specific marketing strategy.

This means getting creative. Your goal should be to keep your book(s) on people's minds in the online space, where attention spans are notoriously short.

This is not done by "selling" your book.

As you've no doubt heard before, broadcasting "BUY MY BOOK" is a quick way to get ignored. Create value for your audience--by being funny, like Maureen Johnson, finding interesting images on Flickr, or marrying your writing interests with something broader, as Sarah Fine does with psychology and YA literature.

Keep them coming back for your digital content and persona (separate from your book) and they'll get your book news (new releases, discounted ebooks, etc.) too. Organically piqued interest has a much greater chance of generating sales and word-of-mouth advertising.

Yes, this "online stuff" takes time. Or money (you can certainly pay some very talented professionals to do this for you). The online space has become a hugely important marketing and sales environment. If you choose to ignore that online space, you risk dooming your book to the "Launch and Fizzle" pattern so many books fall into.

Online Author Marketing: Agented!

You may have been an unagented writer before, just trying to build a basic online brand (see yesterday's post) but now...

YOU DID IT!

You landed an agent. Nice work! You've got a blog with a few followers and you've done some guest posts here and there for other bloggers who've even returned the favor. You may have figured out The Twitter. The two platforms, through cross-linking, support one another.

Things feel a lot more concrete than they did when you were just hammering away at different projects. You've got one to really focus on, with some in the wings (your agent hopes).

Now that you have something specific to promote, whether sold or unsold, you should reevaluate your online strategy and perhaps expand into new platforms. Hopefully your agent can help you. For instance:

• Are you writing nonfiction as an expert in some area? You could join Quora and start answering questions there--it's a great way to build platform.
• Facebook. This is more complicated because everyone thinks they know how to do The Facebook. Most people have a Facebook page of some sort, but few have one that's really effective in building an online brand, (see here for some details). Think of a strategy for Facebook: what are you promoting? A single title? A series? You as an author?
• Flickr. If you're an artist or illustrator, Flickr is a great place to showcase your work and build stories--supplemental, perhaps, to your book--in a new way.

There are many more ways to build an online brand; your agent can and should help you with this strategy, although you shouldn't expect them to do it for you. If you're too busy for social media, see here. Apply to all social media platforms.

A word on oversharing: you're going on submission now. It's a nervewracking experience for all involved and it can be really frustrating. Don't blog about it. Don't tweet it. Don't write angsty poetry about it and post it to your Tumblr. Don't.

So in the agented stage you get an online presence with a little more flair, guided by your agent. You've also got a more focused message, since you'll have a project to promote. Go get 'em!

Online Author Marketing: Pre-Agent

On Friday, I participated in an amazing interactive interview on Krista Van Dolzer's Mother. Write. (Repeat.) Blog. One of the questions asked, concerning author online marketing, was too complex to discuss in the comments section:

How can a writer get the most out of the Internet at each stage of the writing journey (pre-agent, post-agent, pre-book release, post-book release)?

Since we couldn't talk about it on Friday, it'll be the subject of a series on the blog this week.

First, we'll cover pre-agent online marketing and platform-building tactics.

Since your online presence is the foundation for your online marketing in the future, you should have a strategy before you just jump on Blogger. What brand are you trying to build? What other people are already talking about what you want to? How can you possibly collaborate with them? Unfortunately, blogging about "your writing process" or "your publishing journey" is not going to cut it if you really want to build a following--too many are already doing it. For tips on blog topics, check out this post here (and the surrounding posts).

I suggest a blog and a twitter account as a good online foundation for an aspiring writer.

You don't have to be super active on Twitter as soon as you sign up. Go ahead and find 20 or 30 people to follow--a mix of writers you admire, agents, editors, and non-publishing people--and just lurk. Listen to conversations, jump in where you feel like you have something to say. As you get more comfortable with the platform, you can tweet more. A fully active account should be tweeting no fewer than three times a day.

The hashtags #askagent and #yalitchat are examples of ways to find others interested in the things you're writing about: both agents/editors and beta writers. You can search those terms on Twitter and read the transcripts of the chats, which are always full of great info.

A blog is another good way to get started building an online presence. As you'll see as you get your feet wet with Twitter, the writerly blogosphere is incredibly interconnected. Bloggers guest post, start series together, and share thoughts on books they loved (And hated). But here more than anywhere else you have to worry about oversharing.

Many writers serialize their work on their blogs. I cannot encourage you strongly enough to avoid that. Authors nearly always list "getting an agent" as the reason they put "teasers" on their blogs. But there is already a mechanism for showing your work to agents: the query. Trust that process; it is highly unlikely that an agent will just stumble on your blog. They usually find it by clicking links in a query. So why put it on the blog?

If you choose to do so anyway you may put yourself breach of the warranties and indemnities clause of the publishing contract that you haven't even signed yet. I like Krista's strategy: she has a widget on her sidebar that lists a logline for her book. That's interesting without crossing any lines. Kathleen Ortiz has a great author website post here that lists website elements you should focus on.

You should try to post about twice a week on your blog--a link with a caption is still a post, but try to make a habit of producing real content--between 100 and 400 words.

So what do you think? Any questions? Tomorrow we'll talk about changes you should make once you're an agented writer.

Facebook: Importance

Facebook is the mother of all Social Media networks. Building a presence there is harder than on other platforms because Facebook utilizes all of the content that you might put on other platforms: pictures, blog-like notes, and tweet-like status updates.

Facebook has also really blossomed in the last little while. E-commerce through Facebook is starting to pick up (Facebook as another online retailer?? You want to be there). With one-in-every-eight online minutes spent on Facebook, some are saying that Facebook is the internet. It's the new "mall." A one-stop shop for shopping, news, friends' updates, and entertainment.

But isn't Facebook just for the kids? I mean isn't just for college students to post, then untag that pic of them doing a kegstand?

No.

Here're some stats to illustrate:

• Facebook has 750,000,000 users worldwide, 350,000,000 (50%) of which log in every day.
• The average user has about 130 friends. That means that if you have a Fan Page with 50 fans, you're actually reaching, on average, about 5000 people every time you post.
• Facebook is second only to Google in terms of daily traffic.
• Over 50% of Facebook users are over the age of 35. There are about 30 million users in that age range just in the US.
• Books are the third most-liked products on Facebook, after Movies and TV shows (wompwomp)

Most shockingly:

57% of people--all people--say that they talk more to their friends/family members online than they do in real life.

Bottom line, get on Facebook. But know, before you do, that Facebook isn't magic, any more than anything else online. You have to be smart about planning a strategy.

In the next post, we address how you should get on Facebook. Posting schedules, types of content, and the like.

Anyone out there already on Facebook as a Fan Page, not a personal Profile?

Sources:

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.pcworld.com/article/197431/google_names_facebook_most_visited_site.html

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6128/The-Ultimate-List-100-Facebook-Statistics-Infographics.aspx

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-stats-facts-2011/

Facebook: Profile vs Page

In the comments section of the How-to-Social-Media yesterday, I saw someone reference "scrolling down to see vacation pics." They were talking about a Facebook profile page--where people can request and be approved to be your friend. But if we're talking about building your online brand, we're not talking about a Profile page.

Most people have a Profile page to connect with friends and family. It is NOT the type of page you want to set up as your "author" or public page.

If you're setting up any sort of public page: for your book, for you as an author, or any other sort of professional type thing, you want to set up a Facebook Fan Page. The differences:

• People just click "Like" to gain access to a page; they don't have to be approved the way you would a friend request on your Profile page.
• Your content should be related, although it doesn't have to strictly revolve around, the product or service you set the page up to promote. This means no personal pictures, no vacation uploads from your phone after your third mai-tai.

And Fan Pages, like a Profile Page, have some of the same tools to make your life easier:

• You can import a personal blog, so that when the blog updates so does your Facebook.
• All the same types of content is supported--you can add photos of, say, your book cover or a video of a reading or signing.
• You can link out to your website or to a buy link for whatever you're promoting.
• There is a "Wall" section where you and your followers can interact publicly, as well as messages where you can communicate privately.

Go here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to create your Facebook Fan Page--BUT WAIT.

Make sure you're doing so at the right time. If you don't have a book out in the next year (similar timeframe for other products: if you're not launching within a year, don't jump the gun), you probably don't want to start promoting it now--potential buyers will get fatigued. Twitter is a better, lower-commitment place to start if you're a couple of years out (we'll get to more on that).

Over the next few posts, we'll be talking more about Facebook, how to use it, and what its future looks like for commercial use. Stay tuned!!

BEA Day 1

I had so much fun walking around--in many ways, BEA feels like a big party for publishing people, particularly agents. Agents sort of get a pass to sit in panels, network, and, of course, swag.

This has been my experience in the past, but it certainly wasn't yesterday. As foreign rights director, I had to have, like "meetings." With some delightful publishers from Japan. Of particular interest were innovations that the publisher NHK (the BBC of Japan) is working on to bring ebooks to the Japanese market.

There's currently no hardware for reading ebooks in Japan. Consensus seems to be that this is because Japanese people are not interested in a dedicated reader device--something that only reads ebooks. It's a complaint that Western readers had, too but got over, and that is now being solved by WiFi and 3G readers. And the stupid iPad.

Instead of trying to get readers to adopt new hardware, NHK is working on a platform in mobile app form (it's only in Japanese so far, drat) that will allow people to tweet or post to facebook (and other social media sites, I'm sure) right from their reading environment--from their Kindle for iPhone app, for instance. So they can have their reader+ on their phone. The challenge will be getting people to read on a phone, but I'm seeing more of that even over here.

May be reiventing a couple wheels there, but it's an interesting approach. Our discussion centered on whether people even want that capability. These days, escape from social media and social _______ seem to be the main draws to reading for most.

Like?

There's been a lot of talk recently about the New Yorker's "shockingly successful" Facebook "Like" experiment in the last week or so.

The experiment was meant to test audience engagement: how much will your audience go through to get to your content? Because let's face it everything online is low-investment. In an environment where your audience is just casually browsing for perhaps a few minutes at a time, even expecting them to stop long enough to click a link or a Like is asking a lot. It's why people are so skeptical of paywalls like those put up by the Times (which has an awesome ad campaign, by the way).


So the New Yorker put a story written by Jonathan Franzen about David Foster Wallace up on their Facebook fan page (which has about 220,000 fans). It gained about 17,000 "likes" while it was up. Impressive! Very!

Until you consider that's (and I'm rounding up here) 8% of their fans. And these were the big guns. The names are huge, appeal to their audience, and DFW's new novel just came out. This was the perfect storm for "likes."

We say that 10% engagement of one's audience indicates a successful online presence (measured by action taken--"like" clicked, retweets, comments left). And one of the most famous brands in the world got 8%. What does this mean?

I think it means, first and foremost, that 10% is not as attainable a figure as it might at first appear. It also means that any audience engagement is impressive.

Most importantly, it means that you have to be really specific in your goals. What do you want your audience to do? You have literally one shot: the vast majority of The New Yorker's fans would click "like" once (to become a fan) but not twice, no matter the prize.

So get specific about your goals. If it's just to make friends, that's totally OK! That's the building stage. Later, you can mobilize those fans who've grown to trust you for more specific goals.

Anatomy of a Fiction Platform

You thought you'd dodged this bullet, didn't you? heh.

Oh, novelists, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news (although I'll remind you not to shoot the messenger), but you should take a look at your platform, just like those nonfiction writers.

Is platform in any way essential to fiction the way it is to non? NO. I'll be clear on that. Fiction is sold on the story and the writing. And the economic viability. :) Platform, for novelists, is a bonus. (Nonfiction writers, see yesterday's post stat).

So if a nonfiction "Platform" means convincing editors and agents 1. why you're the best person to write a book and 2. that there's a large audience already eager to read on the subject, what does platform mean for novelists? Answers would be 1. because I thought of it first and 2. Um...everyone wants this! Of course!

And those answers aren't helpful. Platform, for fiction writers, is more about demonstrating that there are people out there who like you. Who think you're funny, say. Or people who find you engaging. Check out Chuck Wendig and Maureen Johnson on Twitter for examples of people who do this really well. Copy them. (sort of serious)

Fiction queries are 100% focused on the novel: who's the main character, what's the big choice they're facing (See Query Shark if you're at all unclear on what a query should do). You don't have to mention your 2K Twitter or blog followers in your query.

But agents will Google you. They will find your 2K Twitter followers and your popular blog (in email queries, at the bottom where you write your contact info, you can include these links, too). They, and the editors to which they pitch your book, will be impressed that you've gone out there and started talking with what will become your audience.