She wrote: “In 2010 and beyond, authors are responsible for leveraging personal and professional networks to ensure books get bought.” I agree with her. It is almost imperative that you have a platform and a network built before your book is published and, in reality, before you approach an agent.
Here are her tips:
1. Act Authentically
By this, she means be yourself on Twitter and Facebook. Don’t hit people over the head to get them to buy your book.
2. Be Brave
Here, she’s saying do something original to make yourself stand out. She posted her own trailer as an example.
3. Be consistent
Once you start blogging, tweeting and networking, keep it up. She says to set aside a few minutes every few hours to check in with online friends.
Not bad advice at all. Link over if you’d like to read her explanation of each tip.
I think it's really good advice. The only thing I might add is to set a timer for those few minutes every few hours--it's easy to get pulled into social media and forget about the time.
ReplyDeleteYes, Elizabeth! An hour or more can go by without you being aware of it.
ReplyDeleteI clicked over and read her article, and didn't feel there was anything new in her suggestions. We've all heard often enough now to Tweet, fb, blog. From a social media expert, I guess I expected something more innovative. So I thought the article was disappointing.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Joanne. It's written more toward someone new to networking online. For example, if I were trying to sell my book, I would create a Fan Facebook page for that, so it's clear that's the purpose. Some newbies may not think of that.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Interesting that she says create the social media platform *before* being published. I had this debate with my crit group. I doubted my decision to get active on social media before being published, but one lady in the group (who has recently been published) is now finding it quite difficult to adjust to learning all about the demands and pitfalls of social media and I'm comfortable that when the day comes that I'm eventually published I'll already be in the habit of managing my social media platform. But I suppose everyone must do what they prefer themselves.
ReplyDeleteJudy
Plus, Judy, you'll have followers and an audience who are anticipating the book and who "know" you.
ReplyDeleteI don't Tweet but I do everything else. Trying my best...
ReplyDeleteLauri, tweeting is easy. Facebook seems difficult to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm working hard on all three of those!
ReplyDeleteGood advice, but social networking is addictive and can be overdone. Just ask me. I'm spending more time on the Internet than I am writing.
ReplyDeleteJean, you maintain or participate in so many blogs, I don't know how you do it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you need to set a timer before you sit down and see what your bloggy friends have been up to. I love catching up, but sometimes I love it too much and that's not good for my writing schedule. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's a job within a job...writing is the job and social networking is all the adminstrative tasks that have to get done for the job to be done well.
ReplyDeleteAlmost makes you long for the good ol' days when a writer's biggest task, other than writing, was waiting months for an agent to respond.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the good advice, Helen. Social networking is necessary, but as others have said, it can be very time consuming if you're not careful! I love reading what others write, but getting some writing and book promoting done won't happen by itself!
ReplyDeleteVery true, Connie!
ReplyDeleteI haven't made it over to Twitter or Facebook yet :D
ReplyDeleteThe advice is great, but I can't get over her book title, Power Friending. It kinda sounds tacky on its face.
ReplyDeleteGood advice Helen and thanks for linking.
ReplyDeleteI feel strongly about the be authentic/genuine part. With young children, I unfortunately am exposed to lots of kids television programming.
Using social media to generate interest in a product among friends reminds me of Sponge Bob Square Pants walking in a lonely part of his neighborhood and getting the feeling that he is being followed. He shouts: "I feel like someone is trying to sell me something!"
As long as I am not close to shouting that, I am ok with social networking.
It's very true about the need to build a platform before getting published.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I can check in every few minutes every hour. My few minutes drags on until I've lost precious writing time (I get distracted way too easily)
Of course, the pitfall is getting sucked into social networking and not writing any fiction at all (this is the one I have to be careful of). :)
ReplyDeleteI do Facebook, Twitter , have a blog, and visit a few writing forums. But I resist jumping on any new social media bandwagons simply because it becomes too much to manage and gets overwhelming. But I do like the ones I'm doing.
ReplyDelete~jon