April 27, 2007
On Line Promotion
Even well-known authors are now promoting their books on line, no longer solely depending on the publicists assigned to them by their conglomerate publishers. It makes sense, as authors know more about their books than a publicist does.
Curt Eiworth, my POD publisher is a consultant and coach, who taught me everything I know about on line promotion. He still regularly gives me promotional tips, and is currently working on a site, which will offer free advice. (E-mail Curt Eiworth).
Thanks to him, I've been trying to brand my books, Crushed, an illustrated Young Adult novel and Frantic, a nostalgic book about the early '70's by promoting them on line since their simultaneous release in October. I have a couple of insidiously promotional blogs for them: Crushed Diaries and Seventies Nostalgia. For a while, I zealously churned out Young Adult stories (for 11-12 year olds) and Seventies' themed articles on the respective blogs, which I would then adapt for Ezine Articles.
I also posted on countless Writers' Forums with big memberships, always leaving my Signature with my website's URL on it.
I regularly write (brief) story and article critiques on Authors Den, an American book marketing site (40,000 hits daily) and fellow writers do the same for me. I've been sporadically reviewing books on Amazon, linking up and shamelessly self-promoting on any site I can think. And, that's just for starters!
My only expenditure to date has been the purchase of Carolyn-Howard Johnson's invaluable book, The Frugal Book Promoter, which advises the reader how to promote one's product on the cheap. And, also a handful of dollars to upload my books' cover art to accompany my press releases on PRWeb. I haven't even spent any money on AdSense yet as One.Com, my site's ISP gave me free credit for my ads when I signed up.
A twelve year old reviewer on Reader Views Kids, an American book site recently gave Crushed a fantastic five star review. Just after I had finished splattering the review on every site imaginable, including My Space, the site's owner then e-mailed me, offering me their promotional services. She said that several UK writers had used them and were 'very happy'. As I have been slogging away in the afternoons (not my best time for writing), doing online promotion myself since the books' release, I declined.
However, I was tempted to pay bucks for their PreViews services. But an ex-pop promo director and scriptwriter friend in Wales has offered to make me a book trailer for both my novels, and post them on MySpace and on YouTube if I pay his train faire down from Wales. It would work out cheaper if he did it.
My next step is to embark on a Virtual Reality book tour, so I shall abstain from paying for promotional services, even though it would have given me more time to write.
Posted by frances on April 27, 2007
April 22, 2007
Net Addiction
I had finally glued myself to my desk just before midnight in order to write after procrastinating all day, when an e-mail arrived. Aaaaaghhh! Naturally, I couldn't resist opening it. Tom Smith of Everythingability fame, had sent me the Uncrushed Diaries' central blog for Writers' Guild members, who had attended his talk the other night. It's an ingenious idea, but similar to the majority of my friends, I'm addicted to the net. It's the most serious addiction I've ever had, more lethal than cigarettes even. When I used to puff on a 'million' fags a day, the ash on my old Corona electric typewriter used to resemble a layer of pigeon shit, but at least I was writing. Those were the days! Up at the crack of dawn, compelled to write thousands of words in my dressing gown until dusk and beyond.
Now, like fellow net junkies world wide, the first thing I do when I get out of bed is to check my e-mails before I start working. I have successfully managed to wean myself off the more addictive forums and computer mailing lists. But, my escalating habit has got so serious, I have no option but to conceal my dock on my Mac during the day. Hopefully, this will stop me from interrupting my writing with posting, surfing, iChatting and Skyping (A friend in Costa Rica religiously Skypes me every day at 4 p.m. my time) for a couple of hours at least. Anti-RSI practitioners advise you to take a break every couple of hours, don't they?! If I'm still unable to resist, I am seriously fantasising about disconnecting this antiquated desktop, which I would then solely use for writing, and getting a laptop purely for internet activities.
Posted by frances on April 22 , 2007
April 19, 2007
The Writers' Guild Of Great Britain Goes Digital
I went to a stimulating talk at the Writers' Guild's headquarters in Kings Cross tonight. It was aimed at 'writers who want to enchance their presence online', chaired by Tom Green, the Guild's blog, website and magazine editor. Moe Owoborode, the friendly Events and Communications Manager organised the packed out event.
The main speaker was Tom Smith at everything ability He helps peoples' websites become more successful. His talk about how to start blogging was fascinating, even though some of his geeky rhetoric was pretty basic, necessary as some of the writers present didn't even know what an URL was.
Tom who incidentally had a MacbookPro, advised newbie bloggers to start blogging on blogger.com as it's so easy. One doesn't even have to learn HTML coding. Besides my personal website, I have three active blogs on blogger.com. One is titled Writerholic. The other two: Crushed Diaries and Seventies Nostalgia help promote my books, Crushed and Frantic. One of the reasons why I found tonight's event beneficial was how to attract more visitors to these sites.
'Links are currency,' Tom proclaimed, and proceeded to advise how to link up with other sites. One way is to add Comments on sites like blogger.com. I also find that splattering Writers' Forums with Comments + my URL in my Signature is a good way to link up too.
The second speaker was Danny Stack, an eloquent scriptwriter and script reader who has a 'must read' blog called Scriptwriting & Script Reading in the UK. He has been into blogging for a couple of years and said when he started, there were only American writer sites. So, he found a niche with his funny and informative UK scriptwriters' blog. He joked that blogging was procrastinating, and said some days he posts for half an hour, other times the entire day. That's the trouble about blogging/surfing the net, it's addictive. I personally need a lot of discipline to go off line in order to write.
The third speaker was Sophie Nicholls who explained how she helped set up the lots of big ideas blog and wiki, and how new online tools can help anonymous writers like asylum speakers to collaborate on her site.
Nowadays, it's necessary for writers to come out of their attics and promote their stuff on the net. Self-promoting is like a full-time job. Although I find that blogging/on line promotion distracts me from my writing, Sophie inspired me by saying she finds that blogging is a good way for her to limber up before she starts writing.
During the break when we all guzzled free wine, I spoke to Danny Stack and Tom, telling them about my 'difficulties' about plogging on Amazon. Tom advised me to post questions on Google. 'Google controls knowledge,' he proclaimed. Lucy Daniel Raby, author of children's book, "Nickolai Of The North" and I both agreed that on line book promotion is vital in this digital age. We agreed to be each others Friends on MySpace!
There were so many questions during the Q & A session after the talks, during which I waxed lyrical about the promotional merits of MySpace, Tom Green only had time to allow each person one question only.
Posted by frances on April 19, 2007
April 17, 2007
Crushed Review
A writer called Brett Nicholas Moore just gave me my best ever review for Crushed on AD, the American Book Marketing site:
'Crushed is one of the funniest books, if not the funniest, I have ever read. I thoroughly enjoyed the wit, which was razor sharp with the most hilarious unforgiving character descriptions ever penned. I don't consider myself a fast reader, especially novel size books, but it took me only a few hours to finish it because I was so hooked. I didn't even eat dinner because I didn't want to interrupt my reading. I just had to keep going to find out what was to become of Door and her odd but endearing family. There's not a wasted moment in the story. I never felt like I was being carried off on a tangent that had nothing to do with anything. Every disastrous event builds something in the development of the story and the characters. After I finished reading it, I felt like I would miss the Brevingtons. Exceptional work, Frances. I'm impressed.'
Naturally, I returned the honour and immediately bought his novella sized book, Tales of Brother Goose. Luckily, I enjoyed it and posted a glowing review on every site I could think of. He deserved it!
Brett has since informed me a poster of his book was put up all over his native St Louis with my review + credit on it. Online promotion is time consuming, but at times like this, it's fun.
.Posted by frances on April 17, 2007
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