So, I've written the book...where do I find readers?

I think marketing is, without a doubt, the hardest part of writing a book. I made it through the first-draft woes, survived Revision Hell, made it through all the subsequent edits, formatting, and finally submitting it for sale. One would think that would be the tough part, but my head is spinning from trying to learn marketing strategies.

The biggest marketing problem soon became clear to me. There are plenty of places to connect with other authors...finding readers is trickier. 

I started out by joining some tweet teams through http://www.worldliterarycafe.com. That seems to help, but I'm not connecting with people and there is no way to know if anyone is buying my book based on seeing it on Twitter. I knew I needed another method to reach potential readers. 

Enter Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com. This is where a lot of readers hang out, and so far has seemed the most helpful. The deal is, though, just putting your book up on Goodreads isn't enough. You have to help people find you. I was amazed at how easy this was to do. For free, Goodreads will let you do a giveaway on their website. It's very simple. 

In the bar across the top of the page at Goodreads you click on the drop-down menu next to EXPLORE. In the list that appears, click where it says 'giveaways' and in the next screen off to the right is a link that says 'List a Giveaway." From there you just fill out the information you want to include and submit it.  Once reviewed, your giveaway will be listed. 

I thought only people I invited could enter the giveaway, so I wasn't sure how successful this would be. However, people actually search out these giveaways and enter, even people who don't already know you. I submitted a giveaway for Always & Forever and scheduled it for one month. It will end October 14th, and Goodreads will pick the winner and give me their address. I'll then mail the signed copy of my book to the lucky winner.  I can also list another giveaway if I choose to, having the potential to reach even more people. 

Out of the people I invited, only about ten entered. At the time I'm writing this blog, 403 people have entered the giveaway in total. Pretty cool, since I wouldn't have reached these people otherwise. Also, 195 of those entrants added my book to their "to-be-read" piles. Maybe in the future, when they are looking for something to read, my book will come to their attention yet again and they will consider buying it. As far as free advertising (well, besides the cost of a book and postage) it doesn't get easier than this. 

One thing though, your giveaway has to be a physical book, not an ebook. If you only have ebooks currently, I would recommend checking into Amazon's on-demand publishing service, https://www.createspace.com/. The quality is very nice and you only have to pay for the books you actually buy (you can order one at a time). They take care of everything (orders, shipping, returns, customer complaints, etc.) once you've set your book up and put it on sale. I've also heard that https://www.lulu.com has on-demand printing services, but I've never used them so can't attest to the quality. 

If you haven't entered my giveaway yet, it's ending soon. You better hurry! You can enter here.

So, what methods do you all use to connect with readers? I sure could use some more ideas!

Have a fabulous day! Happy writing and marketing ;-)
eeeChantelfff

I Might Be Crazy... Time Will Tell

Well, I've finally reached that moment I've been waiting for. Always & Forever's publication plan is on track and things will start on September 14, 2012. I'm really excited to send Zach and Lilly out into the world and see what people think. I've loved creating them, living in their world, going through their struggles with them. I hope other people enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

There is so much associated with publishing a book. I'm so busy getting everything ready that my head is spinning. It goes much further than writing the book and being done with it. You have to get the cover art, hire an editor, write the blurb, come up with an author bio. Not to mention read the book a ton of times trying to catch any errors you and your editor might have both missed (already found some of these and I have advanced readers on the lookout for anything else). On top of that, there now comes marketing. How do I get the word out about my book and let people know when it goes on sale?

I already joined the wonderful world of Twitter, I'm on Triberr, and I have some followers for this blog. I figure I'm a step up in the world as far as beginning marketing. However, for a new release it is important to spread word to the masses. Most of the people who know about me are authors, and while I greatly appreciate their support and the friendships I've made along the way, what I really need to reach are readers.  I already have a small base of reading fans through friends and family who are advanced readers, and I know they will be out there selling my book for me. But I need a bigger reach.

Entire blog touring. I knew about this in theory, but I wasn't sure how to implement it in practice. Well, all I really had to do was ask. I'm so amazed by all the generous folks who have agreed to interview me, do book spotlights, and just be a part of helping me spread the word for my book release. You all should check out their blogs in the meantime, but I'll remind everyone either through here or on Twitter when the blog tour starts. So many people reached out to help me, that now I'm worried about getting everything completed in time. Even though it's added a layer of stress, I am so thankful and grateful to all these wonderful people for their kind help.

You can get links to the other blogs and see my schedule by clicking on the tab above that says Always & Forever Blog Tour.  You can also read my finalized blurb and the first two chapters of my book by clicking on the tab that says Always & Forever.

Have a great rest of your week, everyone! On Friday I will have another author spotlight highlighting the work of my good friend and critique buddy, Michele Shriver.  Visit her blog at http://micheleshriver.com/ in the meantime.

~ Chantel 

The Wonderful World of Twitter

A long time ago I promised to do an update on any tools I found to make Twitter less time consuming.  I have found a few methods/tools that help me out a lot.

First off, I take care of my follows/unfollows in the morning.  I quickly follow all the people who followed me (except the ones who are just trying to get me to pay for more follows). It is okay not to follow people back, and I had a hard time understanding this at first.  Next, I unfollow people who haven't followed me back. I use a free program called JustUnfollow www.justunfollow.com. At the point you get over 2000 followers, apparently Twitter limits the follower to followee ratio so you need to get rid of people who aren't following back.

Next, I go onto Twitter and spend a few minutes (maybe ten) a few times a week reading articles and retweeting the tweets I find interesting.  I don't do this every day, because I can waste a ton of time here. I have to limit myself to the ten minutes or so of sharing/reading other people's tweets.

After this, I go to my mentions page.  It is easy to hit "reply" and send a quick message to anyone who mentioned me that day. However, I don't send a message to everyone who Tweeted me using Triberr triberr.com, only the people who have sent me some sort of personal message or given me a shout out. I also check any direct messages and reply to the ones that are actual conversations with me and not just spam to get me to visit their site/buy their product, etc.

Once a week, I use followfridayhelper.com/ a free program that tracks how many people mentioned me in an easy format where I can give multiple shout outs to thank them and alert my followers these are good folks.  This is where I thank everyone who tweets me through Triberr.

All in all, I've got it down to where I spend only ten to twenty minutes a day on Twitter.  Sometimes when I'm procrastinating about something else, I will go on an extra time and read/RT more tweets from people I've followed.

When I get ready to multiply my reach by joining some tweet teams (you can do this through www.worldliterarycafe.com or find tweet teams other places like Facebook) then there are programs to help schedule tweets. Tweet teams are where you join up with a group of other people and send out their tweet to your followers, and they in turn send out your tweet to their followers.  The scheduling programs I've heard of to do this include hootsuite.com and www.tweetdeck.com though there are others. I'm sure there is a learning curve with both of these programs, but what they do is allow you to plug several tweets into them in the morning and stagger when they post to Twitter throughout the day.

[I have to add this information right now! Thanks Ruby Barnes for bringing this to my attention.  If you are technologically challenged, like I am, Tweet 140 is so easy to use to schedule your tweets for a tweet team type of situation.  The web site is http://feed140.com/ The basic account is free.  All you have to do is sign up with them, then go to your settings on the top right-hand side. Select your time zone, what times of day you want tweets to go out between, and how many tweets you want posted per hour. Then, copy your tweets from your tweet teams into the queue list and hit tweet.  It automatically schedules your times based on how many per hour you selected! This is so much easier for me than hootsuite or tweetdeck! One thing, it doesn't shorten the URL's for you so if they are long ones that don't fit you have to shorten them, but that can be done for free at bitly.com I'm so excited by how easy this program is! It is the one I will be using for all my scheduling. Thanks again, Ruby!]

Using these free programs significantly cuts down the amount of time I spend on Twitter each day. Do you have any other tweet tips for me?


Here are a few web sites for more help with Twitter:
New to Twitter or Need Tweet Perspective? Don't Over-Think It - good general information
writersedgeinfo.blogspot.ca - information on what kinds of things to tweet
Coming Clean About My Twitter Success - tells how to get more Twitter followers (and where I learned about justunfollow.com)


Happy tweeting!

~ Chantel 

Now I Have to Network?

So, I made the decision to self-publish.  After agonizing over that for weeks, I finally stuck to my decision.  What now?

Now, I enter the wonderful world of promotion (important for self-pub and traditional alike).  I already started this blog (and if you are thinking about starting your own blog, I've personally been happy with Blogger--and it's free)  and then I bought the domain name for my web site.  What did I have left to do?

Boy, it's a good thing I've found a few friends along the way to clue me in!

My first stop was World Literary Cafe.  This web site includes a lot of information for the aspiring author or the published.  It is a place for readers and writers to connect.  Mostly, I've been trying to build my network, so I became interested in the follow programs for both Facebook and Twitter where you follow other authors and they follow you back (or like you in the case of Facebook).  Sounded good to me.

Next, I started a Facebook page.  Honestly, my blog seems much more useful to me than this.  I have some followers though, so I'll keep trying to figure out what to do with the Facebook page.  I would suggest this be the last thing you attempt, as I've found it to be the least useful.

After that, it was time to move on to Twitter.  Now, this was actually a bit fun for me, and I've been meeting some really interesting people.  In addition to that, I've connected with both readers and writers over the last few weeks (and even other people who watch Ghost Hunters!).

The real power comes when you combine your blog with Twitter in a newer media called triberr.  It is best if you don't join this web site on your own, but ask a friend who is in triberr to invite you into their tribe.  If you get invited, it is free.  If you join on your own, then to get into a specific tribe with people you know it causes what they call "inbreeding," and it costs money (bones) to get into the tribe of your choice.  Basically, we all share our blog feeds with triberr and with a simple click to approve posts, we share each other's blogs over our Twitter feeds.   This has really increased the number of viewers I get to my blog each day, increased my blog followers, and is helping to spread the word about information I'm sharing... hopefully it is all interesting enough to keep people coming back!

Just a cautionary tale... do not commit one of the Seven Sins of Social Networking as detailed by the vastly entertaining Rachelle Ayala on her blog Rachelle's Window.

Do you have any great networking tips I've overlooked?  Anything else I should be doing?

Thanks so much for reading!  Have a wonderful weekend!