Sunday, March 22, 2009

Hot Trends in Online Promotion

Since publishing Taxed to Death in 1995, online promotion has grown by huge leaps for good reasons. After all, there are hundreds of websites to advertise your work and so many more people browsing and buying online than there were in 1995. Online promotion is inexpensive and can be done from home to fit your schedule. That’s the upside. The downside is that it’s also time consuming and for some, downright addicting. I mean, when you’re out there visiting, posting, browsing, and blogging on a daily basis, where’s the time for writing?

At the moment, I’m on Amazon.connect, where I post blogs and keep my Listmanias going. I’m also on Goodreads, AuthorsDen, MySpace and Book Masons. I enjoy these sites because I get to meet new people, talk about books and book-related topics, or just have fun. But people now tell me that I should be spending most of my promotion time on Twitter and Facebook.

Until now, I’ve refrained from joining Facebook because I heard there were privacy issues and that it was kind of a waste of time regarding book promotion. Not anymore, according to a panel of well established writers I listened to at the Left Coast Crime conference. All of the four panelists, including Dana Stabenow and Laurie King, found that Facebook and Twitter were the best social networking sites to join, not only because they reached a wider audience than say, MySpace, but also because both sites are easy to set up and navigate. Admittedly, I had to ask a couple of people for help setting up MySpace, but I do enjoy chatting with people there.

Some writers tell me that Facebook has done nothing to help them sell books. Others say the same about MySpace, yet I know other writers who disagree. So, who knows? Am I totally off base by spending my time on the networking sites I mentioned? I don’t know, but I’m feeling more pressured to join Facebook and Twitter these days. If anyone would like to share your experiences with these or other social networking sites, I’d love to hear your input.

To read excerpts of Taxed to Death and Fatal Encryption, visit www.debrapurdykong.com. Both books are now available on Kindle and Mobipocket!

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