By the end of this year, I will have
published five mystery novels since 2008. While I’m kind of proud of this
accomplishment, I have to say that effective marketing is still a hurdle for
me. Discussions with colleagues and my writers’ group over the years has
provided some useful insights, but as with everything, things change.
My return to a full-time day job six months
ago forced me to drastically cut the amount of time I spend on social media promotion
and you know what? It’s okay. I’ve found that participation in the ten social
media sites I belonged to had little to do with generating sales. Part of the
reason was that most of the people who followed, joined, and linked with me are
also writers eager to promote their books. How many of us actually reach
readers? Are we doing enough? Are we doing the right things?
When I came across a blog by Anne R. Allen,
listing seven ways writers waste time building a social media platform, I found
myself agreeing with a lot of what she said, and feeling kind of relieved
because I wasn’t doing most of it anyway. In Allen’s view the following are time
wasters:
. Racking up thousands of Twitter followers
. Madly promoting your ‘Like’ page on
Facebook
. Gathering a huge list of names for a
newsletter
. Participating in expensive, grueling blog
tours
. Blogging everyday
. Blog hopping
. Worrying about your Klout or other social
media rating.
Allen provides reasons about why these
things are often useless time sucks. Of the seven, the only one I tried was
promoting ‘Likes’ on FB, but again, most of the Likes came from other writers
doing the same thing. I’ve never been overly interested in checking out my
ratings, and stopped using Klout because it was just annoying. Two blogs a week
have always been plenty for me. My other blog focuses on fraud and was created
to help keep people informed and aware of the importance of protecting their
personal information. It’s more of a personal service thing than a
buy-my-book thing.
Allen also identifies the promotion
strategies she believes works these days, which is freebies and book sales
through places like Bookbub, E-Reader and News Daily, if you can afford them. She
also points out that the online world reinvents itself every couple of years. I’m
not sure it happens that quickly, but it does change. The real
challenge and time drain is trying to keep up with it all and find what
works.
1 comment:
I haven't figured it out, either. Most of the the things that worked for people worked because they were the first to try it. I'm just not that innovative a thinker, so I stick with blogging every day -- not for promotion, but simply to write something every day.
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