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News, Fiction Updates & General MusingsBuilding Your Author Platform – Part 4: Expanding Your Reach
This is the final instalment in a four-part author platform building series. Part 1 covered the basics of getting everything in place, Part 2 looked at choosing a suitable layout and pages for your website, and Part 3 focused on blogging.
Week Four is here already – that went quick, didn’t it? If you’ve been following the author platform building journey, then you’ll have an attractive website in place through WordPress and will hopefully be getting started with your blogging.
However, you have a problem.
You check your stats in the morning: 1 view. Oh, that one view was from you when you were testing your post.
You check again in the evening – damn, ten views?! Oh, those views are all from your parents as they clicked through every link on your site (sorry Mum and Dad, I know you read these posts). This is by no means a bad thing – it’s great to have the support of your family and friends – but the point I’m trying to make is that expanding your reach beyond your inner circle can be a frustrating journey. Just how do you get an audience to your website, engaging and responding to what you say?
Enter: Social Media
That’s right: social media isn’t all about bitching or memes. To writers and bloggers, it’s an absolute godsend when used correctly (we’ll get to that later).
However, there’s another problem. If you run a Google Search for ‘social media websites,’ you’ll see just what it is: there are so damn many of them.
Halloween Giveaway: Something in the Cellar & Silhouette FREE This Weekend!
I don’t know about you lot, but I love Halloween. I also happen to love freebies, which is why I’m throwing a special Halloween Giveaway for my two short stories Something in the Cellar and Silhouette.
Something in the Cellar is free NOW on Amazon.com and Amazon UK for 48 hours. If you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, pick one up. If you have, please tell all of your friends to do so. This will be the final opportunity to get Something in the Cellar for free of charge, so spread the word.
But the good stuff doesn’t stop there. On Saturday, my latest short story Silhouette will also join the mix for 48 hours. That will be available for free from Amazon and Amazon UK from Saturday to Sunday.
Twitter Marketing in 30 Seconds: A No Bullsh*t Guide
It’s late, I’m tired, and for some reason I’m thinking about social media again.
I occasionally get people asking me for a quick, simple guide to Twitter marketing. I’ve done the lengthy stuff in the past – ‘Give me something short and sweet that I can implement instantly,’ people cry.
To those people: I introduce to you the ‘No Bullsh*t’ guide. It’ll run from time to time, when you’re least expecting it, off-schedule and a welcome break from the wordiness of my other posts.
Anyway, enough waffle. I’m going to offer everything I’ve learned about Twitter marketing in three steps. Thirty ruthless seconds. You ready?
You sure? Okay.
1. Don’t talk about your own product every tweet and expect people to magically buy your stuff. Clue: they won’t, and you’ll look like an idiot.
2. It’s called social media. Be f*cking social.
3. Don’t ask me to ‘like your WHATEVER page’ – make me like it by being interesting and engaging.
4. Be willing to change and adapt (see what I did there? I said I’d give you three tips, and I gave you fou… ahem, yes).
Bonus tip for good measure: don’t bother with auto-DMs. Your love isn’t quite as clean when you’ve been sharing it with everybody. 🙁
30 seconds up. Exhale…
Throw these words into your iPhone notes, or scribble them on a postcard.
Beware the ‘No Bullsh*t’ guide. It will strike again, one day soon.
Or not.
Goodnight!
Image courtesy of j4mie via Flickr
October Progress Report: Slow Month for Sales, Great Month for Everything Else
So, as October draws to a close and Winter really begins to take a hold, bringing out the bulky coats everywhere, it’s that time of month where I deliver a good ol’ fashioned progress report.
This month, I’ll focus in particular on an October sales slump, a few little updates on the progress of my debut novel What We Saw, and the beauty of crowdfunding.
October Sales
October has been a slow month for sales all round. Like, really slow.
Both Silhouette and Something in the Cellar have had pretty dismal months. Silhouette wasn’t even particularly boosted by a rather successful free-run which saw it break into the Top 10 Short Story charts.
I guess I’ve seen both sides of the KDP Select coin now – on one hand, it can be an asset for boosting sales. Something in the Cellar had a brilliant September after a free run towards the end of August. However, at times, it simply doesn’t have much of an effect. It’s a gamble, and that’s why so many authors are still on the fence about it.
That said, it’s all just experimentation. I still have faith in the KDP Select model, and will be enrolling What We Saw in it for three months. I think short stories are a harder sell than novels as it is, so that will have played some part. The excellent David Gaughran recently wrote a great piece on why he’s a KDP Select convert, so that’s definitely one to check out.
Lesson learned here? Everyone suffers a sales slump from time to time. From my conversations with other authors, it seems several have had notably lower sales in October than previous months. Initially, I wondered whether Silhouette wasn’t performing that great because it’s part of a less popular genre, but the fall in Something in the Cellar sales makes this seem unlikely.
What We Saw: Ultra-Limited Edition Pre-Order Run!
Update: 22/10/2012: Okay, so after just ten hours of pre-orders, the £150 target has been exceeded. Thanks so much to Iain Forbes, Toni Tesori, Callum Thomson, Tom Bray, Ian A. Chapman, Paul Whitley, and Daniel O’Neill for your support.
Everyone else – there are plenty of pre-order options still available, however please note that your pledges will be processed instantly now that the £150 minimum target has been reached.
Cheers, keep on spreading the word!
Ryan
I’ve decided to partner with Melbourne based website Pozible to open up a special sort of ultra-limited pre-order for my debut novel What We Saw.
To go straight to the pre-order page, click here. Otherwise, read on for info…
Basically, it’s called pledging. Pledging is where you (the reader) pledge an amount (say, £5) and receive a special exclusive reward for doing so if we hit £150 in pledges.
I’ve got a target of £150 that needs to be reached in order for this whole thing to be funded. If it isn’t reached in 21 days, then that’s cool – no money will change hands, and your pre-order pledge will be cancelled. You’ll be able to buy the book as normal on launch day, but with no extra goodies.
Why a £150 target?
As you may or may not be aware, I’ve already invested a crazy amount of cash in hiring a brilliant cover designer and professional editor. However, I need a little bit of a hand funding the final stage of the process – the tidying up and formatting.
With your pledges, the book will be in its best possible form in time for a Christmas launch.
The £150 target, which I think is modest, will go towards funding the final stage of the process. Anything else will be a great help towards covering the expensive but necessary cover design and editorial stages.
Here are the details. Remember, you are only pledging the amount displayed. No money whatsoever is taken from you until/unless the £150 target is reached. That way, it’s fair on everybody. It means I can fund it, and it means you don’t get ripped off if I can’t.
Please note that every level of pledge is strictly limited. Like, strictly. So if you want a piece of the action, get pledging ASAP. Anyway, details…
Building Your Author Platform – Part 3: A Guide to Blogging
Right, so if you followed the steps in week one, you’ll have the nice skeleton of an author website in place. Week two gave you the opportunity to start adding a little flesh to that skeleton, by choosing a subtle but effective layout and setting up the necessary pages.
I said last week that I’d talk about social media expansion, and growing the reach of your author platform in week three. However, there is a key factor that I seem to have overlooked, and one which deserves a week to itself: blogging.
What is a blog?
Look, I know that seems a patronising question – of course you know what a blog is. You’re here reading this, right? Regardless, many people miss the point about what a blog is, or what purpose it serves.
When I talk about blogging, I’m not talking about a Tumblr account where you share not-so-ambiguous emo lyrics and dubious pictures of two people getting off in an arty black and white filter.
Instead, I’m talking about the blog as a conversation. A social network in itself, if you will.
Th biggest misconception surrounding blogging?
That it’s all about you.