Social Media by Talli Roland

Last Saturday I went to the SE/London RNA chapter meeting. The talk was about social media by Talli Roland (hi, Talli). After a delay where they couldn't get the signal for the presentation, the talk began. Firstly Talli asked us to put a hand up. Keep it up if you were on FB, on Twitter, on Goodreads (hands went down) and then on PInterest. The only hand left up was mine. Yay.

Next Talli said, what is marketing. It is activity and delivery of items for customers. The idea is knowing what customers/readers want and write that. What is the difference between sales and marketing. Sales is direct to customers whereas marketing is raising awareness of the product (your name and brand) to customers gradually, and to engage readers. If you are on FB, tweet and blog, give it your best.

Think of your brand. Eg author of... For me it would be author of adult and children's fantasy/magic stories. It is a good idea to write on FB, Twitter and blog as you write your books. Be a consistent author.

Blogs can direct people to you. Set a schedule and stick to it. Keep it short. Make it easy for reader to read. Visit other blogs to get followers. Go to blogs and see their followers and follow them. If you want their followers to follow you, then click on the followers and follow. You can use Googlereader if you don't have a follower button on your blog. It is good to reciprocate and comment on other blogs if they follow yours. Talli mentioned alexa.com - you can use to follow traffice. (Put in web/blog address).
Twitter - use your own picture, not of your book. Use links. Don't be afraid to jump in chats that interest you. Find people who write same genre as you and follow. Use tweetdeck to organise columns better. You can organise your own columns. Search your name and add new column. Retweet links. Own content should be 15%, the rest retweets. Think globally. You can tweet in the morning to catch UK, and afternoon for US. You can schedule tweets, by Googling 'schedule tweeting' and type in date and time. But this was said not to be that good as it doesn't show you are really there and interacting properly. Talli picks 10-15 mins before writing to do this.

FB - don't do a page for each book, do one for all books as readers will only have to go to one page and not search for numerous. Treat your readers as special, they are your fan base. Use special marketing tactics for each group.

Amazon - Are you on Amazon.co and .com. Stream blogs and tweets. Under you book there is a customer tag. Use the 'like' box. Go to book and click on it. You can click on other books the same genre as you to like.

Newsletters - can be done via FB fan page. Think as a circle. Link everywhere. Talli uses mailchimp.com. Have templates you can use. (Might have a look).

There are a lot of other outlets for marketing: Goodreads - a reader village. Mainly used for reading status of what you are reading and have read. PInterest - pin board - can put covers of books on and create a world for your characters (want to do), Google+, tumblr.com - microblog pics, klout.com - what social influence you have and incs topics you influence, authorwebsite, networked blogs and youtube.

People help you to create buzz about your book. Build relationship. Pick special date for event. Make event fun and easy to do. It is all about time and interaction.

Lastly - positivity attracts.

Gave me a lot to think about and to work on. Thanks, Talli.

How I work out my writing goals

Sorry for the delay in this post but I have been finishing, formatting, publishing and promoting Racing Angel, which is now out on Amazon and Smashwords. Here I am talking about my writing goals.

First off, I set myself daily goals. I have a little stand up day pad (as below):

On a Sunday I write a goal for every day. Today's goals are 'blog - writing goals', and work on 'Trouble' (that is 'A trouble shared' the next Geraldine story). I am currently doing the first goal and will do the second this afternoon.

The quote at the top is 'The tone of your voice colors every word you speak.' It is American.

Now for weekly and monthly goals. I got this tip off the WG2E blog. I have a little pink notebook, and have the weekly goals on one side and montly on the other. As in the photo on the left.

On the left hand side is the weekly goals. As you can see, I have split it into two columns. On the left is 'To do' and on the right is 'Done'. I then split it in four weeks. When I have done a goal I will tick it. The large tick means that I have done all the goals for March. On the right hand page is my monthly goals, and I have done all of them. They all related to getting 'The Racing Angel' epublished and promote it. I have yet to do pages for April, but I will later today.

So, do you have daily, weekly and monthly goals? If so, how do you make sure that you do them?

Let me know. Next post will be all about Talli Roland's Social Media talk to the RNA chapter meeting last Saturday.

Writing goals - how have you done?

This is another follow up from the Masterclass in Feb. In the workshop we were asked to write 100 goals to do with writing, health, finance and other aspects of our lives. The few I mentioned in the first blog about this were: be known for my YA and romance fiction, keep off weight, and exercise more. This is to let you know how I am getting on. YA - the downloads are still going up for Railway Angel. I will shortly be publishing my second Angel story Racing Angel (last edits going out this weekend), and hope to publish another separate YA fantasy about a vain mermaid shortly after that. I feel that I am starting to get to be known for that genre in the ebook side of writing. Romance - this will start to bear fruition come May, when my first two ebooks in the Geraldine's Gems series will be published by Ebooks Emporium. I plan to self-publish a few romance stories in between those stories being epublished for me, so my readers don't have to wait for another read. I shall keep to the same theme as Gems, magic/fantasy. Watch this space...

Weight - that is going well. I am losing weight still on the Slimming World eating plan combined with more exercise. I have been managing to keep it off. If I come to a standstill then I will renew my efforts. I am exercising more. I have done a lot of walking this week, and plan to do some DVD exercise today and tomorrow. I have a Slimming World award to aim for. Again watch this space...

So how have you done with your goals? Let me know. Next time I will be blogging about how I go about working out my daily and weekly goals, hopefully with photos.