Social Media by Talli Roland

Last Saturday I went to the London/SE chapter of the RNA. The talk was on Social Media by Talli Roland. Here are her main points.

You should be on the sites where your readers are. So, if they are on FB, be there. If they are on LinkedIn, then be there.

Facebook
Readers can expect you to be there 24/7. Build a core loyal readership. Join forums. You can find different readers in topic groups eg if you write a romance that also has knitting groups in, then find a FB group about knitting.
Don't do too much promo on your profile page, do it on your author page.
You can boost your page. When you do, choose friends and friends of friends. It costs £10. You can see how many see and share your post. And you can get 3000 per click.
When it comes to choosing friends, look at 'mutual friends'. If it's low, then don't friend them. Be positive.
On your author page, you can click on the icon at the top of the page called 'shop now' and you can put a link to your books on Amazon etc. Or you can put a link to your newsletter - that was something I added to the talk.
When you get a certain no of followers, you can't change your name. And on your profile page you have to have your real name or FB might check up on you.
Make your followers feel special and your posts useful.

Twitter
Find content that relates to your book and tweet. You can put on there the first line and last line of chapters. Post pictures of the locations in your book (made a mental note to do that in future). Take photos of where it's set.

Blogging
Still good to do.
For readers - have photos, keep it short and turn off the verifications.

I shall write part 2 on Sunday when it goes into Amazon and other sites that are useful.

My NaNoWriMo plan

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? It stands for 'National Novel Write a Month'. You have to write/draft 50K of a novel or just 50K words without editing it. I did my own version last year, writing as many short stories as I could, which weren't many at all. I plan to do the same this year. The best way forward for this is to plan what you want to write. Here is my plan: I am going to write a short story for the 5 women's magazines markets I know about ie Woman's Weekly, Take a Break's Fiction Feast, The People's Friend and The Weekly News and Yours. I have jotted down which story I want to write for them except for WW, as I haven't worked that one out yet, but I will in time. It won't reach 50K as most of them will be under 2000 words. I might also plot out chapter summaries for my next adult romance ebook, and I will be working on my Pocket Novel. Lots to write, so thank goodness I have only one appointment in November, as yet.

So, are you doing NaNoWriMo? Let me know if you are and what you plan to write.

If you would like a preview of writing exercises I've been working on for a book, then why not sign up to my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bwuQav