“When it comes to social media, think self-expression not self promotion,” and 6 other ideas from author Susan M. Cain on how to overcome fear and become more creative. (“Coffee is magic” is one of the other 6).
Category: Projects
Are you comfortable with social media?
Are you comfortable with putting yourself out there? Revealing your opinions? Asking people to help you by sharing tweets and posts about you and your book? Michael A. Stelzner of the Social Media Examiner blog sure is comfortable.
Is community building weighing authors down?
Alarms are starting to sound about the demands on writers. In her articles, Laura Miller is building quite a case that authors may be under too much pressure in this 24/7 world of social media, community, and demanding fans. Not to mention, the misguided expectation that authors will be any good at selling their own books.
Authors and social media planning
Sure it’s nice to plan. But who has time? (Hint: This is where I come in.) The information for authors intent on setting up their digital media is out there for the taking. HOWEVER, I can’t help thinking that much of this info, as basic as it is, could fly right by authors. You simply don’t have the time or the interest to get up to speed. Check out this great social media checklist by uberblogger Chris Brogan and let me know what you think.
What can writers learn from rock stars? (video)
Author Margaret Atwood tries a few merchandising tricks. You may have read about author Margaret Atwood’s humorous, slightly cantankerous speech at the February 2011 O’Reilly Tools of Change techie conference (I’ve listed some of her choicer lines below.) Her advice to both authors and publishers was right on. So let’s see if she can sell a few t-shirts.
An old hand’s plug for Twitter
“If you have jumped to a negative opinion about Twitter, you do so at your own peril.”—Bob Sacks. Regular authors who aren’t warlocks like Charlie Sheen will never see the numbers of followers he’s getting (currently approaching 4 million), but according to media pundit Bob Sacks they can find something even better: community and information.
Which sells more books—“search” or “social media”?
Facebook and Twitter are fine, but maybe only in conjunction with Google and Bing? A new report says that 58 percent of people, when looking for info on a product, start with search, while only 18 percent start with social media (but that’s growing). The future is likely a fusion of the two media, something called “social search.” Read my takeaway for authors and their books.
Researching your next book
Wouldn’t it be nice to have some personal, free help? Don’t forget librarians. If you’ve spent any amount of time really doing online research, though, you realize there’s a real skill to doing it efficiently. And a lot of the meaty historical stuff, which often underpins a great book, simply isn’t findable via Google. So let us remember the original research assistants that exist in nearly every town.