Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts

Self-Promotion (Repost)

(My laptop is nearly fried; my internet connectivity is limited and I have to resort to the touchpad because I can't plug in my mouse. Consequently, working at the computer is less fun than normal. Plus I understand there's some kind of holiday going on.

All of that meant to say: (1) I'm reposting, here are my excuses, and (2) I'm getting a new computer soon (yay!)).



Reposted from November, 2008 (though probably new to you).

I hate the idea of self-promotion. Who doesn't? Who wants to be that kid who says, "Hey, everybody! Look at me!!" Okay, fine, well I never wanted to be that kid. Now I find myself on the outskirts of an industry that requires it.

So I've been researching self-promotion a little. One thing I've discovered is that I've already been doing it. I mean, the missionary "industry" revolves around self-promotion just as much as the publishing one does. Perhaps more so.

How you promote yourself depends, apparently, on how much money, time, and morals you have. If you have a lot of money, hire a publicist. If you have a lot of time, build a website, make profiles on social networking sites, and spend time on other people's blogs, the social net, forums, etc. - all the while linking back to your website. If you're low on morals, this time can also be spent comment spamming and writing fake reviews.

It's like this. Let's measure the amount of time and money invested in self-promotion with what we'll call your Publicity Quotient. The more you invest in self-promotion, the higher your PQ (low morals increase your PQ slightly, with an increased risk of drastically lowering it when you're found out; high morals, sadly, do nothing). With that in mind, take a look at this completely unscientific, made-up chart:














Not terribly mathematical, I know. But beyond the general guideline that the more you put in, the more you'll get out, publicity is largely luck and magic - becoming a breakout bestseller even more so.

Also, anyone who tells you how to promote yourself, without mentioning in the same breath that you need a product worth promoting, is taking you in. If your book sucks, you can sell copies with publicity but it won't do you much good in the long run (see low morals).

That's my take on the whole thing, anyway. I plan on doing self-promotion the same way I've been doing it. I'll provide places for people to get hooked in, I'll get the word out with a non-spamming announcement, and most importantly I'll try to be genuine. That means leaving comments because I have something to say, not because I have something to link to. It means making profiles on social networks that I'm actually a part of (sorry, MySpace, guess that means you're out).

And it means trusting others to do the reviewing and word-of-mouth advertising for me. If it doesn't happen, it just means I need to write a better book next time.

And when that doesn't work, I'll upgrade my spambot.

Keeping Up With the Internet

Depending on how you count, there are over a hundred social networking sites out there and God only knows how many blogs. It's impossible to keep up with everything, even if you cut out all the crap you don't care about.

My own personal slice consists of 57 blogs, 23 Twitterers, and 244 Facebook friends (at current count). I interact in these venues as well, writing tweets, commenting on Facebook and blogs, as well as updating two blogs of my own.

I don't have the time to do all this, of course. I've got five kids and a novel to write. I want to share with you a couple of tools that have made my life simpler and (if you haven't already found similar tools) can maybe make yours simpler too.
  1. Google Reader. In the year 2009, you have to have some kind of RSS reader (similarly, if you have a website, you have to have a feed - I'm looking at you, Homestar!). I like Google Reader because (a) it checks the feeds automatically, (b) it feels like Gmail, and (c) I heart Google - they may be the New Evil, but they know how to do a GUI.
  2. Twitterfox. I started using Twitter while looking for a way to update my Facebook status and Gmail status at the same time.* I stayed there because it connected me to certain friends and the cost in time to use it was small - but only after I found Twitterfox. There are about a thousand ways to read and send Twitter updates, but I like this one because (a) it's a Firefox extension, so I don't have to open another app to use it and (b) it's quiet and unobtrusive (once you tell it not to pop-up a window).
  3. Ping.fm. I like status updates. They're quick and informative. It started when some friends wrote Gmail statuses that started with "is" (as in "Adam Heine is..."). Facebook was doing the same thing when I got there. When I got around to Twitter, I found myself writing 3 separate updates to separate groups of friends. Ping.fm is a solution to that. Now I can write a single update (sent through Gmail chat even) that automatically gets sent to wherever I want.*
If these tools don't do it for you, I bet you can find some tools that do. Examine your internet surfing for areas of redundancy or wasted effort (e.g. manually checking 10-20 blogs to see if they've updated yet), then look for tools that solve it. If you look hard enough, I can almost guarantee someone has written the right tool(s) for you.

* I have found a way to get Twitter to update Gmail, but it still works less than half the time. I'm hoping they fix the problem soon, or ping.fm figures out a solution. (You hear me, Google Titans? I want you to work with other developers!).

Really, Really, Really Short Fiction

Twitter: a free social networking/micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users' updates of up to 140 characters in length.

Thaumatrope: A sci-fi/fantasy/horror online fiction magazine that uses Twitter to accept and publish speculative fiction of 140 characters or less.

What a crazy, great idea. They pay authors $1.20 per story. That's almost two plates of Pad Thai. I just might get in on this.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention, you can read Thaumatrope for free. Either on their website or, for instant gratification, via Twitter. And because it's Twitter, you can get these stories sent to your cell phone if you want.

Self-Promotion

I hate the idea of self-promotion. Who doesn't? Who wants to be that kid who says, "Hey, everybody! Look at me!!" Okay, fine, well I never wanted to be that kid. Now I find myself on the outskirts of an industry that requires it.

So I've been researching self-promotion a little. One thing I've discovered is that I've already been doing it. I mean, the missionary "industry" revolves around self-promotion just as much as the publishing one does. Perhaps more so.

(Speaking of which, those of you reading this from Facebook might like to know that this is being imported from my other blog - my writing one. I'm still importing the missionary blog such that it appears on my wall, but not into my notes anymore. I hope that's okay.)

How you promote yourself depends, apparently, on how much money, time, and morals you have. If you have a lot of money, hire a publicist. If you have a lot of time, build a website, make profiles on social networking sites, and spend time on other people's blogs, the social net, forums, etc. - all the while linking back to your website. If you're low on morals, this time can also be spent comment spamming and writing fake reviews.

It's like this. Let's measure the amount of time and money invested in self-promotion with what we'll call your Publicity Quotient. The more you invest in self-promotion, the higher your PQ (low morals increase your PQ slightly, with an increased risk of drastically lowering it when you're found out; high morals, sadly, do nothing). With that in mind, take a look at this completely unscientific, made-up chart:













Not terribly mathematical, I know. But beyond the general guideline that the more you put in, the more you'll get out, publicity is largely luck and magic - becoming a breakout bestseller even more so.

Also, anyone who tells you how to promote yourself, without mentioning in the same breath that you need a product worth promoting, is taking you in. If your book sucks, you can sell copies with publicity but it won't do you much good in the long run (see low morals).

That's my take on the whole thing, anyway. I plan on doing self-promotion the same way I've been doing it. I'll provide places for people to get hooked in, I'll get the word out with a non-spamming announcement, and most importantly I'll try to be genuine. That means leaving comments because I have something to say, not because I have something to link to. It means making profiles on social networks that I'm actually a part of (sorry, MySpace, guess that means you're out).

And it means trusting others to do the reviewing and word-of-mouth advertising for me. If it doesn't happen, it just means I need to write a better book next time.

And when that doesn't work, I'll upgrade my spambot.