#WWoW!: @dochappycamper Talks About How to Get the Most Out of Author Support Groups and #Tweet Teams #MyWANA

Welcome back to this week's edition of Tammy's Tidbits here at Writer's Words of Wisdom. Each week, the four of us share what's worked and what hasn't worked well for us during our journey to becoming published authors. Our stories vary as do our experiences, but that's what makes our group unique. What works for one, may not work for another but by sharing what we've learned, we help others determine their own course. It's a win-win situation for all involved!

This week I'd like to talk a bit about author support groups. There are many out there. Some are geared more toward specific genres and heat levels, while others welcome everyone and their work. Some focus more on specific aspects of the business such as Marketing for Romance Writers. Some focus on building your brand and connections such as MyWANA (We Are Not Alone) and to a lesser extent tweet teams.

No matter the group they all have one thing in common: rules for participation. These are the guidelines for all members to follow if they wish to participate in the group and be supported by the other members. They have rules for what can and cannot be posted in the groups and whether promotions are allowed at all. If the group is focused on marketing for example, they may only wish to talk about ideas and "how to" market your work, not receive nonstop BUY ME NOW spam.

One set of rules I'd like to focus on in particular are those concerning participation on tweet teams and the blog sharing site Triberr. When you join these groups you are expected to share ALL participating members posts whether it's tweets or blogs. This means you are NOT to pick and choose which posts you want to share and which you'll ignore because you or your followers don't like the subject material.

Unless the groups are set up to allow selective sharing when you participate, you can't do it. Not only is it rude, it's unfair that you expect your posts to be shared by all and you get to be exempt. These support/share teams are set up so all participants get their posts shared across the board and put in front of more potential readers/fans. If you break that chain, you not only screw your team members, you get labeled as an author behaving badly.

You know you don't want to be labeled AABB (another author behaving badly). We've talked about it many times before. You are in this business to build bridges, not burn them down. If you don't agree with the rules of a group, don't join it. Plain and simple. If you find you can't share posts for all members because you are personally offended by the subject matter, then quietly leave the group. You don't need to make a horrible scene as you leave. You don't have to explain yourself other than to say you don't feel you're a good fit. Leave it at that and keep on friendly terms with them. You never know when those connections will come in handy later.

To sum it all up: participation in author support groups, tweet teams and sites such as Triberr is not a one way street. If you're not prepared to RECIPROCATE, you need to VACATE your spot to someone who will.

Until next time,
~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a best selling, multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

Check out:

Tammy's Website

Tammy's Blog

Tammy's Books on Bookstrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,  and iTunes 

Sassy Vixen Publishing

Friend Tammy on Facebook

Like Tammy's Facebook Author Page

Friend Tammy on Goodreads

Friend Tammy on Pinterest

Follow Tammy on Twitter

Find Tammy's Videos on Youtube

If you'd like to share your experiences in the publishing world, please contact us about setting up a guest appearance. We'd love to hear from you!

#Wwow - Get Your Pitch On! Twitter Pitch Parties

Have you heard of online pitch parties? I'm happy to share that both my novels and my agent were contracted through Pitch Parties on Twitter. Yep, there's plenty of ways to query your book that go against the traditional route.

What is a Pitch Party? Many take place on Twitter. You "pitch" or "query" your book in 140 characters. Talk about complicated! Lurking behind the scenes are agents and editors. Here's my pitch that won an agent just this past December!

Speed dating isn't Vero’s idea of fun until she's reunited w/her only 1nightstand.Will Diego rock her world or break her heart? #pitchmas A


There's a whole lot more to tell, but you have to stick to the basics in 140 characters. If an editor or agent likes your pitch, they will comment or "like" it. Based on their instructions, you send partial/full/synopsis, whatever they want.

Also, some blogs hold Pitch Parties where you can pitch your manuscript in 50 words or more.

Today I will tell you about upcoming pitch parties. There are many throughout the year, but a few are coming up in the next month and you don't want to miss!

Upcoming Pitch Parties

Sun vs. Snow - Began Jan. 18. Although this started already, you can follow on Twitter using the #sunvssnow hashtag to see how a pitch party works.

#AdPit - February 5 on Twitter.
Open to Adult and New Adult Fiction & Nonfiction

Occasionally specific publishers hold online Twitter Pitch Parties. Make sure you follow your favorite publishers so you don't miss.

#PitMad March 2014

PitchMadness (official)

This will take place in March 2014. Exact date not yet announced.

Writer's Voice Pitch Party #WVTP- May 2014

#Pitchmas - July 2014

This takes place in July 2014. Exact date not yet announced.

Twitter Pitch Party Rules:

1. Only pitch finished manuscripts
2. Pitch only once or twice an hour (depending on the contest)
3. Do not favorite other's pitches (this if for the agents/editors). If you like a pitch, retweet it only.
4. If you receive a favorite, scroll through that agent/editor's feed to find out their instructions of what to do next (submission guidelines).
5. Don't forget to use the Pitch Party hashtag!

Beware:
Twitter Pitch Parties can be hectic. The feed is crazy!
There are spammers. Just ignore them.

Melinda Dozier is a contemporary romance author. Her novel, Breaking the Rules from Crimson Romance, was a #PitchMad success! She is also published with Swoon Romance with her anthology Love and Other Games, which centers around the Winter Olympics. You can find her at www.melindadozier.com

Connect With Your Readers

I've been reading this great book by Kristen Lamb - Rise of The Machines: Human Authors In The Digital World. I'm a little more than halfway through, but right now the biggest thing had has stuck with me is: TALK TO YOUR READERS! Or people on Facebook in general.

Kristen Lamb wrote something in the book that made a light bulb go off in my head that said, "Duh!"

To be honest, most of my time spent on my Facebook account is interacting with authors. I like their status's,

comment on them, etc. And I am going to admit, when non-author status's come through, I don't comment on them as much, because when I log in to my Lacey Wolfe account, I'm in author mode. It isn't that I don't care what they are saying. I do. I just don't interact.

Wrong.

I should be. Kristen Lamb made a great point. We are on social media to be social. And I was (I'm stressing was, I've changed my ways), that was on there to just be social with other writers. It's important to like the status's and comment on non-writers stuff. Why? Besides the obvious--to hope they like us and one day might want to read us--but to be social. To find new people and those we can build strong friendships with.

I am more than an author. I am a mother, daughter, wife. I have six cats and a spoiled rotten dog full of anxiety. I like to watch the SyFy channel. I just started to crochet. I love to wash clothes but hate to fold them. See where I am going?

When you get on Facebook or any social media, take a step back and remember, while you are an awesome writer, you're also so much more. And use that to connect with your readers/friends.

To learn a little more, check out Kristen Lamb's blog HERE and go on twitter under the hashtag #MyWANA. WANA stands for We Are Not Alone. And I can't recommend her book enough.

-Lacey

WWoW! Use Tweepi!

Tweepi is my favorite tool to use with Twitter.

Tweepi helps you make sense of your Twitter social graph with stats. You will be able to learn about the number of people you haven't followed back, the number of people who aren't following you, search people who your friends follow and much more. It makes it simple to manage your account by doing the following things much easier than manually through twitter...

FLUSH UNFOLLOWERS

This tool allows you to unfollow users who aren't following you back.

RECIPROCATE

This tool helps you find all the users that follow you, but you don't follow back. Then you can follow them back with a click of a button.

CLEAN UP INACTIVE FOLLOWERS

This feature allows you to unfollow users who no longer keep active twitter accounts. It's likely that you're following more than a few hundred people on Twitter. You must've noticed that many of these users either don't engage in conversations, never retweet anybody, or simply just ramble about nonsense stuff all day long (no links to useful content whatsoever!). You can use Tweepi cleanup tool to filter these people out and unfollow them. The Clean-up tool enables you to filter out those inactive and unwanted tweeps by letting you check out their details and decide for yourself!

FIND NEW FOLLOWERS

This feature gives you a resource for finding users with similar interests. The most common way to find and add people with the same interests as you, is to find a popular user within your area of interest and add people who follow these known users.

Tweepi helps you analyze and filter tweeps out -the geeky way,

with numbers in a table- based on their activity and sociability. 

How do you start using Tweepi?

It's only 5 simple steps.

1. Go to http://tweepi.com/
2. Choose "login" (to start using Tweepi for free which is all you need)
3. Enter your username/email with your password and click "Authorize app"
4. Create a Tweepi account with your first and last name and your e-mail
5. Start using Tweepi!

The first time you go through your account, it may take awhile but as you then update it every few weeks, it

becomes less of a chore. You'll find it worthwhile to create a SAFE LIST so you never accidentally unfollow someone you want to follow regardless of any stats. For example, you might be following a celebrity who doesn't follow people but you won't want to unfollow them. You might be surprised though at how many people you follow that aren't  following you and vice versa. Tweepi gives you the tools to make your Twitter account be exactly what you want. Make it work for you using Tweepi.

Then, get back to it...

Keep Writing!

Paloma

#WWoW! Street Teams make an Impact!

Let's Talk About Street Teams.

Likely, you've heard this term before. They're popping up all over the place as authors take advantage of their most valuable resource - their readers. Readers -especially bloggers/ reviewers- are vital to a book's success because their opinion goes a long way. Some have an established reputation as being a person to turn to for book recommendations. Why not partner with them if they love your books/ series?

That's exactly what creating a street team is... partnering with readers who like your books so much, they want to share them with other readers. A Street Team is a group of readers/bloggers that are fans of a particular author and want to spread the word about books they love. They're just doing what they already do - reading what they like and telling their friends. There's no recipe as to how many members per street team, benefits to offer or rules to follow. Each author has their own style.

Here's a list of links to some author's street teams for ideas on how to begin your own:

Cat Johnson  |  J. Kenner/ JK Beck  |  Heather Hildenbrand  |  Donna Grant

A Street Team is an indie author's secret weapon. In this article at Kobo Writing Life, an in-depth description of one author's experience puts it all into perspective. Read it here.

You might already have bloggers sharing your books with other readers. A Street Team just makes it all more official with “target tasks” such as hosting a blog stop, liking books at on-line sites, placing reviews on goodreads, sharing cover reveals, pinning on Pinterest, posting updates on facebook or tweeting about new releases. Most authors design a street team that works best for them. Typical perks to being part of a street team include an exclusive facebook page, yahoo or google+ group, swag, earliest available ARCs, blog badge, link back to blog, sneak peeks at WIPs, and "personal" on-line access to the author. Some authors even choose to have incentives and/ or prizes for participation.

.

It's Your Team - You Make It What You Want!

There are a lot of books in the world and authors need help to spread the word. A street team is a fun way to interact with fans while asking them to do what many already do … and it has added perks (for you both).

CLICK on the ROMANCE BECKONS STREET TEAM BADGE to the left to read about my Street Team.
Check It Out... and then... Keep Writing!
Paloma

#Wwow - Creative Online Promotion Tools #2 #promotion

Creative Online Promotion Tools

Last week I shared Online Promotion Tool #1 (Powtoon). This week, I have another three favorite tools to create original, fun promotion for your books.

Tool #2: Animoto (www.animoto.com)

Animoto is a fun tool to create videos of photos and/or videos. The best part is you can create a 30 second video FREE. You can pay for the more advanced version. Tammy posted about that HERE.

Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

Just to show you what you can do in 30 seconds, here’s a video I created for release day of my debut novel, Time Changes Everything.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Tool #3: Jib Jab Freebies (www.jibjab.com)

Creative tool to create hilarious videos/ecards/minimovies. You add in your photos to people’s bodies and it makes for a great laugh. Here is a video to promote ST Bende’s Elsker and my books, Time Changes Everything, Breaking the Rules and Trouble with Gold. Our heroes become Chippendales!

Tool #4: Face in the Hole

This is another funny way to promote your characters or book. Face in the Hole allows you to place your “character” photo onto any photo you want. Here are a few ways I’ve used this:

This is ME with Jake (aka Matt Bomer) from Time Changes Everything.

As you can see, I have a rather strange sense of humor, yet I’ve found these tools to be different than the regular blog post or FB post. Something different catches attention.

I’d love to see what you’ve put together! Share your links below!

Melinda Dozier is a contemporary romance writer. Her three debut novels were released in 2013: The Boy Next Door and Time Changes Everything from Entranced Publishing, and Breaking the Rules from Crimson Romance. Her next release, Love and Other Games: Trouble With Gold will be released in October from Swoon Romance. You can find more information at her website:www.melindadozier.com

#WWoW! Just Link It.

Let's talk about LINKING. My rule of thumb is when in doubt, just LINK IT! What am I talking about? Really, everything. All of your social networking accounts, blog, website, tumblr - literally everything - should be linked.  Because then you are doing the work once while your impact is huge. It's that easy.

Are there accounts you shouldn't link? Nope but there may be some more geared towards different types of posts. It's still okay to link them because there is always overlap and as long as you aren't spamming out oodles and oodles of promo, your goal should be to extend your reach (and sell more books).

Now time to get to work!

First and foremost, have your blog connected into your social media sites, particularly facebook and twitter. This means each time a post goes up on your blog, it automatically goes to these programs for you. Here's promo without anymore work than setting up your single post. You can set up these links in the SETTINGS account of your blog. Blogger allows you to link with Google+ also and I recommend you do it even if you do nothing else with Google+ (yet).

Link your blog to Networked Blogs on facebook. You can search for the app on facebook and select SYNDICATE to connect your blog. Here is another way for potential readers to find your blog and follow you. It is becoming more and more popular so jump on it! Doing this also means your blog posts are automatically sent out via facebook. If you have an author's page, you can even choose to have them sent there instead of your profile.

Other TOP TWO places to link your blog (that have a bit more to it than just linking):

Triberr - Build your reach exponentially. See my previous post with specifics on this site. This is a bit more involved than just linking though completely worth it.

Goodreads - Thousands of readers use this site. If you don't create an author's page and utilize it by linking, you are missing a big opportunity for networking regardless of the horror stories we see with reviews on goodreads. Check in about twice a week to see if you have any messages, reviews, etc. Most importantly, link your blog to post to your author page! See mine here.

Another place to link your blog is in search engines that give potential readers more places to find you. Most have widgets for you to add to your blog but some just simply place you into a database to be more searchable. My favorites are: BlogNation - BlogTrain - Blog Lovin' - Writing Blogs - Linky - AuthorsDb. Be sure to set up all your links in each of these - most require your blog rss feed so have that handy - so each time you post in one place, your information spreads out across the web.

Finally, make a list of all social networking sites you belong to or any on-line accounts.

Here are some of the most common: facebook - twitter - google+ - LinkedIn - tumblr - stumbleupon - YouTube - Picasa. Go into the SETTINGS options in each of these and be sure you have linked as many of them together (and with your blog!) as possible. There are other sites you might choose to use and regardless of which ones you choose, just be sure to link them.

Remember every time you link it, you reduce your work in half while doubling your reach.

I don't suggest you spend hours a day on these sites.

In fact, linking your accounts means your time spent on marketing decreases even though you are visible in more places. Once these accounts are established (& LINKED!!), you will need to do little more than your regular blog posts. A few of these places I mentioned take extra maintenance but it's minimal and worth it.

How does this help your business?

You will advertise to a wider audience as you increase your reach. You will write more because your time spent marketing will decrease. It's a simple case of Win-Win.

So, what are you waiting for? Just Link It!

And Keep Writing!

Paloma

#Wwow - Creative Online Promotion Tools #1 #writingtip

Creative Online Promotion Tools!

It's the moment you've been waiting for ... book release day! Now what? Hopefully you've planned a blog tour, tweeted and facebooked information. But you've got to promote your book in creative ways to get your book out there! Here are a few online promotion tools I've found to help you.

PowToon Cartoons: PowToon helps you create animated videos or presentations for FREE. Once you create the cartoon, you can upload it to Youtube and ... BAM! You have a fun promotional video that's different. Here are a few examples I've made to give you an idea of what you can do:

5 Reasons to Read Breaking the Rules

I used this as a guest blog post during my book blog tour.

Ull Chats with Colin

I helped a friend promote her book at my blog with this creative character interview.

I hope you try it out! What other ways can you use Powtoons? If you create something, share the link below!

Melinda Dozier is a contemporary romance writer. Her three debut novels were released in 2013: The Boy Next Door and Time Changes Everything from Entranced Publishing, and Breaking the Rules from Crimson Romance. Her next release, Love and Other Games: Trouble With Gold will be released in October from Swoon Romance. You can find more information at her website:www.melindadozier.com

#Wwow - Why Authors Should Use Google Plus

Last week I gave a tutorial on how to use Google Plus. This week I will focus on the WHY. 

Google Plus is another great resource/tool for authors. Each day, more and more people are signing up. Those that do use Google Plus rave about the benefits and the future potential.

What a writer can do on Google Plus to make your profile more appealing:

• provide links to your blog, websites, public profiles, online book store
• Share information. Write posts of interests for your fans, fellow authors, blogs you follow to establish yourself as an expert and to build up your "brand."
• Add photos of anything author related: cover photos, conventions you attend, etc.
• Upload videos: book trailers, author introductions

Here is what makes Google's social outlet a great resource for authors: 

1. Google Plus is part of the Search Engine Google which makes your posts public, and ultimately brings more traffic to your site. Connecting your Google profile to your blog provides more search results.Check your stats! The proof is there.

2. It's all about "CIRCLES." Adding your followers/friends into specific titled circles aids in who you send posts to, and who sees your posts. Here are some good suggestions for authors: Authors, Reviewers, Bloggers, Editors, Publishers, Family, Friends, Triberr. 

3. Use hashtags in your posts to make it search-friendly. I've used the regular hashtags we use on twitter: #amwriting, #amediting. You can also tag people in your post (similar to Facebook). 

4. Each post has a "comment" option. This is easier to follow than, say, Twitter where comments are all over the place. It is one centralized place.

5. Wanna hangout? Google Plus has a "hangout" feature. I haven't used this much, as I'm still learning, but it's the big hype on Google Plus. It's a group video feature where you can interact with a "Circle." This is ideal for writer's conferences, writer's conferences, an online event such as book discussion, giveaway party, book reading sessions, interviews. The list is endless. I'd love to hear from anyone who's experienced this. 

With all the wonderful features Google Plus offers, I think a writer must add Google Plus to their platform of social media. Take the plunge and join the network. Don't forget to follow me at: https://plus.google.com/u/1/100956716011590449582/posts

Melinda Dozier is a contemporary writer. Her three debut novels were released in 2013: The Boy Next Door and Time Changes Everything from Entranced Publishing, and Breaking the Rules from Crimson Romance. Her next release, Love and Other Games: Trouble With Gold will be released in October from Swoon Romance. You can find more information at her website:www.melindadozier.com

#WWoW! Let's Get Pinning!

Let's talk about Pinterest. 

It's not just for fun. It can be another FREE social networking tool for authors. Start with the basics... open an account and set up your profile (being sure to add your links). Install the PIN IT button onto your browser toolbar. That's it for set up and now you're ready! That easy? Yep.

Now you get to have some fun but we're going to call it work so... time to get to work!

Create some Boards.

 

Just CLICK on the +Add button along the top. Choose Create a Board. Name it. Categorize it. CLICK Create Board. Some good choices are things that interest you (check mine out for ideas) and that can tell readers more about you as an author and as a person. NOTE that you can always add more boards at any time. Some ideas include a Books Board, Guest Post Board, Features Board and a Review Board. You can even create a board for each of your books or series, published or WIPs. Add a board for important quotes and potential character ideas.

Add Pins.

There are lots of ways to do this. First, you can use that same +Add button along the top to add pins from the web or to upload some from your computer. You can use your Pin It button to add any photos from any website. You can also browse the general Pinterest site by clicking on the word Pinterest in the top center of the screen, browse and re-pin. Put some fun pins on your boards - don't worry right away about perfection.

Be cautious of copyright in regards to photos you pin! It's best to use photos you own or. if not, be sure the original source is listed in the pin's description. You can verify the source link is there by clicking on the pin and viewing the pin's details.

How does this help your business?

You will advertise to a wider audience. Check out this board with more information on the benefits of Pinterest.

AUTHORS who use Pinterest well (& each a bit differently):
Karen Cote   |  Lisa Carlisle  |   Rayne Hall

Here's a Checklist. Be sure to follow these tips:
1. Pin all your blog posts and books with links back to your blog or purchase location.
2. Click that little "tweet" button every time you add an important pin. These pins will get shared -through a vast network- and should bring people back to you.
3. Include the link to your Pinterest Profile wherever you include all other social networking links. It's another outlet for you to get recognition.

Here's a Unique Board -Writer's Resources- with lots of good pins for authors. You can create engaging boards like this too.

So, what are you waiting for? Pin It!

And Keep Writing!

Paloma

#WWoW! The Impact of the Atomic Tribe!

First, let’s talk about Triberr for those who haven't discovered this incredible marketing tool yet. (If you have, you might want to skip to the ATOMIC TRIBE section below.) Triberr is a unique blog post distribution platform that groups alike bloggers together by tribes of their choosing. Bloggers (that’s us) auto-feed our daily posts into these tribes who then share our posts with their social networks. This takes our message and distributes it among a larger network. Our audience expands at the same time that we deliver a variety of content to our followers. It’s a clear win-win.

But for all this to work, strategically select your tribes to match your needs. The key is not to waste your time and to deliver content to an audience interested in what you blog about. Check out the bonfires to find others like you. Also look for my tribes - I am chief to five strong tribes - and see if one fits you.

For those of us visual learners, I downloaded this image below from Triberr. It uses Twitter as the example but Triberr has the capability to do the same thing with Facebook and LinkedIn. (And I hear there are more improvements in the near future to include other social networks.)

I cannot recommend Triberr enough. Seriously, it’s the first on-line tool I’ve found that actually saves me time. And as an author, my time is precious. It’s measured in word counts, deadlines and line edits. There is no time to waste.

NOW, let's talk about using Triberr wisely...

Joining too many tribes is just not effective. Be selective. Choose tribes that fit your topic area. This ensures your tribemates tweets will be somewhat interesting to your followers. It's then also more likely your tribemates' followers will be interested in your tweets.

Tribes that require approvals will have the most active tribemates. It's an obvious truth. I require members of my tribes to approve all book-related posts daily. The only caveat I have is when a tribemate posts more than one blog post per day. Then the minimum expectation is to approve at least one. This works best, in my opinion, but be sure whichever tribe you sign up for has rules you can abide by. Rules are listed under their tribe page.

Don't join tribes with members not pulling their weight. EVERY MEMBER MUST BE ACTIVE for Triberr to work as it should. Look for tribes that require approval. I know I already said this but it is very, very important! Here's why: the tribe as a whole has a higher REACH possibility than each member as an individual (all our twitter followers put together is called our "reach").

The NUMBER ONE RULE is: It only works if every tribemate does their part!

Make your posts stand out! This is the biggest mistake I see bloggers making!! It's simple: You are a writer so write a good post title. When using Triberr (and therefor, twitter), your title is nearly more important than the actual content. If your title is good, people will gravitate to it.

How do you do this? USE # (HASHTAGS) and @"person mentioned" so it feeds into twitter in tweet language. Use # on searchable/ common words. For example, #Review, #Author, #SexySnippets, #*blog hop titles*, #*book series*, #*memes*, etc. If you are in a Hop or Meme, the group should have a standard hashtag for all members to use.

USE @*guest name* if it's a guest post. Incorporating these will maximize your reach on twitter and increase the chance of your post being approved quickly when a tribemate has to choose because of the limit. It also ensures that your guest is included in the post and then the tweets go to their followers as well. 

IMPORTANT: If you do not want your blog title to look funny with the # and @ signs, go into Triberr after your post goes live, click on My Posts and edit the title there. It will then go out to your tribemates with the symbols. I PROMISE using these symbols will increase your blog traffic. I've tried it & I have the stats to prove it.

Now, here's where we need your help: the Writer's WoW website has an Atomic Tribe. Atomic Tribes are benefits to Prime Members of Triberr. An Atomic Tribe has followers who share the posts promoted by that Atomic Tribe. What's different about this? No one becomes a member - everyone's post are not shared - only the posts of the primary blog are shared. Why would you join an Atomic Tribe? If the blog you'd be sharing stands for something you believe in - if their content is consistently relevant - if you want to share the information with your followers. We believe WWoW! is the perfect Atomic Tribe for all authors to follow. 

CLICK ON THE LOGO and consider following us. Then you can enjoy a s’more around our campfire!

Leave us a comment and share your experience with triberr so far. Don't you love it? Or tell us if we've swayed you to use this awesome platform. Look for me on triberr - "Paloma Beck" - I'd love to add to any of my tribes based on the type of books you write so check out my tribes. I run a tight ship but members get good results. Oh yea, and don't forget the most important thing... Keep Writing!

Paloma

Conducting Yourself Online #WWOW

Today I am talking about how to conduct yourself online. This is an older post I did a few months back, but thought I'd share again.

What's On Your Mind, Lacey?

Do you really want to know? Do I really want to say? Wait...which account am I on?

Social media sites want to know how we are, what we are up to, etc. And we want to share this. But before you share, take a moment to really think about what you are in fact sharing.

If you're an author, than you obviously know that you're more than just an author. Maybe you work another

job, married, kids, and such. Yes, you want to connect with you readers. But before you post your political views or strong opinions, take a moment to think about how it might effect your career.

Reader's don't really want to know your views on gun control or which president you voted for. They don't want to know you had a fight with your husband or anything like that. Sure, sharing a cute moment with your kids or a new recipe you're trying will engage them. But those are positive things. Yes, that's the key, stay upbeat and positive, even if you've been on a rejection cycle and you really just want to scream and cry to the world.

I have a personal social media accounts as well as ones for my pen name. I keep things very separate. Since becoming an author, I really think about what I say. Once you hit tweet or post, its there. Someone can copy it in a moment and you'll never know. I find even on my personal accounts, I watch what I say as well.

This isn't to say I might have shared something at some point that might have been questionable, just remember, how you portray yourself can effect your career. And readers are connecting with you because they like your writing.

See ya next week!