How to Increase Facebook Engagement Without Paying a Buck #WWow #WritingAdvice

So, you've probably noticed all the restrictions Facebook has on authors pages. As a newbie to the social network realm, I decided to do a little research. I'm still in the research phase, but wanted to share what I've done to try to figure it all out.

Mind you, I'm not a statistician or a numbers person. I am a people person and I'm analyzing the interactions I've had on social networks. 

First, I had a few questions. I spend a lot of time on social media and I wondered which place is more valuable. I could spend MONTHS researching this question alone, but I've come to this conclusion (as many of you have). It's all about FACEBOOK and how we utilize it. 

I've also found that Facebook is the place to connect with readers, whereas Twitter is the place to connect with other authors/publishers/agents.

Here is an interesting info-graphic about the average amount of minutes spent on social media. (Taken from The Wall Street Journal)

This made me sad, as I've really taken a liking to Google+. Again, you can see Facebook is where it's at.

So, with this information, I've learned that we need to engage ourselves more on Facebook. BUT how do we do that when Facebook controls who sees our posts and when? 

Based on what I've heard from other users, I tried some experiements out in one week. 

A little about my Author Page. As of this post, I have 856 followers. Not bad for a newbie author. What IS bad is the amount of views my posts get. With that many followers, I have an average of 25 views per post. NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

In ONE WEEK, here are my most important variables:

The post with the most engagement was a Picture/Quote/Oustide Amazon Link receiving 68 views and 1 share. SHARING seems to be what's important here, because normally a link to an outside source brought down the views.

 Post by Melinda Dozier.

Just as a side note, the second most engagement was a PICTURE of a sexy man. Yeah, yeah, I can't help myself. I have noticed that sexy man pics tend to get a lot more views, though, so that's why I'm including it.

Post by Melinda Dozier.

Other top views included: 

A simple post with only a comment (43 views)

Sharing a FB link (45 views)

Funny picture (45 views)

Also noticeable was that all my higher viewed posts were "liked' or "commented" on. 

The post with the least engagement was a share of a friend's post with a resounding SEVEN views.

As a final experiment, today I asked my followers to comment on a post as part of a FB experiment. After 7 hours, I've had 28 comments & 6 likes. With this post, I've had 473 views and expect more. So, COMMENT, PEOPLE, to help each other out. 

OVERALL ANALYSIS:

To have more engagement/views:

More comments = more engagement (duh!)

Use pictures (don't just link to the picture)

Others share your post

Share interesting posts from other FB users

MORE ANALYSIS to come!

Melinda Dozier is a contemporary romance author who loves to spend time on social media. Her two books, BREAKING THE RULES from Crimson Romance and LOVE AND OTHER GAMES from Swoon Romance have been category best sellers on Amazon. You can find her at www.melindadozier.com. 

#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

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! 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! Feed140 Maximizes Author Efficiency.

WWoW! Here's a simple recommendation to simplify your on-line life... what more could you ask for?

Here's another suggestion of an on-line tool to try. It's an application to store a playlist of tweets that are sent out intermittently throughout my day without me needing to actually send them. BOTTOM LINE: Feed140 allows writers to maximize your Social Presence with minimal time investment. I’m telling you about it because it’s another way I save time on promoting. And less time promoting is more time writing!

Feed140 is a “social network marketing efficiency tool that delivers a constant stream of updates to your followers automatically” with minimal effort on your part.

• You create the tweets. 
• You set the delivery schedule. 
• You control how frequently Feed140 publishes tweets from your playlist. 
• You can have Feed140 deliver a certain number of tweets each day from your playlist. 
• You can also add your RSS feed(s) to a general queue so it automatically filters those in daily as well. 
• You can have Feed140 ‘mix in’ updates from your playlist as a percentage of the total updates from your main queue.

However you choose to use it, your promotional messages are delivered automatically while being certain you don’t overwhelm your followers. It’s great! Feed140 lets you create a series of high-quality tweets that are then delivered over time without another thought.

STEP ONE: Playlist.

Spend some time composing High-Quality, Attention-Grabbing Tweets that are Relevant. Creating solid content for your social network updates should take some thoughtful consideration. You will spend 20ish minutes each week to update your playlist of tweets. Here’s some ideas: Provide links. Display your work. Highlight your strengths. Use messages you want to reiterate consistently to your followers. Advertise your books. Promote your blog features. Distribute buy links. Promote your publisher. Link YouTube book trailers or other videos.

The tweets in your playlist can be published in sequence or mixed on shuffle play so your tweets are sprinkled about in random order.

STEP TWO: Queue.

Aside from the one playlist you are allowed with a FREE ACCOUNT, you have a queue. The queue is the direct feed into your twitter account – you fill the queue with both your PLAYLIST and RSS FEEDS.

This means you can add your RSS feeds from your blog, website or any of your Social Bookmarking Accounts (i.e. Digg, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Tumblr). You can connect any or all of these to Feed140. Then each time you click the Digg button, star an article in Google Reader, or give a site the thumbs-up in StumbleUpon, it will automatically be added to your Feed140 queue and be delivered based on the criteria you chose for delivery. Your queue will fill up fast with interesting and entertaining content for your followers.

THIS IS PRETTY COOL. Pre-load date-specific messages with the ‘Scheduled Updates’queue. You can use the Feed140 ‘Scheduled Updates’ queue to send special promotions and book releases that are date-specific. You simply enter tweets into your queue and select the date (and even the time) you want the tweets to be delivered. Feed140 takes care of the rest. Tada! Your own personal twitter assistant.

THIS IS IMPORTANT. 
This does not take the place of other interactive tweets! Twitter is about CONNECTING, not just SELLING. I consider my Feed140 playlist my baseline – an auto-marketing program that spreads the message of my product (my books) and provides links to my store (my blog and website). Feed140 allows you to deliver a consistent base of content on your Twitter account BUT it is only one-step as it maintains your visibility to your followers even on those days you don’t have time to log in. Your playlists will never replace authentic live interaction, but their value is to provide a solid base of consistent content.

THIS IS NOT SO IMPORTANT... but I thought I should mention it… You can pay for prefabricated playlists but it really isn’t necessary. Creating enough content to keep your audience engaged might be challenging but we’re creative people – you can do it yourself. However, if you should choose to, these playlists are set in categories that give you the edge as a thought leader in a certain niche.

Use your Twitter (plus facebook coming soon) more efficiently. Give your twitter account a base with solid messages to followers with just a few minutes each week. It’s really very simple.

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

#WWoW!: Promoting Yourself and Your Work Without Breaking the Bank

Today's post is all about how promoting yourself and your work. In order to do that properly and not make a complete nuisance of yourself, you have to get involved on at least some of the social media sites. There is really no way around it. You will read articles and blogs from authors who swear the never had to use Facebook or Twitter to get their name and their books out to their readers. My response to that?  Good for them. Staying away from social media doesn't work anymore. The market is literally saturated with new authors and their works, not to mention the authors who are well known. How do you compete with that?  You have to make connections with your readers one way or another and you don't have to break the bank to do it.  

I Have to Do WHAT???

Ah, the one thing many authors hate the most, promoting themselves and their work. It's dreaded by seasoned veterans as well as the not yet published novices. Why? If you sent out those query letters to perspective publishers, you had to sell yourself and your manuscript. Who better to sell YOU than you?

I know, I know. I was right there with you a little over a year ago. My very first erotic romance was accepted by Siren Bookstrand and was set for a September 2011 release. I didn't have a clue where to start telling people about me and my novel. I had my own personal Facebook page, but that was it. I was invited to join my publisher's yahoo groups. One was for authors only and the other was for both readers and authors to get together and share new releases and basically get to know each other. Reading through some of the posts I immediately found I was already so far behind.

I didn't have my own website or blog. Nor did I have a Twitter account, author page on my publishers site, Facebook Page (not to be confused with my personal page), Google+ or any other way to connect with potential readers. I was scared out of my mind. What the hell did I get myself into here?

Lucky for me and many other "newbies," several Siren authors took us under their wings and never tired of answering the same questions over and over again. They cheered us on through each step of the publishing process from getting our contracts signed to seeing our book covers for the first time. They were there when we freaked out getting our first edits back and the manuscript looked like an explosion of technicolor with all the comments and balloons from the editors. All of it to make our "babies" grow up and be the best they can be. 

It was from this group of people I found the light at the end of the tunnel. I learned how to get my blogs and website up and running. I friended many on Facebook and learned how to set up different pages. I started using Twitter on a regular basis. I "met" even more authors like me just starting out and those who have many titles under their belts. Each and every single one of them willing to lend an ear and a retweet when needed. 

So here I am, one year later with TWO books published and another due to be released in November. Now it's my turn to pay it forward. I've set up not one, but FOUR blogs now. Two of them for my pen name Tammy Dennings Maggy, and the other two for my alter ego Lia Michaels. I have a third pen name that will soon get her own blog too. Why do I need all of these? To promote the hell out of myself, the pen names, "our" work and showcase other authors. 

Many of you have stopped in for the spots of my fellow authors here and on my sister blogs. Not only do we all get to learn more about these writers and their works, we get to chat and "mingle" a bit with other fans. Todays feature "Writer's Words of Wisdom" is yet another way I can share what I've learned on my journey with those who are just starting out and to thank those who have come before me and taught me so much already.

What follows is based on the advice from one of my fellow Siren authors, Tymber Dalton. She's blogged about promoting many times and has even written a book about it. Pimp Yourself: Easy, Painless & Cheap Self-Promotion for Writers. It's a great book to have on your Kindle and it reminds you that you don't have to have a fancy schmancy big named company to get your name out there. You can do it all on a shoe string budget and most of it for free. When first starting out, who has the extra money to pay a stranger to put YOUR best foot forward? 

Where Do I Start?

Get a Gmail address to use exclusively for whatever you publish using the pen name you wish to promote. Only use this email address for your fan mail and any correspondence/promotions for this pen name.  I didn't do this last year, but when I set up Lia Michaels, I got that Gmail account right away. Things are so much easier with that pen name and correspondence than with Tammy Dennings Maggy. I have two email accounts with that one and at times even I get confused! Don't make that rookie mistake and you will save yourself a lot of time having to wade through emails!

If you have enough in your budget, get yourself a website with your pen name in the .com, .net, and .org formats. There are many sites to register your domain, but the most common and highly recommened on is Godaddy.com. I haven't done this yet, but plan on doing it very soon. Until then, I have a website combined with my blog on Behind Closed Doors.

Now for my favorite. Set up your blog. I've used WorldPress.com and Blogger and have to say the latter is my favorite. I'm sure you've guessed that by now since three of my blogs are all done through Blogger! ;) I found with WorldPress, the fonts and templates are pretty limiting, even though many are appealing to the eye. With Blogger, I can change up the font sizes and styles a bit and of course I get to change the colors! On The House of Taboo, I use a lot of the hot pink/purple font color that matches the back ground purple smoke so well. Go ahead and take a peek at it to see what I mean.

There are tons of free Blogger templates to choose from and when you have the budget, you can customize one of your very own. Don't worry about that now. There are some beautiful templates that will appeal to you. Go ahead and look through them. Try one out for a week or two. Switch it around until you have the one and the layout that fits you and your personality.

Another thing I love about Blogger is that you can set it up to have an "adult content" warning. When you first went to The House of Taboo you were taken to a page with two buttons. The warning there tells you the site contains materials that some may find offensive. You have the choice to click to proceed, or opt out. In this day and age, it's best to have your adults only warnings up front and personal then to have someone try to say they didn't know and were "assaulted" by pictures that offended them. Trust me. CYA people!

Once you are all set up, blog, blog and blog some more. Talk about anything and everything. Start promoting yourself even BEFORE you even have a release day yet. The idea is to get your NAME out there so when your book is released, you will have the start of a network of fans who will want to check it out.

Now don't freak out if you are already "behind." You will catch up in no time. Now that you have your website/blog up and running, it's time to dive into social media.

But...Do I have to set up a Facebook Page and Tweet About It?

Do you want your name and books to get out there? Do you? Then yes, you have to use social media to help you build up your network of industry contacts, fellow authors, readers, bloggers and yeah some famous folks in there too. Why? You never know who will click on your page or see one of your tweets and be interested enough to check out your book. Word of mouth will get you everywhere these days. Have you heard of a little book called Fifty Shades of Grey? It's all in who you know and getting your name noticed by the right people.

You already have your Gmail account set up in your pen name, now you can get rolling on Google+. It's newer than Facebook, but you will find some features a lot easier to use. It's also another social media branch you need to tap into. Take the time to explore it and learn about setting up different circles of friends. Don't be alarmed if complete strangers add you to their circles. You don't have to add them back and you can set up your posting settings to include just certain circles. Best thing is to just keep in mind that whatever you post there will be about your work and you/your pen name. Try to keep your personal stuff out of it if you can. 

Facebook is your next stop. You need to set up your own personal page in order to set up fan pages, so you might as well start that up now. You will only be allowed 5000 friends on your personal page, so don't use that for your active promotions. You want to set up an actual FACEBOOK PAGE. This used to be called a Fan Page. People "like" the page and then are able to follow the posts. You can even set up these pages to allow another person or two to act as admins. They can help keep up on the posts for you. Something to think about!

Once you have both Facebook and Google+ set up, you will be able to link them to your blogs. Just with a click of a button, you can automatically post from your blog to your social media. Folks following you on the social media can then click on the links and be taken to your blog. They in turn can click on the buttons around our  blog post and spread the word about you through their own social media sites. Get the picture?

Twitter is our next project. If you haven't already immersed yourself in the land of Tweet or be Retweeted, then you need to set up an account in your pen name. As with all the suggestions so far, this is free. Twitter buttons can be used in your blogs so people can tell others about you just by clicking the button alone. The program does the rest. If you want to post to Twitter and Facebook pages at the same time, you can use TweetDeck (another freebie). Just entering your post one time, will then set it up on two social media sites at once. As an added bonus, you can even set up tweets/posts in advance on TweetDeck so even while you sleep, messages can be sent to your contacts.

My book is out. Now what?

Keep going! Now you can set up our author pages on Amazon.com and Amazon UK.com.  During the set up you can link it so your blog and Twitter feeds will post to your author pages automatically. Another time saver in the promotions department!

Set up a Goodreads.com account and author page. You can upload your own books as well as those of others you have read. Rating and reviewing those books will help you connect to other readers who will in turn check out your books simply because you are interested in the sort of books they read. 

YahooGroups is also a great place to find other writers, readers and publishers. Check them out and read their member and posting guidelines. Many have specific days for promotions of your book, your blog, blog hops, chats, etc. Find those that fit you. Don't do what I did and join too many at one time. Your email box will be filled to the brim with updates from them. 

Since I write erotic romance, I've gravitated toward the YahooGroups that welcome that. One I skim through daily is Marketing For Romance Writers. Tons of great tips and workshops available in that group. There are other sites out there too such as All Romance ebooks (ARe), Coffee Time Romance and Manic Readers.com. The Manic Readers site is a great one for finding places to submit your book for reviews. They have a Review Depot where several review sites are listed in one spot. You only have to upload one copy of your book and submit a request for review. Then it's up to the individual reviewers to "check out" the book to review.

Reviews...now that's a whole other ball of wax! LOL

So you see? Promoting really isn't that hard and once you get your system down, you can do promotions for as little as a few hours a week by linking your blogs/websites to your social media and your author pages on sites like Amazon. 

So get out there! Set up your accounts and just have fun!

Until next week,
~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a 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 VixenPublishing

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

#Wwow! Twitter Acronyms for Writers #amwriting

Hi everyone! Today I'm sharing an oldie but goodie, adding on a few additions provided by readers.

Twitter Acronyms for Writers

Have I mentioned how much I love twitter? I’ve been tweeting officially for more than a year now and I’ve learned everything by just playing around. BUT it would have been so much easier if someone shared Twitter advice from the get-go. SO, that’s where I step in for you.

Twitter Acronyms:

BTW – By the Way

BC – Because

CX- Correction

DM – Direct Message. This message will only be for the person you send the message to, but again it can only be in 140 characters or less.

EM – Email

FB – Facebook

FF – Follow Friday. On Friday’s you can hashtag FF to promote other tweeters you want others to follow. For example: #FF @MelindaDozier

HTH – Hope that helps

IMHO – In My Humble Opinion

JK – Just kidding

LMAO – Laugh My Ass Off

LOL – Laughing Out Loud

LMK – Let Me Know

MT – Modified Tweet. Put this at the beginning of the tweet so others know you altered it.

NSFW – Not Safe for Work (important for the above #darksideresearch!)

PRT – Partial Retweet. You put this at the beginning of the retweet so others know you altered it.

RE – In reply to

RT – Retweet

RTHX – Thanks for the Retweet

TIL – Today I Learned

TMB – Tweet Me Back

YW – You’re Welcome

Now how about WRITER specific lingo that newbies might not know? You will also see these acronyms on Twitter:

CP – Critique Partner

WIP – Work in Progress

MC – Main Character

POV – Point of View

LI – Love Interest

YA – Young Adult

MG – Middle Grades

SF/F – Science Fiction/Fantasy

MS - Manuscript

NA – New Adult

NF – Non-fiction

RWA – Romance Writers of America

RT - Romantic Times

PW – Publisher’s Weekly

ARC – Advance Reader Copy

HEA - Happy Ever After

HFN - Happy For Now

Resources on the web with an extensive list:

NetNanny - http://www.netnanny.com/learn_center/glossary/acronyms

TagDef - http://tagdef.com/

I hope you found this insightful. Happy tweeting! Oh, and add me, if you haven’t already. I have lots of fun! www.twitter.com/melindadozier

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. You can find more information at her website: www.melindadozier.com