#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.

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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! 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! Don't Quit Your Day Job! Part Deux

Happy Hump Day from all of us at Writer's Words of Wisdom! Today I'd like to revisit a post I did in October 2012. At that time my husband and I discussed how to swing our budget enough so I could devote more time to writing. We agreed the time wasn't right for me to leave a career I'd had for twenty years, and the security it provided us...just yet.  

Well, things have changed. My husband is now finishing out his last year in the Coast Guard and will retire at his 20 year mark in 2014. At the time of this writing, it's exactly one year away. We've also decided he won't be the only one retiring. Next summer I'll hang up my lab coat,stethoscope, and little black bag. I'll no longer be a full time practicing veterinarian. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but one we're definitely ready to take on. 

The advice I gave last year still holds true today as it did then. If you talk to the big names in the writing community, they'll tell you the exact same thing. Having the dream of just writing full time and not worrying about the real world issues isn't realistic for the majority of our author community. In fact, there are many "newbies" just starting out, not yet published or just out of the gate, who have the misguided notion that all they have to do is shut themselves up in their writing cave and success will follow...and the money to pay the bills.  Sorry, chicas. Hate to burst your bubble but that's not the real world...yet!  

Yes you read the title correctly. I'll repeat it again. Do not quit your "evil" day job in order to write full time UNTIL...

and this is a big one...

UNTIL you are in a place in your life where your writing can pay ALL of your bills.  As a writer just starting out and for probably many more years to come, you will not make the big bucks that many folks outside of our industry think we do. Sure we all have the dreams of hitting it big and becoming an "overnight" success, but the fact remains that ALL of us will be struggling for a long time before we see some sort of profit from our endeavors.  

That Evil Day Job may be taking up time in your day that you could be writing, but it's also giving you an income to pay those pesky bills, providing you with medical benefits, and the money you need to promote your work. Let's be realistic folks. The real world tends to frown on us when we don't pay our bills. We need electricity, the Internet, our laptops and PCs, and a roof over our heads in order to create our fantasy worlds. 

If you are lucky enough to have a partner/family there to help support you so you can explore your dream job as a full time writer, than by all means do it. Take that plunge if you are able, but don't do it if it means putting you and your family in the poor house.

A couple of my author friends are now in the position where their writing provides the bulk of the money that supports their family. Not only do they put out new novels, they write articles for newspapers and magazine, provide editorial services for other authors, create covers and video trailers for others as well as themselves, and still find time to promote themselves and their latest release. 

Juggling multiple jobs isn't something new. The majority of the authors I've met over the last year have found ways to juggle their many hats and make a name for themselves. These authors are my inspiration and have encouraged me to find ways to squeeze in my writing time every single day and to be realistic in my expectations. The economy has hit the veterinary profession hard and I may lose one of the days I work at the hospital. That's a scary thought, but thankfully we do have a plan in place.

If my books take off, great! If it takes five, six or ten more books to get my name noticed, then so be it. The fact is I'm still living my dream. I'm a published author with many more stories to tell. I'll let my Evil Day Job as a veterinarian help pay the bills while I keep writing. My husband is in the Coast Guard so we have a guaranteed income and additional medical benefits. If I have to work less days at the veterinary hospital, we will still be okay financially, still have full medical benefits, and I can still pursue my writing career.

Do you have a plan? Check out this fantastic blog post by John Scalzi "Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money." This can be a real eye-opener for many folks and fantastic advice.

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.

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