#WWoW! Getting the Most Out Of @Goodreads!

Authors have different takes on Goodreads. Some dislike it, don't understand it and just aren't willing to use it. Some have discovered its hidden secrets and use it as another source of social networking. It took me awhile to navigate the site, find all the different ways to use it and make it a useful tool. But, now that I have, it's become part of my media toolkit. I don't spend a lot of time there but I do visit it a few times weekly.

Even before I was an author, I used Goodreads as a reader. I interacted with some authors I enjoyed reading, especially when I wanted to know more about when another book was being released in their series. I also used it to track books I wanted to read and those I'd read. Putting a rating on Goodreads whenever I read a book was second-nature as I kept my growing "Read" shelf up-to-date. I don't think I was alone in this. Many voracious readers gravitate towards Goodreads. So, shouldn't authors too?

Here are the top 12 ways to utilize goodreads as an author.

1. Participate in the site as a reader, not just as an author.

Authors are readers too. List the books you’ve read and want to read. Write short reviews on your favorite books. Be genuine. Notice I said "favorite books". I urge you to think carefully about whether you’ll post reviews that aren’t positive. I make it a policy to only post the books I've read and enjoyed. It's a way to promote those authors while sharing books with others that I liked - a great way to make connections.

2. Friend lots of readers.

Become friends with as many others as possible in the genres of your interest. But don't use them to spam - there's a book recommendation feature on Goodreads that I recommend you NOT use for your own books. Make friends to see what others are reading and share interests. Reading their reviews and posts will give you information on current readers' interests.

3. Join Groups and be active.

Join groups in the categories you read/ write. The groups are similar to Yahoo groups or Google+ hangouts. There is ongoing discussion between members - often a lot of interaction, particularly in the larger groups. There are hundreds of groups on Goodreads, for all different interests. Don't just join author groups - be sure to join groups with readers. Then remember #1 - participate as a reader, not just as an author!

4. Connect Goodreads to facebook.

You can connect to facebook and find your facebook friends who also use Goodreads. You can also allow Goodreads to post your activity to your facebook profile. It's another nice connection to show what books you enjoy as a reader to those who follow you on facebook.

5. List all your books on Goodreads.

They might already be there but they might not. There are a variety of ways books get put on Goodreads - there's even a group of people "the Librarians" who have extra permissions to edit, etc. Excited readers may add a book by ISBN if they can't find it but to be sure that your books are listed as you want, be sure to list them yourself. Include all pertinent information. The more information you include, the easier it is for a reader.

6. Join the Goodreads Author Program.

Through the Author Program, you can create an author profile and then utilize all the other promotional tools they offer. You can host/ advertise events (launch parties, blog tours, book signings, etc) from your profile as well as be able to upload book trailers, excerpts, and create polls or quizzes for your readers.

* Since the site is for readers, here's a place they are likely to look for you. Having a presence here is important. It’s the perfect place to connect with readers who enjoy the genre of books you write. *

7. Link your blog to Goodreads.

You can host a blog directly on Goodreads, or for those who already have a blog, you can connect it to Goodreads so that your posts show up on your profile (see #3). It sometimes takes a day for them to go live but having that connection will draw more interaction to your blog.

8. Create a Goodreads widget for your website or blog.

Goodreads makes it easy to embed a variety of widgets on your site to attract readers to your Goodreads profile. You will be able to choose to promote a shelf (for instance, your "want to read" shelf) or your profile. The directions are simple to follow and its just a matter of cut and paste.

9. Check your Goodreads inbox.

Sometimes readers will try to connect with you through Goodreads because they give you an inbox. I make it a habit to check it weekly so I don't miss an opportunity to "talk" with a reader.

10. Do giveaways.

This is only available if you have print books. Goodreads “First Reads” giveaway program is widely used and is a effective way of getting your book exposure on Goodreads. Once you set the criteria, Goodreads runs the giveaway and you are only required to supply the book once a winner is selected. Having a giveaway will increase those who place your book on their "want to read" shelves and will also lead to more reviews. This is great because the more reviews a book has, the more visibility it gets.

11. Advertise on Goodreads.

I’ve heard positive stories about the outcome of the Goodreads advertising program though it is a big investment. Advertising starts around $500 a month. Authors who've used it do say that it delivered on sales. NOTE: Since I haven't done it personally though, I can't speak from experience. I mention only as a suggestion to look into.

12. Check the Stats.

I love statistics because it gives real data on success. Goodreads gives us this tool. Since our goal is to get our books in reader's hands (aka, on their shelves), we need to know if what we're doing works. As an author member, Goodreads gives updated stats on how many people have added your books to their shelves, how many have reviewed them, your average ratings, etc. Track that data to determine how well your promotional activities on Goodreads are doing. Then make adjustments.

Are you on Goodreads?
Why? Why Not? Tell Us About Your Experience.

NEXT WEEK, I'm going to talk about reviews on Goodreads. (Oh yeah, I'm going there.)
Paloma
Paloma Beck is a Romance Author living a life of contradiction... she's a happily married carpooling mom writing erotic romance. It's almost naughty! Paloma writes full-time and has three series in the works with others on the fringes. Her books span both the contemporary and paranormal romance genres. 

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! 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! Google Plus for Newbies!

With all the social media out there, it's hard to keep up, but I found one place that ties in a little Facebook with Twitter -- Google Plus! I'll admit that when I first tried it, I was overwhelmed. But after spending a little time navigating through Google +, I found that I actually like it a lot.

So, I will try to make a quick basic tutorial for newbies out there. Next week I will share why I think authors should use it for promotional purposes.

First, you will create your profile. Here is mine.

It's much like the timeline wall on Facebook. Your personal information, a picture of yourself, a cover picture, friends (who you follow) and your posts/wall. This is also where you can post your blog links or other information you want to share. Here is an example of my last post:





Here you can see my post titled "Book Spotlight Only You by Lorna Peel". You can write as much as you want about the post/link, add a link (or not) and a picture from the post will appear. You can choose from as many pics as you provide on the post. Also see the empty box at the top. This is the square where you can insert a new post. What I like is that you can choose which "Circle" you want to send the post to. You can also add a picture, video, file or link.


Next is the HOME screen where you see the "Newsfeed" from the people you follow.





Here you will see posts, links, pictures, follower suggestions, trending hash tags. You can also post on this page.


How do you find people to follow? There is an icon for FIND PEOPLE. Google will suggest people via your email or with the same interests.





Once you add friends to follow, you can place them into specified CIRCLES. You have the liberty to name your circles whatever you want (Authors, Publishers, Reviewers, etc.)


One last favorite aspect of Google Plus is the Communities section. You can find other people/groups with similar interests. You can even start your own community.






There is so much more to the Google Plus Network, be it games, hangouts, exploration, events. Too much for a newbie, so I started with the basics. Try it out today, if you haven't already, and you won't be dissapointed. I can be found at: https://plus.google.com/u/1/100956716011590449582/posts


Next week, I will discuss why Google Plus is an important social network for authors.

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. She has another novel releasing in November from Swoon Romance. You can find more information at her website:www.melindadozier.com

#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!

Here We Are! DAY ONE of #WWoW!

This is DAY ONE of our new blog for writers. It seems only right to give you the history of how we began. In 2012, we started a weekly meme where authors posted Words of Wisdom for other writers on their personal blogs and in our facebook group. The posts included all types of advice based on our own experiences. Sometimes we had special guests and sometimes we just shared things we wished we had known in the beginning. We kept it simple but meaningful and that's our intention now. HERE you'll get concise information to help you in the wild world of being an author. It isn't all about the writing so authors need to know how to do everything else to help sell our books. OUR GOAL is to provide you with useful  tips.

The WWoW! Girls are all authors who come to you from a variety of backgrounds. We all have our own experiences to share and our own opinions to post. You'll hear about traditional publishing, small e-publishing, and self-publishing. You might find your style fits with one of us over the others -and you can find each of us by days- but the advice we give is genuine. Be sure to talk with us and let us know what works for you and if you have advice to share yourself.

Our first tip is all about Bloglovin'. Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know Google Reader is now officially gone. If you subscribe to blogs by RSS feed and used Google Reader, you need to switch it up. We recommend Bloglovin'. It's similar to Google Reader, the functionality is nearly the same and it has mobile apps. So, go ahead, try it now and click the link below to follow us.

Follow our blog with Bloglovin!

That's it for today. See, I kept it simple as promised.

Check out my BIO to the left.  My expertise is in social networking. Techy things come easy to me and I love using everything available on-line to market my books. I'm also organizationally-inclined and plan to share tips with you to keep you organized as well. I'll tell you everything I know, week by week. 

And if I don't talk about something you want to know, just ask.

I'll be back next Monday with some more Words of Wisdom!