Painting With Light

Exciting the Crowd is Important

Every indie writer must also think about marketing. It’s a given, I’m sad to say, when talking about independent publishing. Even if you don’t like to do it. Marketing is crucial to your success.

But every indie soon learns self-promotion is a tricky balancing act. There’s a very slim line between effective self-promotion and simply being annoying.

If you’ve ever seen those who Tweet “Buy My Book” three-hundred and twenty-two times a day, you know what I mean.

So How Do You Do It?
Building a platform takes time. And, before you ask…yes, you need one, even though constructing it can devour a great deal of the day you’d rather devout to writing.

Once you’ve constructed it, you need to remember there’s no secret formula to building a following. It’s not as simple as build it and they will come. It takes time.

You may promote with the skill of a master, but even a DaVinci would need to understand how much luck will play a part. Your information needs to be seen by the right people, at the right time.

But it’s got to be more than that.

Social Media is Just That…Social
One of the ironies of the writing life is that many authors are introverts. Most of them are people who find it hard to morph into an extrovert in order to promote their wares.

For instance, one of the recommendations I’ve seen (but haven’t tried yet) is to give one of my own recurring characters a Twitter account of his/her own and let them comment on the events in their lives.

Who knows? It might even lead to some yet unknown story ideas.

But I’m not sure that’s what it’s all about. I think you need to talk to people. Not just should talk to them…you need to. Talk to them on your web site, blog, on the Twitter, and even on The Book of Face.

What do you talk about? If you follow my blog here you know I write about indie publishing and I try to pass along whatever I learn.

What else? Well, along the way I discovered that many non-writers (and, surprisingly, some other authors) are actually curious about the so-called Secret World of the writer.

How do we go about it? Where do we get our ideas? Why do we write?

If these are important questions being asked, why not make answers to some of those questions a feature of your own marketing?

Why not indeed.

I decided if answering questions isn’t being social, what is?

My Podcast
As I promised some time ago, I opened up to audience questions, and many of you were kind enough to provide them. I always intended to share my answers with you, more or less live. It’s taken some time, but the podcast is here.

Click on the red-arrow link below to hear me answer your questions about indie writing (duration approx 15 minutes):

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My books have all garnered some terrific reviews. You can see the stories I have available by using the Amazon link below.

You’re also invited to visit my web site, BROKEN GLASS, or like my Book of Face page. You can also follow my shorter ramblings on The Twitter.

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Comments posted below will be read, greatly appreciated and perhaps even answered.

Tags: award-winning writing, indie writers, using social media

This entry was posted on October 1, 2015 at 9:00 am and is filed under Independent Publishing, Market Your Book. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.