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Starting to build my social media stuff

As I am prepping to put my first story up on Amazon and anywhere else I choose to put it, put up my first blog post, two tweets, and will be getting my Facebook and Google+ set up soon as well. I will try to keep it up to date with what I get up to, etc. I just need to find other people to follow as well.
 

fleamailman

Closed Account
("...I have googled your username which turns up many of your posts, capital indeed, as anyone interested in your posts will do exactly this same googling then..." mentioned the goblin taking up sashamerideth invite to contribute more, saying "...soon you won't even need that link to your blog and the weakness it shows, as the forum itself will have much of your stuff on it, which is turn will pull those readers towards your persona instead, where your blog will be as a storeroom of your works, but first and foremost you will be known by your posts alone, so should I mention the livewriter's tripod now, or would you prefer my leaving be here...")
 
A. Smith is so common, but Sashamerideth is fairly unique, pretty much everything that Google shows is hers. Not so with A Smith. Sashamerideth has many online identities, most people from them the Goblin has never seen before.

What is this livewriter tripod of which the Goblin speaks?

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Telcontar

Staff
Moderator
Best of luck! Doing the same thing right now. I have to admit I've rather enjoyed twitter so far. I was skeptical when I registered for it, but it has turned out to be a lot of fun. Blogging as well, though I admit I think of it more as a personal journal right now seeing as nobody currently reads my blog...
 
I've got a blog and I'm on Twitter, so far. Since I haven't actually released anything (aside from a coupleof sample chapters), I'm reluctant to spend too much time on building up a social media empire. It would feel like putting up a lot of road signs that lead to a construction site. But I do make a habit of tweeting each new blog post, and the blog links to Twitter.

Once I do publish, I'll make some kind of Facebook presence, but right now there's not enough reason for me to spend time on it.
 

fleamailman

Closed Account
("...someone said that I have six million friends or whatever on facebook, not that I ever go there now..." replied the goblin, adding "...no, the livewriter's tripod has three legs, traceable username, recognizable persona, and a slow but steady flow of content, where the first and the last are self explanatory, so I'll skip them, but where the middle one is simply based on the understanding the most forum readers do not remember member's usernames either straight off or if at all, but they do remember that which they come across in dailylife such as someone's dog or their cat or that occasional goblin now, so it's product marketing where you fill in the blanc of their identification of you by choosing a loose association with a object, one's persona then...", but in fact the goblin also knew too, that one's persona is actually made up four different aspects here, saying "...but I'll explain that another time if you wish...", but the goblin's time was fast running out it seems, things were afoot that were beyond his control now)
 
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fleamailman

Closed Account
I've got a blog and I'm on Twitter, so far. Since I haven't actually released anything (aside from a coupleof sample chapters), I'm reluctant to spend too much time on building up a social media empire. It would feel like putting up a lot of road signs that lead to a construction site. But I do make a habit of tweeting each new blog post, and the blog links to Twitter. Once I do publish, I'll make some kind of Facebook presence, but right now there's not enough reason for me to spend time on it.

("...ask yourself why then, why do people generally dislike other people's blogs, as reflected in their meager hitcount in comparison to open threads on forums, ask yourself too, why in your passing day you see so few people reading those books you aspire to write for them now..." mused the goblin, not caring if this was going to go down well here but still feeling that it needed airing all the same, adding "...could it be that those readers don't like the fact that however one looked at it, those blogs were not about their readers but instead they were centered upon their author each time as in I write and you may read or comment if you like, and then again, yes I know, we all like books, but in these on-line days we want our own voice too, we want to reply to that which we read then...", so the goblin merely summed it up in one line saying "...look around you now, see it for what it really is, it's forum/venue thread/stage and persona/act and btw, welcome to your readers here...")
 
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I am hoping that my blog will be less about me, more giving other writers stuff of interest. Not sure how I am doing so far, but with 2 posts and 5 hits per post, it's not up to a lot.

I also get the point about the importance of forums, they allow for more interaction than a Blog does. That interaction is quite important, and just throwing a forum together just won't work. I like this one, a couple of others I have been on have banned people for just discussing their published books. Blatantly advertising is bad. Heck, I just put my first thing up on Amazon. No, don't go looking at it, I haven't finalized the version yet, some of my formatting is wrong, and the corrected version hasn't cleared review yet.

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fleamailman

Closed Account
("...even your thread here alone will out-hit both your blog and your ebook..." mentioned the goblin without malice, adding "...but please don't shoot me for pointing out that which most writers don't care to admit to themselves as yet, and which that publishing world doesn't want you to see for yourselves either, in that forum readership is the growing readership between the two, that's why I've been trying to get the posters here to think about their personas and their forum readership instead, because here my dear humans, is not some writer's workshop for yesterbook, no you are bang smack in front of your readers on this forum now, where if you want to be read by your readers you mustn't ask them to go elsewhere to read you now, you must write within your posts or lose out to someone who will write in their posts here in your place then...", but the goblin had great faith in the writers here, adding "...and I hope too, that to be allowed at one point to repost a few of my works here, but I would like it to be a shared thread amongst us where we all post excerpts of ourselves pooling our readership together then, knowing that the very nature of those excepts are reposts simply because everything posted to forumland is in fact a repost of something first written upon a screen and then uploaded to the forum...", and with that the reposted this text by hitting the "post quick reply" button to prove it)
 
("...ask yourself why then, why do people generally dislike other people's blogs, as reflected in their meager hitcount in comparison to open threads on forums, ask yourself too, why in your passing day you see so few people reading those books you aspire to write for them now..." mused the goblin, not caring if this was going to go down well here but still feeling that it needed airing all the same, adding "...could it be that those readers don't like the fact that however one looked at it, those blogs were not about their readers but instead they were centered upon their author each time as in I write and you may read or comment if you like, and then again, yes I know, we all like books, but in these on-line days we want our own voice too, we want to reply to that which we read then...", so the goblin merely summed it up in one line saying "...look around you now, see it for what it really is, it's forum/venue thread/stage and persona/act and btw, welcome to your readers here...")

The blog is a marketing tool, nothing more. Right now it gets less traffic than any thread on Mythic Scribes, true, but so what? The goal is that eventually, if someone wants to know more about me as an author, they'll go to my blog instead of wading through dozens of threads on a message board.

Also, why is everything you write in parentheses?
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
("...ask yourself why then, why do people generally dislike other people's blogs, as reflected in their meager hitcount in comparison to open threads on forums, ask yourself too, why in your passing day you see so few people reading those books you aspire to write for them now..."

. . . .

"...could it be that those readers don't like the fact that however one looked at it, those blogs were not about their readers but instead they were centered upon their author each time...

People don't read blogs because they're slow, unpredictable, boring, a chore. Because they're updated infrequently, they take too long before you start to connect. If I had six hours of a web-guru's time I would create something that's a bit more than a blog to promote a book, it's true. But I think you're wrong; it's not because blogs are personal. If anything, that's the strength of a good blog, and why many of them do, in fact, do very well.

Also, the hit count on forums is highly inflated. Every time a thread is updated with a new post, every viewer gets to count again as a unique view.
 
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fleamailman

Closed Account
("...wrong, because the book, the blog, and the forum are all cross promotional here..." replied the goblin, who winged his posts in brackets and published without them, adding "...and what your readers see of you here, is just as important as your blog is, if not moreso even, why, because readers quickly want to talk to you as an equal where these posts we see here, are as much you to them as anything else is, simply as your posts go so goes you by them now...", and with that the goblin repeated the other point that the average person does not have to the time to read at length, explaining "...I'm sure you don't need me to remind you once more how that bookworld is going, instead the question is who is going to become known across forumland by their posts alone where the readers numbers are actually growing and where they seem starved of content, and yes, this won't make you a penny for you either, but I'm anonymous so my motives were never fame and fortune here...")
 
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Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
"...and what your readers see of you here, is just as important as your blog is, if not moreso even, why, because readers quickly want to talk to you as an equal where these posts we see here, are as much you to them as anything else is, simply as your posts go so goes you by them now..."

Well, not really. Very little of what's posted here has anything to do with the actual quality of your book, and nobody cares about speaking to an author they've never heard of. What you need is to direct people to a location that will help you to hook them on your book. A forum post is not itself the hook.
 

fleamailman

Closed Account
("...agree to disagree then..." replied the goblin, thinking the author had better start doing posts to the quality of their books then, explaining "...because if I knew that I had found a great author on this forum and got him chatting to me too, well, I'd find that very interesting indeed, knowing too that I would never get that off the camera moment either on his blog where few readers visit anyway, or just by sending him a letter, which no one does these days...", so no, the goblin didn't want to go to the blog upon reading the book, no, instead he wanted to meet the author in his posts on an even keel here, and if the goblin felt that way, then he suspected that those humans might try their luck now, adding "...your readership are not readersheep, they will wade through the forums to find their preferred author unguarded...")
 
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How's that working out for the Goblin then? I've been around quite a few forums, not always as Sashamerideth, and have seen my share of people claiming to be social media experts with nothing to show for it. I've seen someone who has never completed a book, or never work for a publisher, claim to be an expert on getting published. As he was a moderator with a free swinging ban-hammer, those that knew better couldn't correct him without having their post deleted, edited, or permanently banned from the forum.

The Goblin is easy enough to find, his mannerisms stick out in forums, but that's all I've been able to find. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the advice seems sound, and the Goblin is quite friendly, if mischievous. It's one man's (Goblin's?) opinion.

Seems to me the truth of it is, we need to be active in the community, we need to have other places where our writing can be found and purchased. Even if we play by the book and even make new rules, we may never sell more than to just our family. I'm only starting to branch out, but I want to make sure that I am doing the best I can.

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Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
("...agree to disagree then..." replied the goblin, thinking the author had better start doing posts to the quality of their books then, explaining "...because if I knew that I had found a great author on this forum and got him chatting to me too, well, I'd find that very interesting indeed...

. . .

...so no, the goblin didn't want to go to the blog upon reading the book, no, instead he wanted to meet the author in his posts on an even keel here...

I'm writing a story about Breldin the gardener and talking in a forum to you about web-marketing strategies. A little bit of a genre cross there, don't you think?

How can my posts here hook someone onto a story? All I can do is use my personality to direct them to another website that might actually have enough information about the book to do that. Admittedly, I probably wouldn't use a blog, per say. I would set up a site with character profiles, sample chapters, short stories, the world map, a bestiary, any details I might have about the setting, writing tips, and so on - in fact, it would probably include both a blog and a forum.

But anything I posted away from that location? All about directing them there. If people want to ask me about the book, let them ask on my site, where they can be inundated with the material I've created, and not somewhere else.
 
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fleamailman

Closed Account
How's that working out for the Goblin then? I've been around quite a few forums, not always as Sashamerideth, and have seen my share of people claiming to be social media experts with nothing to show for it. I've seen someone who has never completed a book, or never work for a publisher, claim to be an expert on getting published. As he was a moderator with a free swinging ban-hammer, those that knew better couldn't correct him without having their post deleted, edited, or permanently banned from the forum.
The Goblin is easy enough to find, his mannerisms stick out in forums, but that's all I've been able to find. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the advice seems sound, and the Goblin is quite friendly, if mischievous. It's one man's (Goblin's?) opinion.
Seems to me the truth of it is, we need to be active in the community, we need to have other places where our writing can be found and purchased. Even if we play by the book and even make new rules, we may never sell more than to just our family. I'm only starting to branch out, but I want to make sure that I am doing the best I can.
("...easy to find indeed, for one only has to goggle my username and up comes those forums I am on..." replied the goblin, enjoying this thread and this forum for its rapport, adding "...where my readership adding up those forums now, speaks for itself, substantiating me perhaps, but doesn't actually mean anything because at best I will become a known unknown across forumland, or at very least if would have been an adventure by it, I mean does anyone on this forum have a thread that make a hundred hits per post I wonder, or a thread with 25555hits for 307posts, but I'm not the livewriter with the highest hitcount, nor the most famous one either, no in fact I'm just another poster like yourself, save that whatever I am I am not me here pointing to elsewhere, naming names or linking links in signatures, I'm merely me by my posts now, well can I ever be anything else I wonder where I am anonymous on forumland...")
 
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fleamailman

Closed Account
I'm writing a story about Breldin the gardener and talking in a forum to you about web-marketing strategies. A little bit of a genre cross there, don't you think? How can my posts here hook someone onto a story? All I can do is use my personality to direct them to another website that might actually have enough information about the book to do that. Admittedly, I probably wouldn't use a blog, per say. I would set up a site with character profiles, sample chapters, the world map, a bestiary, any details I might have about the setting, writing tips, and so on - in fact, it would probably include both a blog and a forum.But anything I posted away from that location? All about directing them there. If people want to ask me about the book, let them ask on my site, where they can be inundated with the material I've created, and not somewhere else.

("...how about giving them a taste of yourself within your posts, where it's as if you all write as you weren't writers at all..." replied the goblin, noting that nothing stopped anyone here form varying their writing style form the norm, or from adding pictures, or from storing their posts to polish into something more in tune to what they were originally getting at, simply your posts are very human like humans, sorry, so where is the mystic scribe within your posts...", and with that the goblin returned to something before, saying "...if a mod or admin bans you, just move to another forum that is more tolerant of you, where you can then show how wrong that first forum was by producing that very same readership on the second forum that was denied to you on the first forum, where there are more forums on forumland than stars in the night's sky...", at which point that sandman showed up with a big bag marked goblin again and some sleepydust too, so the goblin adding "...I'll be back in the morning Zzzzzzz...")
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
"...how about giving them a taste of yourself within your posts, where it's as if you all write as you weren't writers at all..." replied the goblin, noting that nothing stopped anyone here form varying their writing style form the norm, or from adding pictures, or from storing their posts to polish into something more in tune to what they were originally getting at, simply your posts are very human like humans, sorry, so where is the mystic scribe within your posts..."

So . . . we're supposed to give a taste of ourselves while hiding behind a persona and pictures or posts that are really designed to be updated later in a guide or a blog? I really like your creativity, here, but I think that's the wrong promotional mix. A forum isn't really a great medium for narration, especially when people expect you to be yourself, and a content or posting style which conflicts with basic expectations is going to be more jarring and unappealing to potential readers than a simple, common link in your signature.

I will say one thing for forums. They're great for developing a voice that you can translate into your blogs, which will help you write faster and update more often.


"...if a mod or admin bans you, just move to another forum that is more tolerant of you...

If you're doing something that warrants being banned - and I don't know that you are, mind you - then you're doing something wrong.
 
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