Monday, October 21, 2013

Facebook for Writers: Do You Need an Author Page?



Maintaining a presence on Facebook is time-consuming. First, you need a personal Profile Page and some friends. Then you'll want to connect with potential readers in Facebook Groups interested in topics you write about. In addition, you're supposed to create and maintain an Author page. Or maybe not. This article discusses the Pros and Cons of Author Pages, recent changes to Facebook and how they affect writers, as well as tips for getting the most out of Author and Profile Pages.


Author Pages 101


Benefits of an Author Page

- Promote your writing on your Author Page without spamming friends and family who follow you on your personal Profile Page.

- Some publishers consider an Author page with lots of fans a sign of professionalism. (No snickering, please.)

- Schedule posts in advance to save time.

- Profile Pages limit the number of Friends you can have. An Author Page doesn't. (To get around the limitations of a Profile Page, see "Using Your Profile Page as an Author Page" below.)

- If you are operating your Profile Page as a business you are technically in violation of Facebook's rules. (Not sure this is an issue for writers.)

- See statistics on your Fans (Age, sex, where they live)


A Facebook Author Page provides demographic information about your fans -- information that maybe useful in a book proposal.




Drawbacks of an Author Page

- Adding Fans to an Author Page is more difficult than adding Friends to a Profile Page. With a Profile Page, you can basically send a friend request to anyone you want. With an Author Page, you can't view a person's Profile Page, send requests directly to them, or even comment on their posts -- even if they've Liked your Author Page.

- Facebook continues to limit the Reach, or number of Fans who actually see your posts. (See "Tips: Reach More Fans with Your Posts" below)

- Upcoming changes by Facebook might make Author Pages even less useful. For example, the proposed addition of a Follow button on your Author Page means someone could Like your page without receiving your updates.

- Personal Pages offer some of the same features. Adding the Follow feature to your Profile Page, allows more people to see your public Posts. (See "Using Your Profile Page as an Author Page" below for more on this)



Tips: Get More Followers

- Visit your Author Page from your Profile Page and invite Friends listed there to Like your Author page.

- Ask friends on your Profile Page to Like your Author Page.

- Pay up: Buy and ad or pay to Promote an Author Page post to people who don't already follow you. Caveats. (My unsatisfactory experience with paying to promote a post.)

- Add lots of Friends to your Profile Page and then convert it to an Author Page. (After you do this, you'll need to create a new Profile Page to interact with Facebook groups.)

- Post a Like button on your blog and in e-mail signature. Unclear if this works.

- Other tips of questionable usefulness.



Log into your Profile page, visit your Author Page, and "Invite Your Friends to Like This Page."



Tips: Reach More Fans with Your Posts

- From your Profile Page, visit your Author Page and "Like" some posts. Yeah, this is sleazy, but it works.

- Upload photos or videos to Facebook instead of just posting links that take readers off of Facebook. Maybe I'm cynical and paranoid, but it seems that posts that don't lead visitors away from Facebook, reach more people.

- Pay for an ad or promote a post to your Fans that explains if they want to see your posts, they need to Like or comment on a post on occasion.

Tips for Book Authors

Instead of creating an Author Page, authors may want to use their Personal Page for interacting with Fans and create a separate page for any books they've written. This is also another way for people searching for you or your books to find you on the Web. Here's a Book Page created by author Jenna Blum, who also has a Profile Page with almost 4,000 Friends.


One of Jenna Blum's Book Pages on Facebook




Jenna Blum also has a Profile Page with 3,900 "Friends."




Using Your Profile Page as an Author Page

To get the most out of your Profile Page, you'll need to turn on a feature called "Follow," which lets people you don't know -- or even like -- follow posts you designate as "Public." These folks will not see Posts you want to share only with "real" friends. This feature is similar to the Follow feature on Twitter.

Why Bother with Follow
 - You can maintain just one Page, your Profile Page, on Facebook.

- If you've befriended a lot of people you didn't know before, you can Unfriend them and they'll see only your Public Posts

- It saves time: If someone sends you a Friend request -- you don't need to respond and they'll still see your Public Posts.

Some good posts that explain how to activate Follow on Facebook.
- Instructions from Facebook
- Instructions from a smart blogger (other than yours truly)
- Add a Follow button to your blog.
- Five Reasons to Use Your Profile Page Instead of an Author Page
(thanks to Paula Krapf ofAuthor Marketing Experts for this last link)


More Articles on Facebook

Social Media for Writers: Facebook Is Not Your Friend 


Book Marketing: More on Facebook Ads and Promotions

 

Top of Page Art attribution: Steindy, 16 September 2013 via Wikimedia Commons  

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Monday, October 7, 2013

18 Months of Social Media: One Writer's Progress Report




For the last year and a half, I've been trying to develop an audience for my writing and a platform for a novel I've yet to finish. I followed the advice of book marketing bloggers and published authors. I drew on my experience with online marketing and Web publishing. I devoted one day a week and a couple of hours most other days to this project. Here's what I have to show for my efforts: It's not impressive.

Exhibit A: The Ugly Truth


My stats:
Monthly Blog traffic: about 3,000 page views
(I blog about 3 times a month)

Social Media connections: 8,400
(Linked In, Facebook Fan and personal page, Google+, Twitter)

E-mail addresses: 700
(includes blog sign ups, addresses I've collected over the years and recently contacted, addresses I've collected at readings and lectures I've given. I use Mailchimp.com to manage much of these names)

*What it would take to wow an agent:
Monthly Blog traffic: 50,000 views
Social media connections: 50,000
Email addresses: 100,000

*Source: a 2012 Writer's Digest article, but I can only imagine expectations getting larger not smaller.
Worth noting:
- One agent in the article said she would be impressed with 10,000 social media connections.
- Another agent blog said that for fiction, having a big platform is less important than it is for writers of non-fiction.



Of course, there  is an easier way to impress an agent with your social media numbers.

No time for social media, but lots of money? Buy followers who will ignore all your posts and never buy your book. But hey, you'll have an impressive platform.


Exhibit B: What Worked

 

1) Blogging regularly
But there also seems to be a point of diminishing return -- and I have other work to do.
- My blogs tend to be long: Better to be long and thorough, than short and useless, particularly if you want people to sign up for your blog.
- I've also noticed that some literary agents who used to blog daily are now blogging less frequently. I blog most Mondays.

2) Inserting a sign-up box at the end of each blog post
- Like many blogs, mine has a sign-up box in the right-hand column. When I started to manually add a sign-up box to the end of each blog, my sign-ups jumped ten-fold. (I used to get maybe one sign-up a month. Now I get 10 to 20 and have a total of 290 subscribers.)
- Getting people to sign up, to give you their e-mail address, means you can communicate directly with them. With social media, the sites own the e-mail addresses and  can hold them hostage from you. (more on this below)

3) Posting links to blogs in social media groups and on Web sites frequented by people interested in my topics.
- This is more effective than having thousands of Twitter followers and Facebook Fans who never look at your stuff.
- A recent blog post with tips on posting to groups

4) Public Readings
- You don't need a published book to read at bookstores, literary events, poetry slams, story slams, public libraries, writing centers, adult education centers, etc. Once an agent approached me after a reading and said she wanted to see my book when it was done. (That was two years ago. Will she remember me?)
- Be sure to ask folks to leave their e-mail addresses if they want to get on your e-mail list.
- Tips on reading your work in public
- My recent experience assembling my work into a one-hour reading and performing it at a fringe theater festival.

5) Lectures
- Again, I don't have a published book, but in writing my novel I've developed some areas of expertise, including world travel and social media.
- I've given travel lectures at local adult education centers and at a local store that sells camping gear. I sent a pitch to a local hostel.
- I've been on panels talking about my experiences using social media.

6) Serendipity
- If you're out there, you'll more likely to bump into people
- On Linked In and Twitter, I've met other writers and influential people in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Florida. (I live in Boston) If I ever did a book tour in those areas, these people might invite friends.

7) Guest blogging
- Some blogs have reposted my blogs, which has driven traffic.
- Those blogs include a Boston writer center and blog carnivals.

8) Monitoring blog traffic
I use a free tool called Statcounter, which is much easier to use than Google Analytics. Also, Statcounter actually has tech support. Google doesn't. I use the traffic monitoring tool to:
- See which blog posts and topics draw the most visitors. (I have a seven year-old post that generates almost 25% of my traffic.)
- See where people are coming from to determine which social media platforms are most worth my time. (Linked In has been best, Twitter has been the worst.)

Exhibit C: What Hasn't Worked


1) Having lots of followers on Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter
- Again, most of my traffic comes from posting links and communicating with people in groups and forums interested in the topics I write about.
- Twitter hashtags have produced little traffic.
- One caveat with Twitter: I have two Twitter pages. One is for book marketing and promotion. The other is for a chonically single people, a theme in my novel. The chonically single page does generate some traffic -- and it has a tenth the followers of my book marketing page. So, your Twitter results may depend on your audience.
- I continue to be active on Twitter because it boosts Klout score, a number is considered important by some agents, publishers, and employers. All about Klout scores in plain English.

2) Facebook Fan page
- Facebook continues to limit the number of friends and fans who see your posts. I have 2,000 fans, most of whom used to see my posts. In April 2012, Facebook began showing my posts to only about 500 of those people. In September 2012, that number was reduced to about 200. Now the number is about 100. To reach all 2,000 of my fans, I have to pay Facebook.
- Facebook experts claim that posts that receive a lot of "Likes" and comments will reach more people. Maybe, but I'm not convince.

3) Paid Facebook Promotions
- I once paid $20 to reach all 2,000 of my fans plus 8,000 of their friends. Most of the people who saw my post were non-native English speakers living in developing countries. More on my experience.


Other Things I'm Going to Try


1) Pinterest

2) Blog carnivals
I found a Web site that allows you submit blog posts for posting on other people's blogs. For book marketing, I've used The Book Designer's Carnival of the Indies. But there are other blog carnivals for other topics.

3) Finding more Web sites -- non-social media sites -- where I can post blog links and communicate with potential readers. This is time-consuming and involves Google searches on topics related to my novel (travel, single people, relationships) and this blog (self promotion for writers.)


Attribution for top image: By Employeeperformance (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

  

Had Enough Book Marketing for One Day?



- Vicodin, Klonopin, or Heineken: What Do Unemployed Writers Have for Breakfast?

 

 

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