Danika Dinsmore

Author / Educator / Activist

magic appreciation tour

Rethinking Social Media Part Two

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<—–UNDER CONSTRUCTION—–>

As mentioned in a previous post, I have been rethinking how I use social media to meet my my professional goals. To that end I am relaunching (and rebranding) this blog to match my other social media platforms.

I had a bout of the creeping crud and was down for the count for several days, so I’ve pushed my blog relaunch. I will send out official invitations next week. Wahoo.

WEBSITE RELAUNCH and BLOG PARTY: Thursday, April 3

hors d’ oeuvres, giveaways, special guests, party games

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wooden hashtags brought to you by Pine Nuts


NOTES ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR WRITERS

I was recently in a panel/roundtable discussion for CWILL BC about social media for writers. I was asked to type up some of my notes. A bit of what I shared is below, plus I’ve added a few things I’ve thought about since that discussion:

1) YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO IT ALL

A few years ago I read Jeff Vandemeer’s excellent book Book Life: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer. One of the things I took away from it is that I DON’T have to do it all! When I streamlined my marketing and social media efforts to keep from getting overwhelmed, I asked myself, what few tools can I focus on and do WELL? I picked blogging and Tweeting. I’d rather have fun and use fewer tools than juggle so many that I can’t keep up. Find what works for you and do that.

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2) BLOGGING:

Not so many years ago, THREE was the magic number when it came to how many blog posts to write per week. Everywhere I turned bloggers were telling me that if I wanted repeat readers, I had to post 3 times per week. But the blogway is over-congested these days and who can come up with that much interesting material? If you can write one good post per week, you’re keeping up.

I think one really interesting posts is worth 3 mediocre ones. I also think it’s more important to be consistent then to post frequently. As a friend pointed out, the really fun blog waitbutwhy says right in the header “posts every Tuesday.” Great! Now I know to come back every Tuesday for awesome new content. (If you’ve got the goods and can post several times per week, more power to you. But don’t panic if you can’t.)

Participate in blogging communities you enjoy. Don’t expect others to hang out on your blog if you don’t take the time to hang our in theirs. USE feedly.com to aggregate and organize your blogs. In a matter of minutes you can cruise down an organized list of new articles in all your favourite blogs for tidbits of interest and the latest news. Feedly has brought the joy back into my blog reading.

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3) TWITTERING:***

During the last NaNoWriMo I finally discovered the joy of hashtags. I wrote with strangers during #nanosprints as we cheered each other on. Now, when I’m at a conference and hear a great piece of advice, I #hashtag the name of the conference (#AWP2014, #GeekGirlCon) and share the info (or photos!) with others. With hashtags, you can be part of a larger conversation. For example, searching #amwriting on Twitter is a great way to meet other writers.

Also, if you ever mention anyone else’s name on twitter, USE their @name Twitter handle. That way they know you’re acknowledging them. Everyone likes to be acknowledged. For example, if you tweet this blog post, you might tweet: @danika_dinsmore nails it with her post on social media – then add a truncated link (you can use bit.ly) to the post and the hashtag #socialmediaforwriters. It will alert me and make me smile.

Use Hootsuite (or something like it) to manage your tweets. Use Hootsuite’s widget “hootlet” to tweet the blog posts you read on feedly! (You can also manage other social media tools on hootsuite like Facebook and linked-in)

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4) GOODREADS:
Writers! Take advantage of the GoodReads author page and widgets. THESE ARE YOUR PEOPLE! THEY READ BOOKS AND TALK ABOUT THEM! Fill out your author profile, link your blog, link any other pertinent information about yourself, enter your book for giveaways, and use their widgets to promote your giveaway and your books on your blog. Take a look at my sidebar and you will see some GoodReads widgets. It’s all really simply and not much at all to maintain.

If you’re not sure how to use the author program, START HERE.

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5) FACEBOOK. Many people are grumbling about the recent changes on facebook, especially how you now need to PAY to get your page posts seen by people who have ALREADY LIKED your page. I think the lesson for companies is this: don’t give people something for free, and then make them pay for the service later. They will grumble.

I use Facebook both personally and professionally. While some writers elect to keep one Facebook profile for all their “friends,” I chose to have a personal profile, an author page, and a white forest series page. In hindsight, I might have stuck with just a professional page because it’s a little too much upkeep, I think. But I would never merge my personal profile with my professional one. Yes, it has been pointed out to me that Facebook has made it so you can target who your posts are seen by, but I want my headers and graphics to reflect different things. I put images of my family on my personal profile and book or author related ones on my professional page.

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RECOMMENDED READING

The above is just a short list of social media tips I’ve picked up. There is no way to cover it all in one post, which is why many people blog about this sort of thing every week!

There’s an overwhelming amount of advice online about how to use social media tools efficiently and effectively. But if you only have time to read one blog about how to get social media right, I recommend Anne R. Allen‘s. This week, she really nailed it with this one:

What Most Writers are Getting Wrong – where she talks about the fallacy of follower numbers

and the week before:

How to Comment on a Blog – so that you’re actually a participant in this realm

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If there are any blogs on social media for writers that you use frequently and want to recommend, please do in the comment section below.

Have a Great Week and Come Back for the Party!

 

***NOTE on Twittering: Resist the urge to set up an “auto respond” that sends new followers a link asking them to CHECK OUT your FREE ebook. The 3 marketing consultants I asked about it said, “Just don’t.” I liken it to introducing yourself to someone at a party and the first thing they do is hand you their book. It puts people off.

The Magic Appreciation Tour: Guest William English

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Everyone knows there’s been a rise in small presses and self-published authors. With today’s technology, the publishing process is easier. But getting the book noticed is another story.

There are myriad online campaigns, collaborations, and social networks that cater to authors looking to connect with an audience. The Magic Appreciation Tour is one of them. Focusing on fantasy with magical elements (rather than, say vampiric), the Magic Appreciation Tour’s goal is to “help you find new books to read and learn about the authors who wrote them.”

This week I spoke with writer William English, who writes fantasy short stories (with a splash of horror). Even though some of his characters are young, he considers the material fiction for adults.

Hi William! I’ve been delinquent on the Magic Appreciation Tour. It was just one too many commitments to add to my plate! How have you taken advantage of it? For writers thinking of joining the next tour, what recommendations do you have to get the most out of it?

It helps that I just got a new blog. I would recommend you make sure your blog has a following first before signing up. I didn’t when I signed up so I couldn’t take full advantage of the tour this time around.
So… why short stories? Have you always loved them?

Why not *laughs*? No I haven’t always loved them. When I was younger I found them boring, mostly because English teachers would shove the most depressing and tedious ones they could find down my throats. I didn’t start reading and enjoying them until college when I picked up Neil Gaiman’s ‘Smoke and Mirrors,’  I was hooked after that.

As far as writing them goes; when I started out I only wanted to write novels and only novels. But I would start working on a novel, and then I would come to a point where I looked over what I had written and realize, rather dramatically, “It sucks” and set it aside. Short stories, I found, were a great way to hone my skills as a writer, because if I work with a smaller canvas  I could analyze it, fix it accordingly and then apply the lessons I learned in the process apply them to bigger projects. But to make a long story short: I just discovered that I liked writing them, so I kept at it.

Who are some of your favorite short story writers? Who would you recommend to those interested in reading more good short stories?

I have a lot, but some of my favorites include William Faulkner, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury (I could read him all day), Cordwainer Smith and some Japanese writers like Haruki Murakami and Ryusouke Akutagawa. I would recommend the ones I named as well.

I’ve only read the first four, I’ll have to check out the others, especially the Japanese writers. I need to expand my horizons.

Do you write in other forms as well?

I write some poetry and I want to get back to writing novels too. I also want to try writing a screenplay, graphic novels and video games at some point too.

I love this line from the description of your book: “… a land where Dragons fly and the devil only wants to talk.” What would the devil talk about?

For what its worth: I always pictured him as a very petulant, whiny person with too much power and an inflated ego. So maybe he would talk about how much he wants people to stop asking him when his reign is gonna start? To be perfectly honest, I didn’t put much thought into the story the devil is in. It still baffles me why every one I show it too loves it so much.

Sometimes the ones that flow out effortlessly are our best. And it seems to us that shouldn’t be the case because writing should be hard work!

Your stories are an interesting mix of contemporary and fantasy (with a touch of horror) – how would you describe them?

I always think of my work as fantasy. To me, all fiction is fantasy, regardless of what elements are used.

How do your stories come to you? Where do you start or is it different every time?

Sometimes it starts with an idea, a dream, a character and then sometimes, more often than I would like, it’s just a random thought that won’t stop bugging me. As for where I start, I often try write a skeletal plot outline and then let my imagination fill in the blank spots when I start writing proper. Other times I just start typing or writing long hand and before I know whats happening I have a story.

What made you decide to self-publish? For those thinking of doing the same, what are the pros and cons?

I was too impatient to be published [the traditional way]. I had been sending stories out to magazine publications (like Weird Tales or the now defunct Realms of Fantasy) for years and was going nowhere fast. My mother and my Aunt suggested that I publish on the Kindle or some other device. I resisted the idea for a while. Then, finally, I gave in and put ‘Walking With Summer Dreams’ together and published it on Lulu.com and The Kindle.

I was glad that this new technology had given us another outlet for unpublished writers to get their voice out there and bypass the traditional routes that are time consuming. But I quickly discovered that the self-published route was filled with its own blocks. Namely advertising yourself so people can find your book yourself.

Sure, self-publishing sites like Lulu.com have advertising options but they are very expensive (the cheapest I found was $700). Its even harder if you want to print your book.

What’s one important thing you learned during the self-publishing process?

That I still have a lot to learn.

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William is pretty new to the blogging game, so let’s make him feel welcome by paying his new BLOG a visit. And you can check out the other Authors on the Magic Appreciation Tour HERE.