When it comes to Twitter, if you’re an author and you’re just starting out, one of the ways to find people to follow is to use the Wefollow tool. If you hit this link, you can see the Wefollow books list – http://wefollow.com/twitter/books . These are Twitter book reviewers, publishers, and media people who write about books or work in the book industry. This is a free tool that you can use anytime to find some more book folks to follow.

If you want to find more libraries on the Web a great resource to use is GalleyCat’s listings at this link – http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/best-library-people-on-twitter_b11945 .

The other important thing to remember as an author on Twitter is that you use your tweets to provide strong visibility for your book. Too often authors are letting others tweet on behalf of them or focus too much on sales jargon instead of tweeting about the book and why readers would want to identify with it.

Another tip we give authors during their book signing tours is to make sure they highlight and follow the bookstores that they’re appearing at on their Twitter feed. This is a great reciprocal way to acknowledge and support the independent brick and mortar stores that are supporting authors in incredible ways.

To find bookstores who are twittering – see this link on Wefollow – http://wefollow.com/twitter/bookstore .

If you do a book signing at a brick and mortar store – take a picture and post it out across all your social networks as part of your support of the store as well as your book. And make sure that you tweet out your date and time for signing prior to the event. Thank the bookstore via Twitter as well.

Make sure your PR agency is also keeping up with the latest tools online and offline so that you’ll have the competitive advantage! Ask them if they are open to you sending them blogs that you want them to reach out to. Ask them if they pitch to Twitter book reviewers and online blogs/sites. Ask them how often and how many and see if you can see samples of links and posts they’ve garnered on behalf of their authors.

Above all, use the best of online and offline tools to make sure your book comes out on top!

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Promote Your Book With Social Media

Teleclass :: September 28, 2010

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Friday is a good day for posting a few sites you should know about and tools you should be using as an author. So enjoy and think kindly of me as the temperature in Austin is heading toward the upper nineties!

1. If you’ve not yet registered to publish your blog on Kindle then you should do so today. Here is a great and easy way to do it on Squidoo.  I have to say too that Seth Godin mentioned this in his incredible talk at IBPA this year so YOU really should do it!

2. If I were an online book publicist (which I sometimes am) then I would feel incredibly happy to share the link to the Book Bloggers Convention attendees and tell you that you don’t need an online publicist to build your own book blog pitch list from those blogs.

2A. Don’t copy the whole list and then just spam pitch them. Take time to read their blogs, see if your book is a good fit and contact them one at a time. (Of course one would hope this is what PR flaks would do too, but alas, I’m not sure they are as smart as you!)

3. Gee, I wish all those cool blog posts I have could somehow be converted to newspaper-style format, so I could be my own mini-me publisher. Hmm. How can I do that? Try Feedjournal.

4. If I were an author I would be using Muckrack.com to find what journalists are tweeting in my vertical/topic and I would make a list and follow them on my Twitter account.

5. If I were someone who is always trying to figure out other ways to use Twitter (and I am), I might start following the publications I hope to be featured in and anytime they tweet out a new article link, be one of the first ones to go the publication site and comment on the article. If I do it often enough they might even think about using me as an expert for a future story. If I do it without marketing blather and authentically then at the very least I’ve created a way for folks to find me and perhaps visit my blog.

6. If I wanted to save money on news clipping services and use the Google alerts I set up in an even more powerful way, then I would convert all the places I’m mentioned or featured online by using HTML to PDF converter for free.

7. If I had an intern and wanted to be booked on radio shows, I might have them go through this list and see how many are a good fit for my topic and who the producers for the shows are by visiting the web links to the actual station. (Ok, this means you have to do a little bit of sleuthing but is that so wrong?!)

8. If I were an author hoping to get a book review or a writer wanting a book deal I would follow the folks listed under books here.

Now go and conquer all things Web and may the “book-Force” be with you.

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P.S. (Do it yourself so you’ll know it gets done. Don’t wait for your publisher to do it, and if you’re self-published send it in now! Early entry deadline is November 7th.)

Past Client Wins:
2008 Wins:

7. Human Resources/Employee Training

Silver: Growing Great Employees, by Erika Andersen (Portfolio/Penguin Group)

17. Advertising/Marketing/PR/Event Planning

Gold (tie): Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, by Lois Kelly (Amacom)

Winners 2008 Full List

2009 Wins:

22. Business Fable

Silver: Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an Uphill World), by Mitchell Lewis Ditkoff (Morgan James Publishing)

2009 Full Winner List

*Note: Seth Godin has won an award two years in a row. Let’s all chant, “What’s good enough for Seth to apply to is good enough for us to apply to.”
If that doesn’t inspire you then perhaps chanting this quote from Stuart Smalley will do the trick,”I deserve good things, I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am an attractive person. I am fun to be with.” (And my business book is award-winning!)

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A couple of things that need to be pointed out, I like Sarah’s work but think the article focused too much on trying to stay in the middle of everything a Twitter instead of having some really superb examples of how authors are connecting via Twitter.

Authors like Neil Gaiman and Paulo Coehlo are doing an amazing job of Twitter and using it to stay connected to their community. Sarah’s last line in the article, “..the jury is still out on whether authors are taking full advantage of what Twitter has to offer – or if they even need to,” really speaks to the fear that is ongoing about some of these social media tools and their usage.

Authors need to use these tools because it will help you build them community long-term. Imagine not having to go from bookstore to bookstore for signings and hoping that some people turn out, and instead being able to do a Tweetup really early about those signings and get tons of folks there.

Imagine not using an online publicist or offline publicist and taking charge of your PR yourself by finding book reviewers on Twitter and direct messaging them (in a very kind and humble way) and asking if they might want to see a copy of your book.

Imagine if people stopped worrying about the “technology” part of it and the mechanics of it and started embracing the people side of it. I disagree that it’s hard to make direct connections to readers on Twitter, and refer you back to Neil Gaiman and Paulo Coehlo’s twitter activity and devotees.

The challenge to any writer (and I’m one myself) is to find time to do all these things. That’s ok. You can do it. You can find a way to do it and still streamline your work process around it so you’re not trapped in the mire of social media and missing your next big idea.

A long, long time ago I worked for a company called IBM (Big Blue) and during that time I watched that company lose its edge in the marketplace because everyone was holding way too many meetings and deciding that everyone was wrong when it came to changing and adapting to the new marketplace drivers.
I can’t tell you how many friends I have that since that time have been laid off from IBM because the company refused to participate in the future.

As an author you really have an invaluable opportunity to connect with thousands of your readers and booklovers across the Web. Don’t be Big Blue. Be Apple instead.

Make certain if you’re an unpublished author that you have a publisher like Wiley, Chelsea Green, Berrett-Koehler, Random House, HarperStudio that really get the importance of the Web and will help you navigate it as well.

Make certain that your publisher understands it’s not about “social currency” – it’s about social community and building it long-term. Don’t get left behind.

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However, there’s a very good chance that if you write a press release unless it’s compelling and has a great news hook that it won’t get alot of folks reading it.

Always think about news events and how you might tie your book into them. For instance if you had a historical novel about Wall Street right now you would be in good stead!

Whatever topic your book might be on, if you do a little research you will find something valuable to tie your book into as well.

Use the release on your site and use a link to it on your Press page as well.

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I’m at BEA and it’s wonderful. The only downside is that my modem in my laptop crashed so I’m writing this from the press room itself!

So here’s a wrap up so far:

1. Taught two classes on Advanced Blogging and Web 2.0 for PMA’s Publishing University. This was a wonderful experience and lots of authors/publishers are really understanding the importance of having a web site or blog site initiative to keep the conversation going! I used my client Beth Kephart’s amazing example of blogging because Beth had not blogged previously and her blog now is both beautiful and a great representation of one simple step any author can take to establish a web conversation with like-minded and link-minded readers.

If you’re an author the best thing for you to understand about Web 2.0 or the Web (or even when it gets to Web 80.0) is to take small steps and you can start establishing a Web footprint! Don’t get discouraged – don’t get overwhelmed and feel like you have to do everything! Just do one simple thing. (Remember the song from the movie of Santa Claus when we were young? “Put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking out the door.” (The Web door!)

Also don’t forget to set up Google Alerts on yourself, your book title and your main competitor’s name and book title. This is a superb way of building a simple outreach list without ever using a publicist! When you do outreach to bloggers or journalists, keep it simple, short and authentic.

Now back to the list of five things!

2. Had a panic attack because my modem in my laptop died!!!

3. Saw Jeff Bezos deliver what I would term (if I’m in my journalist mode) a dry, verbatim, live press release about Kindle. I really think Bezos missed an amazing opportunity to truly engage and initiate a real conversation with folks about what Kindle means. Rather, he delivered a perfectly encapsulated marketing commercial about Kindle. Boring. Although, it was fun to see Neil Gaiman talk about why he uses it. (Read “Good Omens” by him and Terry Pratchett)

The Q&A, what Bezos termed an informal interview conducted between him and Chris Anderson of “Wired.” Not all that exciting either. And no questions from the audience. What I would have asked and I mean this seriously is, “Can you read a Kindle in the bathtub?” – I ask this, because more important than all my other work, I”m a Mom, and I know that Moms across the world would be sold on this gadget immediately if they did a commercial with a Mom sitting in a bubble bath reading her Kindle. It’s about the only half hour 24/7 moms get to sit and relax and it’s a giant selling point for me.

I highly recommend Joe Wikert’s blog on Kindle by the way if you want to keep up on all that is happening.

The other thing I would ask Bezos is to now spend time on getting the Amazon Connect for authors really working as it should! I can’t tell you how many frustrated authors I’ve worked with who just simply want their blog feed under their book and cannot get it to work. (We ultimately get it to work, but with no help from Amazon, unless you count the voluminous emails their help desk will send back saying, “We got your email and here is something to try.”) Where is the person that could take five minutes at Amazon and simply tell an author over the phone, how to get their blog’s feed going under Amazon????!!!!

4. Went to the Ingram party which was very fun and had belly dancers. (Note to self: do more situps.)

5. Have explained to probably 30-35 authors that you don’t need to pay a ‘Blog Consultant” thousands of dollars to set up your blog for you! (Once you’re really famous or if it’s a business blog, sure there are great blog designers out there and it might be worth it.) But you can yourself set up a blog at Blogger.com in as little as five minutes and it’s free!! You can do this, don’t get intimidated. There’s not a secret behind blogging, other than you just simply need to get over bloggers’ block and start doing it.

Yesterday I spent the whole day with my pal Christian and we laughed our way through the whole day and ate burgers at a fantastic cafe.

Today will be walking around the show and this afternoon I will be waiting in line to get an autographed “Bone” comic novel for my husband and daughter.

More later…..

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One of the most interesting reveals of the survey is how journalists are finding experts for stories using LinkedIn. While folks are touting that everyone must have a MySpace and Facebook profile too, I really like LinkedIn and have used it both as a journalist and in my work as a blogger.

With over 1200 media folks taking part in the survey it also revealed that 1/3 are on LinkedIn and 1/3 are on Facebook themselves.

“When asked how they acquire information about a company, journalists cite company Web sites (89%), Google (73.8%), e-mailed press releases (72.7%), and conversation/personalized e-mail from a PR person (70.9%). Nearly half (49.5%) use newswires, while only 13.9% report that they use RSS feeds.

Journalists are also turning to social networking sites and blogs to supplement their news coverage or find sources. Of those surveyed, 25.5% say they have a profile on MySpace, 29% are on Facebook, and 32.3% are on LinkedIn. While only 8.4% say they “always” use blogs for research, more than 36.5% say they use them “sometimes.” In addition, 57.7% report using blogs to measure sentiment, 38.7% for finding subjects, and 29.5% for searching industry experts.”

The survey also reveals that folks are still lacking “pitch” technique because many of the bloggers are receiving pitches that have nothing to do with what they’re blogging about!

Boo on that.

When I was blogging for Allbusiness.com as the Senior Editor for Must Read Business Books and the Professional PR blog, I received tons of pitches that had nothing to do with my blog topics at all.

Please give bloggers a break and make sure you have the respect to read their blog and not just think of it as a way to “push your own messaging.” It’s not about you – it’s about their readership and that readership really trusts and values the blogger!

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1. Think collaboration! Reach out to like-minded folks blogging on the same topics or type of book you’ve written and ask them if they’d like to be early reviewers.

2. Don’t forget to look to listserves, forums, and compatible e-newsletters to use as ways to connect with folks.

3. Use LinkedIn for good not marketing spam! Please don’t let someone send out a note from LinkedIn touting your book and begging folks to all buy it in the same 32 minute time period. Make real long-term connections by asking a question to your connections that might help evoke some insight around your book or your topic.

4. Be authentic, honest and engaging in your outreach.

5. Do Google alerts around the top books in your arena and build your own outreach list from the journalists that are writing about books like yours.

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I’ve been a journalist and did this frequently myself but here is a link to a post by Stephen Turcotte at Scoutblogging.com that relates his experience in doing this. Great stuff! Go read it!

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It’s important to try to consistently get folks to do reviews on your book on Amazon because it helps with keeping the book up in the stats and it also helps prospective buyers of the book.

Go on – be proud of your book and put a link to Amazon in your sig files!

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