Hello and welcome to this Thursday's writing tips in the Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing series. Humorous author Conda Douglas is our tipster with her own writing tips on Marketing. AND Conda has brought along an e-book copy of her award-winning mystery, Starke Naked Dead. Congratulations on winning third place in the mystery category in the Idaho Author Awards!
Please leave a comment to be eligible to win the drawing for this entertaining mystery. Winner announced after 9 pm on Sunday evening.
PLUS today, Conda has a FREE gift for you, a cookbook filled with Conda's tried and true recipes. Just in time for the holidays!
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| Click here to order |
MARKETING MADE EASY...UH...EASIER
by Conda Douglas
by Conda Douglas
Once
upon the time before eBooks, marketing and promotion were straightforward, they
followed a laid out process that everyone accepted as protocol. Now, authors,
whether traditionally published, self-published or hybrid, are expected to
promote their own works and author brand. Add to this that no one knows what
works in social media, except that it does appear to add sales. Add to this that all social media is
continuously changing and many authors throw up, uh, their hands and maybe
their breakfast too.
Breathe,
relax, and unclench those fists. Here are a few tips that will have you
enjoying, yes, enjoying, marketing.
There
are myriad ways to promote on the Internet, enough to find your own way. If you
choose social media that you enjoy, you're more likely to visit, post, comment,
whatever, more often and get more followers, views, whatever. I adore Pinterest
so visit it and pin often (it's like having hundreds of great teapots, all free
and none that need washed!). Because of my activity, I have many followers.
Provide
content pertinent to your interests (see teapots above). I have writing boards
on Pinterest, but most of my boards are about my interests, jewelry and jewelry
making, recipes, fitness and of course teapots, some tangential to my novels. One
of my main characters is a jeweler, for example. People will discover you as an
author instead of being annoyed by endless pitching.
Note:
An easy way for more promotion is to link your social media accounts, Pinterest
to Twitter to Facebook, etc. Then when you post to one it posts to the other
sites as well.
Think
outside the promo box. Because I love writing reviews on TripAdvisor I have
over 100 reviews with 41,000+ people plus having read them. The cover of my
novel The Mall Fairies: Exile is my
bio pic. If only a tiny portion of readers see and my name and cover...
Use cross marketing. Get into groups of authors and
bloghop, tweet each other's tweets, promote each other's books for content, etc.
Authors adore helping other authors!
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The gossiping women of the Widows Brigade in the new
ski resort of Starke, Idaho love a good scandal—this time it’s a murder
mystery, and a stark naked corpse!
BUY LINK for Starke Naked Dead
by Conda Douglas
About Conda:
Award winning Conda grew up in the ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho. Her
childhood was filled with authors and artists and other creative types. She
grew up with goats in the kitchen, buffalo bones in the living room and rocks
in the bathtub. Now her life is filled with her cat and dog and permanent
boyfriend and writing.
She's traveled the world from Singapore to Russia (in winter!) and her own
tiny office, writing all the while. She delights in writing her cozy Starke Dead mystery series with amateur
detective jeweler Dora Starke. The more Dora discovers cursed jewelry, her aunt
digging graves, and a rampant poisoner, the more fun Conda has--although
sometimes Dora complains about her plight!
When she's not writing Dora into her
quirky and quixotic mysteries, Conda writes the popular tween fantasy Mall Fairies series. The fairy
inspiration for her Mall Fairies came
from the sparrows that live in the Boise Towne Square Mall in Boise, Idaho.
Conda works hard to rescue the fairies from humans, cats, pixies and
themselves.
Find out more about Conda at Conda's Creative Center
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You can pre-order now and get the special Black Friday price-- $1.99 for ALL FOUR BOOKS. Price goes up on December 2. For more information and the buy link, go to MuseItUp Publishing. Also available at amazon.
22 comments:
Thanks so much for those tips, Conda. I have a Pinterest account but I don't use it anywhere near often enough. Now I will! Thanks for the great advice.
Conda, I'll have to look up your Pinterest Boards. I also love Pinterest and of course tea and teapots fit into my series' patisserie theme. I could spend hours at the site. It's so relaxing and so much fun!
Best wishes for Starke Naked Dead. Janet best wishes to you also on the mystery bundle. :)
Susan
Helena, yes, Pinterest is addictive, and I forgot to mention that when you are on Pinterest, it's helpful to have things pinned on your boards. So many times I have gone to a writer--no boards! Nothing to follow!
Plus, I use Pinterest now to keep track (on one board) of review sites, another board of short story markets, plus teapots of course!
Susan, thanks, and I obviously need to find you too on Pinterest, you can never have too many "virtual" teapots!
Hey, JQ and Conda. Love the idea of linking posts, Conda. Doesn't that mean all posts have to fit the limited characters for Twitter? I find that a real pain! LOL I'm new to Pinterest. I joined against my will. Struggle to keep Twitter and FB from devouring my writing time. I was helping out with someone's book launch and had to sign up on Pinterest to do that. Your book looks fun. I'll FB and Tweet.
Thanks Marsha, and actually in order to link them all together you just need to change your settings. Go into twitter's settings and there will be a setting to post the tweets you post on twitter on Facebook. Then when you pin a pin on Pinterest, there should be a box that says "post to twitter" if not go into your Pinterest settings. That way you post everywhere (except Google, which I've linked to Facebook too). Because, yeah, this takes too much writing time!
Helena --Not using Pinterest is probably why you have a new book out this month! Pinterest is such a time killer, but so fun and interesting. Thanks for coming by.
Conda,thank you for sharing your thoughts on marketing. I forgot to leave a comment so I'd be notified of all these messages. So much fun when folks stop in and talk to us, eh?
Thank you Susan. I have a board on pinterest for tea party ideas since my granddaughter loves tea parties. I also love tea pots and tea. So many styles of pots and designs. I'll find you on pinterest.
Hi Marsha, I love Pinterest, but hate twitter. I joined when it first came out and got some weird folks tweeting me, so I left. No more for me even if it is a good one for authors to get out there and build an audience. Taking Conda's advice to do what you like and I enjoy Facebook and Pinterest. Thanks for tweeting for us!
BTW, speaking of Pinterest, I have a board of all my guests on the Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing and their books as they appear on my J.Q. Rose blog. Take a peek if you wish--
http://www.pinterest.com/janetglaser/romance-and-mystery-authors-on-writing/
I put up a link to a book for purchase on amazon, then I wondered if that is okay to do on Pinterest. Anyone know? I don't want to get kicked off!
JQ, of course it's fine to pin your books for sale on Pinterest! I have a couple of boards that I pin to, one my published writings and a couple of book boards too.
In fact, look at the upper right corner of your sell book page on Amazon and you will see they have provided a Pin It Button already!
Alright! I'll add the info to the pins. Thanks, Conda.
Marketing is a lot of fun when you think about it. We live and breathe it in our home - hubby chose it as his career. Sure beats crunching numbers all day long. I enjoy Pinterest a lot too, and you're so right, that site is about being yourself and not promoting your work so much. I follow so many boards and share my things too. It's amazing how fun and addicting that site can be!
MJ, Truly addicting. Refreshing to hear someone actually likes marketing! Thank you for stopping in.
Hi, J Q. Thanks for hosting Conda on your blog. Best wishes to her and her book. Great marketing tips. I'm not on Pinterest, but I know lots of people that are. I've heard it's quite addicting.
Hi Susanne, Love having Conda here. Have a wonderful weekend!
MJ, thanks for that perspective and perhaps part of the secret is to do social media you enjoy? Or at least like?
Susanne, thanks for your wishes and yes, you have to be careful about Pinterest, talk about losing time!
Congratulations to Susanne Drazic, winner of the drawing for Conda's book.
As usual, you are full of ... great advice! Thanks for the ideas about Pinterest. I've finally realized that I can tie my interest in other things to my writing and use them on Pinterest.
LOL Kathy. Thanks for stopping in. I love Pinterest but such a time waster.
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