How do we build an audience without coming across as a stalker crossbred with an MLM rep? This is no easy task, especially since most creative professionals don’t exactly shine in this area. Face it. If we’d been good at high pressure sales, we’d be languishing on our yacht along with other people who excel at high pressure sales (or in federal prison *shrugs*).

Suffice to say that it is really tough to shift gears from being artist to trying to build a following large enough to impact sales.

But does it need to be as hard as we can make it?

The answer is always “NO.” We writers are notorious for overcomplicating everything. So no. It does not need to be as hard as we make it.

If you read my last post on branding How to Create YOUR Audience: Identify, Connect, Convert, I talked about low-consideration purchases and high consideration purchases. Why is that important? Because we know that, when it comes to selling books, competing on price or give-aways is automatically a bad plan for 98% of authors. If your name rhymes with Stephen King? Be my guest. For the rest of us mere mortals….

Sometimes knowing what NOT to do is the best way to plan what one SHOULD DO.

If books (entertainment in general) is a high-consideration purchase, then we know we are going to have to curate our brand and build an audience. How do we do that with no books or only a book or a couple books?

We don’t build an audience as much as we build a TRIBE.

1,000 True Fans

In my book, Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World (ebook now on sale for .99), I talked about Keven Kelly’s post about 1,000 True Fans from 2008. I wrote Rise of the Machines to be evergreen. The point of the book is to teach you how humans think and why they like what they like.

Why did I write it?

Because I knew social media was going to be one more thing we authors needed to do if we wanted to be successful. If we had to build an audience, then I wanted y’all to know how to build and what to focus on.

Hint: NOT BIG NUMBERS.

Back then, the Big Six was still around and their marketing people were giving terrible advice.

Publishers and agents became fixated on vanity numbers. I worked with a lot of mega-authors who were household names. They were apoplectic and panicking because Such -and-Such had 100K followers and they didn’t.

It is really hard for most people to grasp that big numbers aren’t the be all and end all. What matters is how much the people who DO follow you CARE. What good does a million followers do me if none of them ever engage in what I post?

To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.

Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly said this sixteen years ago and it is still true today. In 2019, influencer Arianna Renee had an Instagram following of 2.3 million followers and she still couldn’t sell 36 t-shirts to launch her clothing line. She only needed to mobilize 0.000013% of her following and couldn’t do it.

This isn’t to depress you (I hope) as much as it is to encourage you. It is far better (and easier) to dig deep than spread wide.

Using Word Clouds to Build

If you haven’t read the last branding post, I strongly recommend you do because—as promised—today is more of a workshop.

I first want to point out that everyone has different skills, budgets, lives and likes. The whole reason I took a detour from writing to even teach branding is I wanted authors to have time left to do the things they loved to do most…to create. That said, our job isn’t all writing. We have editing, revisions, taxes, research, and did I mention taxes?

Suffice to say I would LOVE to have a formula where everyone only did things they wanted to do. I am good, but not that good. Secondly, if we think we are going to open a bunch of social media accounts and just automate and expect fans to materialize? That isn’t going to happen. It might feel like we have a brand and a platform, but there isn’t any engagement so there will be little loyalty.

Most likely we will get relegated as white noise. But, for those of y’all who have followed me any length of time, y’all know how I feel about automation. I don’t like eating spam, so I don’t serve it.

Why I came up with the word cloud is it gives you a better idea of WHAT and HOW to build and WHERE. Play to your strengths. The best social media platform to build is the one you will USE.

That said, too many writers hop on social media and our brains vapor lock.

I am a writer…so…I’ll talk about….writing.

Y’all ever had a relative, acquaintance or colleague who only ever talked about one thing ever? I had an uncle who only ever talked about sports. Despite him knowing I could not care less if baseball fell off the planet, it was all he talked about.

How many of y’all here enjoy hanging out with those people?

Brands are EMOTION

Whenever you do any kind of branding, the key is figuring out the overall emotion that you want to underpin everything. Advertisers have been doing this for over a century.

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

What’s riding on your tires?

A diamond lasts forever.

Just Do It

In just a sentence, these brands convey the major emotional through-line that hooks people first. Obviously there is a lot more to these brands than just the one line, but who cares? If Nike sells tennis skirts or wristbands it is all powered by the call to get off our a$$es and do it!

Whether we like it or not, people will feel the same about us and our writing. The key emotion I wanted everyone to feel with me and my work is “safe.” It is why I named my first book We Are Not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. I could have named my book Marketing for Writers but I would have rather thrown myself in traffic. WHY? Because most of us would rather throw ourselves in traffic than do this marketing stuff.

But since I knew we HAD to do it, at least we didn’t have to go it alone. It’s why I work to use so much humor and make fun of myself. There is no boneheaded idea you have I probably didn’t have first…but of course I believed it was GENIUS—until it blew up in my face like a “present” from ACME.

We (You) Are Not Alone

Yet, whether I am talking about fiction, branding, life in general, the core emotion is “this” is a safe place to be a hot mess. And that actually does bleed over into my fiction.

In The Devil’s Dance (ebook also now on sale for .99), Romi Lachlann did everything right and it still fell apart.

Romi grew up white trash in a tiny town on the road to nowhere. She “escapes” and gets her education and a premium job in tech sales…only to be left holding the metaphorical bag when her rich fiancé pulls an Enron-like scandal, disappears, and leaves her as the FBI’s prime suspect.

Broke, blackballed and out of options, she has no choice but to slink home, defeated and humiliated, to her Jerry-Springer-crazy-as-a-bag-of-frogs family…and then she and family run afoul of a cartel.

Whether y’all read my goofy blogs here or my fiction, it is pretty clear I am remaining true to my brand.

So that is what I would like to posit to all of you reading. What do you want other to FEEL when they see your name, read your posts, your blogs your books, etc? Because while we might post on all kinds of topics, depending on what kind of social media platform we choose to use, there will still be a certain flavor to what we post.

Kind of like our friends. We have the funny friend, the serious friend, the super mom, the sport friend, whatever…but that doesn’t mean that is ALL of who they are. When we have friends, ideally we talk about a lot of other things and experience the entire spectrum of emotion. If not? That is a pretty shallow friendship.

Our goal is to replicate that “emotional experience” on line, because whether I like it or not? Most of the people we know, like and bond with are going to be online.

Build the Foundation

The word cloud gives you not only a place to start the conversation, but the longer and more robust the cloud, the more accurate a profile you will have of your potential fan (the person most likely to gravitate to you and thus your books).

I asked y’all to submit word clouds to use as examples. I will do my best, but I will reiterate that the LONGER and more detailed the cloud, the better the results. But, I get it. It was a big ask and I am super happy a couple people were willing to be vulnerable.

What I like to do with the word cloud is to come up with that I call a branding log-line. It serves as a theme for the feeling you want to give your audience. Sort of like your own Diamonds are forever. I might not have We are not alone plastered everywhere, but if you look at the lion’s share of my content, the fingerprints are there in the way I build.

If you want to post your log-line as part of your website or blog? Go for it. Visitors will know what to expect.

Example #1 Deborah Ademola:

Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Barbara (Faroese tragic romance), Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Titanic (1997 movie), Barbara (1997 Danish movie adaptation), The Fellowship of the Ring, autumn, winter, blue, pink, purple, black, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Office (USA), Canaletto paintings, Monet, Renoir, watercolour landscapes, Sherlock Holmes, bread-making, soap, luxury hand wash, hollyhock, verdana, roses, hoards kalanchoe plants, crocuses, snowdrops, Soap & Glory lotion and hand cream, Foo Fighters, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, too much music to count, lives on Spotify and YouTube, Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, spagetti and tomato sauce, A Christmas Carol, Columbo, Sweet Home Chicago (Robert Johnson), Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix), relearning Chinese, Qin Empire Alliance series, obsessed with etymology, loves writing by hand, obsessed with medieval European calligraphy, also Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, qigong, obsessed with German rom-com Isi und Ossi, lifelong aficionado of Baroque music, Bach is the best!, always reading about five or six books at a time, walks almost everywhere, Resolve (Foo Fighters) almost brings me to tears, obsessed with Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras

Looking at this cloud, I could pull out…

Debroah Ademola: To Thine Own Self Be True

Deborah Ademola: But Here We Are

Deborah Ademola: Concrete & Gold

Deborah Ademola: All Roads Lead Home

Deborah Ademola: Nothing Left to Lose

Deborah Ademola: No Roses without Thorns

Deborah Ademola: Tiptoeing Through Time

Deborah Ademola: The World as a Canvas

Deborah Ademola: Garden in My Soul

Deborah Ademola: Pride & Prejudice in the Paleozoic

Deborah Ademola: One Rainy Wish

Once I have a log-line to work with, see how the content almost creates itself? All of these can be as broad or narrow as Deborah wants them to be. When we have just a tiny bit of a border to build in, that is when creativity kicks in.

She can look to her cloud and just be…herself. When on-line, if she simply talks and posts about the things she enjoys, other people who connect to those things will find her. Since people generally buy from who they know and like this is a good way to filter through the gazillions of people and find her people.

Example #2 Cherlyn Gatto:

Classics like Oliver Twist, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, and The Lord of the Rings, Movies like The Bear, Gilmore Girls, This is Us, The Firm, Edison bulbs, kayaking, biking, all things melancholy, edgy, and redemptive, baking bread, farm life, sunsets, night skies, bonfires, warm blankets, cozy socks, Instagram reels of babies and puppies and surprise bears and crazy falls, The Monkees and 60s classic rock and Christian worship bands, dark chocolate, Starbucks Chestnut Praline Lattes at Christmas time, football games, rustic country anything, horseback riding, long car rides and road trips to anywhere, decorating Christmas cookies, thundershowers, sunflowers and meadows, definitely Apple over android and Starbucks over D&D, editing versus the blank page, fiction more than reality, days that open without commitments, approval from others, scheduling and organizing but not following through, wet earth in springtime, gravely voices, when my son sings in his band, ice water with lots of lemon, pine candles, fires in the hearth, corn hole and badminton and any game I can win.

Cherlyn Gatto: God Only Knows

Cherlyn Gatto: Murder, Mayhem and Cozy Socks

Cherlyn Gatto: For What It’s Worth

Cherlyn Gatto: Bad Moons and Bonfires

Cherlyn Gatto: Starry Nights and the Sudden Drop

Cherlyn Gatto: The Game of LIFE

Example #3 Barbara Meyers:

Family. Books. Reading. Fiction, Thrillers, suspense, mystery, sometimes “big” romance or “women’s” fiction. Bible, spirituality, prayer, observant, exercise, blue, salty snack foods. Raspberries, yogurt (vanilla), granola; dogs, walking, home improvement shows, cooking shows; Bourne movies, grandchildren, tee shirts, shorts, writing fiction; TikTok, psychology, human nature, personal growth, listening, cards (greeting and playing); kindness, friends, pens, journals, ideas, games, bubble baths, healthy, aesthetics, flipflops; Holidate, CJ Box, Nick Petrie, Robert Crais, Sandra Brown, Jane Casey, Claire McGowan, winter (in Florida, especially); ADD, weak follow through, Suduko, distracted, disorganized, poor career and business management ability; resists learning new things. Don’t bore me with details or directions. Quotes. Stand-up comedians, humor, laughter, smiles, adventures.

Barbara Meyers: The Rest is Just Details

Barbara Meyers: Leap of Faith

Barbara Meyers: Leap of Fai–NOPE!

Barbara Meyers: Spies, Lies & Flip Flops

Barbara Meyers: Precious Things

Barbara Meyers: Cloud on My Lips

Barbara Meyers: Got Sand in My Sanity

Example #4 Kathleen Saunders

I love reading, writing, my family and pets, all animals (the reason I’m vegetarian), the outdoors, our cottage at the lake, watching wildlife, walking, gardening, swimming, riding, teaching, continuing to learn daily, improving my French, travelling (especially Europe), The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, How to Stop Time, The Midnight Library, anything by Kate Atkinson, Ann Cleeves books, The Children of Men and anything by P.D James and Ruth Rendell, music (everything from Joe Cocker and Roy Orbison to Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars), Lost, Survivor, American Idol, and old movies, landscape paintings, and anything with an interesting use of colour especially with subjects from nature.

***Kathleen I am guessing at your last name so correct me if I am wrong.

Kathleen Saunders: When the Night Comes

Kathleen Saunders: Face in a Cloud

Kathleen Saunders: Sunshine on My Shoulders

Kathleen Saunders: Time in a Bottle

Kathleen Saunders: At the Stroke of Midnight

Kathleen Saunders: A Place in This World

Kathleen Saunders: Life on a String

Kathleen Saunders: Hands in the Dirt, Eyes on the Skies

Build With Attitude

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who was brave enough to put up a sample cloud. Usually when I do this one on one, I will send back for a longer cloud or some more specificity in the words. These were a bit on the short side for my preference, but I am still in awe of your courage.

If I nailed it, great! If not, then y’all at least see what I am doing here.

Song, book and movie titles are great fodder for the imagination and you can’t copyright a title. If you have a song that you believe is your theme song? See if you can work with it. Just avoid the lyrics because musicians—rightfully—are very territorial.

The cool thing about this log-line is you can change it out. It is supposed to be a guideline, not a noose. Like an outfit, it impacts how you might present yourself. Sundress/suit versus a military uniform.

Again, to build a brand, just talk about the things you are passionate about. If you love kittens? Great! Animal videos? Sure! That is fantastic content people love to interact with and share. Same with funny memes. Or nostalgic posts. There are certain kinds of content that by its nature, have better “legs” and are better material to build with.

We can dive deeper into how this all works on line later. If you really want this expounded, pick up a copy of Rise of the Machines because I have a whole section on this and the book is .99.

But, I hope you can see that, with a word cloud and a log-line, you can take an honest inventory of what kind of social media is a good fit. What social platform is the best for building an audience? The one you ENJOY.

The entire point of this is learning ways to begin the conversation in an authentic way. Then, you’ll become the author people happen to know and like (and they trust your content). You have your people and, unlike buying email lists or spamming people, they’ll want to be there.

What Are Your Thoughts on the Build?

Even if you don’t use the word cloud to create a log-line, do you see how it is a really useful tool for not only starting the conversations, but to keep them going? While genre might impact the log-line, it doesn’t have to. Our log-line really is more reflective of our voice.

I can think of fantasy that is super serious The Lord of the Rings versus super silly/campy Army of Darkness. Both stories play out in a medieval setting but aren’t remotely like each other.

Whether we write romance, horror, thrillers, mystery, that is more of a side point. Readers will gravitate to our unique lens that we bring to the creative table. That’s why I don’t like us fixating too hard on the books themselves. Your fellow humans can surprise you.

They might HATE romance, but they love your romance novels. I have had people who never read thrillers or horror, but they gave the genre a chance because I wrote it. And they’ve told me they’ll likely never read another in that genre, but they loved mine. Sometimes, they didn’t even read them because, while they don’t like that genre, they have friends or family who DO…and they give my books as gifts.

Trust me, there is almost no greater compliment.

Ultimately, we don’t have to sell to everyone. Who cares if a person buys only one book, so long as it is YOUR BOOK? And if that person likes you and your books, that is a great step toward that super fan who’s positively EVANGELICAL about everything you produce. It is easier to build with friends.

The SUPER FANS are who you want to invest your heart in because they give theirs freely in return.

The post How to Build an Audience, No Duct Tape Required appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Kristen is recovering from a couple of all-nighters spent caring for a loved one. I’m sure she’ll have plenty to say about it over the coming weeks. She should be back tomorrow. I take that back, she will be back tomorrow,even if I have to drive to TX and make her write a blog post Weekend-at-Bernie’s style.

Today’s post is an excerpt from a bonus lesson from Lisa Hall Wilson’s six week Facebook course. Lisa is a fantastic teacher and one of my favorite online people. She is currently teaching four classes at WANA Intl:

Building A Tribe Using A Facebook Profile
Using Your Facebook Profile to Build Platform
How To Write In Deep Point Of View (POV)
How To Get Them Talking – Interview Like A Journalist

Thanks Lisa for giving us a sneak preview at this new lesson!

WANA Facebook Maven Lisa-Hall Wilson

Facebook Groups

Indie authors especially are very good at innovating and finding creative solutions to problems they face trying to connect with their readers/fans. Recently, former lit agent Nathan Bransford posted about the ongoing bully/gang-mentality that’s become prevalent over on Goodreads. People were leaving bad reviews of books they’d never read, or just didn’t like the title or subject matter of. (Read the post here.)

Authors had no way of policing their Goodreads pages, and real fans were turning away because of the bullies and bad reviews.

So they innovated.

How Authors Are Using FB Groups

I often get people inviting me (or force adding me) to closed groups which are really just book launch announcements. Not cool. That’s just spam. Don’t do that. However, some authors are using groups the proper way with amazing success.

Growing a tribe or community around your writing is usually a common goal for all writers regardless of their genre. Easier said than done. Building a community or tribe takes time, effort and intentionality.

To combat the lack of control over on Goodreads, authors have turned to closed FB groups instead.

Street Teams

When an author is about to launch a book, they may create (or fans create for them) a street team. I’ve seen these used as incentive to pre-order books. These are the most dedicated and enthusiastic fans you can have. They are your mavens, they generate word of mouth enthusiasm, share your work, post reviews, buy copies for family and friends. This is marketing gold you can’t buy.

Author Strategies

These closed groups are well organized and only genuine fans of the books are accepted as members. Some authors use these groups to send out information to join a street team, help get the message out about their books, events, coming soon and cover reveals, help name the book, etc. Some of these groups have tens of thousands of members. It’s a vibrant hidden community free of trolls because the author admin has the power to turf those who break the rules of the group. There’s no spamming, and readers find it a much safer environment than Goodreads right now.

Authors show up daily to talk to fans, to give that glimpse behind the curtain – they want to see Oz. Authors are growing these groups by placing links to them in the back of their books – as opposed to their websites. It’s an insider club.

Benefit of Closed Group

The big benefit for a closed group is that you have to be a member to see the content. It may show up in your news feed because you’re a member, but your friends won’t see it unless they’re also members. This way members can also share inspiration photos of guys (etc.) and it doesn’t show up on their walls or their friend’s news feeds. You can’t use a group with your Page though, only your Profile. Many Indie authors have what I call a place-holder Page but are only active on their Profile.

Book Promotion

Authors are inviting fellow Indies into these groups to help promote the upcoming book launch often. So XYZ author is invited to participate. The group members are alerted that “XYZ author will be here to spend time with you all. She’s giving away a copy of her… book.”

The author admin creates a thread linking to the free giveaway. The protocol is that XYZ author never mentions their own books. They talk about their favorite heroes/heroines in author admin’s books, etc. This helps promote author admin’s books and helps XYZ author get new readers – and nobody gets spammed!

Author Cooperatives

Authors are teaming up with others who write in their genres, etc. to offer book promos together, boxed sets, etc. This is all being done in closed FB groups.  Authors are sharing info and insights into marketing, promotions and ads. They’re working together to support each other. That’s the WANA way.

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Lisa has been using Facebook since 2007, and has been a paid administrator, content creator, and consultant for more than three years. She manages Pages for non-profits and small businesses in Canada and the United States. She’s a freelance journalist with nearly 100 articles published, and has counted non-profits such as World Vision Canada as clients. You can find her hanging out on the WANA Intl Facebook Page most days or at her website.

The post When Spammers and Trolls Take Over – Authors Innovate – Facebook Groups (WANA Class Excerpt) appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Last week, we talked about the bright side of using metrics. Writers tend to go pale and look for the scotch when someone mentions analytics. Yet, if we don’t ever look to a standard of measure, then we can float around aimlessly, wasting valuable time on busy-work. We have better things to do than focus on meaningless statistics…like, um, write great books.

Metrics–Helpful Ally or One-Way Ticket to Crazy Town?

Yet, as amazing as social media might be, it presents a a sticky problem…there is no way to accurately measure social marketing. Last week, I mentioned Klout and Jami Gold brilliantly pointed out that it’s measurement rests on game theory. For those of you who have slept since your last economics class:

Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances (games) where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others.^[1Game theory has been used to study a wide variety of human and animal behaviors. It was initially developed in economics to understand a large collection of economic behaviors, including behaviors of firms, markets, and consumers. The use of game theory in the social sciences has expanded, and game theory has been applied to political, sociological, and psychological behaviors as well. (per Wikipedia).

Since animals and humans are complex, the decisions and results of those decisions are complex as well. Game theory is merely a mathematical model that helps glean a “good idea” of what had an effect where. Thus, if there is an uprising in Egypt, analysts have a way of making “good guesses” what will happen when and where and how. If the financial market in Greece is unstable, economists can discern what moves have a better chance of helping the Greeks recover, versus helping them head-first over a financial cliff.

But, at the end of the day, this is all game theory has to offer…a good idea. A guestimation. A die-hard…maybe.

Just a Maybe, Baby

Traditional publishing has many traditional habits. They looooove metrics because it does give a sense of power and control. We can look at a web site and see how many unique visitors we are getting and when they stop clicking and move on to go look at Internet porn instead of our latest cookbook. We can see where we get most of the site’s traffic.

Is that ad we paid for getting anyone to stop long enough to take a look? Better yet, how many are taking a look? And how many are BUYING? And, if sales jumped up in the last quarter, what did we do differently? Can we model this elsewhere?

Metrics can be very handy this way. Ahhhh, but social media (Klout included) is not as neat and clean as “how many clicks is the ad getting us?”  Thus, what can happen is we start treating social media the same as we would a metric that measures how many people clicked to BUY on our book widget.

The number of friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter are virtually meaningless numbers out of context, and Klout is a “good guess of influence” not a biblical truth.

A Slave to the Numbers

Thus, what can happen, even with Klout, is that we start paying more attention to the numbers than to the behaviors that really matter. Social media cannot be measured like a static web site. Thus, fretting over “how many friends” or “how many followers” we have is just a good way to get an eye twitch. When we hover over the numbers like a Jewish grandma, we risk losing sight of the real priority.

There are a lot of writers on social media who are working hard to build a brand and an author platform. This, to me, is WONDERFUL news. But there is a dark side.

Unless vigilant, writers can easily get too fixed on the social platform and forget what the platform is being built to support….finished books/our career as authors. We don’t have an author career to support if we don’t have lots of awesome finished books to SELL. Yesterday, Rachelle Gardner touched on this subject in her post. And, after some time to mull over her points. I do think we are saying a lot of the same things.

Many writers are worrying about creating a brand ahead of time. Yet, we can never fully be an author brand until we have good books to sell.

As a social media expert, I cannot make you an author brand. Don’t trust ANY social media expert who claims she can make you an author brand. Only YOU can make yourselves a brand.

What I am here to help writers do, is to lay the foundation and the support beams to eventually become an author brand. Using our NAMES instead of @BookDiva is like laying rebar to support the finished brand. Rebar is only a part of a building, much like our names, our social media activity and our blogs are only part of a finished brand. I am here to help you guys lay the correct foundation from the wisest, most cost-effective (time) materials. But I can only help with the foundation and framing. The finished product is all up to you as writers.

If we stop at rebar, concrete and support beams, we don’t have a building. We have an unfinished mess that is only useful for racoon habitats and a hangout for homeless people and underage drinking. Agents are like real estate agents and we are the contractors. We (writers) build the structures that agents sell (our books/us). Yet what are we asking them to put on the market?

Where I think agents are getting frustrated is that many writers, eager to be successful responsible professionals, are using social media. Yet, instead of focusing on the final product–fantastic books supported by a solid author platform–many writers are getting fixated on the rebar and concrete, and agents can’t sell that. They are in the business of selling finished structures.

When we become a slave to the numbers, we lose out BIG. Why? We lose sight of the big picture. Yes, having a successful blog will likely help with book sales. But staring at the blog numbers, and changing behavior every time there is a hiccup can get us scope-locked on the wrong thing. We start adjusting behavior to skew the numbers in our favor, and, to the extreme, we become no better than the monkey wearing out a lever to get a banana dropped from the ceiling.

Keeping Perspective

I still think Klout is very useful. Klout measures things that matter in social media. For instance, it measures if people are reposting our content, and, if so, how far is it traveling? Thus, the higher the Klout score, the more influence we are exerting. If we are having an influence on others, then it is safe to say we have a good chance of generating word-of-mouth for us and our books. Thus, if we are on Twitter and Facebook and our Klout score is 25, then we have a problem, and, yes, we need to modify our behavior.

Maybe we need to spend more time on Twitter. Checking in once a week isn’t enough. Perhaps we need to get better at sharing with others, talking to others and perhaps we need to look at WHAT we are posting/tweeting. If no one is finding enough value to pass on our message, we should take a look at what we are serving. Those are good modifications to behavior anyway. If our Klout score is in the toilet, then it shows us that we really are wasting time on social media. Thus, if we don’t change some things, it is best not to be on Twitter at all.

What is Enough?

Creating an author platform is a lot like losing weight and getting in shape. We need goals and we need to push ourselves. Yet, it is psychologically unhealthy to get on the scale every hour on the hour or take our measurements three times a day. It is also doing more harm than good if we are in the gym six hours a day. Balance is key.

As writers, our priority ALWAYS needs to be the book. But the platform is the foundation that will support our success. So my tips to make you successful and keep you sane:

Ignore the number of followers and friends.

I never look at mine unless I have to tell someone the current number. Be kind, supportive and authentic and trust people will respond favorably.

Ignore minor deviations.

I don’t pay attention if someone unfollows me. If they don’t want to hang out with me, their loss. As far as the blog, I check in throughout the day, mainly because I am approving comments and I happen to see them on the dashboard.

Only pay attention to monthly or quarterly numbers on the blog.

I only pay attention to the monthly numbers and, even then, I make no changes unless I see a decline lasting more than three months. There are other influences that can affect the hits. For instance, back in May when Osama bin Laden was apprehended and killed, my blog TANKED. People also apparently cared more about the MASSIVE earthquake in Japan than my witty repartee. Imagine that.

Numbers-wise? May was a HORRIBLE month. But if I was a slave to the numbers, I would have been running scared and changing my blog format and topics. Stuff happens. Keep an eye on the big picture.

We don’t need celebrity Klout (especially fiction authors).

Yes, Snookie got a book deal. I have no explanation for that other than the world is supposed to end in 2012 and perhaps that’s a sign.

If you are a non-fiction author, work to get that number up there, but again, just check in periodically. You just need a ballpark range, and, if you want to publish NF and your Klout score is the same as your mother who can’t work the Internet…then get to work.

Fiction authors? Just look to make sure you are engaging and influencing. If you are taking the time to be on social media, then just make sure it isn’t a total waste of time. If an agent expects you to have the same Klout as Justin Bieber, then maybe look for another agent. Her focus needs to be on the quality of your fiction, and, if she is a slave to the numbers, then that will likely trickle down and affect your career and creativity in a negative way.

Klout is a Best Guess, Not the Bible

Yes, people can manipulate the numbers. But people who use tricks to manipulate numbers that don’t reflect a reality only hurt themselves. Don’t worry about them, just focus on YOU.

At the end of the day, HAVE FUN!!!! Finish the book and write the best book ever written. Then use social media to create a support network of awesome people vested in your success. They hang out at #MyWANA if you haven’t been by.

So what are your fears? Concerns? Do you feel better?

I do want to hear from you guys!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of October, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of October I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left.

This Week’s Mash-Up of Awesomeness

Some of you might not know, but on top of writing and teaching, I am also running for Vice President of the Unites States of America. I am part of the Piper/Lamb 2012 Ticket–Finally a Pair in the White House.

Follow the campaign at Piper Bayard’s blog. This week, our solution to Health Care. Granny Care–Putting “Care” Back in Health Care

25 Reasons You Won’t Finish That Story by the HILARIOUS Chuck Wendig

Six Prescriptions to Cure the Heartbreak of Being Published by Ruth Harris via Anne R. Allen

How to Get Guest Posts on Big Name Blogs and Land Dynamite Interviews   over at Writer Unboxed

Hands-Free Drink Holder–SHUT the Front Door! by Natalie Hartford

The Undie Chronicles–THUNDERWEAR by the hilarious Jenny Hansen

Why is Your Klout Score Important? by Lauren Dugan

Are Blog Tours Really Worth It? by Jody Hedlund

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise–Lessons from Steve Jobs by Diane Capri

Wagons, Ho! On the Trail with Jody Hedlund Help Bridgette Booth (an amazing woman, person and writer) for a good cause.

The post The Dark Side of Metrics–Writer Friend or Ticket to Crazy Town? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

I know we are supposed to be talking about the third person you need to know to be successful on social media–the Salesman. But, over the weekend my Great Aunt Iris (who might as well have been my grandmother we were so close) slipped into a coma and then passed away on Sunday morning. She had just turned 98, so yes it is sad, but it is amazing that she lived such a full and long life. Anyway, I have not had time to finish the Salesman post, so rather than rushing and slapping up a less-than-stellar blog, I decided to post a lesson from early this year.

Most of us have slept since Spring, so a refresher is always refreshing. *drum roll, snare*  Yes, I’ll be here all week. Drinks are half-price.

I have been doing social media for a number of years, and it has been wonderful to see how writers have embraced technology. I remember back in 2006 I had a hard enough time getting many writers to learn to use e-mail, let alone join Facebook.  Yet, it was really only in 2009 that I started thinking of myself as an expert. Namely I watched a lot of social media people teach tactics that were more likely to give writers permanent hair loss than anything. They were trying to overlay a Corporate America template on to a writer’s career. Not a good fit.

Kind of like watching me try to put on size zero skinny jeans…lots of grunting and pain and the end result ain’t pretty.

Anyway, writers finally did perk up to the fact that they needed to be on social media, yet we had an information vacuum. Many writers took off doing the best they could, and, in the process, made a lot of errors. Hey, I was one of them. Need I remind you of texaswriterchik?

*slaps forehead*

The thing is, I am teaching writers how to do this social media platform thing the correct way. This is all great and wonderful if you are new and haven’t started building. For others? I see the digital blood drain from your face when I give the bad news:

I’m sorry, but your platform needs major reconstructive surgery. I need to put your brand in a temporary coma so it doesn’t die while we do the transplants. Do you have insurance?

Some people suck it up, bite on some leather and resolve to get it over with. Others? Denial is more than a river in Africa.

I hear a lot of, “Writers just need to do what works for them.”

Yes….but, um, no.

I will use an example to illustrate. Say I want to make chocolate cake. My end goal is a chocolate cake. So I set out cooking, but I don’t want to use butter, and I don’t like eggs, and definitely no flour and I just can’t bring myself to use chocolate. Instead, I want to use vanilla pudding, and slices of bananas and top it off with vanilla wafer cookies and LOTS of whipped cream.

So you say, “Wait, but you aren’t making chocolate cake.”

And I say, “Well this is how I make chocolate cake.”

And you say, “But, you just made banana pudding. That’s NOT chocolate cake.”

And I get huffy and reply, “Stop judging me. Maybe YOU make chocolate cake differently, but everyone needs to do what works for them.”

You would think I was a lunatic. Yes, I made a dessert….but I didn’t make a chocolate cake.

If our end goal is to brand our name, which it should be…then there are right and wrong ways to go about this. My lessons are to make our name alone a bankable asset. Our NAME will have the power to drive book sales so we have more time to write, or prank call or even make origami monkeys.

There is a HUGE difference between having a social media presence and becoming a brand. And I know I am about to do some sacred cow-tipping, but it needs to be done.

My second book, Are You There, Blog? It’s Me Writer is a great book to teach you all you ever wanted to know about blogging to build an author brand. There is little point to contributing content to the Internet if it doesn’t build our brand.

Tweeting under a cutesy moniker. We have discussed this one before, but some people are new (here is the post). Every time we tweet, that is an “advertisement” that contributes to building our brand. The only acceptable Twitter handle is the name that will be on the front of our books. Period. If we are tweeting under @FairyGirl, we are contributing great content—blogs, articles, conversation—but we have the WRONG name top-of-mind.  Readers cannot buy a book by Fairy Girl, so all that tweeting is wasted effort.

Writing on Group Blogs at the Expense of Our Author Blog I have run into writers who were very prolific, contributing to multiple group blogs. Group blogs are wonderful. They can help us learn to blog better and can offer accountability. Yet, if we are writing for three different group blogs, but then not blogging on our own site? That is BAD. Group blogs will not brand an individual author. Yes, we will have a social media presence…but that isn’t a brand.

I read a lot of WONDERFUL group blogs, but the name of the group is what will be top of mind. Writers in the Storm, Adventures in Children’s Publishing, and Writer Unboxed are three of the best group blogs, but I would be hard-pressed to give the names of the contributors. And, the ones I can name have their own separate blogs that buttress their brand.

I care very much about you guys, and I want all of you to be successful. But part of caring is giving the truth. When we decide to go from hobbyist to professional, we sometimes have to make the tough choices. We have to say no to friends, family, kids and pets. We have to spend time working when we would rather play. If we are contributing to a bunch of group blogs, but our own blog is infested with dust bunnies and spam bots? We might need to make a choice. Hang out with friends? Or build our career?

Our own brand is paramount. The more bankable our name, the more books we sell. The more books we sell, the more successful (and enjoyable) our writing career will be.

There are right ways and wrong ways and smart ways to build a brand. Can we brand ourselves by only blogging on group blogs? Sure. Anything is possible. I could theoretically take I-35 south from Texas and get to Canada. It involves a very tedious journey through South America over Antarctica, up the other side of the globe and over the North Pole. The Earth IS round. I will get to Canada eventually, BUT the odds of me giving up and going home are far more likely than me reaching Canada.

Is my taking I-35 South WRONG? Technically, no. But it is a formula to give up.

Many writers find social media to be a huge time suck, namely because they either have no plan or they have a flawed plan. I used to think it was a time-suck, too. But I wasn’t approaching social media correctly. I have made all the dumb mistakes so you don’t have to :D.

My two books have hit the top of multiple best-seller lists using the methods I am teaching. And I am not the only one who has experienced this kind of dramatic success. I have a stack of testimonials. Yes, we are free to do social media any way we please. No Facebook police will drag us to digital jail. But I think most of us would rather spend more time writing and less time trying to Bond-O a faulty platform.

What are some tough choices you guys have had to make for your writing? What are some tough choices you face, but maybe don’t know what to do? Have any advice or suggestions? Put them in the comments!

I do want to hear from you guys!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of October, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

NOTE: For those of you who haven’t yet gotten your pages back, please resend to my assistant (if you haven’t already). I get about 500 e-mails a day, so I am redoing things so submissions don’t get lost in the ether. Thanks for your patience.

Gigi at gigi dot salem dot ea at g mail dot com. Gigi will make sure I get your pages.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of October I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post The Right Way, the Wrong Way & the Smart Way appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Yes this is really me with Sandra Brown (before the restraining order kicked in :P). And I look like a ghost who’s haunting her. Cell phone cameras. Ptth!

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been talking about the unique nature of marketing books and the equally unique challenges this can present to writers…who need to market yet still need time to write great books. I can always tell when there has been a major conference, namely because the Twitterverse comes alive with writers (usually the agented ones) in a total panic trying to barter a kidney for anyone who can find them a cloning machine. What has happened?

They likely attended a social media class, or worse…their publisher did.

The inherent problem in this is that much of the social media being taught (even at writers’ conferences) not only won’t sell books, but it is a formula for a writer to end up with a nervous breakdown. I have made it my life’s work to create a social media approach that is not only more effective than my competitors’ approaches, but my methods are designed to harnesses the creativity of an author and also leave time to write.

Last week we talked about getting sticky, and why you need to run out at the very first opportunity and buy Malcom Gladwell’s Book The Tipping Point after you get a copy of my book, of course :D.

Gladwell’s book affirms much of what I have been teaching for years about social media.

I am not happy writing blogs or a book that simply tells you guys what to do. Here is a checklist and have fun. That approach is only minimally helpful. I want you guys to understand WHY you are or aren’t doing certain things. This way, if Twitter blows up and G+ devours Facebook, you won’t have to wait for me, your social media expert to tell you what to do next. You will be empowered to think for yourselves and adjust accordingly in ways that will keep your platform intact and expanding.

I want you guys powerful, not paralyzed.

Anyway, back to our marketing…

We all need to strive for what I call The Sticky Author Triumvirate. It doesn’t matter if our message reaches a hundred million people. If our message doesn’t translate into action, it is wasted time. Stickiness makes the difference and we need to be Sticky Authors, Sticky with Social Media, and Write Sticky Books. If we master one but not the other two, we will do well. If we master 2 out of 3? Even better. But the real key to success is mastery of all three.

This is one of the reasons it is so critical to write great books. Great books, by nature are sticky, but alone, they are not enough. Now that everyone can be published, relying on a great book alone is playing craps with our career. We have ALWAYS been in control of writing great books and we had a 93% failure rate to show for it (per BEA statistics). Now in the Digital Age, we finally can get sticky on ALL sides so there is NO getting rid of us. We are gonna be triple-sided duct-tape (yes, I invented a new duct tape dimension—we will be STICKY DEFINED).

Ah….but here is where the panic set in last week.

What???? *twitching eye* I need hobbies and friends outside of writers? How do I get one of those? Are they on eBay?

Yes, we need all the friends we can get, but don’t get lured in by sites promising to get you a bazillion followers/”friends.” Also, more is not actually, well, more. Just because someone has 22,000 people following them on Twitter doesn’t mean this person is effective. In fact, in my experience, this kind of person is generally less effective because the network is not comprised of the right kind of people.

Quality trumps quantity. Not all connections have the same weight. So the cool news today is that you don’t have to go make a bazillion friends. You just need a handful of the “right” friends. It’s the old adage, It’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know. That is truer now than ever in human history.

Who are the right kinds of friends? There are three kinds of people that can make the difference between life and death for our message (book, idea, fashion trend, product, etc.) especially in the Digital Age, and we will talk about them more in a moment.

One of the reasons that the traditional blast out an automated message on social media approach doesn’t work is that it separates the writer from the social media experience. To get connected to the right people, we need to be present so we can pay attention.

Say I am new to Twitter. My name is Suzy Newgirl and I have 10 followers and at least half of them are bots. The other five are members of my writing group and they are in the same situation. Our networks are almost insignificant.

For example, even though the very first fax machine cost $2000, it was pretty much worthless. Why? Who was the owner going to fax? There were no other fax machines. The machine only began to grow in value as more people bought fax machines capable of recieving, repackaging and then resending messages.

Same with a social media network. A person with 5 followers doesn’t yet have a lot of value to her network. How can Suzy Newgirl increase the value of her network? She needs to connect to one of three kinds of people (per Gladwell):

A Connector

A Maven

A Salesman

These three people have ALWAYS been responsible for word of mouth epidemics; we just didn’t have the unprecedented access to meeting them that we now have. The awesome part about social media is it is like a giant honey trap for these types of people. The Connector, the Maven, and the Salesman are generally intensely social people and they are drawn to social sites like a mosquito to a bug light.

ZZZZZZZAPPPP! Ouch!

If we pay attention on social media long enough, it is almost a guarantee we will meet these sorts of people. And, if we can fold them into our network, we significantly increase the odds our message will become an epidemic . Suzy Newgirl might only have ten people in her network, but if her Friend Number 11 is one of these three types of people? She just took her social power to an entirely new level.

Now I hope you are seeing where numbers lie when it comes to social media. There are publishers giving their writers a hard time because, Author Such and Such has 30,000 followers. Why don’t you? You need to get on Twitter and follow more people!

This is part of what is making writers lose their hair.

But the numbers alone are not enough. If we have thousands of Suzy Newgirls in our network, then that is akin to being able to fax 1000 other broken fax machines. They might be able to receive messages, but the message dies there.

This is part of the working smarter, not harder. We don’t need to make ten thousand friends to reach ten thousand people. I actually have the potential to reach 10,000 people with just four friends (psst…they hang out on #MyWANA a lot cuz they are social butterflies). So, today’s tip is that we need to actually spend time on social media. Not a lot of time, but meaningful time. Pay attention. Who is active? Who is social? These are the people that make the best friends to have in life and on-line.

If we disappear off Facebook for days and weeks or only tweet when we need something, we miss out on meeting these generous and wonderful people that can make the critical difference in our careers. We don’t need to take our career to the next level…we just need to meet the person who knows the person who gives us the opportunity.

A quick example. I am not particularly a fan of Facebook. I like it, but it isn’t fast enough for my ADD nature. Yet, I still post regularly on Facebook. Three times a day I scroll down the News Feed and look for at least TWO people I can congratulate, encourage, make smile, repost, SOMETHING. At the end of the day it isn’t a lot of time invested. BUT, an enthusiastic romance writer DeeDee Scott happens to be a Maven.

DeeDee not only is highly connected, she has this intense desire to serve and help..and she totally DIGS Facebook. I had reposted stuff for her and been social simply to serve and be kind. Thus, early in 2011, when a friend of hers asked for suggestions to speak on a panel at the Romantic Times Conference in Los Angeles, she immediately recommended me…even though we had only chit-chatted on FB.

That opportunity was a massive turning point in my career. I went to LA, ended up quoted in the LA Times, met a bunch of NY Times and LA Times best-selling authors, and my career literally leapt to  a totally new level that, on my own, I would never have had access to….without the help of a Maven.

We will talk more about those in another blog. So, what do you take away from this? Be kind. Be social. Be vested. Part of the reason DeeDee recommended me was because I was one of the only social media experts who wasn’t a spammer. I’d actually talked to her and acted authentically (this is being Sticky). She remembered that, so when the opportunity presented itself, DeeDee knew just who to recommend…and I cannot thank her enough.

Any social media expert that sells you a bill of goods about how this or that program can tweet for you or post for you really isn’t doing you a favor. That is busy work that looks good on the surface. It’s activity with no productivity.

In the coming weeks, I am going to talk more about these three kinds of message-bearers—the Connector, the Maven and the Salesman. How can you find them? Befriend them? (And NOT in a spammy self-serving way). This is also one of the reasons it pays to be kind to everyone. Kindness is always the best policy.

Again, this is one of those things that’s simple…but not exactly easy. Yet, at the end of the day, this method will help you make the most out of your time on social media. Instead of being a hamster in a wheel tweeting into the abyss and “hoping” something sticks, you will be able to increase your odds that something will not only stick…but will set fire ;).

So what are some of the challenges you face when it comes to social media? Any tips, suggestions, advice. Hey, I love hearing from you guys and learning from you.

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of September, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of September I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: GRAND PRIZE WILL BE PICKED THIS MONTH. I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced at the end of September) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

Mash Up of Awesomeness

Eleven Deadly Sins of On-Line Promotion for Writers –YES!!! *claps hands*

Great resource for those interested in writing for children.

Who has the right to say you suck? by the brilliant and hilarious Tawna Fenske. BUY HER BOOK, Making Waves.

How a Perfectionist Learned to Bear her Warts by the wonderful Jody Hedlund. She is guest-posting for one of my all-time favorite people, Katie Ganshert. If you want great Christian Romance and can afford to lose a day glued to your couch turning pages, then buy Jody’s new book The Doctor’s Lady.

25 Things You Should Know About Queries, Synopses and Treatments by the genius Chuck Wendig. BUY ALL HIS BOOKS AND LISTEN TO HIM. He is not only insanely funny, but his advice is some of THE BEST in the industry.

What Can Writers Learn from Spam? by Jami Gold

Therese Walsh has an awesome post over on Writer Unboxed (subscribe to this blog if you haven’t already). Internal and External Inspirations

Has Rejection Turned You Into Someone You’re Not? by Jane Friedman (This is another critical blog to follow to keep your fingers on the pulse of our industry)

There are so MANY more wonderful blogs, but I have run out of time. I will make it up next week!

The post Maximizing Our Social Media Impact–Having the "Right" Friends appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Two weeks ago, I introduced you guys to the WANA Theory of Book Economics and explained why traditional marketing doesn’t sell books. Books are not like cups of coffee or breakfast cereal, and thus they require a different approach. Writers are unique as well. Since we are responsible for producing the product, we need a social media approach that leaves time to write great books. That was the first lesson to connecting to potential readers. We needed to know HOW to connect, WHAT kind of message to send and WHY.

We also needed to understand the critical element that could make a book a mega success. What was this key variable? We had to mobilize the fat part of the bell curve, that group of people who would not normally define themselves as readers. Harry Potter, The DaVinci Code, Tuesdays with Morrie, Twilight, The Hunger Games, and The Help all tapped into groups of people who normally didn’t read for pleasure. But, once some key non-readers read these books, word of mouth sparked like wildfire and made literary history.

Then, last week we discussed the typical non-reader. There is a misconception that non-readers don’t read. They DO read, they just happen to be highly selective. The benefit, however, is that once one of these guys becomes a fan? He is the most loyal, devoted fan any writer can have. Often this guy is the best salesman a writer can have, too. He is the flint that creates the spark that can start the fire.

Ah, but here comes the problem. Too many writers are getting on social media and hanging out with each other and marketing to each other. It is an over-saturated market full of people who can only buy so many books. Also, since all of us LOVE books, we might not be the best people for starting that wildfire of word of mouth that can push the non-reader population past the tipping point.

Many of you are chomping at the bit. Kristen, for the love of all that is holy, where can we find the magic well of readers?!!!

I would love to give a website. Go to www.loyalbookfans.com . Wouldn’t that be lovely?

Or a formula for success. A + B = Wild Success.

But, unfortunately there is no specific formula and no guarantee….BUT that doesn’t mean that we can’t change some behaviors that will improve our odds.

I did say it was simple to connect and mobilize the fat part of the bell curve, and it is. Simple, however, is not necessarily easy. There are actually a number of components we need to understand, but today we are only going to focus on one, because it is the most important. If we cannot do this, then nothing else matters.

We need to get sticky.

In The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, Gladwell defines The Stickiness Factor in the following way:

The Stickiness Factor says that there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable; there are relatively simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information that can make a difference in how much of an impact it makes.

The Stickiness Factor not only applies to our social media message, it applies to who we are as writer personalities. It also applies to our books. Nailing what I will call The Sticky Author Triumvirate is key to publishing success. We need to get sticky on all three to have the best odds of reaching the tipping point.

Let’s take a look at The Sticky Author Triumvirate:

Get Sticky with Social Media Messages–One of the reasons that traditional marketing doesn’t work when it comes to books is because the messages are not sticky. In fact, we are so blitzed with marketing messages in modern society that most static marketing messages become white noise and invisible. Thus, why blitzing about our book non-stop on ten different sites is almost a total waster of time is that the message is rarely seen. Auto-tweets are ignored and are what marketing experts call clutter.

Additionally, it is not enough to have a million people “see” a message/pitch. There has to be a compulsion to SEE then ACT. If a zillion people see my commercial for car insurance, but none of them ever change policies, then the campaign is a failure. It’s a big waste of effort, time and money.

What can make people care? Care about them first. Just talking to people can go a long way to making a sale. People buy from who they know and who they LIKE. Stand apart from all the takers and learn to give.

Beyond that?

Sit and write out a hundred activities, shows, channels you enjoy. Yes, most of us love writing, but we love other things too. We need to extend ourselves and simply start talking to people. We have to learn to be unselfish. Stop demanding that others connect with us via OUR interests–books, craft, writing–and take initiative. We need to find the common ground and extend ourselves and connect where the potential READER feels comfortable.

Surely you have friends, family or coworkers on Facebook who are not writers. Who are they talking to? Who are their friends? Start poaching (befriending) normal people and talk to them. If you meet a pet lover on Twitter who works as an engineer and he is nice? Look at who his friends are and extend yourself. Hey, I am a pal of Jim’s. Thought I would say hello. (DO NOT pitch to them, just talk and be cool).

Just once a day make it a point to add non-writers who are active on social media to your network. Pay attention to them and start a dialogue. Be genuine and positive, and that will be STICKY. People crave attention and positive energy.

Next week we will talk more about why this is critical and how to use this tactic to reach the tipping point. Not all conversations have equal weight. But in the meantime? Let’s get sticky!

We Need to Be Sticky Writer Personalities–The Stickiness Factor applies to who we are as writer personalities. Chit-chat on social media is actually very valuable. People who repost, compliment, question, serve and are positive are MEMORABLE. We stick. People like us. When they think “writer” we become the first person they think about.

This is one of the reasons that it is beneficial to get out of the comfort zone and talk in other circles. As long as we are all hanging out with other writers we blend into the din. But, if we start talking to other people who love sports, parenting, knitting, the military, politics, animals, horses, celebrities, then we are now injecting ourselves into groups that are not comprised of people just like us. We stand out so we are a bit more “sticky.”

Pick a favorite channel on cable TV, a favorite show, or a video game, and I guarantee there is a Twitter # for it. Start talking to people who love #Lost or #AI, #Glee, #ESPN, #Oprah, #Ellen, #Halo #GoW. Profile your potential reader. What does she do with her day? Maybe she is a #teacher or she plays #WOW. Get creative and get out of that comfort zone.

Sure you can still hang out with writers, but we are your peers, not substitute for a fan base. To be sticky, we need to stick out.

Go to the websites of your favorite channels and shows and find their Twitter # and then make a column for it. Chat with people. I have columns for #GoW (Gears of War) ,#MW (Modern Warfare), #military because I am also an avid gamer and I am military. LOTS of great people in these groups.

We can use blogging to super increase this Sticky Factor. How? First, stop blogging about the same topics as every other writer. Blogging about writing is great, but not necessarily memorable. There are better things to blog about that can make you stick like Super Glue. Author blogs, written properly, are a FANTASTIC way to increase our Sticky Factor exponentially.

If you want to learn to get sticky with your blog, I highly recommend taking my Blogging for Author Brand Workshop. It’s only $40 and TWO months long (one month lessons and one month launch) and it is from the comfort of your home. There are tools and tactics that I am only sharing in my workshops and that I am saving for my next book, so this is a cool opportunity to get lessons I won’t be teaching on the blog.

Finally, We Need to Write Sticky Books–At the end of the day, THIS is why I teach social media for writers. We need to have time to write great books. Great books are STICKY. Sure, if I have a popular blog and a good social media presence I will probably sell some books. But, the only way my book can break past that initial layer of contact is to write a sticky book. Turn politeness into PASSION.

It is not enough for someone to buy our book. They must also love it so much that they can’t wait to tell someone, recommend our book or even buy a gift copy for a pal. THIS is how word of mouth wildfires get started. We will talk more about this next week and I hope you pick up a copy of The Tipping Point. It’s a fun read and highly relevant to all authors serious about creating a long-term fan base.

What are some things that make authors on social media memorable to you? What makes you want to share a message? What turns you off? What are your thoughts? Opinions?  I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of August, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of August I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

Mash-Up of Awesomeness

Fave Stuff

My NEW favorite blog, Penelope Trunk’s Blog Blog Under Your Real Name and Ignore the Harassment LOVE THIS POST. Read THIS blog. “Awesome-sauce” as the brilliant Chuck Wendig would say.

Kait Nolan’s Can Cinderella Save Herself?

This is another gem (well they are all gems but this one is particularly shiny) Terrell Mim’s Living in the Dash. I cannot tell you how important it is that every one of you read this blog.

Writing Stuff

Don’t Be a Cheerleader for Crappiness–25 Things You Should Know about Self-Publishing by Chuck Wendig

Why Your Blog’s “About” Page Matters by Joel Frielander

Are You Keeping Yourself on a Short Leash? Great post about getting outside of the comfort zone by Kerry Meacham

What Do I Look Like, a Protag? Great advice about how to describe our protag without being ham-fisted and obvious.

The Changing Landscape of Publishing for Writers by NYTBSA Bob Mayer

Playing to Your Strengths by Jenny Hansen

Behold the Power of a Nap by Jennifer Hale

The Great Back-Story Debate by the amazing writing teacher James Scott Bell

How I Do It: Ease Into Responsibility by Jody Hedlund

Three Keys to Marketing in the Current Fiction Environment by Michael Hyatt

Three Things that Come First before You Tackle Social Media by the brilliant WD contributing editor Jane Friedman over at the awesome writer resource Writer Unboxed

Is Your Writing Group Helping or Hurting Your Career? by Steenah Holmes

You are Not Tolstoy or Dickens by Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner

How to Get Your Blog Post on Google’s 1st Page by Keli Gwyn

The Anti-Procrastination Diet by Roni Loren

How Much Time Do We Really Need to Write? by Natalia Sylvester

Funny Stuff

The Must-Have Urban Redneck Belt by Natalie Hartford

Planking–Not Just for Pirates Anymore by Piper Bayard

Lili Tufel’s Top Ten Signs You’re Married to an Author

My Dirty Little Secret by Tameri Etherton

Fun and Nerdy Fact Blogs

Who Were the Celts? by Kate Wood

The post The Secret to Selling Books Part I–Let's Get Sticky appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Blogging is probably one of the most powerful ways to build an author platform. The blog gives others a chance to know us and support us because of our writing. Yet, there is one question that I always get when I mention blogging:

How often should writers blog?

Everyone has an opinion, including me. But, before we get to my two cents, I know there are competing theories. Let’s take a quick look at those.

Blogging Every Day or Multiple Times a Day

Some experts recommend micro-blogging—blogging in short burst several times a day or short blogs every day. I think if your goal is to be a famous blogger, this can work. As writers, though, most of us are already balancing a day job, kids, housework, and a WIP. So blogging every day or more than once a day is hard on us and probably hard on our following as well.

Can you blog every day? Sure. It is a great way to saturate the Internet with your content and help fast-track a brand. I don’t think this approach is a good fit for most writers, though. If you can commit the time and be interesting that often, rock on!

Blogging Once a Month

Some experts advise once a month. Whoo-hoo! Yay! Only one blog a month!!!! *happy dance*

Okay, yes, there is that benefit of only having to write one post a month, but there are a lot of advantages we lose with this method.

I think that what we lose in this approach is the ability to build community and relationships using the blog.  Sure, we save time in having to write fewer blogs, but then we need to commit time in other areas, like lengthy e-mail lists. So, do we save time, or do we just shift it elsewhere?

If we post blogs regularly, people are connecting with us regularly and come to feel as if they know us. Why? Because they DO know us.

We are vested, posting content that serves the reader, and we are interacting with those who comment. We aren’t just surfacing once a month, expecting those around us to drop everything to pay attention to us and our blog.

Can the once a month approach work?

Sure. But this approach relies heavily on going viral…which is hard to do without on-line relationships to
propel the momentum.

For instance, my blog has a very large following. But, this blog has allowed me to forge relationships with other bloggers who also have large followings. My efforts now work exponentially instead of linearly. I don’t have to personally connect with 100,000 people. I have a team to help me. What’s better is that when my team promotes me, it is more genuine (psst–it’s also called word of mouth). Traditional marketing cannot compete.

I also think that blogging once a month makes it very easy to lose the top-of-mind with others. People have very short attention spans these days and a month with no content is a lifetime. Also, I don’t know about you, but once a month is really hard for me to remember. I had to get my computer to remind me to give my dog a heartworm pill once a month and I was STILL lousy at remembering. I think if we blog only 12 times a year, the blog is easy to forget all around.

What is the “Magic” Number?

I recommend a minimum of once a week. It is enough to stay top of mind with followers, yet not overwhelm anyone.

Ideally? I recommend three times a week, especially in the beginning. Why? Well, I know this sounds weird, but three times a week is actually easier than once a week. Blogging three times a week holds a number of advantages that are especially beneficial to professional writers:

Regular blogging places us in a professional mindset.

Writers write. Blogging is a great way to warm up those fingers and get the brain in gear. When we are writing a novel, we get little outside validation. Most of the time, friends and family think we are, at worst, lunatics, and at best, hobbyists. In short, others do not believe what we do is work or even a job. Blogging is a great way to demonstrate that we take our craft seriously. How? We wouldn’t spend time building a platform for a book we had no intention of finishing. Also, again, writers write.

When someone asks, “What do you do?” and you say “I’m a writer,” you know the next questions are going to be, “What books have you written? Anything I might have read?”

Blogging helps with confidence. We can say, “Well, I am finishing my first novel but you can go to my blog here.” A blog gives a professional front. It also helps switch us from hobbyists to true professionals.

This transition is vital. What if you decided you wanted to play baseball at a professional level? Would you just wait until game day to pick up a bat? Or would your lifestyle have to change to incorporate regular practice to take this “hobby” to a new level?

Blogging makes us faster cleaner writers.

When I look at some of my early blogs, I cringe. My thoughts are all over the place. Blogging works on our ability to mentally organize content. This helps us become better writers all around. Even plotting for a novel requires us to be able to organize our thoughts efficiently. Blogging is great exercise for that.

Let’s look at sports again. Years ago, I played soccer, and we had to run through a lot of tires. In three years of playing soccer I was never once assailed by a Goodyear tire on the field. So what was the point? It taught me to be quick on my feet so I would play the game better.

Blogging is like running cones or tires, or doing wind sprints. It makes us stronger, faster and better. The more we do it the faster the results.

Blogging feeds the spirit.

A huge part of this business is mental. Stephen King said, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

I know of many writers more talented than me, but they won’t ever be published. Why? They gave up. As artists, we need to pay close attention to our mental state. It is easy in this business to get overwhelmed, burned out and give up. Blogging gives us validation in the lean times bewteen books.

The Big Picture

Am I telling you guys to blog because I can give you a magic formula for books sold?

100 blogs x 2 years divided by # comments X Pi = NY Times Best-Seller List

No, I encourage you to blog because it will make you stronger, faster, cleaner writers AND it will connect you to a large community of support so you don’t have to drive your book sales all by yourself. Instead of spending time putting together lengthy e-mail lists, write blogs instead. It takes the same amount of time and yet one approach makes us good at spreadsheets…the other makes us far better, stronger writers which means BETTER BOOKS. We also get really great at obliterating deadlines.

Blogging also keeps our head in the game. Back to sports. The pep rally is critical. All the practice in the world cannot help a team with low morale.

So back to our question, “How many times do we need to blog?”

There isn’t a clear answer. It is up to you and your strengths. Some people come from a sales background and their strength rests in putting together e-mail lists and launching marketing campaigns. If that is your strength, go for it!

For me? I am a writer. It is what I love and do well and I work hard every day to do it better. Blogging allows me to build a platform and strengthen my writing skills simultaneously. It permits me to do my passion WRITING.

My preference? I like three times a week.

Some people are against blogging three times a week because they don’t want to overwhelm their subscribers with fluff. My solution? Don’t write fluff. Blogging is a skill. It gets better with practice. You will get better at hooking readers with titles and content the more you do it. This will help your WIP as well.

Three times a week helps your blog and your skills grow faster. I have recommended this approach to many of my students. They kicked and screamed and whined, but when they started seeing the numbers climb and the subscriptions take off they were believers that three times a week really is easier.

But when we get down to brass tacks…

I recommend that you blog as often as you can be counted upon and still finish the books. The point of blogging is to eventually drive sales for our books. The finished product is paramount.

Back to blogging. There is a bare minimum we need to meet, or just forget it. There are too many writers who post when they feel particularly inspired. Hey, I was guilty once. But that isn’t the behavior of a professional.

Once a month, I think is not often enough for our blog to be much help in our platform. I advise a minimum of once a week or just forget blogging.

What are your thoughts? Do you love blogging? Hate it? What are your biggest challenges? What are some benefits you might have gained blogging?

I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of July, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of June I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post What's the Magic Number? How Often Should Writers Blog? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Welcome to the twenty-seventh installment of Twitter Tuesday. In the spirit of Twitter, this blog will be short and sweet and to the point. The tips offered here are all based off my best-selling book We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. If our goal is to build an author platform in the thousands to tens of thousands, then we will have to approach Twitter differently than a faceless corporation or even the regular person who does not possess a goal of becoming a brand. This blog will help you rule the Twitterverse without devolving into a spam bot.

This Week’s Fail Whale–The Traditional Tweeter

The traditional tweeter doesn’t understand the difference between traditional marketing and social marketing. Instead of forming relationships, this tweeter is no better than spam. Oh, is messages might seem to be genuine, but up close they all say the same thing:

Me, me, me, me, me. I don’t care about you, but look at MEEEEEEE!!!!!

There are writers who, when I mention Twitter, say things akin to, “Oh, well Facebook is where I socialize. I am just getting on Twitter to sell books.”

Yeah, good luck with that.

I remember years ago I was in the grocery store in mid-afternoon. The place was practically deserted. I had a song stuck in my head and was singing to myself (believing I was alone). Out of nowhere this man came up to me and told me that I had a really pretty voice. I recall blushing at the compliment and it made me feel really good….that is, until he handed me a business card. He was selling insurance. He asked me to call him and tell all my friends about the great deals he was offering.

I felt sick.

I felt manipulated and embarrassed. See, this man had been nice to me. True. But he wasn’t kind to be kind; he had an agenda. I never gave him my business, and I certainly didn’t rush out to tell all my friends. Worse still, he ruined any trust. Even if this man approached me today in an authentic way, I would never want anything he had to offer.

Twitter is the same way. We will support who we know and like, but we can smell a phony with an agenda from a mile away. Twitter is a powerful tool for selling books. That’s true. But Twitter is ruled by social norms, not market norms. Fail to appreciate the difference and the price to a reputation can be steep.

This Week’s Twitter Tip–Be a Team-Building Tweeter

The team-building tweeter understands the difference between market norms and social norms. The team-building tweeter is all about working smarter, not harder. Last, week NYTBSA Allison Brennan posted a blog blasting social media, and you know what?

I didn’t blame her one bit.

See, the “experts” in her circle were treating Twitter as some free way to advertise. In their minds, a writer had to have in excess of 20,000 followers for there to be any impact on sales. And this is true…if we are “marketing” to people.

Traditional marketing generally has about a 1% return. This approach, most often, will only influence 10 people for every thousand blitzed. This tactic is fine if you are a Nationwide Insurance commercial airing to tens of millions.

It is a formula for a chocolate overdose if you are a writer having to do all this marketing yourself…AND still write books.

Most writers have a day job, children, families and they have to write books. This is why teams are critical. This is about working smarter, not harder. It is about multiplying influence exponentially. How do we do this?

By forging relationships and serving others without an agenda.

Yes, Allison only has 3000 followers. But I LIKE Allison. Not only is Allison an awesome person, but she also writes fantastic thrillers (go here and buy one). Since I LIKE her, I am willing to tell MY network about Allison. Now Allison has just influenced an additional 4000 (my tweeps).

Oh, but it gets better. I have friends who like me and want to help me. So, if I am helping Allison, these friends want to help me help Allison. Many of my friends also have 1,000 to 5,000 people in each network. See how Allison’s influence just exploded? And this method is FAR more effective because it isn’t spam…it is heartfelt, genuine word of mouth. Traditional marketing cannot generate this kind of influence.

WANA methods work. They have put more than a few authors on the best-selling list without working the authors into the ground marketing day and night. No spreadsheets, no mailing lists…just friendships.

Tweet ya later!

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post Twitter Tuesday #27–Team-Building appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Welcome to WANA Wednesday, the day I devote to help you guys rock it hard when it comes to social media. These blogs are based off my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me Writer. As part of the job description, I read a lot of blogs. I also play with paper clips and scream at my printer, but that’s beside the point. I read a lot of writer blogs, so today I am going to give some pointers to help maximize your author blog.

I am not a social media expert. I am a social media expert for writers. Big difference. I focus on teaching you guys how make the most of every second you spend on-line. Every effort must serve building an author brand. This leaves more time for the important things, like writing books.

Often I hear social media being demonized. Oh, heavens! Writers are spending too much time on Twitter and not writing. They are missing deadlines because they are too focused on blogs. Down with evil Facebook!

This lack of focus is not social media’s fault. Too much time on social media (aside from a lack in self-discipline) is very often the result of a writer not taking a time-efficient approach to social media. This is why I am here. We don’t have to choose between writing great books and having a solid platform. We can have both. Here are some general tips for author blog housekeeping. If our social media platform is a tidy, neat, efficient machine, then that leaves us more time to write amazing books.

1) Make backgrounds easy on the eyes.  

If your background is dark, change it to a lighter background. Dark backgrounds with light lettering look cool, but they are really hard on the reader’s eyes and they will do terrible loading on a PDA. If you look at this blog’s background, it’s boring. Here’s the thing. People aren’t coming to your blog to look at your snazzy background; they are there to read your brilliant writing. When we have a light, simple background free of clutter, this encourages people to subscribe, to hang around and read earlier posts, and to even read posts on the go.

2) Break up large chunks of text.   

If you have blogs with large blocks of text, break them up.  Most readers, if they go to a blog and see huge chunks of text, they move on. I read at a computer all day long and that is hard on my eyes. Guarantee you our readers will feel the same way. Try to put no more than three to six sentences in a paragraph. Readers will forgive a long blog if it’s a) interesting and b) easy to absorb/read.

3)  Insert bolded bullet points to break up text.

This makes blogs easy to scan. Remember a lot of people read blogs on the go. They are often reading from a PDA. Make life easy and they will love you for it.

4)  Remove unnecessary clutter.

This is a problem with a lot of web pages. There is too much stuff so the reader moves on. Less is more.

5)  If possible, pick blog titles in a way that will engage and spark debate.

One of my most popular blogs to date was titled: What Went Wrong with the Star Wars Prequels? I gave my two cents worth and then asked others what they thought. I have 150 comments! But the title just posits a question that BEGS to be answered.

The best blogs are not information, they are conversation. Notice there really isn’t a right or wrong answer, but it sparks some fun discussion. Also, if this title was posted on Twitter, people would want to know the “answer.” Titles can be key when it comes to driving up stats and creating a loyal following.

Additionally, this type of approach takes our blog from talking “at” people and inserts us right into the heart of a healthy discussion. Now we are speaking “with” others. When we create enough discussions, we form friendships which create community. This activates people’s innate sense of loyalty.

6)  Make sure your NAME is the blog title.

Few things are more frustrating than when I try to do a mash-up and I have to hunt down a name. There is simply no sense in blogging if it isn’t building our author brand, which is our NAME. This is working smarter, not harder. If I am contributing 2000 words a week to the Rainbow Fluffy Kitten Dreams Blog, that means nothing unless I want to change my name to Rainbow Fluffy Kitten Dreams. Our blog is a powerful tool to build our author brand, which is: NAME + GOOD CONTENT + HAPPY EMOTIONS= AUTHOR BRAND

Name recognition alone will not compel people to part with cash to buy our books. They must recognize our names AND feel good about the images and content that bubbles to mind. People buy from who they know, and more importantly, who they LIKE. This is why spamming people on Facebook and Twitter is a BAD idea. Yes, we recognize this dude’s name…but the emotions are negative because I recognize him as the dude that kept crapping up my In Box with form letters.

7)  Insert widgets for others to follow you on all your other platforms.

A blog is all about customer service. If you are also on Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, LinkedIn, Technorati, and Goodreads….I will first tell you that you are doing too much social media. Get back to writing before I take away your G+. Ah, but after that , I would advise that you insert widgets so others can hang out with you on their platform of choice. Hey, we need to take advantage of the warm happy feelings our readers have after reading our nuggets of brilliance.

8)  Make sure you embed widgets to help others SHARE your content on other platforms.

Even if you don’t tweet, make sure your readers can. Embed a widget to help readers share your content with their networks.  Information needs to be portable to go viral. This is one of the few times, the word “viral” is good. We want out genius wordsmithery to infect the planet and make them our zombie slaves fans.

9) Make sure you embed a widget to SUBSCRIBE to your blog and also to get the RSS Feed.

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and it delivers your blog to a web feed for your reader. This is all about serving the customer—the reader. It’s like pizza delivery. We dig yummy awesomeness magically appearing in our news feed. Also, make sure that readers don’t have to go hunting for the subscribe button. Make life easy. We dig easy.

10)  Go through your posts and look for personal pronoun infestations.

If we use a lot of “I, I, I, I,” “me, me, me,” “you, you, you” it turns people off. We sound at best like we are lecturing and at worst like we are full of ourselves.

11)   Yes, okay ELEVEN tips. I lied :P. Make sure you have questions at the end of each post designed to spark discussion and encourage sharing.

When we get good at enticing conversation, then our blog becomes the cool place to hang out and chat. Blogging is less about great writing and more about being a good host/hostess. I see some really wonderful writers who have crappy blogs. Hey, I was once one of them. I am here to help you guys take the short-cut to success. I did all the dumb stuff so you don’t have to ;).

Speaking of questions at the end, I love hearing from you! What are some other tips you would like to add? Did I miss something? What do you guys like to see in a blog? What turns you off?

I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of July, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of June I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post 10 Tips for Blogging Awesomeness–Blog Housekeeping appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Welcome to the twenty-sixth installment of Twitter Tuesday. In the spirit of Twitter, this blog will be short and sweet and to the point. The tips offered here are all based off my best-selling book We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. If our goal is to build an author platform in the thousands to tens of thousands, then we will have to approach Twitter differently than a faceless corporation or even the regular person who does not possess a goal of becoming a brand. This blog will help you rule the Twitterverse without devolving into a spam bot.

This Week’s Twitter Tip-Start a Twibe

Twitter can make life much easier, especially when it comes to communicating real-time with others, no matter how far away. Going to a conference? Want to start a critique group? Want to have an on-line party to celebrate a book launch? Twitter can help.

Currently, I am teaching an on-line workshop on a Yahoo loop. Those signed up for my class are privy to information I won’t be sharing on my blogs. Yet, in order for those in the class to get the most out of the lessons, they need to talk, form up as a team, and do so in a way that doesn’t leave them buried in e-mails and lost in seemingly endless conversation threads. The solution? A hashtag–#WANA711.

Every member of the class now can communicate, follow each other, subscribe to each other’s blogs….and do this in a way that is easy, efficient, and that doesn’t make us afraid of our e-mail. If others wander onto #WANA711, no problem. More friends. This doesn’t diminish my class, because the meat of the experience is posted in files on the loop. This also gives my class the ability to support each other. The #WANA711 corrals all of their blogs, so they can retweet for their pals and just change the #s. This is called working smarter, not harder ;).

The best way to thrive on social media is to be part of a team and to work together. We don’t need to wait until Nanowrimo to issue a challenge. Create your own with your best writing friends and use the # function to keep in touch, set goals and keep each other accountable.

Want to celebrate your new book? Give it a #. Want to communicate with friends at a conference? Create a special #. Hastags give us the ability to come together, no matter the reason.

Tweet ya later!

The post Twitter Tuesday #26–Starting a Twibe appeared first on Kristen Lamb.