Lauren Dawes : Facebook

Facebook - I'm Iogging out permanently

Facebook. It's something people can't seem to live without. When I first joined up in 2005 (seriously 10 years ago??) it was for the simple purpose of staying in touch with friends overseas. Now I'm struggling to see the point of it.

As an author, my news feed is crammed full of blog posts about book reviews that aren't my book and from boasting indie authors about how many great reviews their erotica (yawn) /YA/romance novel has.

Instead of inspiring me, I discovered that it causes me to feel like sh*t. Seriously if you want to feel bad about yourself and your achievements, all you need to do is go onto Facebook for a healthy dose of egotistical bragging from indie authors and general ass kissing of the same authors by book blogs. I'm not lumping all blogs and indie authors in together on this, but for the vast majority, this is true. Case in point...

I had one goal with my writing and that was to get a book traditionally published. I was thrilled when that actually happened with Momemtum - a division of MacMillan for not one of my books, but three!

If a publisher wanted them, they had to be good, right? I know they're good but can anyone else see that? Of course not. My books don't get a look in over the done-to-death clichéd plot lines, cookie-cutter characters (same person, different name) and stilted speech of so called "Amazon Best Sellers".

And don't even get me started on covers and teasers filled with images that need an R rating.

Facebook is less a way to stay in touch with friends than it is one big platform where humility and modesty go to die. You may be wondering where this rant is going. I did too but as I wrote it, I came up with a solution. As much as I'd like to shut down my personal account, I can't. My author page is attached to it and in pretty sure my publisher will kill me for suspending my account.

What I am going to do is delete the app from my phone and delete the bookmark from my PC. I will update my author page with any writing progress or news so my fans (if a have any) can have updates but that's all. I'm going to give my bruised self-esteem time to heal and recover from the toxic platform that is Facebook.

0Comments

, by Unknown

In amazon.com, blogger

Indie self-promotion (Part One): Social Media

Hello fellow Junkies,

I decided to take some time out from writing to do a post about self-promotion. I know you all just shudder at the mere mention of it, and I didn’t particularly enjoy it until just recently. It turns out it can be quite fun!

Some of you may have heard about an event run by Young Adult and Teen Readers via their Facebook page called ‘Adopt an Author.’ The name is self-explanatory, but in case you haven’t heard of it before this is how it works: Indie authors put their names down to be adopted by someone else whether they be fellow indie, a blogger, whoever. Once all the indies are together in one spot, their names are posted and people can volunteer for the author they want to take under their wing and pimp out for a three month period.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get picked up straight away, but a wonderful indie named Michelle Turner took pity on my puppy-dog-eyes routine and adopted me! (I feel so loved!)

Michelle got to work right away. She messaged me to find out what my goals were. Now this was very important. I didn’t want to give her a broad answer like “I want people to like my books.” I told her very specifically that I wanted to boost my paperback sales and get more reviews on Amazon. Her next question was, “What are we going to give away as prizes?”

I had a few promotional things made up and ready to go including bookmarks and silicone bracelets with ‘Team Rhett’ on them, e-book copies and a set of the Half Blood Trilogy on paperback that I could sign. Michelle added some of her own bookmarks and copies of Reviving Bloom and we had our swag ready! (P.S. SWAG stands for Stuff We All Get)

She got to work straight away setting up an event on Facebook called ‘Lauren Dawes – Adopt an Author Event’ and invited some friends, indies and bloggers along. We set a limit of 50 people to join the event before starting in on the giveaways.

The next question was, how do we decide what to giveaway and to whom? So we came up with some games Michelle already knew, and I sat down and put my thinking cap on. The aim of games and giveaways is to boost the author’s numbers: Amazon likes, Goodreads fans, Facebook likes, Twitter and blog followers. We also wanted to get people involved, to engage and identify with the book and the characters within it. We needed some games that would have the ability to cover both of these things and this is what we came up with…

Games:

1. Trivia with quotes from the book(s). These can be as simple or as difficult as you want them to be. For example you could ask “Who said this?” or you could make it a “Who said this to whom?” meaning contestants would have to give two names. Of course this can be changed to “Where was this said?” also if you really want to make it hard.

2. Trivia questions about the book(s). For example, “Which character is known for their quick temper?” or “Where does (character X) work?”

3. Post a picture of what you think a character looks like. The winner would be the person with the most ‘likes’.

4. Ask a character a question. The winner would be the person with the most ‘likes’.

5. Describe your favourite character in your own words. The winner would be the person with the most ‘likes’.

6. What would the personal theme song be for a particular character? The winner would be the person with the most ‘likes’.

If you want to boost your numbers, here’s what you could also do:

1. ‘Like’ the Amazon page for either the book(s) and/or the Amazon Author Page. The contestants participating then write the ‘like’ number into the comments section of the post. The winner is picked using random.org.

2. Add the book(s) to your TBR list on Goodreads. Participants can post into the comments box that they have added it.

3. ‘Like’ the Facebook page. Participants can comment that they’ve ‘liked’ the page.

4. ‘Follow’ on Twitter. Participants can comment that they’ve ‘followed’ you on Twitter.

5. ‘Follow’ the blog. Blogger has a widget that can be added for people to follow you. Alternatively, they can follow by email. Participants can tell you the name they follow up for confirmation.

Because my ultimate goal was to get more reviews on amazon.com, Michelle suggested I

give away free copies of my book in exchange for an honest review. The first post on the

event was exactly this. We had a great response to the post, doubling our initial offer of 5

copies to 10 for Half Blood. The bonus for the readers? There are two:

a) They get a free book, and who doesn’t like a free book?

b) Once they’ve written their review (good, bad or ugly) they can then enter the draw to win one of the grand prizes.

Our grand prize was a copy of either Half Blood, Half Truths or Half Life. To keep things fair,

random.org will be used to draw the three lucky winners in the same order as they will get the

books.

This is part one of indie self-promotion. I'll post again soon with different resources to use to

get promotional items made.

If you like the post, please feel free to leave a comment. Also, if you know of any other ways you

can use social medial to promote yourself, also leave a comment. Thanks!

1Comments

, by Unknown

Pages

Lauren Dawes

Facebook - I'm Iogging out permanently

Indie self-promotion (Part One): Social Media

Games:

About me

Follow Me

Blog Archive

Popular Posts

Instagram