This guest blog post by Phyllis Zimbler Miller of Miller Mosaic Social Media Marketing describes her leap from learning how to promote her self-published novel — to teaching others how to use social media to promote their creative offerings.
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In December, 2007, as I approached my sixtieth birthday, my novel, Mrs. Lieutenant, had been turned down by several publishers. So I decided to self-publish with BookSurge (now known as CreateSpace, owned by Amazon), and then enter my novel in the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. Happily, it was chosen as a semi-finalist.
Amazon gave each semi-finalist a page on their site, instructing us to gather votes for our novels from our many connections. At that point in time, I had zero online connections. So how was I going to garner a zillion votes?
Then I noticed one semi-finalist using something I’d never heard of – a blog. That did it. I plunged into educating myself about blogs and related online marketing strategies. Soon after, I asked my daughter, Yael K. Miller (who’d graduated three years earlier with a degree in English from my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania — for me, Penn’s Wharton School of Business), to be my business partner — since by then I’d decided to start my own marketing firm. Everything we learned, we implemented for ourselves first and then for our clients — including building WordPress websites.
Fast Forward to 2011
What I soon realized was that I’d made a major mistake by not promoting my book with social media long before it came out. And in many ways, I’ve spent the last two and a half years making up for that oversight. I’m just now beginning to see a return on my time-and- energy investment.
A few days ago, Google Alerts notified me that Mrs. Lieutenant was the first book chosen for a new book club launched by the site, Best Army Wives. I contacted the site’s owner, Irion Arce, and offered to use my social media contacts – as well as contacts from my online efforts to support our troops – to get the word out before the March 1st book club launch date. I also offered to do four webinars, one for each week’s discussion, using the webinar software my company likes best (gotowebinar.com).
In the last few days, I’ve put into practice all that I’ve learned since my book appeared — and made use of all my appropriate contacts — to ask for assistance in promoting this new book club’s launch, featuring my novel.
(A case in point: Laurel Marshfield very kindly offered me this guest post opportunity. How do I know Laurel? We were both panelists for a BookBuzzr.com webinar on book marketing using Twitter. Afterwards, we continued to email and discovered that we shared several Philadelphia writing-community connections.)
Why was I on the BookBuzzr panel? Because more than two years ago, I created a connection with the site’s community manager, located in India. I offered marketing advice for her book-reader software site, and she and I have continued to exchange information ever since. “You need to give, in order to get” is especially true in online marketing. But, as writers, we have one very strong advantage in pursuing this kind of marketing: We know how to write.
What Are the Elements of a Good, Basic Online Presence?
- Create a self-hosted WordPress website/blog for your writing projects. (If you’re the author of a novel, but don’t know what to blog about, see this free article co-authored by me and Carolyn Howard-Johnson [note: see a previous post about Howard-Johnson on this BHC blog]: www.FictionMarketing.com )
- Share helpful information on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
- When your book is published, put part or all of it on BookBuzzr.com
- When you are comfortable with these social media activities, create a Facebook Page (formerly known as a Fan page, now referred to as a Page; not the same as your personal Profile page) for your book, or your blog, or your writing projects. (Facebook has just made major changes to the functions of a Page; you can read about the changes at: www.MillerMosaicSocialMediaMarketing.com )
- Leave insightful comments on others’ blog posts (if you don’t have a website yet, use the URL of one of your social media profiles), and write guest posts. (Sign up for free at BloggerLinkUp.com to get listings of blogs looking for specific guest posts.)
Everything I’m suggesting takes time away from your writing, I know. But what good is writing, if no one reads what you’ve written?
However you ultimately decide to promote your work, do participate in the social media community while you are planning and writing your book. It’s never too soon to build your social networking presence.
That said, want to help me spread the word about my book? Here’s the link to the March 1st book club launch info featuring my novel, Mrs. Lieutenant: http://www.mrslieutenant.com/march-book-club/
Congratulation Phyllis! I’ll share the link to this post with my sister members of the Hong Kong Women in Publishing Society (http://www.hkwips.org) – I’m trying to convince them about the value of being active in social media.
Kay —
Thanks so much for sharing the link with the Hong Kong Women in Publishing Society — and for the retweet of this guest post link on Twitter.
What do you think is the biggest obstacle (for the women in this group) to understanding “the value of being active in social media”? I’m always trying to figure out how to overcome this obstacle in people’s thinking.
Phyllis
http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller
Phyllis – I’ve sent a message to the members of the Hong Kong Women in Publishing Society, inviting them to come to this page to respond to your question.
My sense (with WiPS members, and with business owners who are my clients) is that many people worry that:
1. They think they need to be techie experts to be involved in social media;
2. It will take far too much of their limited time;
3. They don’t know how to get started;
4. Twitter is a waste of time because it’s full of silly tweets about what people ate for lunch;
5. They don’t know how to measure and justify the results.
By the way, oops, of course I meant to type “Congratulations!” in my first message, not “Congratulation!”
Kay
Kay —
I think your list of five reasons is definitely on target. Now the question is: How do we convince people that these fears are unfounded but without clubbing people over the head to get them to understand what we’re saying?
P.S. My company’s free report at http://www.MillerMosaicPowerof3.com takes people step-by-step through setting up an effective Twitter profile.
Thanks Phyllis – maybe the best way to convince people is to share stories about how we use social media, and the results we’ve experienced.
I love gathering and sharing resources about how to use twitter. Since May 2009, I’ve been curating a series of blog posts titled “Twitter Tips and Resources”, with each post listing 10 helpful articles I’ve found about how to use twitter more effectively (and how not to use it). So far, I’m up to part 41 in the series (that means 410 articles!).
See http://www.kayross.com/blog/category/twitter/ for a list of links to all 41 parts in the series.
And as a marketing person, I’m especially passionate about showing people how to write an effective twitter bio. I even wrote a blog post about that: “Convince Me With Your Twitter Bio. Please!”
http://www.kayross.com/blog/2009/06/13/convince-me-with-your-twitter-bio-please/
Kay
http://twitter.com/kayross
Kay —
What a terrific series — 10 articles in each post so now you have 410 recommended articles.
And I love the article “Convince Me With Your Twitter Bio. Please!” I check out the bio of each person who follows me and I’m am often amazed at the lack of any bio or a bio that is off-putting or nonsensical.
But now I’m going to challenge you further: How do we get people who have businesses that could truly benefit from positive exposure on Twitter to even read the articles, let alone take action on the featured advice?
Hi again – I can understand that people might feel intimidated and overwhelmed at the thought of tackling a list of 410 articles (and there are thousands more articles and websites and videos out there)! When I got started on twitter nearly two years ago, I just jumped in and spent a while observing what other people did, making mistakes, and learning about “twetiquette”. I quickly identified and followed some people who seemed to know what they were doing, and I started reading how-to articles. I was also lucky enough to attend a hands-on training workshop, taught by two of the most prolific twitterers here in Hong Kong.
In all the articles I’ve read, the general consensus seems to be that there are many ways to use twitter – there are no “rules”. Nevertheless, I do think there are some strategies and behaviours that are more likely than others to attract followers and achieve the results you want, so it’s sensible for twitter newbies to observe and copy what other successful people do.
As for getting people to take action – well, we can lead a horse to water… If some people choose not to “drink”, it doesn’t mater how much we want them to. Let’s devote our time and energy to helping the people who do.
Kay —
These are very wise words about “leading a horse to water.” I have to accept that, even though I meet people who could really benefit from using Twitter effectively, if they don’t want to participate that’s their decision.
And your recommendations for starting on Twitter are also good. I’m always amazed at people who start without adding a photo or a bio or any tweets.
It’s my own personality to learn more about something I’m doing. So once I started on Twitter, after hearing the Blog Squad mention it in a teleseminar, I tried to learn as much as possible about how to use it effectively.
And to be truthful, there are some people whose personalities don’t mesh with Twitter. These people should find a social media platform with which they do mesh and participate effectively on that platform.