Cindy Dees's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing-tips"
WHAT BOOK TO WRITE
I get asked this one a lot. What book should I write? It's usually followed by dithering about what's selling in the marketplace right now, and what type of book spouses, relatives and friends are telling that person to write, and then…heaven forbid…the dithering devolves into rambling descriptions of three or four partially thought out premises for possible stories.
To all of which, I say, WHATEVER.
At the end of the day, you need to write the book that's burning a hole in your gut demanding to be let out.
I don't care if the market is saturated with exactly the type of story you've always been jonesing to write or if all the experts are saying that the kind of book you want to write is dead and never coming back.
Where great books come from is the heart. Great books are written with passion. And here's another secret…great books sell, no matter what the market is or isn't doing in that genre.
My writing partner and I wrote a 700 page epic fantasy novel at a time when the epic fantasy a la Lord of the Rings had been declared officially defunct. The editor who bought that book and two sequels even said she hadn't bought one in a decade and never expected to buy another one. And then along came ours. And voila. A book of the heart sold. (And to forestall a lot of queries, it's called THE SLEEPING KING, due out in hardback from Tor in Fall of 2015.)
Above and beyond the fact that books you write with love will sing to readers, they're fun to write. They nourish your soul. They cleanse you. Heal you. Make you reach deeper inside yourself and learn more about yourself.
With the advent of self-publishing and ebooks, market trends are going to shift monthly or even weekly in the future. As for chasing trends, down that path lies madness. They'll will come back around to whatever you're writing soon enough if you just wait a few months.
Screw chasing market trends or following anyone else's advice. Find the story you WANT to tell. That you're dying to read for yourself. That's shouting at you to put it to paper. THAT's the book you ought to be writing.
To all of which, I say, WHATEVER.
At the end of the day, you need to write the book that's burning a hole in your gut demanding to be let out.
I don't care if the market is saturated with exactly the type of story you've always been jonesing to write or if all the experts are saying that the kind of book you want to write is dead and never coming back.
Where great books come from is the heart. Great books are written with passion. And here's another secret…great books sell, no matter what the market is or isn't doing in that genre.
My writing partner and I wrote a 700 page epic fantasy novel at a time when the epic fantasy a la Lord of the Rings had been declared officially defunct. The editor who bought that book and two sequels even said she hadn't bought one in a decade and never expected to buy another one. And then along came ours. And voila. A book of the heart sold. (And to forestall a lot of queries, it's called THE SLEEPING KING, due out in hardback from Tor in Fall of 2015.)
Above and beyond the fact that books you write with love will sing to readers, they're fun to write. They nourish your soul. They cleanse you. Heal you. Make you reach deeper inside yourself and learn more about yourself.
With the advent of self-publishing and ebooks, market trends are going to shift monthly or even weekly in the future. As for chasing trends, down that path lies madness. They'll will come back around to whatever you're writing soon enough if you just wait a few months.
Screw chasing market trends or following anyone else's advice. Find the story you WANT to tell. That you're dying to read for yourself. That's shouting at you to put it to paper. THAT's the book you ought to be writing.
LET'S TALK BACKSTORY
A writing friend wrote me in some distress yesterday because she'd been told that backstory was forbidden and against the rules and to be avoided at all costs in writing a novel.
I have two reactions to this. First, there is NO SUCH THING as a hard and fast rule in writing. You have permission as a writer to do whatever you need to in order to tell your story in the best possible way. If that includes backstory, so be it! Second, there's nothing wrong with using backstory, although I do have a couple of caveats regarding backstory.
Okay, a quick definition for the new writers among us. Backstory is when you pause in the middle of the current action of your story and digress into describing something that has happened to the character in the past.
Note the words "pause" and "digress". Those should be warning bells to any writer. Pausing means stopping your forward movement. As in slowing or even stopping your pacing. We live in a fast-moving, on-the-go world, and readers are exceedingly impatient at anything that slows down a story. Inserting backstory into your book can kill your pacing if you're not very careful about how you do it.
The trick is to keep your digressions into backstory as short as possible. Tell us what you need to, but don't wander around in endless reminiscences about the past that are not germaine to the current story you're supposed to be telling. With my apologies to Tolstoy, this is why that whole middle section of Anna Karenina that's essentially a treatise on the state of farming in Imperial Russia really had no place in the book.
Another potential land mine with backstory is where in your book you use it. Too many authors start their book with backstory. They feel a burning need to catch the reader up on everything in the past that they need to know to move forward with the story. Yeah. Don't do that. Except in rare cases (remember my no such thing as hard and fast rules comment?) it's usually a terrible idea to start the reader out in the past.
Why? Because if you're in the point of view of the character whose past we're exploring, they're obviously alive and kicking in the present time. They survived whatever trauma you're describing in their past. There's no suspense in it. There's no question of "Will they make it out of the mess? Will they be okay?" That's an elaborate way of saying Backstory KILLS your forward pacing in an opening.
Remember, openings are about sucking the reader into the story as quickly and deeply as possible. So fast and so far they can't put your book down. Backstories do none of this. It's fine to make references to past events that the reader doesn't understand, yet. It plants the question of, "What was that guy/gal referring to when he recalled that moment when XYZ happened?" Or "Who is XYZ whom the character just remembered with such terror?" You can drop in tiny hints at backstory and even confuse your reader a little. They'll frantically read forward to understand the events unfolding before them and around them.
So what purpose DO backstories serve? Usually, they tell us something about the character that makes us understand why a present situation has such a powerful effect on them, or why the character is acting in an otherwise inexplicable manner in the present time. There are, of course, other reasons to devolve into backstory.
How should we use backstory, then? Once you've actually got your present action moving along, you've planted a bunch of questions in the reader's minds that will pull them forward all the way through the book to find the answers, and we're in love with the characters, or at least in firmly in like with them, then you can afford to reveal a little more to the reader about what makes the characters tick. You can drop in bits and pieces of backstory here and there to flesh out the person more fully. Sometimes, a bit of backstory may be a single sentence or even a phrase in length. As the character floats in an out of the present and of recollection of the past, you can insert glimpses of their backstory as appropriate.
Full-blown scenes in backstory are often differentiated by being printed in italics in their entirety. I also find that doing it this way makes me vividly aware of how long the backstory scene is running. Page after page after page of italics is a warning to me to winnow down that backstory scene to its essential and most important moments and to toss out all the rest.
So, in summary. Backstory is fine as long as you remember that it kills pacing. Be careful where you use it and how much of it you use. But don't be afraid to use it if your story calls for it. We can all climb down off the backstory bridge now and get back to our regularly scheduled writing...
I have two reactions to this. First, there is NO SUCH THING as a hard and fast rule in writing. You have permission as a writer to do whatever you need to in order to tell your story in the best possible way. If that includes backstory, so be it! Second, there's nothing wrong with using backstory, although I do have a couple of caveats regarding backstory.
Okay, a quick definition for the new writers among us. Backstory is when you pause in the middle of the current action of your story and digress into describing something that has happened to the character in the past.
Note the words "pause" and "digress". Those should be warning bells to any writer. Pausing means stopping your forward movement. As in slowing or even stopping your pacing. We live in a fast-moving, on-the-go world, and readers are exceedingly impatient at anything that slows down a story. Inserting backstory into your book can kill your pacing if you're not very careful about how you do it.
The trick is to keep your digressions into backstory as short as possible. Tell us what you need to, but don't wander around in endless reminiscences about the past that are not germaine to the current story you're supposed to be telling. With my apologies to Tolstoy, this is why that whole middle section of Anna Karenina that's essentially a treatise on the state of farming in Imperial Russia really had no place in the book.
Another potential land mine with backstory is where in your book you use it. Too many authors start their book with backstory. They feel a burning need to catch the reader up on everything in the past that they need to know to move forward with the story. Yeah. Don't do that. Except in rare cases (remember my no such thing as hard and fast rules comment?) it's usually a terrible idea to start the reader out in the past.
Why? Because if you're in the point of view of the character whose past we're exploring, they're obviously alive and kicking in the present time. They survived whatever trauma you're describing in their past. There's no suspense in it. There's no question of "Will they make it out of the mess? Will they be okay?" That's an elaborate way of saying Backstory KILLS your forward pacing in an opening.
Remember, openings are about sucking the reader into the story as quickly and deeply as possible. So fast and so far they can't put your book down. Backstories do none of this. It's fine to make references to past events that the reader doesn't understand, yet. It plants the question of, "What was that guy/gal referring to when he recalled that moment when XYZ happened?" Or "Who is XYZ whom the character just remembered with such terror?" You can drop in tiny hints at backstory and even confuse your reader a little. They'll frantically read forward to understand the events unfolding before them and around them.
So what purpose DO backstories serve? Usually, they tell us something about the character that makes us understand why a present situation has such a powerful effect on them, or why the character is acting in an otherwise inexplicable manner in the present time. There are, of course, other reasons to devolve into backstory.
How should we use backstory, then? Once you've actually got your present action moving along, you've planted a bunch of questions in the reader's minds that will pull them forward all the way through the book to find the answers, and we're in love with the characters, or at least in firmly in like with them, then you can afford to reveal a little more to the reader about what makes the characters tick. You can drop in bits and pieces of backstory here and there to flesh out the person more fully. Sometimes, a bit of backstory may be a single sentence or even a phrase in length. As the character floats in an out of the present and of recollection of the past, you can insert glimpses of their backstory as appropriate.
Full-blown scenes in backstory are often differentiated by being printed in italics in their entirety. I also find that doing it this way makes me vividly aware of how long the backstory scene is running. Page after page after page of italics is a warning to me to winnow down that backstory scene to its essential and most important moments and to toss out all the rest.
So, in summary. Backstory is fine as long as you remember that it kills pacing. Be careful where you use it and how much of it you use. But don't be afraid to use it if your story calls for it. We can all climb down off the backstory bridge now and get back to our regularly scheduled writing...
LISTEN TO YOUR INSTINCTS...OR NOT
I've been working on a new book the past few weeks, and last week, I abruptly hit a wall where the story didn't feel right. It was as if the train just jumped off the tracks and refused to move forward any more.
I've learned over the years to recognize this as a sure signal that my story has taken a wrong turn. It's time for me to stop, go back to thinking about the plot of the story, the overall arc of the characters, and the relationship between the characters. There's a fatal flaw somewhere in the mix.
It's a waste of my time to keep writing forward until I figure out where I've gone wrong. I have to circle back and fix the problem before my story will flow naturally again.
Yay! I listen to my instincts and they save me every time. Right? Maybe not.
So here's the thing. You have to know enough about story structure and character development and relationship dynamics and a host of other technical aspects of story writing to correctly identify where the story has gone off track in the first place.
Some people have a sense of story rhythm developed from lots of reading, or maybe from a family of storytellers, or maybe from actual instinctive knack for it. But I humbly think this is the exception rather than the rule.
This is my pitch for reading books on how-to-write, for taking classes, workshops, or seminars on writing, and for learning the technical craft of storytelling. It's not fun, and it's not glamorous, but it is important to be able to deconstruct your story either before, during, or after the drafting process to discover its critical weaknesses.
Plotters, of course, will love this advice. They're all about being organized before they put sentences on paper.
Pantsers, however, may hate this advice. Thing is, I'm not telling pantsers to force themselves to write in a technical way. I'm saying pantsers need to have enough knowledge stored in their mental hurricane of creativity for their instincts to warn them when they're drifting off course.
Both types of writers would do well to develop an acute and sensitive feeling for when the story isn't going well. It's something to specifically watch out for as you write.
I think this sense of intuitively feeling problems in the story structure is one of the skills that distinguishes successful writers from those who struggle to get stories right.
How to develop it? Learn the craft! For most people, this "intuition" has nothing to do with actual intuition at the end of the day. It has to do with having enough knowledge to spot a big story problem right as it starts to unfold instead of writing hundreds more draft pages before realizing your story doesn't work.
Writers talk about this skill in words like instinct and intuition, but ultimately, it's a learned ability. It's a synthesis of technical knowledge and your creative "feel" for your story. You need BOTH.
I've learned over the years to recognize this as a sure signal that my story has taken a wrong turn. It's time for me to stop, go back to thinking about the plot of the story, the overall arc of the characters, and the relationship between the characters. There's a fatal flaw somewhere in the mix.
It's a waste of my time to keep writing forward until I figure out where I've gone wrong. I have to circle back and fix the problem before my story will flow naturally again.
Yay! I listen to my instincts and they save me every time. Right? Maybe not.
So here's the thing. You have to know enough about story structure and character development and relationship dynamics and a host of other technical aspects of story writing to correctly identify where the story has gone off track in the first place.
Some people have a sense of story rhythm developed from lots of reading, or maybe from a family of storytellers, or maybe from actual instinctive knack for it. But I humbly think this is the exception rather than the rule.
This is my pitch for reading books on how-to-write, for taking classes, workshops, or seminars on writing, and for learning the technical craft of storytelling. It's not fun, and it's not glamorous, but it is important to be able to deconstruct your story either before, during, or after the drafting process to discover its critical weaknesses.
Plotters, of course, will love this advice. They're all about being organized before they put sentences on paper.
Pantsers, however, may hate this advice. Thing is, I'm not telling pantsers to force themselves to write in a technical way. I'm saying pantsers need to have enough knowledge stored in their mental hurricane of creativity for their instincts to warn them when they're drifting off course.
Both types of writers would do well to develop an acute and sensitive feeling for when the story isn't going well. It's something to specifically watch out for as you write.
I think this sense of intuitively feeling problems in the story structure is one of the skills that distinguishes successful writers from those who struggle to get stories right.
How to develop it? Learn the craft! For most people, this "intuition" has nothing to do with actual intuition at the end of the day. It has to do with having enough knowledge to spot a big story problem right as it starts to unfold instead of writing hundreds more draft pages before realizing your story doesn't work.
Writers talk about this skill in words like instinct and intuition, but ultimately, it's a learned ability. It's a synthesis of technical knowledge and your creative "feel" for your story. You need BOTH.
WHY COPY EDITS MATTER
They ain't sexy, and they ain't glamorous, but spelling and grammar matter.
A few days ago, I was getting ready to put up my first self-published book on Amazon, and a spell checker during the conversion of the file to mobi inserted the mother of all typo's into my story. The original line reads that the hero and heroine are going to eat poolside, and it auto-corrected to "eat poopsite." Took me two days to figure out how to fix that freaking typo! But there was NO WAY I was publishing the book with that glaring of an error in it.
Getting the spelling and grammar right shows a reader that you care about your work. It marks you as a professional. A "real" writer, as it were.
The idea is to convey that, if quality of technique is high on your radar, maybe high quality of story will be, too. Also, you want the reader to lose themselves in the story, not get hung up on the words or punctuation marks on the page.
The best way to ensure that your manuscript is free of typos and grammar errors is to get several different readers to proofread your story. I work with some of the best editors in the business, and even they miss errors from time to time.
And you, the writer? You're going to miss catching more mistakes than you can believe. The problem is you're too familiar with the story and too familiar with what you thought you said/typed. You won't see what's actually on the page.
Every story, and I mean EVERY story, needs an impartial outsider to copy edit it. NOTE: copy editing is a fancy word for proofreading. A copy editor will also point out word repetitions and verify dates, facts, and technical details, but the copy editor's main job is to get the commas right and catch the typos.
If you can't afford to pay a professional copy editor, find a friend--or better, several friends-- who are REALLY good with spelling and grammar, and barter, beg, or bully them into going through your manuscript as carefully as they can.
One reason traditionally published books tend to be very clean is because many people see the manuscript before it's published. There are multiple opportunities for errors to be spotted and corrected. If you're self-publishing, you need to mimic this part of the process as closely as possible. Get lots of eyes on the manuscript before it's finalized.
The fastest way to pull a reader out of the story is to have them stumble over a glaring error in the writing itself. Getting the spelling and grammar right matters. A lot.
A few days ago, I was getting ready to put up my first self-published book on Amazon, and a spell checker during the conversion of the file to mobi inserted the mother of all typo's into my story. The original line reads that the hero and heroine are going to eat poolside, and it auto-corrected to "eat poopsite." Took me two days to figure out how to fix that freaking typo! But there was NO WAY I was publishing the book with that glaring of an error in it.
Getting the spelling and grammar right shows a reader that you care about your work. It marks you as a professional. A "real" writer, as it were.
The idea is to convey that, if quality of technique is high on your radar, maybe high quality of story will be, too. Also, you want the reader to lose themselves in the story, not get hung up on the words or punctuation marks on the page.
The best way to ensure that your manuscript is free of typos and grammar errors is to get several different readers to proofread your story. I work with some of the best editors in the business, and even they miss errors from time to time.
And you, the writer? You're going to miss catching more mistakes than you can believe. The problem is you're too familiar with the story and too familiar with what you thought you said/typed. You won't see what's actually on the page.
Every story, and I mean EVERY story, needs an impartial outsider to copy edit it. NOTE: copy editing is a fancy word for proofreading. A copy editor will also point out word repetitions and verify dates, facts, and technical details, but the copy editor's main job is to get the commas right and catch the typos.
If you can't afford to pay a professional copy editor, find a friend--or better, several friends-- who are REALLY good with spelling and grammar, and barter, beg, or bully them into going through your manuscript as carefully as they can.
One reason traditionally published books tend to be very clean is because many people see the manuscript before it's published. There are multiple opportunities for errors to be spotted and corrected. If you're self-publishing, you need to mimic this part of the process as closely as possible. Get lots of eyes on the manuscript before it's finalized.
The fastest way to pull a reader out of the story is to have them stumble over a glaring error in the writing itself. Getting the spelling and grammar right matters. A lot.
WRITING WITHOUT A NET
Before I was published, I used to sit down at my computer and write whatever story most captured by interest and enjoyment. I knew nothing about genres, or commercial categories of stories, or the targeted audiences of major publishers. I just wrote to please me.
But then I sold, and quickly I found myself boxed in creatively by which stories my editors would let me write. Publishers are not entirely wrong to build these boxes, by the way. They do careful sales analysis and closely watch which types of stories are selling well and which types tank completely. They want their authors to write books that will actually sell well and make them money.
Now that I have dipped my toe into the world of self-publishing, I abruptly find myself freed from the traditional publishing box. Shockingly , I also find myself a bit agoraphobic after a decade of traditional publishing. I actually am uncomfortable without that box of publisher expectations containing, limiting, and directing my creative impulses.
I did NOT see that one coming.
I have to say, though, that, as glad as I am on the one hand to be able to write whatever stories I want and to believe in them utterly, on the other hand, I'm not willing to leave behind everything I have learned about commercial markets and reader preferences in my traditional publishing career.
I think there is value in paying attention to what sells. I'm not talking bout chasing fads. Those come and go way too fast to bother with. I'm talking about timeless elements of good storytelling. There are, in fact, tropes and techniques that sell consistently and never waiver in popularity. I'm not averse to knowing what those are and highlighting them as they happen to fit into the stories I want to tell.
There is value in staying up to date on what publishers are buying and in watching which types of books make the best seller lists. It's a good thing to read the authors who are selling millions of books and asking yourself what about their writing resonates so strongly with the reading public.
It's not that I'm going to be a sales whore and merely chase what seems popular this week. But I can put a few creative fences around myself that don't cramp my stories. When I face a choice in where to go with a story, it won't kill me to choose the path that leads toward commercially viable elements within a story.
This is a business after all (in addition to being an artistic expression of my personal internal insanity). While I'm delighted to be free to write wherever my imagination takes me, it's not a bad thing to nudge my imagination in commercial directions when doing so won't compromise my story.
Funny how often this business boils down to a balancing act between art and business. And even in the self-published world, that has not changed.
But then I sold, and quickly I found myself boxed in creatively by which stories my editors would let me write. Publishers are not entirely wrong to build these boxes, by the way. They do careful sales analysis and closely watch which types of stories are selling well and which types tank completely. They want their authors to write books that will actually sell well and make them money.
Now that I have dipped my toe into the world of self-publishing, I abruptly find myself freed from the traditional publishing box. Shockingly , I also find myself a bit agoraphobic after a decade of traditional publishing. I actually am uncomfortable without that box of publisher expectations containing, limiting, and directing my creative impulses.
I did NOT see that one coming.
I have to say, though, that, as glad as I am on the one hand to be able to write whatever stories I want and to believe in them utterly, on the other hand, I'm not willing to leave behind everything I have learned about commercial markets and reader preferences in my traditional publishing career.
I think there is value in paying attention to what sells. I'm not talking bout chasing fads. Those come and go way too fast to bother with. I'm talking about timeless elements of good storytelling. There are, in fact, tropes and techniques that sell consistently and never waiver in popularity. I'm not averse to knowing what those are and highlighting them as they happen to fit into the stories I want to tell.
There is value in staying up to date on what publishers are buying and in watching which types of books make the best seller lists. It's a good thing to read the authors who are selling millions of books and asking yourself what about their writing resonates so strongly with the reading public.
It's not that I'm going to be a sales whore and merely chase what seems popular this week. But I can put a few creative fences around myself that don't cramp my stories. When I face a choice in where to go with a story, it won't kill me to choose the path that leads toward commercially viable elements within a story.
This is a business after all (in addition to being an artistic expression of my personal internal insanity). While I'm delighted to be free to write wherever my imagination takes me, it's not a bad thing to nudge my imagination in commercial directions when doing so won't compromise my story.
Funny how often this business boils down to a balancing act between art and business. And even in the self-published world, that has not changed.
GAINING TRACTION in SELLING BOOKS
So, I've been actively working to increase my visibility, and hopefully, my sales for exactly one year, now. A number of people have asked me what the secret is to getting their books noticed, and here's what I've learned in my own search for an answer to that one.
I blissfully wrote forty books in obscurity, and without lifting a finger to do any self-promotion or social media work for ten years, on the mistaken assumption that if I just wrote enough good books, readers would find me and I would be successful.
I've won some great awards and generally get excellent reviews. Editors love my work and I've studied the craft exhaustively. I think it's fair to say I'm not a half-bad writer.
And yet, my sales have languished. They're not bad, especially given the state of today's market, but they just weren't going anywhere. They were flat. Lying there like a dead fish.
Then two things happened. My entire backlist of forty books was put up as ebooks by Harlequin. I did the math as my royalty statements came in and saw that I made about 3K on the list over two years, and Harlequin made 150K.
Let me write that out. One-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollars. Of which, I got chump change.
The second tectonic shift in my perspective came with my first sale to Entangled Publishing, a strictly e-publishing house with a brilliant and business savvy publisher at the helm by the name of Liz Pelletier. I got a crash course in the potential power of e-publishing and of social media.
Like it or not, I was forced to admit that I was getting left in the dust and needed to move into social media and e-publishing. Immediately.
I started with 55 Twitter followers, 156 FB followers, and a dreadfully outdated website that I hadn't updated in two years.
It's now one year later, and I've got 77K Twitter followers, 12K FB followers, 4K Goodreads followers (hey, I've only been on GR for two months), 1K Linked In contacts, and a vibrant new website that reflects both genres I write in. I even guest blog occasionally for other people. Go me.
But how are my visibility and sales doing?
I have to say, my visibility is definitely improving. It's clear that more readers know who I am when I go to reader events. Other writers are starting to know who I am and what I write. I'm gaining traction.
It's not an overnight success story. I'm working hard and putting in a lot of hours. But it is gradually working. I've been hurt by a gap in my publishing schedule, but I'm picking up momentum as more books start coming out in a steady stream again.
A couple of great opportunities have dropped into my lap as a result of my hard work, and I'm hoping to capitalize on at least one of them later this summer. As it unfolds, I'll let you know how it goes.
My sales are growing a little. It's not a giant leap in tax brackets...yet...but the visibility is definitely translating to new readers.
Is my hard work paying off? Yes. Slowly. It's taking time, patience, and a ton of effort to make myself more visible to readers. I have to actively market myself and my books. And I have to write a lot of good books and keep a continuous flow of them coming.
It's taking persistence bordering on sheer, cussed stubbornness to claw my way to higher visibility and sales. This is not a project for the faint of heart. But it can be done.
I've met any number of extremely successful authors in both traditional and self-publishing. And let the record show, they ALL work their asses off.
There is no magic shortcut to increasing your visibility and sales. Quit looking for it and get to work.
I blissfully wrote forty books in obscurity, and without lifting a finger to do any self-promotion or social media work for ten years, on the mistaken assumption that if I just wrote enough good books, readers would find me and I would be successful.
I've won some great awards and generally get excellent reviews. Editors love my work and I've studied the craft exhaustively. I think it's fair to say I'm not a half-bad writer.
And yet, my sales have languished. They're not bad, especially given the state of today's market, but they just weren't going anywhere. They were flat. Lying there like a dead fish.
Then two things happened. My entire backlist of forty books was put up as ebooks by Harlequin. I did the math as my royalty statements came in and saw that I made about 3K on the list over two years, and Harlequin made 150K.
Let me write that out. One-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollars. Of which, I got chump change.
The second tectonic shift in my perspective came with my first sale to Entangled Publishing, a strictly e-publishing house with a brilliant and business savvy publisher at the helm by the name of Liz Pelletier. I got a crash course in the potential power of e-publishing and of social media.
Like it or not, I was forced to admit that I was getting left in the dust and needed to move into social media and e-publishing. Immediately.
I started with 55 Twitter followers, 156 FB followers, and a dreadfully outdated website that I hadn't updated in two years.
It's now one year later, and I've got 77K Twitter followers, 12K FB followers, 4K Goodreads followers (hey, I've only been on GR for two months), 1K Linked In contacts, and a vibrant new website that reflects both genres I write in. I even guest blog occasionally for other people. Go me.
But how are my visibility and sales doing?
I have to say, my visibility is definitely improving. It's clear that more readers know who I am when I go to reader events. Other writers are starting to know who I am and what I write. I'm gaining traction.
It's not an overnight success story. I'm working hard and putting in a lot of hours. But it is gradually working. I've been hurt by a gap in my publishing schedule, but I'm picking up momentum as more books start coming out in a steady stream again.
A couple of great opportunities have dropped into my lap as a result of my hard work, and I'm hoping to capitalize on at least one of them later this summer. As it unfolds, I'll let you know how it goes.
My sales are growing a little. It's not a giant leap in tax brackets...yet...but the visibility is definitely translating to new readers.
Is my hard work paying off? Yes. Slowly. It's taking time, patience, and a ton of effort to make myself more visible to readers. I have to actively market myself and my books. And I have to write a lot of good books and keep a continuous flow of them coming.
It's taking persistence bordering on sheer, cussed stubbornness to claw my way to higher visibility and sales. This is not a project for the faint of heart. But it can be done.
I've met any number of extremely successful authors in both traditional and self-publishing. And let the record show, they ALL work their asses off.
There is no magic shortcut to increasing your visibility and sales. Quit looking for it and get to work.
HOW I GROW SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERS
In no particular order, here a few things I've figured out about how to grow the number of followers I have on social media:
Twitter feeds Facebook and your web page. If you get Twitter followers and then post links to your other platforms, some percentage of those Twitter followers will migrate to your other platforms.
How to grow Twitter, then? I like an app called JustUnfollow. It tracks the number of people who follow and unfollow me, and it ranks orders my followers and the people I'm following but who haven't followed me back from oldest to newest or newest to oldest.
Okay, what the heck does that all mean in lay terms? I can follow a group of people on Twitter, and Justunfollow tells me who follows me back, who doesn't follow me back, who actively unfollows me, and who I followed the longest ago who hasn't followed me back. That last one allows me to unfollow people who've had a while to follow me back but didn't.
Someone's going to stand up right about now and yell that churning is illegal. And it is, according to Twitter's usage rules. Which is why I think of what I do as enlightened pseudo-churning. I follow and unfollow people at a steady, controlled rate that's not high enough or aggressive enough to trigger churning alarms.
Here's another thing I learned. I unfollow people who haven't followed me back in a couple of weeks and follow new people in their place EVERY SINGLE DAY. Building followers is a cumulative effort. There's no sense doing it hit or miss. You have to commit to an ongoing effort if you want to see big numbers. (This is also how you don't get suspended for churning. Do it slow and steady. Or, if you're feeling aggressive, medium and steady.)
I had 55 Twitter followers on May 15th last year when I started actively building my Twitter list. I have 79.5 thousand followers as of this minute.
Another feature of Justunfollow is an automated "thanks for following me. Hi, it's nice to meet you" type message that gets sent to everyone who follows you back. When I started growing my Twitter list, about 1 person in 50 went over and followed my FB page. And they tended to find my personal page.
Then, I wrote a warm, friendly, lightly humorous, hello, nice to meet you note for Twitter that includes a bitly link to my FB author page. Voila. 1 Twitter follower in 7 comes over to this page, now. Much better.
I also use an app call TweetDeck There are several similar apps that are just as good. It allows me to write tweets and schedule them for future posting dates and times. This means I can sit down once a week or so, write a bunch of tweets, and then spread them out through the week without having to get on Twitter every day and make tweets (which interrupts my writing time mightily and gets to be overwhelming, to boot.)
I use Justunfollow to find out when the bulk of my followers are online, and I schedule my tweets on TweetDeck to happen during the peak usage time for my followers.
Okay, one last tip and then I'll stop, because I can see your eyes starting to glaze over.
Justunfollow has a feature called copy followers. I can type in the Twitter handle of, for example, a really famous author who writes in the same genre I do. Her entire list of followers whom I don't already follow pops up on my screen. I can then follow her followers. This means I'm following people who a) are readers b) are active on Twitter and c) like an author who writes similar to me.
If even a quarter of these people follow me back, I'm populating my Twitter list with people who are likely to enjoy my books in the future. I can advertise my books on Twitter to them and stand a decent chance of some of them checking out my books.
I think the term for this is farming for followers. Regardless, it's effective and builds not only raw numbers of Twitter followers but USEFUL Twitter followers.
I apologize if that's too much detail for everyone but Keith, whose question sparked this post. Good luck with your own follower lists! (And if you follow me, I'll follow you back!)
Twitter feeds Facebook and your web page. If you get Twitter followers and then post links to your other platforms, some percentage of those Twitter followers will migrate to your other platforms.
How to grow Twitter, then? I like an app called JustUnfollow. It tracks the number of people who follow and unfollow me, and it ranks orders my followers and the people I'm following but who haven't followed me back from oldest to newest or newest to oldest.
Okay, what the heck does that all mean in lay terms? I can follow a group of people on Twitter, and Justunfollow tells me who follows me back, who doesn't follow me back, who actively unfollows me, and who I followed the longest ago who hasn't followed me back. That last one allows me to unfollow people who've had a while to follow me back but didn't.
Someone's going to stand up right about now and yell that churning is illegal. And it is, according to Twitter's usage rules. Which is why I think of what I do as enlightened pseudo-churning. I follow and unfollow people at a steady, controlled rate that's not high enough or aggressive enough to trigger churning alarms.
Here's another thing I learned. I unfollow people who haven't followed me back in a couple of weeks and follow new people in their place EVERY SINGLE DAY. Building followers is a cumulative effort. There's no sense doing it hit or miss. You have to commit to an ongoing effort if you want to see big numbers. (This is also how you don't get suspended for churning. Do it slow and steady. Or, if you're feeling aggressive, medium and steady.)
I had 55 Twitter followers on May 15th last year when I started actively building my Twitter list. I have 79.5 thousand followers as of this minute.
Another feature of Justunfollow is an automated "thanks for following me. Hi, it's nice to meet you" type message that gets sent to everyone who follows you back. When I started growing my Twitter list, about 1 person in 50 went over and followed my FB page. And they tended to find my personal page.
Then, I wrote a warm, friendly, lightly humorous, hello, nice to meet you note for Twitter that includes a bitly link to my FB author page. Voila. 1 Twitter follower in 7 comes over to this page, now. Much better.
I also use an app call TweetDeck There are several similar apps that are just as good. It allows me to write tweets and schedule them for future posting dates and times. This means I can sit down once a week or so, write a bunch of tweets, and then spread them out through the week without having to get on Twitter every day and make tweets (which interrupts my writing time mightily and gets to be overwhelming, to boot.)
I use Justunfollow to find out when the bulk of my followers are online, and I schedule my tweets on TweetDeck to happen during the peak usage time for my followers.
Okay, one last tip and then I'll stop, because I can see your eyes starting to glaze over.
Justunfollow has a feature called copy followers. I can type in the Twitter handle of, for example, a really famous author who writes in the same genre I do. Her entire list of followers whom I don't already follow pops up on my screen. I can then follow her followers. This means I'm following people who a) are readers b) are active on Twitter and c) like an author who writes similar to me.
If even a quarter of these people follow me back, I'm populating my Twitter list with people who are likely to enjoy my books in the future. I can advertise my books on Twitter to them and stand a decent chance of some of them checking out my books.
I think the term for this is farming for followers. Regardless, it's effective and builds not only raw numbers of Twitter followers but USEFUL Twitter followers.
I apologize if that's too much detail for everyone but Keith, whose question sparked this post. Good luck with your own follower lists! (And if you follow me, I'll follow you back!)
ORGANIZING YOUR WRITING BUSINESS
It's not enough just to write books in today's publishing industry. Like it or not, you will be running a small business if you pursue publishing books.
You can get organized on paper or you can build elaborate computer spread sheets. But I'm here to tell you a shoebox of receipts and notes on sticky pads ain't gonna cut it.
I recommend highly that you get organized NOW before all hell breaks loose in your career. It's murder being as busy as heck and trying to develop a system for tracking everything...and writing and doing promotion and self-publicity...and learning the business...and sleeping.
Here are a few organizational tools that I could not survive without in no particular order:
1) Book Production Tracking Spreadsheets. I have one for my print published books with traditional publishers, and another one for tracking production of my self-published books. They are VERY different animals--the things authors need to do in each type of publishing stream are completely different.
2) An expense tracking sheet for self-publishing. I do one for each book I work on during a year. Makes taxes easier.
3)A bookkeeping program for recording all writing-related income and expenses and automatically generating a Profit and Loss Statement for tax purposes.
4) A reviewer list: These are long-time, loyal fans who love my books and have volunteered to get advance reading copies of my books and post reviews within a day or two of their release on various websites.
5) A Vendor List: This has contact info for all the various contractors I use to produce a book--cover artists, developmental and copy editors, business card guy, book mark printer, promotion firms, t-shirt guy, you name it. When I see a great piece of work or get a glowing recommendation from someone I trust, I add that vendor to my list. If my usual person can't do what I need, I have a quick back-up without having to do a ton of research.
6) A file with all my official author photos, all my covers, cover flats, banners, and thumbnail images in it and clearly labeled. I keep my most current bio with this stuff, too, because if I need my bio, I probably need some pictures, too.
7) A spreadsheet with the name, hair, and eye color, and general description of all the main characters of my books. You'll be shocked how often you refer to this after you've written a few novels, particularly if you write series.
8) A spreadsheet with all my titles, publication dates, and ISBN's, sorted by series. Another list I go to all the time.
9) A list of all my self-published ISBN numbers, Bowker numbers, and BISAC codes for each self-published book.
10) A list of media outlets (i.e. radio stations), bloggers, review sites, magazine editors, etc. to contact when I have a book coming out.
11) A back-up copy of my Mail Chimp mailing lists. I keep these because I'm paranoid that I'll lose these lists someday. They're worth more than gold to me.
12) A PAPER list of all my user names and passwords related to my writing.
13) Contact List of writers: I keep emails and phone numbers of all my writing friends and acquaintances. I use it to ask quick research questions, get advice, or just vent.
14) A calendar/appointment book/app. Write down every deadline or due date the moment you learn of it. You won't believe how many little details will come along that are SO easy to let slip through the cracks. The devil's truly in the details in keeping airborne all the balls you will have to juggle.
I'm emphatically not a natural list maker, but my life is a hundred times easier if I have a place to drop pieces of information as I get them, and to retrieve pieces of information as I need them. It's also vital to step back now and then and look at the big picture. What deadlines are coming up, where are the converging crises down the road that you need to start minimizing now? Spreadsheets are a great visual snapshot of what's racing toward you.
Whatever organizational tools you use, the key is to use them from the very start, tweak them to fit you perfectly, get comfortable with them, and use them faithfully. The day will come when you're so busy you can't see straight, and only these lists will keep you on track when your career gets hot and heavy.
And yes, that's a great problem to have. But make no mistake: successful writers pretty much without exception work their TAILS off. And they HAVE to work efficiently. You might as well develop that efficiency now since huge success is just around the corner for you!
You can get organized on paper or you can build elaborate computer spread sheets. But I'm here to tell you a shoebox of receipts and notes on sticky pads ain't gonna cut it.
I recommend highly that you get organized NOW before all hell breaks loose in your career. It's murder being as busy as heck and trying to develop a system for tracking everything...and writing and doing promotion and self-publicity...and learning the business...and sleeping.
Here are a few organizational tools that I could not survive without in no particular order:
1) Book Production Tracking Spreadsheets. I have one for my print published books with traditional publishers, and another one for tracking production of my self-published books. They are VERY different animals--the things authors need to do in each type of publishing stream are completely different.
2) An expense tracking sheet for self-publishing. I do one for each book I work on during a year. Makes taxes easier.
3)A bookkeeping program for recording all writing-related income and expenses and automatically generating a Profit and Loss Statement for tax purposes.
4) A reviewer list: These are long-time, loyal fans who love my books and have volunteered to get advance reading copies of my books and post reviews within a day or two of their release on various websites.
5) A Vendor List: This has contact info for all the various contractors I use to produce a book--cover artists, developmental and copy editors, business card guy, book mark printer, promotion firms, t-shirt guy, you name it. When I see a great piece of work or get a glowing recommendation from someone I trust, I add that vendor to my list. If my usual person can't do what I need, I have a quick back-up without having to do a ton of research.
6) A file with all my official author photos, all my covers, cover flats, banners, and thumbnail images in it and clearly labeled. I keep my most current bio with this stuff, too, because if I need my bio, I probably need some pictures, too.
7) A spreadsheet with the name, hair, and eye color, and general description of all the main characters of my books. You'll be shocked how often you refer to this after you've written a few novels, particularly if you write series.
8) A spreadsheet with all my titles, publication dates, and ISBN's, sorted by series. Another list I go to all the time.
9) A list of all my self-published ISBN numbers, Bowker numbers, and BISAC codes for each self-published book.
10) A list of media outlets (i.e. radio stations), bloggers, review sites, magazine editors, etc. to contact when I have a book coming out.
11) A back-up copy of my Mail Chimp mailing lists. I keep these because I'm paranoid that I'll lose these lists someday. They're worth more than gold to me.
12) A PAPER list of all my user names and passwords related to my writing.
13) Contact List of writers: I keep emails and phone numbers of all my writing friends and acquaintances. I use it to ask quick research questions, get advice, or just vent.
14) A calendar/appointment book/app. Write down every deadline or due date the moment you learn of it. You won't believe how many little details will come along that are SO easy to let slip through the cracks. The devil's truly in the details in keeping airborne all the balls you will have to juggle.
I'm emphatically not a natural list maker, but my life is a hundred times easier if I have a place to drop pieces of information as I get them, and to retrieve pieces of information as I need them. It's also vital to step back now and then and look at the big picture. What deadlines are coming up, where are the converging crises down the road that you need to start minimizing now? Spreadsheets are a great visual snapshot of what's racing toward you.
Whatever organizational tools you use, the key is to use them from the very start, tweak them to fit you perfectly, get comfortable with them, and use them faithfully. The day will come when you're so busy you can't see straight, and only these lists will keep you on track when your career gets hot and heavy.
And yes, that's a great problem to have. But make no mistake: successful writers pretty much without exception work their TAILS off. And they HAVE to work efficiently. You might as well develop that efficiency now since huge success is just around the corner for you!
GET YOUR E-HOUSE IN ORDER!
Have been on a crushing series of deadlines, in the midst of which I'm doing the biggest online promotional push of my career to date. I have been lucky to be invited into a 12-author mega-set of military romances about SEALs. (It goes on sale July 22nd, by the way.) Many of my fellow authors are bestsellers with a TON of publishing and marketing experience. Working with them has felt like drinking from a fire hose.
The single biggest lesson I've learned so far is to get my electronic house in order BEFORE my career really shifts into high gear. I was partially there, but from these REALLY organized authors, I've realized just how much more I needed to do. By the way, all of the suggestions I'm about to make apply equally to print authors, e-authors, and self-published authors.
What exactly does getting your e-house in order mean, you ask?
It means having your website completely up to date, with a fresh look, a steady flow of new material populating it, all the links working, current bio, complete booklist with ISBN's--number one reason people visit author websites is to find their books--so make that easy, and active buy links on the site.
It means having chosen how you're going to do your newsletter. I use a website that generates newsletters and manages mailing lists. There are many excellent ones. Find one you like. Email is the number one way people communicate these days. You'd be crazy not to develop a e-mailing list for sending out news, information, and marketing material to your readers and fans.
Oh, you have no reader/fan list yet? Start building one! Now! This is an area I've been sadly lacking in, so I've signed up with an online contest manager to give away prizes for me for the next several months in return for the entrants to the contests signing up for my email list. The contest site is genre specific to the books I write and generates thousands of names over several months.(It's not cheap, but I'm paying to make up for my lack of knowing to do this earlier.)
You don't have to give away books on these contest sites. You can give away gift cards or electronics or something else relating to your books.
Even at the very beginning of your career, there's no reason not to start aggressively building your newsletter list. Every time you make a public appearance, at a book signing or a speaking engagement, set out a sign up sheet for your newsletter. Collect business cards and throw those people onto your mailing list. Collect names and email addresses EVERYWHERE.
Everywhere you have an online presence, you should have an active link to sign up for your newsletter. It should be on your website, author pages at book retailers, in the back matter of your ebooks, on your blog, etc.
Become one with a URL shortening website. I use www.bitly.com and customize the names of each short link to show what it is. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, visit bitly and poke around. You need to know about sites like these.They make putting newsletter lists and buy links easy and manageable.
Whether you like them or not, and whether or not you use them, you should have an account in your author name on every major social media site. If nothing else, block out your name so a Ukranian porn site doesn't grab it and use it once you get famous! You may not use a particular platform now but may find you use it later in your career, or that your publicist/publisher wants to use it in your behalf.
Regardless of whether or not you use each social media platform, your bio should stay current on that platform, along with a complete booklist, buy links to your books (if they're allowed), and a link to your newsletter.
Set up your various electronic platforms to cross-pollinate one another. When I make a blog post to my website, it automatically propagates onto several other sites, which saves me time and increases my exposure. You'll see a double posting of this article on this page, in fact. I find that on FB, my fellow writers prefer to read the original article and not link through to my website to see the full article, so I do both. I actually compose the article here, then copy it to my website and let it propagate from there to a half-dozen other locations.
Guest blog now. You should develop a list of friendly bloggers who like you, your books, and your genre and who are happy to have you guest blog on their sties whenever you've got a new book coming out. These relationships take time and effort to develop. Do not wait until you're in a promotion panic to find these people and cultivate relationships. Help them out now; they'll help you out later.
Meet and schmooze reviewers now. Same as with bloggers, meet the important ones to your genre and make friends with them. Do anything you can to help them out now. They'll be worth their weight in gold later.
Develop a list of your rabid fans right now. Ask them down the road to read and review your books on the big book retailer sites. Reviews are VITAL in increasing your sales. You may as well stack them in your favor and make sure you're actually getting reviews. Even if this list starts at five or six people who are your friends and neighbors, EVERY REVIEW COUNTS. Build this list aggressively over time.
Start developing a list of free and paid sites that promote the kind of book you write. These can be review sites, promotion sites like BookBub, paid advertising sites, or free lists that send out freebie book deals. Try to find out the size of their distribution list, what they cost, and what it takes to get onto their site.
These are by no means the only things necessary to get your e-house in order, but they're a start. The bottom line is, do EVERYTHING you can to be ready to hit the ground running when it's time for your next book to come out and for you to promote the heck out of it.
http://bit.ly/HotAlphaSEALs
The single biggest lesson I've learned so far is to get my electronic house in order BEFORE my career really shifts into high gear. I was partially there, but from these REALLY organized authors, I've realized just how much more I needed to do. By the way, all of the suggestions I'm about to make apply equally to print authors, e-authors, and self-published authors.
What exactly does getting your e-house in order mean, you ask?
It means having your website completely up to date, with a fresh look, a steady flow of new material populating it, all the links working, current bio, complete booklist with ISBN's--number one reason people visit author websites is to find their books--so make that easy, and active buy links on the site.
It means having chosen how you're going to do your newsletter. I use a website that generates newsletters and manages mailing lists. There are many excellent ones. Find one you like. Email is the number one way people communicate these days. You'd be crazy not to develop a e-mailing list for sending out news, information, and marketing material to your readers and fans.
Oh, you have no reader/fan list yet? Start building one! Now! This is an area I've been sadly lacking in, so I've signed up with an online contest manager to give away prizes for me for the next several months in return for the entrants to the contests signing up for my email list. The contest site is genre specific to the books I write and generates thousands of names over several months.(It's not cheap, but I'm paying to make up for my lack of knowing to do this earlier.)
You don't have to give away books on these contest sites. You can give away gift cards or electronics or something else relating to your books.
Even at the very beginning of your career, there's no reason not to start aggressively building your newsletter list. Every time you make a public appearance, at a book signing or a speaking engagement, set out a sign up sheet for your newsletter. Collect business cards and throw those people onto your mailing list. Collect names and email addresses EVERYWHERE.
Everywhere you have an online presence, you should have an active link to sign up for your newsletter. It should be on your website, author pages at book retailers, in the back matter of your ebooks, on your blog, etc.
Become one with a URL shortening website. I use www.bitly.com and customize the names of each short link to show what it is. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, visit bitly and poke around. You need to know about sites like these.They make putting newsletter lists and buy links easy and manageable.
Whether you like them or not, and whether or not you use them, you should have an account in your author name on every major social media site. If nothing else, block out your name so a Ukranian porn site doesn't grab it and use it once you get famous! You may not use a particular platform now but may find you use it later in your career, or that your publicist/publisher wants to use it in your behalf.
Regardless of whether or not you use each social media platform, your bio should stay current on that platform, along with a complete booklist, buy links to your books (if they're allowed), and a link to your newsletter.
Set up your various electronic platforms to cross-pollinate one another. When I make a blog post to my website, it automatically propagates onto several other sites, which saves me time and increases my exposure. You'll see a double posting of this article on this page, in fact. I find that on FB, my fellow writers prefer to read the original article and not link through to my website to see the full article, so I do both. I actually compose the article here, then copy it to my website and let it propagate from there to a half-dozen other locations.
Guest blog now. You should develop a list of friendly bloggers who like you, your books, and your genre and who are happy to have you guest blog on their sties whenever you've got a new book coming out. These relationships take time and effort to develop. Do not wait until you're in a promotion panic to find these people and cultivate relationships. Help them out now; they'll help you out later.
Meet and schmooze reviewers now. Same as with bloggers, meet the important ones to your genre and make friends with them. Do anything you can to help them out now. They'll be worth their weight in gold later.
Develop a list of your rabid fans right now. Ask them down the road to read and review your books on the big book retailer sites. Reviews are VITAL in increasing your sales. You may as well stack them in your favor and make sure you're actually getting reviews. Even if this list starts at five or six people who are your friends and neighbors, EVERY REVIEW COUNTS. Build this list aggressively over time.
Start developing a list of free and paid sites that promote the kind of book you write. These can be review sites, promotion sites like BookBub, paid advertising sites, or free lists that send out freebie book deals. Try to find out the size of their distribution list, what they cost, and what it takes to get onto their site.
These are by no means the only things necessary to get your e-house in order, but they're a start. The bottom line is, do EVERYTHING you can to be ready to hit the ground running when it's time for your next book to come out and for you to promote the heck out of it.
http://bit.ly/HotAlphaSEALs
Facebook Algorithms, part deux
It's good to lurk on multiple writer's loops where authors compare notes and experiences. Recently, a lot of us have been talking about our dramatically shrinking FB reach. As far as we can tell, our favorite social media host is messing with its "post reach" algorithms again.
What seems to be happening--and this is by no means scientific or confirmed, but merely the observation of multiple authors--is that when a post goes out, if many or most of the first 5-10 people who read it interact with it by liking it or sharing it, then the post is labeled "hot" and gets a much wider distribution.
Conversely, if few people or no people interact with the post immediately, it's buried, and very few people see it.
Also, posts with key words like "New Job" or "New Baby" get wide distribution immediately.
When a post gets a lot of comments with the word "Congratulations" in them, the post gets wider distribution.
FB admits to having up to 100,000 parameters that determine how widely posts are distributed. Hence, I think it makes great sense to copy your articles and news and post them on other social media platforms that are readily accessible to your readers, friends, and fans.
In my case, I post the big stuff to Goodreads, my Amazon Author Page, and most importantly, my website. I talked in my last post about setting up a widget folks can opt in to that notifies them anytime I make a post there. IT gives a short sneak preview of the post (just a few sentences) so people can decide if they want to click over an read the whole thing. Very handy, and my fans, friends, and readers never miss a post.
Unlike here, where your odds of seeing my posts are currently sitting at a whopping 1.5%. Just sayin.
What seems to be happening--and this is by no means scientific or confirmed, but merely the observation of multiple authors--is that when a post goes out, if many or most of the first 5-10 people who read it interact with it by liking it or sharing it, then the post is labeled "hot" and gets a much wider distribution.
Conversely, if few people or no people interact with the post immediately, it's buried, and very few people see it.
Also, posts with key words like "New Job" or "New Baby" get wide distribution immediately.
When a post gets a lot of comments with the word "Congratulations" in them, the post gets wider distribution.
FB admits to having up to 100,000 parameters that determine how widely posts are distributed. Hence, I think it makes great sense to copy your articles and news and post them on other social media platforms that are readily accessible to your readers, friends, and fans.
In my case, I post the big stuff to Goodreads, my Amazon Author Page, and most importantly, my website. I talked in my last post about setting up a widget folks can opt in to that notifies them anytime I make a post there. IT gives a short sneak preview of the post (just a few sentences) so people can decide if they want to click over an read the whole thing. Very handy, and my fans, friends, and readers never miss a post.
Unlike here, where your odds of seeing my posts are currently sitting at a whopping 1.5%. Just sayin.
