M. Matheson's Blog, page 51

Sir...TweetaLot

Yeah! If you thought the title was corny, so did I,, but it's all I got. This is a follow-up to a blog post titled, Tweet Tweet which had a much nicer ring. If you skip over and check it out you'll find it was about my experience gaining Twitter followers. I reread it and it almost seems ridiculous now. The methods are solid and I never changed except for the scale got larger and I had to figure a way to cut down the time it took to keep up good relationships with an ever increasing crowd. Good relationships is what it is all about.
In that post I was all excited about gaining a hundred followers in ten days, good stuff. Since then I've seen steady gains of up to 50 a day. Like I said, same method. I'm now hovering around at 1800 followers and most of these are good home-grown followers (real people). The reason I'm hovering: Twitter has a rule that if you follow 2000 people they won't let you follow any more till you get a lot more followers and that number seems mysterious and arbitrary. Without being able to follow everyone who follows me, my growth is much slower.
Still, I thought I'd share a couple things I learned to make the work less time consuming. I know that I could pay a monthly fee for a company to do all my posting, but somehow that just felt disingenuous. I couldn't bring myself to do it. For a while, I let JustUnFollow send auto DM messages thanking new followers but after getting a bunch from other people, I couldn't stomach it any longer.
My biggest help is the Hootsuite platform which allows me to schedule up to 350 Tweets or Facebook posts. I can put all the info in a correctly formatted Excel spreadsheet (simple they even give you an example to copy) and voila I have the next weeks Tweets all set to go. I set all my posts at half past the hour so if I want to post anything else, I insert it at the hour or fifteen or forty-five after so it won't get crowded.
I value all my followers old and new and some of those I schedule their book links several times in my bulk uploads. As for my new followers: after the initial nice thank you Tweet and a retweet of something for them, I wait a few days or a week and gang up all the new ones in messages thanking them again. They get a mention and I usually get a retweet with more exposure.
Ganging them up in Tweets got time consuming when they were coming in hot and heavy 100-220 in a  three to four day span.
Thank you Mighty Google! I went searching for a program that might do it for me... I didn't find one that would do it all for me without relinquishing my sovereignty, but I did find an excel spreadsheet that you can register as an app with Twitter and it will feed you all your followers in a neat little list, newest at top. Martin Hawksey God bless him has made it fairly easy for the average Joe to accomplish. Now I run this spreadsheet every few days and give all my new followers a mention.

The Tweets get thrown all around multiple times which is good for everyone. All I had to do was paste that list into a notepad and put little @ symbols in front of each screen name. Way better than before but tedious. So, I gained a follower @tianyuxu1 who is an Excel Guru Data Cruncher and I DM'd him and asked if he would help me with the formula to add text(the @ symbol before each name) to the contents of a cell. He was only too happy to help. Wango Tango it's now as easy as 1-2-3 to put together the thank you tweets.
I could go on but it's getting late. If anyone has something to add or comment please do. I'm no expert but I am good at learning.
Peace All,
Mike
If you'd like to leave a comment and find the form tedious you can comment on my twitter feed @mikeyznsacto or Facebook/M. Matheson

No Longer a New Author

So, I am guilty. I did it. I am no longer a new author. When does that happen? It might be when you forget that you even have a blog, and find that said blog is so lapsed that your profile says "Upcoming book" when the book has been out for a month. I have been so wrapped up in promotion for 'No More Mister Nice Guy' that it is no longer new.

I've also been writing a long short story, OK possibly a novella, 'The Eagle Claw Hack' about an indie author who is so frustrated with his constant readers for 'their' lackluster performance he sets out to hack Amazon and make them buy at the point of a gun. Is the fiction truth or at least a reveal on the twisted inner workings of yours truly--Maybe and maybe not. I'll never tell.
 In the meantime, news from the front:
Lettered- a short story is at 200+ downloads and you can get your own by clicking the title or here.
No More Mister Nice Guy is on all eBook retailers. At SMASHWORDS you can find any filetype you want for your particular reader and here's a code to get it for free-YD98L.
BUT and that's big but- If you pay full price I will donate my royalty to The Wounded Warrior Project for the rest of the month of September.
That's the news for now.
Peace,
Mike

What Inspires You?

I was recently asked on my Goodreads author page: What inspires you?
I'm easily inspired, so I'm afraid I might come off a bit garish to those that struggle with "getting inspired."Truthfully, I was inspired by the question because it gave me a moment to think about something I hadn't given much thought to in a while.

This is my answer to the readers question.
I make myself an observer of life going on around me, from the seemingly mundane to the marvelous, from the dreadfully boring to the amazing. There's a story hidden behind every person and every act. If I forget that, it's only because I permitted myself to become weighed down and distracted by the cares and worries of my own life, and even those bear stories worth telling.
Now that brings a more detailed question to my scary little mind:If I am working on a particular project, story, book, or what-have-you, and I need some inspiration to continue on or fill a certain bill, how do I get it?
My answer for myself and any who would ask is, stop trying so hard. I know, I know, it all sounds very antithetical to what we are trying to accomplish here, but inspiration is not some kind of galley slave you can keep chained to the oars and demand it row when the wind fails your sails. Neither can inspiration be tricked into giving up its treasures at a particular time.What I do in times like that is work on something else, read a book entirely unrelated to what I am working on or do some research on some aspect of what I am working on. Often inspiration comes walking by whistling a liesurely tune and acting as if he would pass by my house entirely without noticing me sprawled on the porch gasping for breath.Very seldom does the particular dose of inspiration I need at the time come from the internet, Twitter, Facebook or other social media. Go for a walk instead, no matter where you live. Call a friend and have no agenda. Go play at the park with your child.Then you just might find that your inspiration had been hanging out with them and waiting for you to join the party.
Origin and history of the word, Inspiration, from dictionary.com:c.1300, "immediate influence of God or a god," especially that under which the holy books were written, from O.Fr. inspiration, from L.L. inspirationem (nom. inspiratio), from L. inspiratus, pp. of inspirare "inspire, inflame, blow into," from in-"in" + spirare "to breathe" (see spirit)
There you have it. Beathe in something fresh. Chill and try not to try to hard.

Whoever Liked Grammar?

Grammar and punctuation were not many peoples favorite subject in their early educations, and in later college educations was only taken seriously since without it you'd fail. Admittedly it wasn't something I was very interested in either, until I decided to get serious about writing.
If I wanted to improve my craft, I needed to go lower to the roots and not start at the top of the tree. I remember taking a community college class in basic grammar, only because I had procrastinated in signing up, and College Composition was already closed. When I showed up the professor asked, "What are you doing here?" which didn't do much for my self esteem, but he was wondering why I would take it at all.But, I learned many things in that basic course that helped to improve my writing. The first two sessions were wholly taken up by the professor, younger than me, lecturing the mostly teens and burgeoning adults on the importance and value of COMPLETING the ENTIRE class, while I sat starving for his knowledge and hoping he would teach me something. I was the old man in the class (my early 50s).
At this point I'm finding it hard to transition into my intended subject so I'll just leap.
Three books every aspiring writer should read and keep on their shelf:
Strunk and White's 'Elements of Style'
If you were stranded on a desert island and needed to improve your writing this would be the book to have. It takes a no nonsense approach to STYLE, not flair but style. Not just die to the rules grammar, but syntax people would like to read,which is not dissimilar to properly penned words.My copy of this book is dog-eared, bent, folded and near mutilated.
Next on the list of top hits I would put 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' by Lynne Truss. I know reading a book on punctuation sounds like one of the torments from hell, but Lynne makes it worth your while; it's very humorous style leaves you grinning and learned.

Wikipedia quote-

The title of the book is an amphibology--a verbal fallacy arising from an ambiguous grammatical construction—​and derived from a joke about bad punctuation:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

"Why?" asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"Well, I'm a panda," he says. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Irrish-American author Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, wrote the foreword to the U.S. edition of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. In keeping with the general lighthearted tone of the book, he praises Truss for bringing life back into the art of punctuation, adding, "If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood."

I can't improve on that.

Last but not least is 'Sin and Syntax'

Now, it has been quite a while since I read this last one, but I remember it being like reading something that suddenly enlightened me on some finer points of deep spiritual life, only this was on crafting prose; the two not too unlike each other.
These three books were important primers on grammar, style, punctuation and prose. I'm sure there are many others. I am also sure not everyone is dying to read a book on any of those subjects.Do it. You will be glad you did.
Peace,Mike

For Goodness Sakes, Be Brief

"For Goodness Sakes, Be Brief" - I thought it was a cool title, and could think of nothing else to put there. There I go again. I could have left off the first sentence, and come to think of it, this one too. Left them out in the cold cold darkness of never existed and if it did, leave it in the garbage can or dustbin, you choose.

I've struggled all my writing speaking life with being brief. I love words. I love the sound and sight of them, especially my own. But, alas, I have had to learn to clip, truncate and edit my words down to the 'only necessaries.'

I found it wins more hearers, readers etc. People look at an article, and unless you are famous, really famous, they will not read more than a sentence, if that, unless they can see the end from where they are sitting.

Blessed is the preacher who preaches short, for he will be invited back again.- from my circle of friends.

If no other bit of advice stuck into my heart it was this: Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings   -Elmore Leonard quoted by Stephen King but probably originating with William Faulkner's “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”

Have you ever found yourself infatuated with a sentence of your own creation, yet down in your heart you knew it was Frankenstein's Monster, which he wanted to be great but was horrendous. I have.
I have hovered over the delete key as I've edited my work, knowing it needed to go but doing everything to keep it. I have spent countless wasted creative minutes maybe hours trying to make that sentence work. You too? I thought so.

So, in closing I'm reminded of something learned from the author I admire most for his storytelling ability, Stephen King.
He received a scribbled comment at the bottom of a rejection slip that changed the way he rewrote his fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this note:  
“Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length.  Formula: 2nd  Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.”
I've taken this to heart and it has served me well. Twitter has helped with its damned 140 character limit.
Still I came back and added this next line.

I am so well know for going long, I've requested this on my headstone when I die, because it's what i am guilty of saying at the end of every conversation- "Just one more thing..." 
I never stop. God help me.
If you'd like to leave a comment and find the form tedious comment on my twitter feed @mikeyznsacto or Facebook M. Matheson

Great Cover for 'No More Mister Nice Guy'

Designed by Nichole Smith (this is smaller than final)

Common Courtesy and a Handshake

In my previous post on July 10, Tweet Tweet I shared how I doubled my number of Twitter followers in a couple weeks. Well, it's a couple more down the road and I've added about 350 new followers, not doubling my 413 but quite near.

I only share that to give you an idea of what can be done. I'm new at this and after watching ya'll who have thousands of followers, I've learned it's more than method. It is what we all like to feel around us-- common courtesy and encouragement. You are all a bunch of caring, encouraging and friendly people, especially the Horror writers, who would think. I bet they don't want anybody to know so, shhh.

Now, for the most part, we are dealing with unseen people, but it still works. People need to know that they matter, that they are noticed and someone cares. How the hell are we suppose to do that on Twitter.
Follow people you like and hope they return the favor.When people follow you FOLLOW them back whether you like them or not, but not the automated bots. If you look at their post you should be able to tell if you have a real live person there or not. All Retweets and no direct posts is a CLUE. It's not proof but it means something.
After people follow you-for heaven's sake- Thank them. Then take another step and Retweet some of their posts. It's how they'll meet other people.It also helps to put interesting stuff of your own, pithy quotes, cute puppy and kid pics etc. Start a conversation, butt into one. It's OK.
One thing I found to help make us a friendly community:Every day or two I put together a post that looks something like this,
A great BIG WELCOME to New Followers- @Jackson_D_Chase@dukehuge @horrorsquadWW@brett7three @StuartDChase@dleadbeater2011 #amwriting 
I found this gets thrown all over the Twitterverse. People like seeing their name in lights.
What's all this got to do with selling books? Relationships my friend. All sales or at least the good ones thrive on relationship.Be sincere. Sincerely care
Sell and promote your book, but do it sparingly. People don't want to feel used.A good book on the basics and some advanced stuff is "Twitter for Writers" by @RayneHall 
Lastly- it ain't easy. It's a lot of work. An app like I use @hootsuite helps a lot. You can write a lot of posts and schedule them for the future.
There is a lot more to say... But people hate it when you go long.

Lifestyle Interrupt-us

Don't let your lifestyle get in the way of your writing. Yeah Yeah! I can hear the boos and catcalls from here, and some trash even landed on my desk, no doubt thrown from the top balcony on the East Coast.
As I often say here on this blog (and in real life), stick with me a minute and I'll make it worth your while--hopefully.
In the present version of my life I am the major caretaker for my now three-year-old son and also the homemaker. Not Mr. Mom or stay-at-home-dad but a homemaker. Since my wife's career has taken off and she is the main breadwinner, it's a no-brainer. I'm learning to cook in a most efficient manner, and do laundry without killing the clothes. The house could be cleaner, but HEY!

If you are a struggling writer, filled with the desire to write and actually want people to read what you wrote, you need time, and lots of it.
Well, as the newest version of my life ramped up, my time to write kept shrinking until I was about to kill it and throw the body off the end of the pier. NO, not my family--my dreams of writing. Don't pick up the phone to call the authorities on me just yet. I know where my priorities lie and I love my wife and little boy more than anyone or anything. Including writing.
I just couldn't do it though. I couldn't kill the writing, bug, dream, passion, gift, vision or whatever you want to call it. SO, I had to make it fit within my life. 
I have written on trains, model and real, in parks and playgrounds, at museums and while my son slept in my lap. I have penned some good words while I was holding one end of a Hot Wheels track or playing trains on his elaborate wooden track. I have edited my book while cooking dinner or waiting for the clothes in the dryer to fluff for the tenth time.
The great thing is, we now have iPads. iPhones and all kinds of technological marves that make it possible.
I never thought I could write outside of dedicated time, but I have done it. Now it's like breathing.
This is not a, hey look at me (well maybe a little since we writers are a narcissistic bunch). This is a slap, shove or pat on the back to say, "Keep writing!" No matter your situation, don't let your ifestyle dictate your destiny.

Tweet Tweet

Could it really be that simple? A little birdie told me so. 
When I sent my first novel out to the editor @BZhercules I finally got down to the business of promoting my book "No More Mister Nice Guy" a tale of improbable redemption.
From reading, watching and common sense I learned I needed to build a platform from which to be heard or seen. So, starting with less than 300 followers 10 days ago, I've been able to get to 413. That's over 10 a day or better than 35% increase with little more effort than collecting quotes and great tweets to retweet. It's all about relationship even if it's not face to face.
Here it is:
Get an app like @hootsuite or others. Then you can schedule tweets and FaceBook posts to go out while you play sleep or write that next book.
Collect stuff people would like to see then Retweet or post. Don't forget to post links to your upcoming book and blog like this one, but don't overdo that one. You might lose followers like rats off a sinking ship, and who's to blame them.
Next, keep an eye on new followers and send out a post with all their names such as - Hey you all look good. Thanks to my new followers @mikeyznsacto @billyjoebob and so on.
Make sure you also follow back those new followers.
Next go to their profiles and schedule Retweets of their best posts, promote their blog provided you read it first. One I like is from @NatRusso he started inexperienced like myself and works a day job. He's a great writer and has lot of good wisdom.

Very important, be polite. Always thank people for following retweeting or promoting your stuff.

Like I said, I learned by watching.

Soon enough the follows will start piling up.

Reminder- I only just got started at this and have only a hint at what to do. This is my blog that I use to promote and build my platform. I wrote it while riding the train with my 3-year-old son. If you like it. Promote it and I'll promote your book blog or whatever.

Peace,
Mike


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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