Your Platform!

I know some of them.
The key to selling anything successfully, is to market it. And as an indie author you need to market yourself, as you'll be the one promoting, don't think it will fall on the head of anybody else, you've chosen your route, now stick to it. So, as this is your route, you need to market yourself, people have to like you, if they don't then they won't want to buy your novel.



I've been pretty successful on different social media platforms. I have a Facebook Page, I have a Twitter account, I have a Scibd account, a Goodreads account, and this! Because you can't reach a wide scope of people on just one platform, and I know that there are still so many that I don't belong to. I don't have a Wordpress account, I don't do Tumblr, or anything else, but I do have a Youtube account, however I haven't made trailers (I'll talk more about trailers soon). Another thing, I'm not active in forums, I've heard a lot of people talk about forums but I don't know where to start---even though people have suggested I go to the Kindle Board (something like that).



One more thing before I start, promoting is DIFFERENT to spam! People will want to know you as a person, so don't open up with "BUY MY BOOK" or "JOIN MY FAN PAGE", I admit to that I've used the second--and some people have reacted badly, so now if I post I give them a little bio, normally, "Hi, my name is Joseph Eastwood, I'm 18, I'm from the UK and I'm a writer/aspiring author. I write fantasy/dark fantasy. I'm currently editing my novel, Lumen, which I am hoping to self-publish." -- it's a little different every.



So, onto the different platforms!



Facebook

You can create your own group, your own page! This goes without saying that you must be a part of Facebook, I'm no longer a part of it for my social life or personal life as such, but I am in it to market, I'm in it to make friends with other writers and authors. I love to join groups and like pages, I believe that I belong to over 300 groups (most of them from when I was in high school about 2 years ago, so they aren't all aimed at writers, but around 20 of them are). At this moment in time, I have 1,077 "likes" on my page which is an AWESOME achievement for someone who is both my age and yet to publish.



So be a part of Facebook--let people know you're there! Just Facebook search "writing" or "writers" you might even find me in one of the groups. I also give shout outs for writers on my page, and I give you permission to post on my wall---just don't do it all the time.



Tweet, Tweet

I'm not going to lie and say I know what Twitter is, because I don't. I still don't understand it, but most of my readership comes from Twitter and the tweets that I post. And at this very moment I have 1,060 followers on Twitter and I'm following about 1,560, however people are always pining after getting more followers than they are following---for me, I don't really care, I still have a thousand followers, it would be nice if I had more, but I don't want to be one of those attention people who have "will follow back" on the bio page.



There are hashtags people put at the end of their 140 character updates. A common one of mine is #amwriting #blogging #update #milestone etc. and there are other popular ones among writers such as #wordmongering which I've heard has it's own webpage(?--maybe), I don't know.



People often ask me how I get so many followers, and although I don't know them all personally, I have had some really good conversations with them. You can find people by using the search feature at the top of your page, perhaps enter a hashtag like #wordmongering and you'll find people. You will usually see their mini bio and that's how you'll make your mind up on whether or not you want to follow them, they will also do this to you. Make sure your mini bio has your information in, I often see this "writer. blogger. author. editor. poet" (well that's actually the tagline of my blog, but I hope you get what I'm on about). There's a little line where your URL will go for a webpage--or for instance blog. Putting your blog there is good to draw traffic to your blog when people follow you.

Blogspot!

Blogging is also important, I've chosen Blogspot as my preferred site but some people use Wordpress and others have their own websites with a page for their blog. What I like about Blogspot is how easy it is to use, I have my Facebook widget over at the left-hand side there and I have links to popular posts, a little column for the archive, and then there's you in the "Cool People" box. I even have a Twitter feed (which matches the blue colour scheme) and at the bottom there's even a little fish box, if you've never been down to the fish box, do, it's fun---but first read the rest of this post.



So, starting this post I have 112 member of my blog, it's a real nice number--I'm getting around 100 - 150 hits on my blog per day, so I have a lot of coverage for an 18 year old aspiring (and soon to be) author. I've go a few features going on my blog, I have a #Writer's Tools page, where I archive posts about helping writers; word classes, characterization, plotting & planning etc. I also have a #Beat The Block! page, which is dedicated to helping writers out of their rut, namely writer's block.



I want to teach creative writing, but that wasn't the reason why I started this page--I don't think it did have a purpose in the beginning except for a place where I could complain--I like to complain and this blog has been around for a year now but I've only just started to get back into the swing of things last month.You need to have a purpose for your blog--be it a safe haven for your thoughts, a fan page, a tips and tricks guide etc. if you don't have material to work with, or an audience to appeal to, then how are you going to get people to come back or follow.



Youtube & Trailers

These are good because you can use pictures, colours, flashing images, descriptions, speech! And although you're advertising for a book which they will read, I often find that these trailers can give you a greater feel for the novel, they may have a song playing in the background and that could set the atmosphere of the novel, just like you hear a soundtrack in movies, or as a writer you reply a certain song over and over because that helps you hone on what mood you're trying to portray.

Promoting

I've seen a lot of people do giveaways, but that's hard when you're yet to publish, so I like to share my writing, usually by saying when I reach #x amount of likes I'll put up a short story or a sample or a chapter, just something. Another way to get "likes" up on your Facebook page is to sell yourself  on groups and other pages, some people call it spam (well it is called spam) but I like to call it a copy and paste job. I did address some of the things which could go into it like "Hi--" but that can always be copied and pasted, and I did this--because the truth is, you need to, you can't just rely on people who "like" your page to recommend it to other people.



You can create a little online signature for when you comment on a blog post, something like this:

"~Joseph Eastwood

http://josepheastwoodxd.blogspot.com/"

I've used this, and it has worked, but I haven't used it as much lately because I feel that I have a solid number of people following my blog, and now its growth will be natural. I've connected my blog to Networked Blogs and that posts on my FB page, my personal FB page and my Twitter account whenever I post a new blog---it's a less "READ MY BLOG" approach because it's automated.

Happy Promoting Guys & Gurls!

I know that I might have not expressed myself fully or skimmed over some things, however, I hope that I haven't and I hope you find this blog post very informative.

~Joseph Eastwood