Certainly one of the most intimidating and/or distasteful tasks for a SelfPub author is to dive into social media if he has never had to before. True, as a lawyer, and a technology lawyer at that, I’ve not been able to totally avoid it. I’ve got over 600 LinkedIn contacts, even though I’ve never extended an invitation, because it’s hard to turn down the invitations of peers, and especially clients. But Facebook and Twitter? No thank you. I just don’t get it.
The problem for me is that I see so little value in most social media I’ve seen, beyond keeping in touch (via Facebook) with immediate friends and family, if that’s the way you choose to communicate. But I certainly do see the time suck element of it, and I’ve got too much of that already just with email.
But – and this is a big but – if you’re going to be self-published, you need to learn how to use every free (as in dollars, not time) tool at your disposal. And regrettably, that includes Tweeting So it is that I’m trying to figure out how to do more than what I’ve always done, which is to have a Twitter account, collect random followers via my other blog (a couple hundred over the years), and Tweet every time I’ve posted another entry. And that’s it.
Not good enough, right?
So I’m told that one way you “build a following” is to send Tweets off at people who are following an appropriate topic – like self-publishing, or, in my case, cybersecurity. That being so, today I found out exactly how one goes about using hashtags (something I’ve studiously avoided in the past), called up an article I’d read that I disagreed with, laboriously constructed a Tweet also linking to a blog entry (laden with links to my book) at my other blog, and sent it to my Twitter followers, spending the better part of a half hour in the process, what with one diversion or another into Twitter arcana. Here it is:
#selfpub Jenny @ HuffPo says selfpub authors don’t need editors http://huff.to/1aBvKPb Not so – Every writer does http://bit.ly/1bqZfXM
Earth shattering, no? Needless to say, this pebble failed to make even the most imperceptible ripples in the ocean of the Twitterverse.
Hopefully, I’ll become skilled at tossing these off in a minute the way all those other people do that fire hose my Twitter account. We’ll see.
If you’re not getting enough Tweets already, you can follow me here: https://twitter.com/Adversego
Andy, I feel your pain (and some of my own)!
I find Twitter easier to use than Facebook, which seems to morph every time I’ve nearly gotten comfortable with it. Twitter is arcane but its procedures are fairly static. Early last year I worked hard at becoming a “presence” on Twitter. I got online by 6 a.m., feverishly scanned topics there and in national newspapers and tweeted nearly every day. I hated it and when after about three months I had no discernable sales results attributed to Twitter, I slacked way off. I’m sorry, but it’s nearly an abomination to me to reduce significant events or thoughts to 146 characters, or whatever the limit is.
But there was a spinoff benefit from my unremarkable efforts on social media. In the process of scanning for tweeting topics, I began following news blogs, both independents and those that are part of the digital editions of newspapers and magazines. When I “joined the conversation”, often making reference to my book, frequently with a link, THAT produced a few sales blips. But really mining that vein of ore was even more time consuming than posting on Facebook and Twitter. It’s necessary to engage others in debate or conversation to produce enough interest to generate the occasional (eBook) sale. THAT could consume hours. I don’t have that much time.
I’ve concluded that effective publicists earn their money. Wish I could afford one!
Doug Norton
Author, Code Word: Paternity, a Presidential Thriller
Good to hear from you, Doug, and thanks for the comments. I’ve observed Twitter over the years, mostly from afar, and it seems to have only a few real uses:
– some people Tweet to share important links, and those people are worth following, to get the benefit of their discernment; it’s like having an RSS feed where someone else does the selecting for you. Unfortunately, only a few people that Tweet have the self-discipline to only share links.
– some people have an infinite appetite for whatever a celebrity’s ghost writer/publicists Tweet for them; why, I don’t know, but I guess it works for them
Beyond that, I don’t get it. And after Tweeting/Digging/Tumblring/Redditting/FaceBooking links to my blog entries for years now, I’d say that the percentage of reads attributable to all of those social media outlets combined might come to 3 or 4%.
Like I said – I don’t get it. Why one does it, why one uses it, why one spends time on it.
We’ll see whether I learn better in the course of this campaign. I’d love to be proven wrong, and learn how to make it pay off.
Andy