I just love that moment when someone says, ‘You need an upgrade.” It’s the way we live today, almost everything is fluid, from Presidents to web sites. So, I’m upgrading. Much of this is in preparation for the launch of my next novel, The Nuremberg Puzzle. Here is what I will be doing: 1. Changing … Continue reading
As you know I am an author. My first novel came out January 2012, published by Harper Collins. So why do I do all this stuff on social media, BooksGoSocial etc etc? I believe we are in a new age of hand selling or screen selling (screlling?). I have heard it said that one of … Continue reading
One of the most challenging tasks for any writer is what to create for social media. Twitter is important and we can retweet, reply and link to other content with it, but if you have a blog or web site with valuable content you can draw people to your own site and expose them to … Continue reading
Social media helped me get a global publishing contract. I am now translated into 10 languages. It helps me every day to promote my novels and the novels of the authors I work with. Here are the main five tools I use to build, manage and continuously develop a social media presence: 1. A blog. WordPress and Blogger are … Continue reading
Another storytelling technique you can use to build social media engagement is characterization. Characterization builds empathy between the reader and your post or feed/series of posts. But how do you do that? Characterization is built by revealing personal details. It’s in the advice to “be personal”, but we can expand on that idea to give … Continue reading
Creating tension, the need to read on, to find out what happens next, is a technique that social media posters can use to build engagement with their followers. I’m not suggesting that each post should have a cliff hanger, but I am encouraging awareness of how storytelling techniques can be used in a corporate or … Continue reading
Another tool for creating engagement and a sense of involvement in your posts is empathy. As writers we can use this technique to add depth to our posts. Empathy is compassion or rapport. In storytelling terms it is the ability to place your readers in the shoes of your characters. So how do you do … Continue reading
Writers are under increasing pressure. Low advances, intense competition and the pressure to self-market, to engage on social media, are making our jobs more challenging than ever. I want to embrace this challenge. I hope you will too. Here are seven traits of the social writer. Being social is about using the social media … Continue reading
Loyalty us not as easy to define as people think. For me loyalty is a graduated thing. Yes, we can say we have loyal readers, but are we getting the maximum possible level of support from them? . Are they buying all of our books, visiting our sites regularly and defending and promoting us? … Continue reading
The big question is, does all this social media stuff work if you are a writer? Well, that depends what success is or “working” is for you. There are two criteria for me. They are sales and personal connections. 1. On sales it’s not difficult to distinguish book sales for writers who are on social … Continue reading
