The Role of the 21st Century Author

To be an author today is not enough to earn a living wage. It is almost impossible in fact. It is not totally unattainable, but to really earn enough money just from the books you sell, you have to spend time, be patient, and work hard in the background to get yourself seen, heard, and, more importantly, read by the people that matter. That is, your audience. Your fan base. The people who enjoy your stories, who want to know more about your characters, where they come from, what they do, how you met them. The readers want to know about you, the author. You are a brand.

It has taken me a few years to learn this. Back when I finally started to write my novel, got some short stories published, and decided that actually, I am quite good at this, I thought I was made. I could have my first novel published and I would be up there with all the greats, earning my millions and churning out more books for my adoring fans. It didn't quite happen like that. I'm still waiting for it. I am still seeking those adoring fans. I know they are out there (maybe you are one of them, please say hello, it would really make my day!)

The truth is that the role of the 21st century author is not just to write stories. That is only the beginning process of our job. Most of us publish our stories because they simply have to be told. My fellow writers will understand that nagging urge, that commanding voice as the characters take physical form and force themselves through your hand and onto the page. You have to write. It is as essential as eating. We feed the force within that requires nourishment, or we face the prospect of withering away to a mere empty shell of a human. Yes, being a writer is that important to me.

So we write. We publish. It is easier to do that these days, what with modern technology and eBooks and all the rest of it. But therein lies the problem. Our books are published, and they are subsequently submerged in a sea of other books, other stories, other authors. Some of these authors give all of their time to social networking in order to sell their books, and it works for them. Some prefer to pay others for the service of marketing and promotion. I would choose this option if I had the finances in place, and maybe I will in the future. For now I have to establish how to use what little spare time I have to the most effective outcome.

It is a tough learning curve. I am finally beginning to make sense of all those wonderful platforms available to us. I currently favour Twitter, Facebook and Google+, but I don't spend anywhere near enough time on them doing anything really productive in terms of book marketing. I am still learning. I am studying. If you are in the same situation, please share your experiences, advice, and anything else you can contribute to the conundrum of our generation. I look forward to hearing from you!

My novels are adult paranormal with equal amounts of dark romance and contemporary English Gothic. Sign up now for special offers and book release news.

Expand Your Social Media Network #Bizitalk

As an Indie author in a saturated world of advertising and sales, I find it very difficult to seek out the right platform from which to promote my books and my work as a freelance copywriter. Indeed, I am only just starting out in the business really. My first novel was published in 2011 and that was the same time that I really began to study the use of online advertising to try and get my name recognized. Now, two years later, I have learned a lot but I still have a lot more work to do.

I have the same difficulty that many of my fellow writers experience. We all use Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social media networks to promote our books, but we seem to attract a majority of other writers as followers and friends. There is nothing wrong with this of course. A writer has to be a reader at the end of the day; otherwise we wouldn't know where to start with our stories. The problem is that there are so many authors selling their work that we writers simply cannot support everybody by buying and reading their books. I mean, I have hundreds of books waiting to be read on my Kindle, not to mention an overflowing bookcase in my house that is now spilling out onto the floor. It will take me years to read all of these books, and I keep acquiring new ones!

So what do we do? How do we find actual readers who are willing and happy to buy our books and help build our platform? I do not have any financial backing with which to fund a comprehensive marketing campaign. Everything I do has to be free, or services swapped. I found one of these options quite by accident. I am a member of a Facebook group called Authors Tweeting Authors. We basically get together and retweet messages for each other, thus sending out our work and our promotions to a wider network of people all around the world. Search #JT4a on Twitter for more details.

From this group I found a service called RoundTeam. It is a free network where you can set up alerts to retweet other messages for you based on criteria that you choose. I set up a tweet service for messages containing #Bizitalk and from this I was approached by John at TweetUrBizUK. He offered me one week of free Twitter advertising after I shared a lot of retweet messages from his Twitter feed. Of course I said yes! It came at just the right time as well, when my baby daughter was born and I was unable to get online and do my promotions. Thanks to John, I kept up my media presence and found that since then I have a steady stream of new Twitter followers from all sorts of backgrounds. I am now waiting to see if this boosts my book sales, but it is a little early to tell just yet…

What are your experiences of social media networking to improve sales or attract clients? Please do share any advice or comments you feel could help other people in our situation.

*Social networks image courtesy of B2B Marketing Insider
Twitter birds image courtesy of Media Novak

Should an Author become a Twitter Fiend?

This is an interesting question. Technology has advanced to such an extent that our lives now appear to be dominated, and in some cases even ruled, by social networking. There are tales of families who sit in a line on the sofa at home, each person glued to a different device. One might be using Facebook on a tablet computer. Another might be playing social games on an Ipod. A third sibling will be on Twitter or a social messenger app on their mobile phone. Crazy times!

Personally I consider myself fairly well versed in social networks. Yes, I am still only familiar with the most popular ones, namely Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. I haven’t found the time to explore all the other networks, what with raising a young family, writing my novels, and maintaining two blogs alongside any freelance non-fiction work projects I pick up. But as an Indie author, I have been schooled in the necessity for social networking to sell my books. I have no budget for marketing. I cannot currently afford to pay a publicist to do everything for me. It is down to me, all by myself, to tell people about my books and encourage them to buy.

There is the challenge! I spent a lot of time in 2012 studying Twitter, reading a series of helpful blogs written by social media experts, and learning the techniques for using hash tags and keywords effectively. I modified my profile information across all my networks every time I learned something new. I changed my profile photograph and made them all the same, so that my image might better show up in search engines. And then I got into the Hootsuite revolution. I had toyed with Tweetdeck for a while, having had it recommended by some fellow authors. I just don’t get along very well with this application. It doesn’t seem to do what I want, and is often more cumbersome than helpful.

Hootsuite, on the other hand, has become an addiction. I’m not sure that I should be admitting to this, or even if I should perhaps be taking a break. But there we are. I decided to join Hootsuite and try it out as a method for scheduling tweets about my books and those of my fellow Indie authors. According to the advice I have gleaned from my online studies, an author should adopt an 80/20 ratio of promotion. This means that we should use 80% of our social network feeds to promote other authors, books and related activities, and we should use 20% of our feed to promote our own books. The idea is that we join social groups where authors do the work for each other. We share our details across several accounts, therefore giving us the best possible exposure.

But is it too much? I have recently become involved with another author group via Facebook, where we tweet for each other. Some of the authors are very aggressive in their tweeting tactics, and it does seem to work for them. Others are a little more hesitant, and perhaps struggle to fit it all in. I suppose I might better fit the ‘aggressive Tweeter’ label. I’m not sure I am comfortable with that, but there it is. I have found that when I don’t partake in the group tweets for a day or two, my book sales do slump. But I also haven’t yet hit the bestseller lists as a result of my efforts. Perhaps I need to give it more time. Perhaps I need another marketing plan.

What advice can you give to this confused and frustrated author? All comments and personal experiences welcome…

*Images courtesy of Pinterest; Frustrated Author and Social Networker

Using a Book to sell more Books

That title sounds a bit random don't you think? Don't worry, I am simply playing with words, as is my way. What I mean to say is that I recently borrowed a book from my local library, and used it to learn more about Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO. This in turn has given me a lesson in how to use my websites to sell more of my books, and to market myself, Catherine Green, as a business brand.

It is all about what we say. It always is. SEO is simply the use of popular keywords and phrases to describe your business, service, or items for sale. When you choose a domain name, a title, and an introduction for your website, think very carefully about your descriptions. Use the free web tools available to search out the most popular keywords and phrases to describe your business.

The book I borrowed is called Get Into Bed With Google: Top ranking search optimisation techniques http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1905940491. I cannot recommend it enough for people just starting out in  business, or sole traders like myself. It made me realise that I am a business. My name is my brand. And now, if I want to sell more books, I have to tell people about them.

Using a technique suggested in the book, I wrote down a list of keyword phrases that I would use to describe myself as an author. One of these was 'British paranormal romance writer.' I typed it into the Google search engine, and at the very top of the results list I found a link to a discussion forum on Amazon. Somebody in the UK was searching for new British paranormal romance writers. Perfect! I joined the discussion, leaving links for my book, and then I did the same for about three or four other relevant forums.

Imagine my surprise and delight when just one hour later, I received an email from one of these Amazon forums. The originator had seen my response, liked what they saw, and ordered a copy of Love Hurts on Kindle. I was elated! My time on here had truly been well spent (or rather, well-earned!). Try it for yourself. Visit the internet forums whose topics relate to the subject matter of your books. And see how your sales figures increase.