I can not tell you how many times I’ve heard something on these lines: “I just received a bad review. Readers have a right to their opinion, but [FILL IN THE BLANK WITH SOMETHING NEGATIVE]… Will you go to Amazon and check that the review wasn’t helpful?” and/or  “… will you report this review as abusive?”

Next thing you know, you have other authors chiming in, belittling and bashing the reviewer, searching for anything to discredit the reviewer from a typo to saying the they are just “hating.”

It’s truly upsetting. And even worse, I’ve seen this type of thing happen in reader loops. Stop the insanity.

I understand one author supporting another author. I commend this, but be careful of the type of support you give. Just as criticism can be constructive and destructive, so can support. It’s just more difficult to recognize destructive support. And as an author with over ten books published, trust me when I say I’ve had my share of bad reviews and it SUCKS ROCKS. I may want to throw those rocks at the reviewer, but I don’t. And that’s not always an easy task.

If you receive a review you are not happy with—DO NOT contact the reviewer and send out blasts about how horrible this reviewer is and how they are out to get you. Do not contact your friends and family and have them write all types of negative comments on the review. Okay, so I’m being a little melodramatic—not really. I’ve actually seen this type of behavior happen. Everything you do in regard to your book(s) should be to strengthen your brand. You may think you are defending your work, but when you react this way you tarnish your brand and lose credibility. Does this mean that if a review is filled with inaccuracies you can not speak out? Heck no.

For my title Black Widow and the Sandman that I wrote under the pseudonym L. L. Reaper, a prominent journal had it categorized as Christian Fiction (it’s suspense and far from Christian Fiction). There were serious inaccuracies about characters, plot and setting. It was obvious the reviewer had not read the book, so some would think that I had the “right” to put her on full blast. Yes, technically, I had the right, but did I exercise this right? No. Why? Because my acting out would have made me look small and unprofessional. I contacted the journal and let them know of the inaccuracies and besides apologizing profusely, they ran a correction. Lesson, if your book is reviewed by a team or organization and there are inaccuracies, then it is okay to contact the organization and have the issues corrected. Most of the time the organization will correct the error because they do not want to risk losing credibility, but there are times that they don’t make the change and it will annoy you, but don’t worry about items out of your control. For example, there is, actually WAS, another prominent review magazine that reviewed one of the books that I edited. The name of a city was in the title of the book. The book was not set in that city. The reviewer of this magazine had the setting for the city wrong (she said it was set in the city that was in the title) and other items wrong. Needless to say, the magazine was contacted and they chose not to print a correction. This WAS a popular magazine at the time but saw a sharp decline in sales and not only because of more online business. They lost credibility because word got out that they weren’t reading the books that they were reviewing. Readers aren’t stupid. When the reviews have serious inaccuracies, the reader knows what’s up and will not trust reviews from that source.

Okay, so what about reviews from individuals? This can be extremely tricky. EXTREMELY, because you don’t want to look as if you are attacking the reviewer for his/her opinion. Most of the time I say let it go. We will all have bad and or inaccurate reviews from time to time. But if you can’t let it go, only comment on items that aren’t subjective. For example, the reviewer who had the setting for the book in the incorrect city (and also state, but that’s a different matter). I’ve had reviewers angry because my book wasn’t interracial (though the cover clearly showed a Black couple). I’ve had reviewers say a book that had part of its setting in Cuba was actually in Mexico. I know it will be hard, but try your best to let it go. In all of the reviews I’ve been through, I’ve only commented on one about an inaccuracy, and I only did that because it was one of the first reviews for the title. Looking back, I wish I had let that slide because in the big scheme of things, that error didn’t really matter enough to point out.

Now let’s move onto subjective material. I love lemons and would rate them five stars. My cousin hates them and would give them a zero if the rating system would let her. I love the smell of roses but there are those who believe they stink. See what I’m getting at. When you are dealing with opinions, everyone has their right to one. When you and your friends who are trying to support you go into these groups and pounce on a reviewer for his/her opinion, you are telling all readers that if you like lemons, they must like lemons also or there is something wrong with them. And it doesn’t matter that millions of people love the small of roses and there is that one person who doesn’t. That doesn’t make that one person wrong. That means that one person doesn’t like the smell of roses.

Take a step back and try to be objective. Was the reviewer being constructive or destructive? If constructive, then how can you use the reviewer’s points to help in your future writing and/or in the future rewrites for the title in question?

What about the bogus reviews placed by other authors or those out to get you? Sad, but there are authors who feel if they post negative reviews and have others post negative reviews regarding your books, this will somehow increase their sells. Let this stuff roll off your back. Readers aren’t stupid. Have faith in them.

Here we are 1000 words since this article began and the key point is when you get a less than glowing review, let it go. Do not get into back and forth with readers/authors online or even offline at events. In the long run it will hurt your credibility and future sells.

Deatri King-Bey

Please support your fellow authors by sharing posts you find helpful.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for? Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author (eBook) for only $4.99 from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble  or print copies for only $7.99 by using the Contact page of this website and tell Dee know how many copies you’d like and shipping address. She’ll email the ordering information.

With the onslaught of eBooks and the demise of bookstores, some authors believe book signings are quickly going the way of the dinosaur and losing them valuable face-time with readers. Have no fear. The book signing isn’t going away. It’s evolving.

I truly hate to see so many bookstores closing their doors. The experience of walking through the aisles and flipping through the pages of hidden treasures can’t be duplicated, but there are additional venues authors can hold signings. And for those of you who don’t believe you can have a book “signing” if your title is only available in eFormat, keep on reading.

Tools of the Trade
Before I discuss venues for book signings, let’s discuss tools needed. In the good old days, after you arranged a book signing at your local bookstore you could arrive with a box of signing supplies such as promotional items, decoration for the table, mailing list subscription sheets and a great attitude, then call it a day. The bookstore would have the books ready and would take care of the exchange of money for your title(s).

Let’s say you have a book signing somewhere other than a bookstore or location where the retail portion of the signing is taken care of for you. Not too long ago, I remember authors pulling out those large credit card swipe things to accept credit card payments. Oh the horror! Thanks to smart phones, you can now accept secure credit card payments directly from your cell phone using tools such as Intuit GoPayment and Square Up. Many haven’t heard of Square Up or Intuit GoPayment, so I suggest creating a one page flyer that bullet points the needed facts about the secure credit card payment tool you use and have it laminated to display in your signing area.

At the time of writing this article, the small attachment needed to use the Intuit or Square Up tool was free from each one’s website. I mention this because I saw the attachment for the Square Up on sale in a department store and don’t want you paying for something that is free.

I like having a second person with me to accept payment, write receipts and manage the subscriber list, but that is not always possible. Do what you can to make the retail end of your signing as easy on the reader and yourself as possible. Same goes with accepting cash and/or checks. Do what works for you.

So now you can collect payments at your signing, but what if your titles are eBooks? What’s the purpose of participating in a book signing?  It’s the same as any other author—To sell books and connect with your readers.

When you’re at your signing event, if the customer has a smart phone or some other smart device, he/she can purchase your eBook(s) on the spot. Be sure to have the cover(s) and back cover blurb(s) of your title(s) laminated for display. Currently, Barnes & Noble and Amazon allow you to “gift” eBooks. The majority of eBook consumers purchase their eBooks from Amazon. If your customer doesn’t have a smart device to purchase your eBook at the signing, you can break out your smart phone and accept a secure credit payment using Intuit or Square Up, cash or whatever other forms of payment you are comfortable with, then “gift” the eBook(s) to them. I’ve also known authors who sell their electronic titles on CDs. Be sure to go all out and have nice CD labels and cases. These will be used the same way you’d use the cover of a print title to draw in readers.

With a print book, breaking out that pen to autograph copies for readers is a high many authors miss since eBooks have entered the market. Have no fear; you can still sign at your signings, even eBooks. Set up an account at Kindlegraph.com where you can personalize digital inscriptions (electronically sign your book covers) for readers. If you have a laptop or large smart device such as an iPad, you can sign the Kindlegraph at the event. Otherwise, the reader can request a Kindlegraph, and you can sign it when you get back to your computer. And yes, the Kindlegraph actually allows you to sign using your mouse pad or you can “adopt” a font to sign with. My writing using the mouse pad was horrible, so I purchased a tool called Bamboo Tablet that I connect to my laptop. The tablet is a large mouse pad that comes with a specialized pen for the device. With this pen, you can sign legibly, draw a happy face or whatever.

By the way, I do not like the name of Kindlegraph. It’s horrible. Why? Because the name implies it’s only for Kindle books. Granted, the eBook must be available on the Kindle, but the reader could have purchased the eBook from anywhere. For example, I have a Nook and purchase eBooks from Barnes & Noble, but because those eBooks are also available on Kindle, I can order a Kindlegraph for them. I will receive a PDF of the cover with the digital inscription. So if your readers have devices that can read PDFs and have Twitter accounts, then they can collect Kindlegraphs. Be sure to always carry business cards with your title information and let people know you are on Kindlegraph so they can find you later.

Now you can accept payments and sign your books—electronic and print—so we need venues.

Signing Venues

Do not forget brick and mortar bookstores. Whenever you can conduct signings at them, please do. Below are a few other places you can consider for book signings.

Beauty/Nail Shops – There is a long standing tradition in my community of beauty and barbershops being much more than a place to have your hair done.  Ask the owner if copies of your title(s) can be sold at the check-in desk. I find it best to have the owners purchase a few copies at 50% so they can make their profit. When the books move quickly, the owners will contact you for more books. Don’t forget to place at least two business cards with your book’s information within each book. Once you’ve grown your name within the shop, work with the proprietors to arrange signings at their locations and split the profit with them. See if you can find small pockets of your target audience here and there.

Book Clubs/Reading Groups (Online and Off) – Book clubs are an excellent way to spread the word about your book. Be sure to offer a group discount for your books. For example, if your price is regularly $14.95, for orders of five or more, the price is $10 per book when mailed to the same address. An excellent tool to find book clubs and reading groups is http://www.meetup.com/. Also tell the groups you are available for discussions. A discussion does not always require travel. Many book clubs are online and so are their discussions.

Book Parties – Do you remember Tupperware Parties? They were popular in the 70s and 80s. The host of the party would hold a Tupperware sell in his/her home. Book parties are the same concept, except with your titles. Be creative. If you have written an erotic book, also have a sex toy party. I’m sure your local sex toy shop wouldn’t mind helping you out. Same goes with book release parties. Be creative.

Fundraising/Charity Events – If you have a book that deals with domestic violence, breast cancer awareness, literacy… consider selling your title at events related to that topic. Even if your book does not deal with the topic at hand, you should investigate to see if the event has a nice pocket of your audience and/or give a portion of your proceeds to the event. Remember, you’ll have a better chance at hitting your target audience if your title involves the topic.

Libraries – The economy is hurting and many avid readers are returning to the library and so should authors. This is also an excellent way to get your titles into the library system.

Online Groups – Many of you are familiar with Facebook groups, but don’t forget about email groups such as the ones hosted on Yahoo. These groups were around well before Facebook and the established ones don’t look like they are going anywhere.  Find groups interested in your genre, join, get to know the readers and see about arranging discussions of your book for the group.

Organizations – One of my good friends belongs to a sorority, and one year they had this book event for my genre. Seek out organizations that would be interested in your genre and see about joining their events or arranging an event that caters to your genre.

Schools – From pre-school through college, schools are excellent locations for signings. Now don’t expect to just show up with a stack of book and start signing. You’ll usually need to give a speech of some sort and possibly have a question and answer session afterward. Of course, your material must be age and venue appropriate.

Stores/Clubs – From small boutiques to warehouses such as Costco, books are still good business. The larger the venue, the more difficult it can be to get inside, but it’s possible. Just be sure to have proper promotion of the event and understand that the majority of promotion for your title at events attend is always on you.

Traveling – Do you spend a lot of time waiting for flights or the train? Try this. Have a shirt made with your book cover on it and wear it next time you’re waiting for a flight. Be sure to have copies of your book, business cards and your trusty dusty Intuit or Square Up device. People strike up conversations with me and it usually turns into my telling them about my books and them wanting to purchase a copy or two. If you wear a shirt or something that has your cover on it, there are people who will strike up a conversation with you about it.

Vendor Events – Book conferences for your genre are a given, but don’t forget about other conferences and vendor events your target audience may attend. For example, I love Sci-Fi and went to a Sci-Fi conference in Las Vegas. They had Sci-Fi everything except book vendors. I wished I’d written a Sci-Fi book because I would have cleaned up.

T-Shirt – I know I’ve been going alphabetical until now, but I saved this for last on purpose. You can have a book signing just about anywhere at any time. Don’t let opportunities pass you by. The T-Shirt signing is an extension of the traveling book signing, but shows how you can have a signing just about anywhere. Consider having a few T-Shirts, tote bags or some other promotional item people will use out in public or at work (such as a mug) to give away and keep a few for yourself. Now wear your T-shirt or whatever to somewhere you go to frequently (such as your gym or physical therapy) that people don’t know you are an author. I was at an appointment and was wearing my Romance Slam Jam T-Shirt. The Romance Slam Jam is THE place for readers and authors of Black romance. Next thing you know, the assistant asked me about the conference and we were talking books. She in turn broadcasted that I’m an author all over the facility and next thing you know, I had sold all the copies of my books I had in my car and set up a book signing for the employees and members at a later date.

Caution
You’ll think I’m being contradictory, but I’m not in the big scheme of things. Yes, I said you can have a book signing just about anywhere, but you still must take your target audience into consideration. Book signings can be organic such as the T-Shirt signing I participated in, or they can be planned events. Please do not plan to take your books to the local Mc Donald’s after work today and set up a booth without investigation first. Those folks are at Mc Donald’s to get their kids a happy meal, not buy your book. Seriously though, think outside the box, but also think smartly. Investigate any planned venue and ensure you will get good bang for your buck.

Conclusion
The book signing isn’t going anywhere, it’s just evolving like the rest of the publishing industry. Mix and match until you find the formula that works best for you.

Deatri King-Bey

If you found this post helpful, please use the share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for? Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author (eBook) for only $4.99 from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble  or print copies for only $7.99 by using the Contact page of this website and tell Dee know how many copies you’d like and shipping address. She’ll email the ordering information.

You have a blog, mailing lists, thousands of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, and ensure your messages are always informative and entertaining, but are your efforts translating to book sells? Enough sells to give you a high return on investment? You should be able to draw a direct correlation between promotion/marketing campaign you run for your title(s) and your book sells. You will not be able to get exact numbers, but you can measure what campaigns are increasing your sells and which are not. How? Analytics—aka the numbers game. Resist the urge to leave this discussion. I know many of you hate numbers or think you can’t understand them, but don’t give up before starting.

To make this easier for you, I’ll use myself as an example throughout. There are tools that I use such as Mail Chimp and Hootsuite that I mention from time to time, but don’t feel as if these are the only tools or even the best tools for your needs. Do your research and mix and match until you find what works for you. Once you understand the concepts, you can go out there and find what you need. Now let’s play the numbers game.

Seller Account
If you are a self-published author, whether you use Amazon, Barnes & Noble or whoever to sell your books (electronic and print), you should have access to reports that detail your sells. Many times these reports will show you your sales for the day. Whenever you run a campaign, be sure to watch your sells numbers. Hopefully, they will rise during the campaign. If you are not a self-published author, the best I can do is say watch your Amazon numbers on the product page of your book if that is where you are sending readers. Just remember that those numbers aren’t instantaneous.

Mailing List
I sent an announcement to one of my mailing list about my new title that included title information, purchase links and links to my website. The next day, I had a very nice showing on sells of that title. But did those sells have anything to do with the mailing list announcement?

Yes. It had a lot to do with that great showing. I know because I use Mail Chimp for my email list and it has an excellent set of reporting tools. The report clearly states how many peopled opened the announcement email and how many times each person opened it.

Great, so people opened my email—big deal.

Here comes the important part. The report shows click through rate, meaning it indicates how many times each link within the email was clicked. After all, what good is your email doing if people aren’t taking action from it? You want them to go to take the needed steps to purchase your book(s) and/or visit your website. To my great pleasure, the purchase links were clicked numerous times. Though this does not tell me if the person ultimately purchased the book, it does tell me they were interested enough to visit the purchase page. It also showed me people were interested in visiting my webpage and Facebook pages. The report also showed how many times the email was forwarded and all that good stuff.

So when you send out an email, is it opened? Are the people who receive it clicking through to find out more about your books or even purchase the book? If not, you need to find out why. First look at your list. Is it an opt-in list or did you just add everyone you had an email address for? Opt-in list will net you much more bang for the buck. Granted, opt-in list will not grow as fast as just adding names, but who wants a humongous list of people who aren’t going to purchase the book or even open the email?

Next look at your content. Is it informative? Is it interesting? What’s your call to action? Do you provide easy ways for your readers to purchase your titles and follow you online?

Finally, look at frequency. Are you sending out emails to your lists every day that repeat information—BUY MY BOOK. BUY MY BOOK? Have your emails become part of the noise that litters email inboxes and is ignored? Or do you rarely email your list and they’ve forgotten who you are? Finding that happy medium for frequency isn’t easy, but you need to find it for your audience.

Facebook/Twitter Type Media

In October I participated in an online discussion of one of my novels. I sent out an event invite to all of my “friends” on Facebook with the pertinent information and also posted the event several times on my Facebook wall. Did this translate to enough book sells or interest in my books to make it worth my time? Yes. And how do I know this? Because I use a tool called HootSuite, I draw statistic information from my website and I saw a bump in my sells numbers when running the campaign.

You can use Hootesuite for everything from scheduling posts on several sites (i.e: Facebook, Twitter) to in depth usage statistics of your social media accounts’ traffic. To get the full functionality of Hootsuite, there is a fee. I use Hootsuite for the posts scheduling and don’t truly use the statistic functionality, but it is there for you and extensive. Instead, I use the statistics from my website and sells information from my seller accounts.

When I do a social media campaign using Facebook or Twitter, I send potential customers to my website and/or somewhere they can purchase my title. Using my website statistics, I can see where incoming links were referred from and it breaks it down by URL. I can even see if someone is accessing my website from an email account. For example, it may say Facebook 6. That means six people from within Facebook clicked on a link and arrived at my website. Granted, you don’t know if your campaign directly sent those hits to your site or if someone else had a link to your site on their Facebook post that someone clicked on. If you just ran a campaign on Facebook, there is a pretty good chance the Facebook clicks to your website came from your Facebook campaign or from someone sharing your information about the campaign on their wall.

Are your campaigns getting you the bang for your buck? The pitfalls authors fall into with email lists are the same for other social media. Opt-in is always more productive than adding everyone whose information you can obtain. Be more than an infomercial, and contact people in a way that they look forward to your posts instead of wanting to run away.

Interviews/Guest Blogger

Blog tours are all the rage, but do they give you the bang for your buck? How much time—thus money—are you spending answering questions. How much time are you spending promoting to your email lists and social media (people who probably already know what you will be saying on this interview). One sure way to find out is look at the numbers. When the interview ran, did your sales numbers go up? What about traffic to your website?

One of the benefits of a blog tour is the interview/guest post usually stays up for a substantial amount of time. Months after your interview when you look at your website statistics, you may see that interview is sending traffic to your site. Or that interview/guest post may have been picked up and used on other sites that are now sending traffic to your site.

Blog/Website

There are basically three types of traffic you’ll receive on your blog/website. The “Usual Suspects” as I like to call them. These are the people who subscribed to your blog and/or RRS feed (another way to receive alerts regarding blog posts) and visit whenever you have a new post. Then there are those who are directed to your website from email campaigns, social media, interviews, search engines, other websites. The third set are the “Untraceables” as I like to call them. They somehow magically found your site by typing in the URL (web address). Seriously though, they were probably told about your website or saw some of your promotional materials with the website information.

The “Referred” statistic should become one of your best friends. I’ve found many hidden pockets of my target audience because my site was linked to (referred) from another site.  And as I said, earlier, you can see if people are coming to your page from Facebook, Twitter and anywhere else on the web you hang out, including links within emails.

Page hits are important also. What pages are visitors of your site going to? Are there pages that receive little to no traffic so you should consider deleting them? Are your pages too long? When you ran a campaign and pointed readers to a specific page, did that page’s count increase? Did other pages on your site have an increase in hits also or are viewers coming to the one page, then leaving your site?

Click through. On your website you’ll have calls to action, such as links to purchase your book(s). Once the reader arrives at your website, are they clicking through to purchase your book(s)? What can you do to your site to increase your click through number? How’s that back cover blurb looking? Is it pulling in the reader? Do you have fantastic reviews? What about your cover? Is the information on your site fresh? What about the look? Is it easy for readers to purchase your book or do you hide the purchase links? Remember, purchase and mailing list subscription links strategically placed go a long way.

Who is visiting your site? Did you just send out a new posts so the Usual Suspects are around. These are your loyal reader base and visit your site, even when you don’t have a new title out, to see what you are up to. Did you recently send an email campaign about a new title? If so, are you getting sells? What about a Facebook or Twitter campaign? Is your event being shared and retweeted (Hootsuite can tell you this)?

Final Words
I don’t want to throw you into information overload so I’ll end this here. Don’t be afraid to play the numbers game. Get in there and learn how to utilize the statistic tools available to you and master them.

Deatri King-Bey

If you found this post helpful, please use the share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for? Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author (eBook) for only $4.99 from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble  or print copies for only $7.99 by using the Contact page of this website and tell Dee know how many copies you’d like and shipping address. She’ll email the ordering information.

It’s time for a serious discussion about online presence. What’s the best social media to get the word out about your books? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Google Plus+… Come on, don’t be shy. Which do you choose and why?

The best social media for your titles is any one you use to its fullest. So when you hear you must have a Facebook and/or Twitter account, nope, that’s not so. Now let’s get to building that strong online presence.

• Conduct a Google search on “Top Social Networking Sites” and you’ll receive a nice list of sites you can explore. Review several sites, then select the site(s) that you are most comfortable with and make your presence there. No matter which you choose, you’ll need to nurture your account to build a strong online presence. The time and commitment needed to nurture your account will help you determine how many different types of social media you will venture into.
•  Everything you do for your book, think return on investment. Your time is money. It is better to invest quality time in one location that you can nurture your relationship with your target audience than spread yourself over several networks and not make a true connection with your target audience.
• Find your target audience, get to know them and hopefully they will join your network. I know many of you are saying that is a given, but you’d be shocked how many authors waste time trying to add everyone to their networks without rhyme or reason. In the end, they may have 1000’s of members in their network(s), but not many of those 1000s are in their target audience and/or few will purchase the author’s books.
• Most social media sites have groups of some sort. Join and participate in groups that contain your target audience. When you attend signings, conferences, do guest posts… be sure to include links to your information. Make it easy for your target audience to join your network.
• After you’ve joined groups and have participated, gotten the feel of the group, allowed people to get to know you, you will need to let others know you have what they want—A downright excellent book they won’t want to put down. Promotion is a good thing, but don’t become an infomercial. Readers like to feel as if they know you. Continue engaging the group about your book and other topics, increasing their interest in you and not just your book. Don’t forget to promote your opt-in mailing list. Your opt-in mailing list is an excellent way to market directly to your target audience. Here’s an article on the importance of opt-in mailing lists: Everybody Loves Me.
• Okay, you’ve found your target audience and are engaging them in the social media of your choice, and they are joining your network and mailing list. GREAT! Keep up the great work. If you have several accounts, you may find it difficult to keep up with them. So for your promotion posts, you may want to try a tool such as Hootsuite. This tool allows you to schedule posts. So you could write a message about your latest title and schedule it to post on several of your sites at once. This tool also has great tracking functionality.
•  Tracking is very important. You want to know if your social media campaigns have increased your sales, mailing list, loyal base. Let’s say you’ve been mingling with a particular group, then announce in the group that your new book is available on Amazon and you give links to Amazon and your website. Did your sales increase? Look at your website’s statistics (Google Analytics works for most platforms if yours doesn’t have stats). Are readers visiting your website? Are they clicking the purchase links? Are they joining your mailing list? If not, why? Change your strategy until you receive the desired results.

I don’t want to put you on information overload, so next month I’ll go more into tracking your statistics and your website.

One last thing. Here’s a neat little Social Media Comparison Chart you may find handy.

Now go out there and build a strong web presence.

Deatri King-Bey

If you found this post helpful, please use the share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for? Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author (eBook) for only $4.99 from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

In today’s electronic age, a strong web presence is one of the best tools in your arsenal to become a successful author. That’s a no brainer, right? Not necessarily. Many of my fellow authors are suffering a slow painful death by social media.

Instead of just telling you to do this and not that in order to avoid death by social media, I’m coming at this from a different angle. I’m about to give you a little history in hopes that if you have the entire picture, you’ll understand why we must make adjustments for the time we live in. So stick in there with me to the end.

Let’s take a short trip back in time to a decade ago. Personal Data Assistants (PDAs) were popular, especially the PalmPilot. Smart phones were around, but using their limited functionality could be quite expensive. Internet access in households was increasing exponentially, but the cost of using that access caused many to limit their usage. Online personal journals (blogs) and social media were in their infancy and would have to grow up fast. People received most of their news and entertainment from traditional routes such as newspapers, television and radio. For this reason, online marketing was used, but nowhere near the extent that it is today. This may be hard for some of you to believe, but a decade ago, Amazon.com made its first profit. The world was different back then. We were at the onset of the first major boom of the electronic age. Back in the day, authors were encouraged to capitalize on this new age by harvesting the emails of anyone who sent them an email for their own email promotions list.

In 2003 My Space came along, then Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006) and a host of other social media and blog sites.  Along with joining social media sites, everyday users began setting up personal email accounts. With the increase in personal email accounts and Internet usage came the increase of online marketing. This was a boom for the marketing industry because it’s so much less expensive to send blast emails than print ads or mailings.  Everyday users began seeing more and more advertisement emails they didn’t ask for, but most found these unsolicited emails manageable.

Then it happened. June 2007 the first iPhone was released and need I say more? Yes, I do (SMILE). The cost of being online fell drastically and accessibility to email, social media, news… was at your fingertips 24/7. Though iPhones are the leader in smart phones, other excellent brands have inundated the market so just about everyone can be online at all times.

Wow, what a difference a decade makes.

Unfortunately, many businesses and authors (publishing is a business) are still promoting as if they are at the onset of the first major boom of the electronic age. Remember when mailboxes were filled with junk mail and we’d all complain? Well this has happened twenty fold in the electronic world (remember how inexpensive it is to send mass emails compared to snail mail). Users, readers are now inundated with tons of junk email that is often referred to as spam.

Hold up a second. Did I just call the unsolicited email you sent to my personal account junk mail? I plead the fifth. Anywhoooo, let’s look at social media. Many of these sites allow you to add members to mailing list and groups without their permission. I know you may enjoy people harvesting your email and then filling your account with unsolicited promotions and group posts (advertisements), but with the plethora of these types of promotions going to individual’s email accounts, the everyday user is starting to revolt and tuning out people who add them to groups, send them unsolicited emails and other such behaviors. You do not want to become part of the noise. You do not want to die by social media.

So what’s the solution? Be patient and build loyal, opt-in communities and mailing lists. It will take more time, but your return on investment will be much greater and will increase the credibility of your brand. You don’t want to be known as one of those authors who swamp people’s emails with their advertisements.

When someone sends you an email, send back a request for them to join your mailing list. Instead of adding individuals to your groups, send invitations.  Don’t over promote (finding that happy medium is not easy, but you can do it). Allow the readers to get to know you for more than a book pusher. You want readers looking forward to your emails and posts, not to think of them as intrusions in their lives.

Just say no to death by social media.

Deatri King-Bey

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for? Become A Successful Author covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author (eBook) for only $4.99 from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

Recently on my Twitter and Facebook pages, I asked authors if they could only use one of the following, which one would they use: Facebook, Myspace, Opt-in Mailing list or Twitter? Only one person dared to answer. Hmmm, I wonder why. This should be an easy one to answer. Maybe the problem was I placed Facebook and Twitter in the options and they couldn’t choose between them. Maybe they thought this was a trick question. Nah, I wasn’t trying to trick anyone. I honestly wanted to know your opinion.

Thankfully, we don’t have to choose one, but if we did, I’d have to go with my opt-in mailing list. Why, why, why? Everyone knows social media such as Facebook and Twitter are the in thing. What kind of nut would choose an opt-in mailing list over social media? Okay, so I’m a nut. If I had to choose the type, I’d say walnut. They are good in cookies, brownies, in ice cream, for cooking…

Like many authors, I’m an observer of human behavior. I love to discover what makes people tick and the hows and whys behind their actions. I went to several of my Facebook friends who aren’t authors and have 150 friends or less and asked them how they use Facebook and Twitter. I have over 1000 friends on Facebook and thought authors such as myself don’t use social media the same way. I was slightly surprised by my finding. My non-author friends test group who were not marketing products (such as books), use social media the same way I do.

They pop on a few times a day to see what’s going on, post a status and/or comment. Here comes the important part. Most did not or rarely looked at older post. Go to your Facebook account and scroll down. Unless your marketing/promotions post is near the top of the user’s newsfeed page when they happen upon it, the chances are, it won’t be seen. Same goes for Twitter or any other social media. With 150 friends, that front page of the newsfeed can fill quickly. And many don’t realize there is a way to sort by most recent. YIKES.

I experiment all the time, using myself as the lab rat—ewww, I don’t like that term. Anywhooo, I’ve always known how important opt-in email subscriptions are but wanted to find some hard evidence that my theory was correct. I released a romance and sent an announcement to one of my mailing list of 100 people and received 14 sales by the next day. I then waited a few days for sells to stop and began promoting this same book on Facebook and Twitter (1000+ people) for three days straight. I received two hits to my website (I pay close attention to referrals on my stats) from Facebook and clicks on the buy link. When I went to the sells report, I saw that two did purchase the book. I’m making the assumption these were a direct result of the Facebook and Twitter campaign.

The next romance book, I flipped the process around. I did the campaign on Facebook and Twitter first for one day (1000+ people). I received four hits to my website from them and three buys. I then waited two days (received no additional hits or sells) before I sent out the announcement to 100 people on my mailing list and guess what? Twenty-three purchases over the next day.

See where I’m headed? Social media is extremely important, and I’m truly glad to have 1000+ friends. “Everybody loves me!” But don’t forget your opt-in mailing list.

Let’s talk about opt-in mailing list for a second, or two, or three. Back in the day, authors were encouraged to harvest every email that they received from people and add them to their mailing list. Please stop doing this. Times have changed. Everything is going online and people receive entirely too many emails they don’t want.

You do not want to be considered part of the electronic age’s noise also known as spam.  I’ve taken my theory to the streets and asked numerous readers how they feel about being added to mailing list and groups without their permission and over 90% loathe this practice, and they usually ignore the author. I know some of you may be thinking, but I’m reaching nearly 10%. Yes, this is true, but that doesn’t mean they are purchasing your book or you are winning them over or that they open your emails every time or that you aren’t pushing them to think of your emails as spam. You are also creating a sour taste in the mouth of over 90% of the others and word of mouth has a big influence on what books readers purchase. Do you really want to turn them off?

Talking about word of mouth, I feel confident saying that’s how authors get most of their sells. I have an opt-in mailing list of supporters who want to be there, and they often tell others. They are spreading the word online and I assume offline also. When they see my post about the my books, they share (without my harassing them to do it). On social media they often tag me after they’ve read the book as they share their love of it on their walls. Or I’ll receive emails saying they told so and so about my books. It usually takes a few days or weeks before you start seeing the results, but building that loyal base is the key.

Back to mailing list. My various opt-in mailing lists have an extremely high open rate. It’s three times higher than the industry average. Why? Well, my lists may not be as large as others’ lists, but the people on my various lists want to be on it and look forward to my emails. Okay, maybe that’s a bit much. I hope they look forward to them. Instead of automatically adding people to your mailing list, send an invitation for them to subscribe. It’s going to take longer to build your list this way, but your list will be of higher quality.

Social media is extremely important. It is a part of your web presence, but don’t forget about your mailing lists.

Deatri King-Bey

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for? Become A Successful Author covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author (eBook) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble