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What is With All the Lousy Author Web Sites?

Every time I find a book I love (or even one that I don’t), the first thing I do is find the author’s site. After spending hours with the book, I often yearn to know more about the author and his or her background, to see what else they may have written.

Often, the sites are lacking. And that’s being charitable.

I may not be neutral on the subject—I’ve worked in both publishing and web design for more than 15 years. But authors can no longer rely upon traditional avenues alone to promote their work. And considering publishing’s bootstrapped state, you can’t count on your publisher to manage your online presence.

This article is an open letter to authors to seize control of their online presence. Use your sites to connect with readers, increase sales and propel your career forward.

Following are some of the most common transgressions I find when visiting author sites.

A Site Written in Marketing Copy, Not Your Voice
Sure, it’s tempting to cut-and-paste from the book’s marketing materials. But frankly, you’re an author, it’s your “thing” to write. You’d be surprised how often I see this. Everything from the author bio to the homepage copy should be crafted by the author, conveying the voice that comes through in the author’s work.

An Aversion to Social Media
Not everyone is a Facebook or Twitter person. But ignore social media at your peril. It’s an easy—and free—way people can connect with you beyond your book. When people “like” your site or follow you on Twitter, they are inviting you into their personally curated world—it’s a great way to keep the momentum going after a book pub or between titles.

Resistance to Self-Promotion or Sales
I’ve had many author clients tell me that they wanted to soft-pedal the sales angle regarding their books. Or that they felt funny telling people they should buy their books or linking to Amazon when they favor small bookstore

Of course you should tell people buy your books! If someone comes to your site, they are interested in your work. It’s your job to make it easy for them to buy it. Link to Amazon and IndieWire, so your readers have choices for where to make their purchase.

While you’re at it, get comfortable with self-promotion. Your site is no place for subtlety. If you spent time on the New York Times best-seller list, by all means mention it. If Oprah blurbed your book, I suggest you use it.

Not Inviting Visitor Interaction
Your site is an opportunity to connect with your readers beyond the page—and the screen. You may want to have a frequently asked questions area, detailing common questions regarding your book or chosen genre. If your book would work well in a group discussion, include a guide for different topics to address. Include an email address or other ways to connect. If you’re feeling especially extroverted, you may want to consider offering to Skype in to book clubs that meet certain criteria.

Failing to Fully Utilize the Web Medium
There’s a misconception that you need an audio engineer to record podcasts, a videographer to create videos. Actually, all you need is a phone or a computer (not even need both). Record yourself reading from a chapter and post the audio online. (Here’s how.) Film a video of a reading, an appearance, or create something unique inspired by your book—all you need is a smartphone and a YouTube account.

Neglecting the Press
Readers are only part of your Web audience. Many are from the media—and you want to make it easy for them to promote your book. Include an author bio (it helps to have short, medium, and long versions), relevant press releases, and downloadable hi-res images for print and Web.

Being Stingy with Content
Another common thing I hear is that authors don’t want to give away too much content. When you post individual chapters as a tease (with an obvious link to follow through to buy the book), you are giving away enough to leave the reader wanting more.

All these suggestions are just a start. I guarantee that if you incorporate these strategies into your site, it will pay off. Plus, it’s gratifying (most of the time) to connect with readers, and exciting to have a new, free medium to share your work that is fully created and curated under your own domain.

Lisa Hazen is a Chicago-based Web Designer specializing in author Web sites. She’d love to hear from you at www.lisahazen.com or [email protected].

Book Marketing

3 Tips To Help You Contact Book Reviewers!

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3 Tips To Help You Contact Book Reviewers!

I see authors every day begging, pleading, and spamming their books to people on social media who:

Are not their demographic
Aren’t reviewers or book bloggers
Don’t read that genre.

Let’s deconstruct.

DEMOGRAPHIC

Do you know who your ultimate reader is? You should.

Let’s use my latest book, Broken Pieces, as an example. As I wrote it, I knew that I wanted women and men to read this, but I focused most on looking at how women would relate to the material. It’s dark, it’s real, and it’s not humor like my past two books.

Betareading. This created a challenge: whom would I ask to betaread it? Which reviewers, book bloggers, and readers would I approach? Who would ultimately buy it?

Research, interact. If you can’t answer those questions, you’ve got some work to do. How? Google, Goodreads, even your social media (I use primarily Twitter and Facebook), to connect with people and discuss the subject matter and if it’s of interest to them. Social media is the ultimate in free market research.

I sent my book to about twenty-five betareaders who expressed interest in seeing it as well as giving me feedback. Leaving a review (positive or negative) is by no means expected or required, but by creating a ‘sneak peek,’ many readers are happy to leave you a review when your book goes live.

And when Pieces went live, I had about ten reviews within a few days. It’s been three months and I’m up over seventy-five!

(Betareaders can be anyone who is interested in reading your book before it’s available for sale.)

REVIEWERS AND BOOK BLOGGERS

These are your friends, BUT, if you’re spamming anyone and everyone with your book, you risk losing followers, annoying potential shot in the dark readers, and having your account suspended for spamming people (I’ve seen it. It happens, my friends.).

I’ve received about ten or fifteen spammy requests today alone: Hi Rachel. Thx for the follow. Plz read, review, & RT my book It’s All About Me on Amazon. Thx.

NO.

When I check their stream or Facebook page (which believe me, I do), I see they’ve sent the same message to hundreds of others and usually unfollow.

Sigh.

Get informed. Read this article (from Amazon Hall of Famer Dr. Bojan Tunguz on my blog for suggestions on what to do and what not to do). Here’s another one by Tracy Riva of Midwest Book Review.

I get it. I was confused, too, before my first book came out. So I asked people what to do! I researched. I learned. I made mistakes.

If you’re not sure how to approach reviewers, Google it! Ask another writer. Read blog posts about it. But for the love of all things holy or otherwise, don’t spam your book in a welcome message or blanket your stream or Facebook in spam. It’s unprofessional and you will actually repel potential readers.

GENRE

Read the guidelines. Book bloggers and reviews are very specific in what they review and they post their review guidelines right on their blog and sometimes, even in their Twitter or Facebook bio. It’s there for you to read and pay attention to. Why waste your time (and theirs) asking people to review your book who don’t review your genre?

Be selective. I get several requests daily to read and review someone’s book, and I’m not even a reviewer! I don’t review books; I’m not a book blogger. So, why is this happening? It’s not that I don’t appreciate it and I’m honored people give a darn about me at all, but there are thousands and thousands of book bloggers and reviewers who do this professionally. Why are you wasting your time on people like me who don’t?

Want a vetted book review/book blogger site? Check out BookBloggerList.com. It’s broken out by genre. Easy.

Hope you find these tips helpful. Any questions or experiences, please share below.

Book Marketing

Does An Author Need A Blog? Yes!

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vectorstock_77220 — Photo purchased from Vectorstock.com

I wrote about why I think NOT blogging is stupid recently and I received quite a bit of feedback on this article: primarily that many authors just don’t see how blogging has anything at all to do with writing books.

I don’t normally write about ‘writing,’ for the main reason that I want to help people focus on the sales and marketing aspect of their platform. However, in this case, I want to focus on why I feel blogging makes us better writers.

WRITING

I have two websites: RachelintheOC.com is my author site, and BadRedheadMedia.com, which is my business site. I write posts for each site at minimum twice per week. I do this for a few reasons…

1) Topics. As a working author, social media and marketing consultant, and someone who’s always researching because I’m a nerd and that makes me happy, I’ve always got ten or twelve blog ideas in my pocket. Because I’m not the only working author out there, I write about topics that interest me but also my blog readers.

2) Habit/Discipline. As I mention above, when you do something regularly, you exercise certain muscles. Writing is no different. Most of us have a WIP but need an occasional break from it. Or perhaps your blog will become your book at some point.

Blogging is a wonderful way to write editorial content, express an opinion, try out a new genre, share an excerpt, find betareaders…honestly, why would you NOT want to blog!

3) Reader base. Many of my original readers came not only from social media but also from my blogs. Blogs give you an opportunity to add to your level of visibility and exposure, as well as interact with readers on a much deeper, more personal level.

TECH

Even if you know next to nothing about tech, you can set up a Blogger or Tumbler in a matter of minutes and start blogging. It may not be amazing, but who cares? Just get started.

Once you’re gotten used to the process, I recommend upgrading to WordPress.org (self-hosted) and do what I did: purchase WordPress for Dummies, decide even that is too difficult, and hire someone awesome to coach you and help you set it up (I recommend Bakerview Consulting’s Barb Drozdowich. She’s reasonably priced and knows more about WordPress – specifically optimization for authors — than anyone I know.)

YOUR VOICE

I believe blogging teaches authors how to write quickly, provide fresh, new content, and how to interact with fan/potential book buyers. Most importantly however, is that we develop our voice. There’s no way to discount the benefit that regular writing helps you create your style.

Many of the naysayers on social media, who tell me they ‘can’t possibly blog because of their writing schedule,’ tend to also complain that they’re selling few books.

I’m not saying you can correlate a blog with guaranteed sales. What I am saying is that being a blogging author teaches you time management, creates visibility opportunities for your work, and helps you to build another important plank – and potentially, sales channel – of your marketing platform.

What are your thoughts and experiences? Please share below!

Book Marketing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: I Wrote a Book

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Author writes press release and needlessly distributes it globally

The glorious press release! Bastion of a legacy system of promotion that was (nearly) entirely dependent on the print media. Yet, we still use this antiquated system, complete with the strictly adhered to format. I am not going to go into that format here, there is a good description here on PRLog (which coincidentally has a free and paid release distribution service).

How do you know when to use this medium, and when to ignore it?

In point of fact, the answer is quite simple – deceptively so. You only put out a press release if you have something genuinely newsworthy to say. Re-read that a couple of times before we move on to what that means.

The fact that you have written a book is not newsworthy. I know it seems like it should be – it was a lot of work, and is a huge accomplishment! It is certainly newsworthy to your friends and family, but presumably they already know. So, I implore you; do not ever put out a press release with a headline that reads something like, “AUTHOR PUBLISHES SECOND BOOK”.

“But Katherine”, you say, “I have seen this done, I know it is done.” There was a time when publishing a book was a rare and noteworthy thing, so yes, this was done. It probably is still done by folks who are in the habit of doing so or who merely do not know any better. I can assure you, it does not sell books.

**Note – The exception to the rule above (there are exceptions to every rule) is when you are pitching to a local publication (or blog). Your small town media may in fact care that you have published a book, as that makes you somewhat of a celebrity compared to many.

Some clues to help you identify a newsworthy event or article you can relate back to your book:

Does your book tie-in, in some way, to a hot topic in the news – war, financial strife, etc?
Did you have to do something remarkable in order to write the book?
Does the book have a relation to some event taking place in the near future?
Are you, or is the topic of the book, a famous person?
Does the book benefit a cause or charity (bonus if that cause or charity is already in the news)?
Do you mention a historic event for which there is an upcoming anniversary?

Here is where I think people in the book business can get confused; you do not need a press release in order to pitch your book to reviewers, bloggers, or most online media sources. You do need to know why they should feature you. If they are a book review site, you will ask them for a book review, of course. This does not require a press release. It does require that you have your ducks in a row with respect to knowing why they should be interested in your book. This means you research their website, and try to give them something useful. The internet is all about reciprocity, after all. They need content, you have content, so tell them why they want your content specifically.

If you do decide to put out a press release, you have two choices in how to get it picked up. 1) Do a lot of homework, and find the names and email addresses of the media you wish to pitch (or purchase a list of contacts from a reliable list vendor) or 2) Use a free or paid distribution service (such as PRLog which I mention above).

Disagree with me or need clarification? Comment below and I will be happy to discuss!

Book Marketing

How to promote a book

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If you are looking for a great way to promote your book for free, get involved in the social networks. And we mean INVOLVED, don’t just sign up for an account and leave it at that. They are a free way to connect others with you and your book and there’s a ton of them out there. As a general rule, if you are wondering which social networks you should use to create an online presence for yourself, the answer is: use them all. Just recognize that how you use the medium and the way you communicate with others may vary from site to site and be prepared and organized so you can stay on top of them. To get started, make a list of all the online sites you are currently a member of – and not just Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., it could be a blog, your own website, or a forum where you have a profile and link. Then sign up for some new ones to increase your online presence.

If you don’t have a book yet, there has never been a better time to self publish and get your work out there.

If you want to self publish a book and want exceptional service, visit www.lulu.com to learn more about what they can do for you.

Book Marketing

Guest Post: Top 6 Lessons From BookExpo America You Need To Know NOW

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Today, BookPromotion.com would like to welcome Rachel from Bad RedHead Media with an awesome recap of the crazy flurry of activity that was BEA last week. Rachel is not only a great writer, but is smart about social media. I definitely think you should get her working on book stuff for you right away, and you’ll find all of her contact info below to go over there, start following her, and engage her services right now if not sooner.

Take it away, Rachel!

After attending BEA12 last week, I came away with a head for knowledge and a bod for…

Wait a minute. I’m not Melanie Griffith and this isn’t Working Girl (and I’m clearly not a tall, leggy blonde).

But wait. I AM a working girl, and I went to BEA12 to learn stuff. Which I did. Stuff that applies to my work as a published author and blogger, and stuff that applies to my work as a social media consultant.

If you’re any of those things, also, here’s the stuff that applies to you:

1) Where’s The Digital? Publishing is still very much stuck in the traditional model. This is probably no surprise to anyone, but many of us at BEA12 felt that digital would have more of an impact on how they ran things.

For example, the book signings were still long lines of people waiting to have the author sign their book. Their paperback book. While the amazing app Autography LLC (and I applaud them and encourage all authors and publishers to check them out) was there holding digital signings for eBooks, it was infinitesimal compared to paper.

This makes no sense to me. Why can’t I simply scan a QR or barcode to download the book? Take a pic with the author and have it sent to my iPhone/Kindle/iPad? People were walking around with suitcases filled with
books.

What is this…2012?

People buy eBooks because it’s convenient and less expensive than paper, not to mention greener. No eBook? You are missing out on sales.

2) Discoverability and Authenticity: Many of the panel discussions were about discoverability. Meaning, how can we as authors best show people where to find us? Of course, social media is key.

The second component of that is authenticity – are you employing a one-way only, automated, broadcast model to your social media? It shows.

But it’s more than just being on a bunch of different channels. It’s the buzz you create that makes you discoverable. Think beyond self-promotion in a traditional sense. Blogging, reviews, interviews, guest blogging, YouTube along with your social media – it all goes into the mix.

Readers want to interact with authors. Find out about us. Learn what inspired us to write our story. This is how you can best use social media. What I teach my clients and recommend in my own posts is to engage with people. What does that mean to you?

I’ve thrown out a lot of terms here but it’s not rocket science: a vibrant social media platform takes work yet clearly pays off.

3) Branding: No matter if you’re indie or traditional, you need to embrace branding and understand how that applies to you and your book. Crazy stuff like SEO, metadata, Google ranking – all depend on it. Even if you don’t understand what that means or how all that fits together, you will. You have to know who you are so your readers will know how to discover you (see how this all works?).

Choose your keywords; focus your message around them. This is still you being your authentic self, just more focused.

As an example, I write nonfiction essays about men, women, love, relationships, sex, and loss. I’m a humorist. I’m a social media consultant. I also love coffee, Nutella and vodka martinis. This is what you will see in my blogs, Facebook messages, tweets, Pinterest, Instagram and on and on.

As I’m transitioning into more serious subjects for my third book, Broken Pieces (due late summer), I’ve started sharing more personal stories of love and loss, as well as hosting guests who do the same.

4) Promote others: The days of pure self-promotion are gone (were they ever truly here?). People are tired of being spammed on Twitter and Facebook, not to mention email, with links to cheap or free books. This does not make you unique. It just makes you annoying.

Simply spamming your book links over and over is not only against Twitter’s TOS (terms of service) regarding spamming (tweets should be primarily personal updates), but can create backlash and blocking.

This goes back to knowing your demographic: where are your readers? If you mostly follow and are followed by other authors – and are constantly linking to your book in your tweets and messages — aren’t you kinda wasting your
(and our) time?

Which isn’t to say the author/writing community isn’t amazing and supportive of each other. We are. Promoting other authors, small businesses, info or resources … whatever – this helps you create a viable feed. Otherwise,
just automate your self-promo links and be done with it.

5) Amazon: I’m a fan. As a reader, they’ve got it down. As an author, they have built the better mousetrap.

I’m a fan of KDP Select. I’m an advocate of Amazon, digital, eBooks, Kindle – it’s been great for my career. To date, I’ve sold over 14,000 books with over 85K free downloads to date. According to Kindle Nation Daily, anywhere from 3-5K books go free everyday.

Everyday.

How do we differentiate ourselves?

I was fortunate enough to hear Lori Culwell speak about book marketing. Follow her. She’s a genius. (Side note: Awwww, thanks Rachel!) I’ve downloaded her book How to Market A Book and it’s an excellent guide for anyone, newbie or not.

Doesn’t matter if you’re for or against Amazon’s model – they are amazon.

6) Indie vs. Traditional: I listened to a panel of young publishing interns who referred to Indie (or self) as ‘the slush pile.’ They see big futures for themselves in traditional publishing and that’s great.

I’m not so sure.

Not because they’re not well-educated, young and bright. Not at all. It’s that publishing is changing radically, and to dismiss quality writing as slush is almost embarrassing. I actually cringed a bit as I heard them spout decades-
old values.

What’s missing? I, like many of my fellow indie authors, are making decent bank. We’ve worked hard to put out quality product, using professionals: editors, proofreaders, formatters, graphic artists. Agents shop Twitter for us.

When I read recently (on a literary blog) that indies are simply publishing their shopping lists and calling it a book, I wasn’t surprised.

Disappointed, but not surprised.

Whatever your stance, know this: self-publishing is here to stay. There’s a right way and a wrong way, but it’s still a way. Do your best! There’s no way to have a bestseller if your product is sub-par.

That covers the main messages I gleaned from my experience. I wish I could’ve been in two places at once: BlogWorld was happening at the same time. Maybe next year…

Did you attend? What are your takeaways? What have I missed? I look forward to your comments below!

RachelintheOC

Rachel Thompson aka RachelintheOC is a published author and social media consultant. Her two books, A Walk In The Snark and The Mancode: Exposed are both #1 Kindle bestsellers! When not writing, she helps authors and other professionals with branding and social media for her company, BadRedhead Media. She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. Buy Now : A Walk in the Snark * Mancode: Exposed

Review: Turning Pro (Steven Pressfield)

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A few weeks ago I read Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield, who also happens to be my new BFF who I had the pleasure of having breakfast with last week (more on that later, believe me). One of the things I like most about this book is that Pressfield doesn’t soft-pedal his advice at all: basically, he’s the honeybadger of writing coaches: Ohh, are you whining about how you have writer’s block and how ‘the muse’ hasn’t visited you lately? Much like the honeybadger, Steven Pressfield doesn’t give a f%^k. He wants you to get off that couch and get your writing done. He wants you to take yourself seriously as a writer/ artist, and I agree. In fact, I will take it one step further and say that I think you should take yourself seriously as a writer, write a book (or five), then get serious about yourself as a business-person and start getting yourself out there in a big way. To me, “Turning Pro” is a swift kick in the ass for people who are making excuses and waiting for someone (like an agent or a publisher) to give them permission to keep writing.

This really resonates with me because, come hell or high water, I write and I get my stuff out there. I work hard, I am generous with advice, and I will always help someone in need (case in point, almost every day I get requests from writers/ creative types to tell them what to do to fix their websites, or to sell more books, or to get more people to their websites (this is always contextual, but I try to always answer the questions to the best of my ability).

Pressfield has a great passage in this book about WWI soldiers shooting themselves in the foot when it came time to go to battle, because the pain of shooting yourself is (mentally, at least) less painful than having to go and fight whatever might be over that next hill. Here’s an excerpt:

“The habits and addictions of the amateur are conscious or unconscious self-inflicted wounds. Their payoff is incapacity. When we take our M1903 Springfield and blow a hole in our foot, we no longer have to face the real fight of our lives, which is to become who we are and to realize our destiny and calling.”

I totally agree, and I will say as a witness, this kind of shooting yourself in the foot doesn’t end even when you have finally turned pro, become a writer, and finished your book. It is AMAZING to me, and I mean AMAZING at how little of my advice people actually follow (and I am including advice that they seek me out and pay for), and how little authors/ creative types are willing to actively engage in their own success, whether this means putting themselves on a regular writing schedule, or fixing broken links on their website, or even taking a single first step toward putting their digital profile in order (or, as I would call it “Turning Pro 2.0,” in which I tell you: You’ve written a book (or five)? Good for you. Now you need to pull your website together, get on social media, and let people know about your work.) That is how book marketing works in the brave new world of the internet: no one will know about you unless you tell them, but if you spend too much time telling them, then you are not doing the work.

So, in short, I totally think you should read this book, and then get back to work on your book, then read my book, set up a website and start marketing that book. Pull it together! No one’s going to take you seriously until you do that yourself.

Seriously. Pull it together. Read it, live it, and then read my book, out there and turn pro with your marketing, because (as my BFF Steven Pressfield and I can both attest), that writing career isn’t going to make itself.

Oh, and while you’re at it, I totally think you should watch this hilarious interview that Steve did with Chris Brogan.

Book Marketing

Interview with Jerry G. Davis, author/ photographer

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Q: Nice job on your website! Were you always this organized, or has it evolved over the years?

A: I would have to say it evolved in the truest sense of the word. I kept trying things to see what worked, what didn’t, and ended up where I’m at now … and then come to find out I’m now doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. But it was all trial and error for me.

Q: Who made your website? How many iterations is this for you?

A: I make all my own websites — that’s become my day job — and I would have to say this is probably iteration 15, if not 20. I’ve lost count. To give you a timeline, my first website was on Geocities, so that was back in the mid 90’s. For several years the biggest draw to my website was a live webcam aimed at me while I wrote, the infamous “WriterCam” … that was me. After that became passe, I moved on to blogging (I was on Blogger before Google bought it) and from there transitioned to self-hosted WordPress websites. I hope this isn’t scaring anyone away — WordPress is easy. It lets you focus on content, so you don’t have to speak HTML or JAVA or anything like that. It’s more like writing. Type type, click, boom, updated.

Q: Can you tell us a little about your success/ track record as an author? Have you found that having this awesome website/ social media presence has helped your sales?

A: My sales are on a nice steady climb since I figured out the winning combination. Not a steep climb, mind you, but a steady one. And my ebooks seem to be doing far better than my one traditionally published novel.

Q: Can you give some examples of how you balance your time, meaning how much time per day do you spend actually writing vs. website/ marketing activities?

A: In an ideal world, I would spend 50% of my time creating, the other 50% marketing. And marketing includes just talking to people and having fun. Really, the creative aspect of the marketing is starting to blend in more and more with the creative aspect of writing. In reality I spend 30% of my time writing, 30% marketing, and 40% being distracted by shiny objects.

Q: Any other pieces of insight you can share with authors who are just setting up their networks/ getting their stuff out there? Any “lessons learned” moments, or sneaky tips you can share?

A: The best lesson I’ve learned so far is how to not feel awkward about marketing myself. People confuse marketing with selling, or being a salesman, and in that I mean being a stereotypical salesman. You know, the kind who try to sell you a junky used car or a timeshare you’ll never use. That’s not marketing — forget that image, divorce yourself from it. That’s not how you market or sell your books, and if it were, YES, it would be very awkward. Instead, just find people who you like, reach out to them, interact with them, make friends, and mention your book(s) when appropriate. Put the fact that you write books in the background, visible but not in their face — easy to find if someone is interested. And when you start making all these friends, who will turn out to be pretty much like-minded, they will naturally be interested in your books. That’s all marketing is, making sure people can find your books, and then putting yourself in situations where people will be interested in looking for them. When they find them, make sure they’re easy to buy, and make sure they’re easy for readers to show their friends. There’s nothing awkward about that at all. You’re not pushing, you making things easy.

Book Marketing

Facebook Increases Friend Limit– This Does Not Give You an Invitation to Market There

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I recently noticed and maybe you have as well (or maybe not, if you don’t pay attention to stuff like this), Facebook seems to be lifting their limitation on the number of “friends” one person can have on a profile.

In case you’re still confused about “Facebook Profile” vs. “Facebook Fan Page,” here is a handy guide from Facebook themselves.
Here’s how to tell the difference: you’ll know you have a Facebook Profile (meant for personal use) if: someone has to friend request you (and you have to approve it) for you to be connected.
A Facebook Profile (and in fact, MY Facebook profile) looks like this:

This is where I go to interact with my friends and post pictures of weird food, and that picture at the top is of Stephan vogueing in a forest. In fact, I do not want you to friend request me unless I know you in person (no offense!). I am actively trying to pare down my Facebook friends list to return it to consisting of “people I actually know,” so I have been unfriending people like crazy this year, at the rate of one or two per day. Mostly this consists of “people I only know inadvertently through other people” or “people who friended me for marketing purposes or to ask me about writing,” and again, I am sorry– I am trying to set a good example for those authors I lecture in my book on this subject, and have non-friend types just go over and follow my Facebook Fan Page. Facebook gets a little too confusing for me when I read through my news feed, because my brain tries to actually contextualize each person and what they are saying as soon as I see their name, and I think this is draining my brain’s battery life. In an effort to streamline, I am cutting down the list, and I would encourage you to do the same!

While we are on the subject of Facebook Fan Pages, I will tell you that a Facebook Fan Page looks like this:

This is where you should go to see me talking about internet and book stuff. https://facebook.com/LoriCulwellAuthor

On a Facebook Fan Page, there is no limit (and never has been) to the number of fans you can have. Some people (like Lady Gaga) have millions. In a Facebook Fan Page, all a fan has to do is “Like” the page.

Frankly, I’m not sure why Facebook has chosen to lift the “5,000 friend” limit, and if I were a person with more than 5,000 friends, this would make me nervous. Lifting the limit only encourages people who are blatantly disregarding Facebook’s Terms of Service, which state (I’m not a lawyer, so don’t quote me) that you can’t “friend” people you don’t know in order to sell them things, and why else would you friend people you didn’t know, especially in numbers that large?

I’m half-suspecting that this is a trap set by Facebook to catch blatant marketers, to see who will notice the limit lift and use it as an excuse to friend thousands of people, which Facebook can then use as grounds to ban them. This would not surprise me, and in fact, I have gone back and forth on numerous occasions with Facebook on behalf of people who were, for instance, using a Facebook profile as a business, only to find one day that Facebook had taken away not only their profile, but all of their friends with it. Don’t let this happen to you!

At any rate, just because you CAN have more Facebook friends doesn’t mean you should. This might be a glitch, it might be a trap, or it might be a reminder that you need to either turn your overstuffed Facebook profile into a Fan Page, or that you have something you want to sell, so you should get around to starting up a Fan Page and ask your friends to “Like” it.

Whatever the reason, please do not take this as an excuse to friend a thousand people for marketing purposes, or to continue using a personal profile as a business. Facebook doesn’t want to turn into MySpace, and eventually they are going to crack down on people who are doing this. Remember, Facebook is a business, they want to make money, and part of their business model is to make it so that you have to pay for Facebook Ads to build up the audience to your Facebook Fan Page. They’re not going to just suddenly let you have 10,000 friends with no consequences. I think this is a trap Facebook is setting for “over-marketers,” meaning people with low/ no budget to run ads who traditionally would go into the system, friend thousands of people, and then spam them with links/ things they are trying to promote or sell. I predict that we will start to see people who do that get their accounts taken away. Just my opinion.

Watch your step!

Book Marketing

I am a writer, not an advertising exec, so why should I care about how to promote my book?

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Yes, after you have finished the daunting task of completing your book – or perhaps while you are still in the midst of the daunting task of completing your book – it seems crazy to think about the prospect of taking on yet another daunting task. But whether you are self-publishing or have landed your book with a big publisher, you have a lot to gain by jumping into the promotion process with gusto. It is after all YOUR book and you want to do everything possible to get it out there to the people, right? Even if you have hired someone or some company to help, it’s still a good idea to be involved in the process. You don’t have to work on Madison Avenue or be a cast member of Mad Men to understand how marketing works. If you need a place to start, our do-it-yourself guide to book marketing, “How to Market a Book!” can help. Check it out and you will find very quickly that marketing does not have to be a scary part of the publishing process, and (believe it or not) it can actually be enjoyable.