My experiences with Hootsuite by David Lowbridge

So like any published author my main problem is getting my name out there. To combat that the internet has given us dozens of social media platforms in which we can use to engage our audience and find new readers. The only problem is time. If you are like me you have a Facebook account (with two main pages), twitter, linkedin, blog, Google+ and a couple of others. If I had a major update that is a lot to manage. There is also the point that throughout those mediums I have collected a number of contacts who I regularly like to keep in contact. But logging in and out of all those providers is time consuming.

Part of the problem is the user friendliness of some of those programs. For example in twitter on the main page I can see a small box where I can input a tweet and a queue of tweets others and I have sent out recently. But if I want to know who has retweeted my own messages or sent me a message then I have to look at another page.

The average user has about 208 following them and follows about 102; however about 74% of all twitter users have 50 or less. The average user tweets about 2 messages per day. These stats don’t look too bad. However if you look at my following list, a vast majority of them have over that 50 following number and can be well into the hundreds and sometimes thousands. They are also active people who can send ten or more tweets in a day. We are looking at thousands of tweets entering my stream every single day.

Even posting my messages is a little hard. I like to put out a lot of helpful and informative articles for other readers and writers. However with no facility to spread them out across the day I have had to go on and do what I call a twitter blast. That is where I go online and write six to ten tweets and blast them in a space of thirty minutes. For a starters it is not a good policy, it makes it look like you are bot to someone who doesn’t know you and secondly with so many people posting; your messages only have a short time to be noticed. If I looked for tweets with the #amreading hashtag; there have been 38 tweets in the past hour (and it is 6 am in the morning at time of writing), if that is the average, that’s 912 tweets per day. My twitter blasts won’t reach many people in that crowd.

Sometimes I want some messages to go across multiple platforms. Twitter allows you to post your tweets automatically on Facebook, but the problem is it is an all or nothing deal. I cannot select certain messages to go to my Facebook wall, which is very frustrating

Then if we move to Facebook. I have two pages, one for my writing and one for my reviewing (which is no longer a solo run entity); plus there is my general profile page. If I want to update all three I have to do it separately, which takes a long time even if I am copying and pasting.

All of this over the past month or so has created a big black hole in my time that I can do what matters most for writers: write.

I needed something that allowed me to couple of things.

1.       Manage multiple accounts from one location

2.       Select which messages are post to each platform

3.       Spread out my messages so that I can get maximum exposure.

Luckily there is a number of solutions and Hootsuite is one of them.

Hootsuite is like having a marketing manager to help you out. It compiles all the information into one manageable (and customizable) page for each social platform, making it easy to see what has been said, what you have said, who has mentioned you and more importantly what you are going to say.

The greatest asset that Hootsuite has is scheduling messages, there is even a facility where it will post the message dependent on when Hootsuite thinks it will get the most exposure. For every message you send out you get to select which platforms the message gets sent to, with every message able to be sent to multiple platforms in one go, saving time on that pesky copy and pasting.

Hootsuite is not perfect. Facebook pages count as a single platform and when you only have five with the free account, then half of my platforms are taken up by just Facebook. Add my twitter account and I have lost 4/5 of my platforms. When you may only want to add in one or two more platforms, $9.99 a month is just too expensive. Also in twitter ‘streams’ I cannot see those who have simply added my message to their favourites list nor can I see when I have a new follower. However I do get to see my Klout score which is fairly useful.

But even with those minor negatives, Hootsuite is such a useful tool for authors and will continue to use it.

Update - New Schedule for The Indie Ebook Review Site

So for those of you who haven’t been keeping up, we have a new staff member – Jess Mountifield. She is an excellent reviewer and she has already done such a wonderful job on revitalizing the facebook page. We would still like another reviewer or two to join the team in order to help us reach our goal of being a blog dedicated to quality content. So if you fancy being a reviewer on a site then please have a look at the staff page for more information including what the role entitles and what benefits there are..

We’ve put in a lot of thought this weekend just been and decided that the site needs some changes in the schedule. So from next week we will have a new schedule:

Mondays – Cover Spotlight – show off the cover of your book and write a little about it. This can be an upcoming release or an old backlist book.

Tuesday – Author Tales – Tell us something about your writing career thus far. It could be an overview of the whole career or a good event that has stuck in your mind.

Wednesday  - Excerpt - show off your work with an excerpt and a little bit of how it inspired you.

Thursday – Market Madness – Do you think you could sell us your book in 20 words? Have a go. 5 authors get the chance each week.

Friday – Review day – This is the day when new reviews will be posted.

You can participate in any of these days and as many times as you like as long as it is new content.

It is important that you really do consider these opportunities. Our average page views per day has steadily increased month on month so now is a good time to get involved. Guest posts can work like a charm.  I’ve had authors who have told me after their feature has been posted that they have seen a boost in sales. So what are you waiting for? To book a spot please contact me by sending us an e-mail and join us on our facebook page.

Conversing with the British Library

As we all know in the self-publishing world physical copies of our work are really a vanity side of our hard labour. We are not likely to sell many paperbacks, with some authors selling 100 e-books for every paperback sale. That isn’t a lot. But despite the dismal sales of paperbacks, if you sell in the UK you are required to submit a free copy to the British Library for their records, called the Legal Deposit. This is a legal requirement. Or is it?

For starters let me explain what happened. I was reviewing my proof of my new release “Ghost Haunts” when someone reminded me of my legal obligation. And when I say reminded, I mean informed. I immediately went into detective mode to find out exactly what I had to do, when I found something interesting.

The legal requirement comes from the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. The act is fairly straightforward, but it is the wording in the act that got me thinking.

For instance the wording says it is the legal requirement for the publisher and distributor to provide the copy – not the author. Some people may think what is the difference with a self publishing author? But I got my ISBN from Createspace and the ISBN labels them as the publisher, not me. Also Createspace act as the distributor. So technically, under the legal description in these circumstances, I was not obliged to provide a copy to the British Library.

But I wasn’t content with my own reading of the act – I needed more information. So where did I go? Where else but the British Library deposit team!

So I called them and spoke to a very nice lady who said that it is indeed a very grey area and she wasn’t entirely sure, so she would call me back after speaking with her manager.

Within thirty minutes her manager called me back. She was also very nice and this is where I got some very interesting information. After explaining the situation and said I was unsure on whose responsibility it was to provide a copy. She stated it was a legal requirement to provide a copy within 1 month of publication to the British library and a copy each to the other five institutions that keep copies; within 1 year. That’s six copies! But, she relented and said that as the ISBN was provided by Createspace and they were technically the publisher on record, and they were also the only ones distributing – I was not required to provide a copy. And neither was Createspace as they are an American based company.

They were a little disappointed and said that they would still really like a copy of my book if I would be willing to provide it. So, feeling slightly sorry for them I spoke to them about the benefits of being part of the records. And to be honest it isn’t a great deal. Essentially if you place your book in the archive anyone can go in and read your book (but not borrow it) and some bookstores use the catalogue they compile from the records to order copies.

But then came the bombshell I was not expecting. The legislation is changing as of...

6^th April 2013!

That’s right; it’s not long until the legal requirement for authors publishing in the UK changes. And this one, in my opinion, is big!

From the 6^th of April, all books sold in the UK, whether digital, physical or both will have to be deposited with the British Library by the publisher. Now you may assume that makes no difference, but technically in e-book form, I am the publisher – not Amazon. So I would have to submit my book for the British Library records. But when I asked for more details about this, the manager couldn’t help me any further saying there has been a new department set up to handle this and she had no idea about it. So I thanked her and took a breather.

Then I searched the internet for the number for the other department. I found it pretty easy, and immediately gave them a call. There I spoke to a nice gentleman who was one of the team implementing and managing the new digital archive.

From my conversation with him I could ascertain a number of things. Firstly the legislation will take effect from the 6^th April 2013. After that date the preferred (notice the term preferred) method of submission to the Legal Deposit will be digital copies of any e-book that is sold in the UK for small to medium publishers; that includes self publishers, but not anyone who traditionally publishes with a large publisher. Much in the way which the copy is used will stay the same. The method of delivery will be done by an online portal (easier submission for authors and less costly) which they were just testing when I phoned.

I was also able to learn that a similar scheme was used in New Zealand, where it worked well. However traffic was apparently low.

At the end of the conversation I thanked the gentleman nicely for his information and hung up the phone realising that in a few short days – I will be obliged to provide a digital copy of my book.

What are your thoughts on the changes?

Of course my conversations with these individuals should not considered legal advice and you should gain your own in these matters. I am merely providing a summary of my conversations today. I have not mentioned any names as neither provided permission for me to share them (although both were informed I would write a blog post on this) – for the record I didn’t ask them for permission.

Three Author Promotion Websites to Look out for

We all know that marketing is one of the problems in which most authors, whether traditionally or self published, struggle with. What works for some authors, doesn’t seem to have any positive effects for another which makes it tough for authors to decide what avenues to pour their valuable time into. Add on to all the existing methods, new websites for promoting author’s hard work are opening all the time. Some will say that this can only benefit authors, but readers only have a limited number of hours per day to read. With limited time and readers divided between numerous sites, spending your time on the right site is so very important.

So what I wanted to do was to introduce three up and coming sites in which authors may not know of, but in my mind may help the author out in the future to gain valuable reader’s time. What’s great about these sites; they don’t care if you are a best seller, they are there to promote you.

AUTHORSdB.com

A lot of authors will probably know of this website, but in my mind it is still growing and is nowhere near the size of Goodreads or other social media – yet.

Authors Database is a huge database of authors from just about every genre. The author can create and edit a listing of their own and that listing can contain just about anything you could want to know about them. A personal bio, websites, blogs, facebook, twitter, linkedin, Goodreads, Google+ and a list of your books with a choice of their reviews really gives authors the chance to show off their best and connect with readers. But authors have the option of adding multiple media including photos and videos which can really set up a unique listing that can catch the reader’s attention.

Every week the website does a list of featured authors that are randomly selected and a special Author Spotlight which again is randomly selected; thus giving authors a chance of precious exposure to readers at any time. However with so many authors on the list, feature time will probably be few and far between. Yet the biggest advantage of the website is the number of links that it adds to your social media, making it easier for readers to find you when they are doing an internet search for your name. If you are pretty good at meta data this site could be gold for you.

The power of this website has certainly been demonstrated to me. When I recently added myself to their listed almost 10% of my blog traffic came from this website.

The Electronic Text and Literary Cloud

This is a very young site and is still in the beta stages at the moment, yet it could be a great asset for authors to list their books and readers to find their next great read. When I contacted the eTLC about doing this feature they sent me this blurb for their website.

The Electronic Text and Literature Cloud (eTLC) was established to help readers discover Indie authors. The majority of writing on this cloud is available in a digitalized format, which provides Indies with a viable medium to post their work. Our focus is self-published material since we believe it remains closer to the "vision" of the writer than work reshaped by publishers with "elusive" marketing goals. 

Currently, 325 works are posted on eTLC.  Fiction and nonfiction titles are separated into eighteen categories.  In addition to novel-length works, we welcome short stories and poetry.  All postings include cover art, product descriptions, and links to bookstores.  Most postings include links to the websites and/or the social-networking sites of the authors, and one or more book reviews.  In addition, more than half of the listings include sample chapters.

With the scope of information, the addition of sample chapters and good connectivity to your books across all sale platforms and to your own blogs, this site has the potential to develop into a good catalog for readers to use.

Bublish

As regular readers will know; I’ve done a couple of blog posts on Bublish. One was way back in September 2012 the other was in February when I went through their bubble creation process. I won’t go over those points again. This time I come back to view how I think it has done on my exposure. Well to be honest, I know my name has been thrown out a few times by the Bublish team that has gained me huge exposure. Each week Bublish tweets a line from my bubbles with links back to the excerpt and once a week I can find myself on their floating bookstore. That on its own is a great way to gain exposure.

However Bublish do weekly author interviews on twitter, something which I have not yet participated in, but have watched /read several of them and on a Friday they do a surprise feature on one of their authors. Both of these events are great for authors to interact with their readers – which is key for authors to gain a good fan base.

When you combine all the efforts that they do to promote you and the fact that they are only in their beta stages, Bublish has the potential to grow your fan base exponentially if used right by the author. For readers this is great for finding the next great author. Not only do you get to "try before you buy" but they can interact with the authors that has been rare before.

Do you have any other sites that are good for finding a good author? Have you got any experience with these sites? Leave your comments below.

Why Free E-book Readers Shouldn’t be Feared by Authors Excerpt

A second guest post done by me today:

A few months ago I read an article about the cheapestE-reader to enter the market. At the time many articles were flying around like this, and the news was strife on author facebook groups. What astonished me was the sheer number of authors opposed to this. I for one welcome the idea for consumers to gain access to free e-readers. For those who think I am crazy I implore those of you to keep reading in order to see why I am suggesting this.

We all know that there are three styles of books; hardcover, paperback or digital. Hardbacks are the most expensive ((AU)$30) while digital are generally the cheapest((AU)$15). However a kindle can be a significant investment at about (AU)$119. I’ve heard of some people complain that a kindle can only last about a year, however I’ll assume that it lasts for about 2 years. That means without buying any books, an e-reader costs approximately (AU)$60 a year; the value of two to three physical books.

Full article here

The Author's Guide to SMART excerpt by D J Lowbridge

Latest guest post by David Lowbridge over on Novel Publicity.

When I talk about being SMART, I am not talking about the actual intelligence of an author. I am talking about the acumen SMART (Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely). Some people would like to think when they write that they will accomplish great goals set in their head: to be a bestseller or to create a kick-ass book. But in reality are either of those targets useful?

What is a kick-ass book; one that you like or your family likes or 100 million readers like? What about being a bestseller—where is the line that divides a mid-list or not-even-on-the-list author from the bestseller? Neither of those goals have defining, measurable borders. And when would you like to complete those tasks by: Christmas, next Christmas, your 100th birthday?

By setting goals with the following criteria you’ll be able to create better, more realistic goals for both your writing and any marketing you would like to do.

Full article here

Apologies and an Update for Bublish

First off an apology.

I must give my most sincere apology to readers for the lack of time I have been on recently. However this has not been by choice. For any of my closest friends and readers will know I have been ill recently. And what started as a suspected severe tonsillitis in early December turned into me collapsing in a hospital from septic shock a few weeks later. To cut the story short; I have not fully recovered yet and am due to have an operation in a couple of weeks to remove the problem tonsils that are still infected.

I am sorry that this has had such a bad effect on my blog posting. But as I am slowly trying to get back into the swing of things I’ve had to limit what I’ve done and how often. And blog posting although important, isn’t as critical as my own writing for me as an author.

I am also afraid this will continue for a few more weeks as I have an operation coming up in order to solve the problem once and for all. So I apologise for all delays in my reviewing and posting, but rest assured once I am back in full health I will be back with tonnes of review, guests and marketing insights.

Now on with the post!

Way back in September I reviewed the new marketing site: Bublish. Bublish is a new concept for authors and readers to connect through the love of books. The idea is fairly simple; authors share excerpts from their book, can talk a little about it and then share it over the social media world. Readers get to read excerpts and can share them across their social contacts and even buy the book through the bubble’s affiliation link. I gave the site a mainly positive review and promised myself that when my first book was ready it would be one of the first things I would try.

Now several months on I can fulfill that promise. Sound the trumpets as I have bublished!

Initial thoughts on the process are very positive. It is a simple manner of uploading your book to their site and then choosing a section to showcase and talk about. It is really as simple as that.

Some people may struggle if they don’t have an epub version and they aren’t confident enough with technology or Calibre. But as Bublish only accept this format and reviewers may only accept this format; it is a valuable skill for authors to learn.

Another thing that authors may find difficult is what to write about their excerpts. Writing about what motivates you during writing is a good start. But other ideas are adding in something about other people’s thoughts or comparison’s the real world.

What I have found from reading other people’s bubbles is that a few are having the same problem. There are a couple “Like this? Buy my book for more” bubbles. Which are unfortunately not enticing enough for me to click through. The whole point of the exercise is to add the author’s voice and interact with the reader. So why not do something interesting with your bubble? Readers hate sale pitches.

And when I got the chance to talk to Kathy Meis one of the founders of the site; I asked her what is the secret to writing a good bubble.

“...for creating a great book bubble, the secret sauce is really in the Author Insight. This is where the author has the opportunity to tell the story behind the story. It's what will make their excerpt "pop" for potential new readers. Some bublishers only use the Author Insight to set the scene for their excerpt. This is fine, but it really is a missed opportunity to add something special to the excerpt...to tell the author's "why." Think of it as a director's cut in a movie clip.”

Of course there is nothing completely simple in the marketing world. And I did come across a couple of problems. The first was when I uploaded my book; it for some reason came up labelled as “Ghost Haunts Master” and not “Ghost Haunts”. This was probably my fault; the file that I converted on Calibre was not called “Ghost Haunts Master” at the time, but it had been in the past. Also when I came to publish my bubble I found it difficult to just publish it as the button didn’t seem to do anything. However the latter was easily rectified by sharing it on twitter or facebook. Which was the next logical step anyway.

The first however was something that I could sort myself. Instead I had to ask support. And this is where Bublish really shine. Sending a support e-mail normally means waiting days for a response. Bublish not only quickly answered my query, but they resolved the issue in record breaking timing. And that is the foundation that will keep authors going back again and again, a website that cares about its content and the providers.

So what happens once you’ve Bublished? Well the fun doesn’t end. I bublished last Monday and within a week the Bublish team had tweeted my bubble a couple of times; one on the day of release and twice on their “Sample Sunday”. This is a great way to attract new readers as there are already 800 plus followers and it gives you a sense that they aren’t just a platform for you to advertise, but a partner.

And that isn’t the only trick up their sleeve. They have a weekly floating bookstore that is shared across multiple social platforms, live author and publisher twitter chats every Thursday and a special Feature Friday where they feature an author from their database of Bublishers.

The Floating Bookstore is something which I think is a great feature and Kathy Meis explains it as follows:

“The Bublish Floating Bookstore is a way to showcase the newest book bubbles on Bublish. It actually starts on Sunday with our #SampleSunday Marathon, which is 12 hours of the latest book bubbles tweeted with the popular #SampleSunday hashtag. Many readers use this hashtag to find new books each week, so we introduce the latest book bubbles into this hashtag every Sunday. Every new author gets to be part of this event. It's sort of like their Bublish launch event. On Monday morning, we take the #SampleSunday stream of book bubbles and use Storify to turn them all into a single piece of content known as the Bublish Floating Bookstore. This gives all the authors additional exposure throughout the week as well as an easy way to support their fellow authors and magnify the social network effect for each book and writer.”

So with that kind of support and exposure potential, Bublish could be one of the greatest tools that an author can use.

So what are my hints on the best way to use Bublish?

• Create one bubble at a time and once a week - This way you can get exposure over a longer period of time and take full benefit of the Sample Sunday and the tweeting of new bubbles by the team. Readers may also be turned off if they see a block of your bubbles while scrolling through the archive. Sometimes less is more.
• Make your Author Insights interesting - Readers already know your book is for sale. But they might not know what inspired you to write this scene or what image was going through your head.
• Share your bubbles – Your bubbles are good advertising even on your blog and website. Direct your readers to bublish to read what you have written.

I hope you all, readers and writers alike, have a chance to visit the site soon.