• promoting my short stories and such, Re: Young folks

    From Ogg@VERT/EOTLBBS to Arelor on Monday, August 31, 2020 11:38:58
    On 31/08/2020 4:32 a.m., Arelor wrote:

    Last week I was thinking I needed some strong social media
    presence for promoting my short stories and such... Web
    based social media has all these features that shoehorn
    posts from third parties into people's news feed... BBS
    don't really allow you to share comercial content you found
    elsewhere and force it into your friends newsfeed in a
    convenient way without looking spammy.

    For that... a mixed blessing is, ultimately, Facebook. THAT's where people hang
    out. The built-in friend-network spreads the news about your existence for you.

    People goofing around on social media apps are not going to find the latest and best in sci-fi/fantasy adventure writing out there. Those people are not likely
    real readers anyway.


    To be honest, I am likely to skip social media for promoting
    stories the same way I skip it for everything else. Maybe I
    should try to Establish my brand here as an experiment?

    An actual book/reading audience is likely in different circles. Social media might be a good way to announce the existence of your your material, but then it
    would be best to have your own website for the actual material. Many authors have their own sites. Add the suitable meta keywords and google is surely to find it for most people too.

    Send a heads-up of your existence to websites that promote short story authors.

    I get many independent authors hoping that I would stage and sell their works. All I can do is give them a shelf space. THEY have to do the legwork and let people know that the material is available in my shop.

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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANT to Ogg on Monday, August 31, 2020 12:41:19
    Re: promoting my short stories and such, Re: Young folks
    By: Ogg to Arelor on Mon Aug 31 2020 11:38 am

    For that... a mixed blessing is, ultimately, Facebook. THAT's where people hang
    out. The built-in friend-network spreads the news about your existence for you.

    I used to be in Facebook a lot of time ago. I was active and everything. Eventually I deleted my account because it was too much work to sustain and it didn't beat legging it to actual conventions, meetings and events.

    I am not impressed by social media at all. It helps you put your posts in the friends of the friends of your followers, but you need to gather followers elsewhere in the first place. That is the hard part.

    That is also the reason I am skipping Patreon for the time being. It only makes sense if you have a sizeable fanbase to work with.

    My online presence right now is my website, my account in some publishers creative writing workshop, and IRC. Oh, and the BBS too :-) Most of my fans are very anti-facebook so I gues regular social-networking is a bit of a dead-end.

    I am expecting mail from you btw. You were off for a couple of days and I was getting worried for you :-P

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  • From Daryl Stout@VERT/TBOLT to Ogg on Monday, August 31, 2020 14:46:00
    For that... a mixed blessing is, ultimately, Facebook. THAT's where people hang out. The built-in friend-network spreads the news about
    your existence for you.

    Days before my Mom passed away over a year ago, I was getting flooded
    with requests to view, like, and share such and such. With all the stress having to set up a Miller Trust to put my Mom in a nursing home, becoming
    her Power Of Attorney, etc., I decided "enough was enough", and unfriended
    ALL my friends. Folks can still message me, but without friends, it keeps
    the feed uncluttered.

    An actual book/reading audience is likely in different circles. Social media might be a good way to announce the existence of your your
    material, but then it would be best to have your own website for the actual material. Many authors have their own sites. Add the suitable
    meta keywords and google is surely to find it for most people too.

    My late wife was a bookworm...the last thing I read was the accreditiation manual to be able to give ham radio license exams.

    Daryl


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  • From Ogg@VERT/EOTLBBS to All on Monday, August 31, 2020 21:32:00
    Hello Arelor!

    ** On Monday 31.08.20 - 13:41, arelor wrote to Ogg:

    I used to be in Facebook a lot of time ago. I was active
    and everything. Eventually I deleted my account because it
    was too much work to sustain and it didn't beat legging it
    to actual conventions, meetings and events.

    I bet if you went back, it would "remember" you! LOL Would
    it truly be deleted? ;)


    I am not impressed by social media at all. It helps you put
    your posts in the friends of the friends of your followers,
    but you need to gather followers elsewhere in the first
    place. That is the hard part.

    It starts with a handful that you may know, then FB takes over
    and spreads your awareness among THEIR friend lists.


    That is also the reason I am skipping Patreon for the time
    being. It only makes sense if you have a sizeable fanbase
    to work with.

    I see that Patreon even encourages "Writers & Journalists", and
    there seem to be several successful people represented there.
    If there is no fixed monthy cost to you, why not get started
    anyway?

    I recognize the author N. K. Jemisin there. She has some fine
    full-length fantasy sci-fi novels reprented by Penguin Random
    House Inc that I carry at the shop.

    The podcast called CANADALAND intrigues me. They are quite up
    front about the number of patrons and the total income per
    month! $30,000/mo is not too shabby.


    My online presence right now is my website, my account in
    some publishers creative writing workshop, and IRC. Oh, and
    the BBS too :-) Most of my fans are very anti-facebook so I
    gues regular social-networking is a bit of a dead-end.

    I still wouldn't discount facebook. It probably gets priority
    in google searches. You can set it up as a read-only site with
    the pertinent info to steer people to your own website and BBS.

    Think of facebook as a business card. It's there to advertise
    your existence.

    I should be following my own advice! LOL


    I am expecting mail from you btw. You were off for a couple
    of days and I was getting worried for you :-P

    Yes.. sorry about that. Other things came along that either
    needed my attention or I just felt like paying NO attention.
    Will follow up on this in email.

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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANT to Ogg on Tuesday, September 01, 2020 03:39:19
    Re: Re: promoting my short stories and such, Re: Young folks
    By: Ogg to All on Mon Aug 31 2020 09:32 pm

    I see that Patreon even encourages "Writers & Journalists", and
    there seem to be several successful people represented there.
    If there is no fixed monthy cost to you, why not get started
    anyway?

    Because it is not for free.

    Organizing a marketing campaign takes time and resources if you are serious about it. And if you are not serious about it you should be doing something else.

    If you want to work at Patreon level you need to have a regular publishing schedule, offer a lot of content for free, and then put a lot of content behind a paywall. That means you have to produce a lot of content regularly for different distribution channels (patronage levels). It is a full time job. People is BREAKING under presure for participating in this business model.

    I think I prefer to grow organically, getting some friends on board, getting active in some writing workshops, befriending editors and the like. Very old school but guess what, I can do that without sacrificing my current jobs. For Hedalian‡'s sake, I am already doing sysadmining for a clinic from a soap store. I don't need more stress in my life :-P

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