Promoting your books via social media?

We all do it – myself included. I do try for every promotional post to make four others that are just friendly. I actually rarely buy books that I’ve seen promoted via social media. That’s in part because I have so many books to read at the moment. I have forty hard copies waiting in the bedroom, about 256 on my Kindle and I go to the library as well. Occasionally, though, I am tempted to buy one I come across via social media. Below I’ve listed what makes this happen:

 

Really interesting blog / Twitter / Facebook  post elsewhere

I guess here I’m buying the book because I’m interested in the person. Sure, the theme or topic of the book has to be interesting too - I’m not sure I’d ever go for a western but even here there’s an exception.  Caroline Lawrence’s Roman Mysteries were so good that I’m tempted a little by her Western series. Sometimes it’s just curiosity. This person is saying a lot that is interesting here.  Her books probably are too.

 

Right up my street

Maybe the book is very similar to something I’m writing, have written or am thinking about, or might be really useful as a research tool. However, if I’m proactively looking for something like that, I’m more likely to go directly to Amazon or a review site.

Twitter remains my favourite – just.

I love the power of this platform. Retweets can be awesome. You can soon get through the six handshakes if your post is retweeted and retweeted. I retweet often – especially when I come across gorgeous photos, links to interesting articles, amusing and inspiring quotes, the latest news and opportunities for writers.  All too often though there is book promotion after book promotion and it gets a little boring. I tend to skip those and even when I do buy one of these books because I’ve found the writer interesting, I’ll tend to do that via another platform. I suppose it happens partly because I follow so many other writers.

The trick, I guess, is to make yourself interesting and also ensure that there is a way for your followers to find your books if they want to.  

Other platforms

I occasionally like to read the meatier comments on Facebook though I initially found the whole platform counterintuitive. I like the business-like attitude of Linked-in and intend in future to keep my CV there. I’m using Pinterest for research and will try Instagram soon.

Serendipity

Some things do seem to come from nowhere. “How did you find me?” I ask a teacher who has booked me for a school visit. “I used Google and found a comment on Twitter relating to you blog post about school visits.” There you have it.

The point is, we have to keep up our presence on social media but never become boring. Now, there’s a challenge.     

Creating Worlds

Before I started writing The Prophecy, I spent months creating my world. I sat in cafés dreaming of Terrestra 3500. I worked out how people lived, what they ate, how they dressed, how society was organised, how they travelled around, what they believed in, what they did for fun and what the physical attributes were of the planet. On top of that, there were also the normal thoughts about character and plot.
Now, I’m revisiting all of that and thoroughly enjoying it. One of the editors at The Red Telephone has suggested that I provide a glossary of characters and setting features for readers of Babel as they may not remember it all from The Prophecy. He has a point. I’ve had to look up some things myself.
However, I’d never suggest using a glossary instead of setting everything up correctly. It should be obvious what certain things are and who certain people are from the way they are introduced. It would be wrong to bore readers of the second volume who knew the first for the sake of the handful who go straight to volume two. I’d like to emulate Oisín McGann who is a real master of setting up worlds, especially in his novel The Gods and Their Machines. There are no words of exposition. He simply shows us his world. This is extreme showing not telling.
Another writer who does this successfully, this time in an historical context, is Caroline Lawrence in her Roman Mysteries series. The first time you meet a Latin word or a little Roman culture, Lawrence makes her meaning transparently clear. She also includes these items in a glossary at the back of the book in case you have forgotten what an expression means the next time you meet it. For those readers who are really interested in Latin words and Roman culture there is more on her web site.
Yes, I’m really enjoying writing the glossary about the world I have created. It’s also reassuring me that my world works.

The Roman Mysteries

I had the great privilege of meeting Caroline Lawrence at a conference at Lampeter last week. Embarrassingly, I had offered to present a paper about her work – before I knew she was to be the keynote speaker. We did have a little correspondence beforehand. I was greatly relieved to hear her say in her talk that she was influenced by Nancy Drew. I did compare her work to Nancy Drew’s. Of course, she also mentioned the toilet sponge, as I did, and that statement she put on her blog about the archaeologists being perhaps 90% right.
The main points I made were that:
- her stories show a lot of everyday Roman reality and historical fact
- she makes huge concessions to the 21st Century, making the stories and the setting palatable to the modern reader
- the books are first and foremost books for children and have the characteristics of that beast
- she objectifies modern society by inviting us to compare it with Roman times
- I think we both left the conference quite happy. In her talk, she also spoke about story arcs and gave a fantastic Power Point on the Vogler theory. I must put together a decent Power Point myself.