Four Time-Saving Social Media Tips Every Writer Needs to Know, by Frances Caballo

"...this book is a must for every writer who wants to sell books!" 

What is time suck? It’s the hours of time you can unintentionally spend in front of your computer reviewing Facebook posts, retweeting your Tweeps, and uploading photos while your writing and maybe even your family await your undivided attention.

We've all lost time while using Facebook. Perhaps our only intention was to post an update and an image, but then … look what happens instead? You see a post from a friend who is feeling down, so you stop to write an encouraging note. Then you notice that a colleague posted a great article about self-publishing, and you can't resist the temptation to read it. You navigate to the website with the article and you find a book for sale there. You've got to have it. So you go to Amazon, read the reviews, and decide whether you want a new or used version or an eBook.

You eventually return to Facebook, upload your image, and write the update. How much time have you lost? Thirty minutes? Maybe an hour?

Who has the time for that?  Getting lost in the vortex of time suck is easy, and it’s the greatest fear among writers who are new to social media. But there are remedies.

Four-Step Cure to Social Media Time Suck

There are four basic principles to social media that you can follow:

1.    Curation – Set a timer and spend five to 10 minutes each morning scouring the Internet, websites such as Alltop for the best information to share in your niche. Or use a curation application such as Scoop.it, Paper.li or Google Trends. 

2.    Schedule – No one has the time to spend all day – or long chunks of time – at their computers posting content to their social media profiles. Use an application such as Hootsuite, TweetDeck (for Twitter only), or Buffer schedule your posts, tweets and updates throughout the day. With Buffer and Hootsuite, you can schedule your Facebook posts; however, Facebook has its own scheduling feature right within the status update box on your Facebook author page.

3.    Socialize – Use your mobile device in the evening while you relax to check your social media accounts. Spend 15 minutes commenting, sharing posts, retweeting and re-pinning on Pinterest. Consciously schedule this time into your day and enjoy it – virtually. If you’re concerned about the clock, set your timer again so that you don't lose track of time.

4.    ROI – Once a week schedule some time to review your statistics to analyze your return on investment (ROI). Indicators will include statistics on engagement, influence, and demographics, and enumerate the number of new likes you received on your Facebook page, retweets, new followers and other measurements. Use this information to gauge your success and understand which messages work best with your audience.

Social Media vs. Broadcast Media

Television and radio programs are considered broadcast media. They tell us what their messages are. In the case of TV, with few exceptions, there isn’t any room for viewer feedback or conversation unless you consider what happens on the Maury Povich Show conversation. Talk radio includes listener views but the environment is still controlled by the producer and the host.

Social media is the first form of media that emphasizes and rewards conversations. You now have the opportunity to talk with your readers, learn about them, and empathize with them. Writers who don’t schedule time to be social on Facebook or Twitter are turning a social platform into broadcast media. If you simply broadcast your messages – “Buy my book!” – you won’t be rewarded in website visits or book purchases. However, if you allot time for talking with your readers via social media, you will gain loyal followers who, in many cases, will help to market your books.

You can schedule 15 minutes at the end of your day for thanking your retweeters (Twitter followers who re-post your messages), commenting on your friends and fans’ posts, and interacting with your growing body of contacts. Use this time to engage with other writers, colleagues, editors, agents, readers and friends. Thank people for finding and posting a great blog you enjoyed reading. Share a stunning image of a dahlia that a reader pinned on Pinterest. If you interact with your contacts, your following will grow.

Measure Your Return on Investment (ROI)

Social media platforms are free, but our time isn’t. In this 24/7 culture that we live in, there never seems to be sufficient time to check all of our email, read our Facebook friends’ posts, and finish all the books we hope to write. So we want to be certain that our time on social media is well spent.

We also want to analyze what works and what doesn’t. Do more of your friends and fans on Facebook comment when you include an image with your post? If you’re testing blog post titles, was there a certain title that your Tweeps retweeted more often? Are you losing followers on Twitter as fast as you’re gaining them? Do you know why your Facebook page likes soared by 300 last month?

You need to know the answers to these questions so that you will know what to post in the future. Discovering the messages that resonate with your audience is critical to your marketing efforts. To know what these metrics are, subscribe to an application that will analyze your performance and help you to learn from the data that it culls. Here are a few:

•    LikeAlyzer

All you need to do is type in the web address to your Facebook author page (not your personal profile) and this free program will analyze your engagement. Your score will be somewhere between 1 and 100. The higher your score, the better you are doing. It will rate your growth in likes, rank your score against similar pages, measure your response time to comments left by fans, determine whether you are asking questions often enough, and remind you to denote more milestones. Basically, it provides an at-a-glance look at the areas you excel in and the areas that need improvement. Everyone with a Facebook tool should take advantage of this free analytics program.

•    SproutSocial

For $39/month, SproutSocial will analyze your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The analytics are comprehensive and in addition to a PDF report, you can download an Excel spreadsheet that examines your click-through-rates on a day-by-day basis. It provides in-depth demographics and measures tweets, retweets, follows, mentions, replies and direct messages. It will also measure how social you are and determine your influence. You can also use this application to schedule your posts, unfollow users, and at the premium level, it will determine your best posting times.

•    Measureful

For $49/month, this application will analyze your data every week, build your reports, and send them to you. Measureful automatically distills your Google Analytics data into weekly insights and reports. You can connect your accounts in five minutes or less and wait for the reports to arrive.

•    Curalate

Curalate bills itself as the only analytics program for Instagram and Pinterest. It will analyze social media conversations and provide insights into your Pinterest and Instagram profiles. Use it to measure, monitor and grow your influence. In today's increasingly visual world of applications, Curalate can combine sophisticated image recognition algorithms with technologies to provide you with an analysis of your images. If you're a writer and photographer, this is an analytic tool you’ll likely need.

Social media needn’t force you to spend hours at your computer every day, sucking the hours out of your day when you have other pressing needs, responsibilities and desires to write. By spending fifteen minutes every morning curating and scheduling and fifteen minutes every evening socializing online, you will benefit from the power of social media in today’s world and find readers who will be happy to find you and read your books.

About the Author

Frances Caballo is a social media strategist, manager, and author of Social Media Just for Writers: The Best Online Marketing Tips for Selling Your Books and Blogging Just for Writers. Her new book Avoid Social Media Time Suck:  A blueprint for writers who want to create online buzz for their books and still have time to write will be available in February 2014. Her ebook, Pinterest Just for Writers, is available for free on her website. Follow Frances on Twitter @CaballoFrances

Special Guest Post: On Becoming A Writer By N. Gemini Sasson

What if you could remember another life? What if you could re-live it and find love again? 

In The Time of Kings: The new time travel romance adventure

set in medieval Scotland from N. Gemini Sasson

is available now on Amazon 

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On Becoming A Writer

When Tony invited me to guest blog, I said yes immediately. For ten days, I kicked around ideas, rejecting one after the other. I felt like it had all been said before. That writing, the process of it, really isn’t all that exciting. If you asked me what my work day is like and I told you, you’d probably yawn.

Then today, a friend asked me how I went about becoming a writer. Such a simple question, and yet … so profound. Well, there is no one way. There is no formula. You just sit down and do it. Day, after day, after day. Word after word. Page after page. Book after book.

You do it when you don’t believe in yourself. You do it when you don’t feel like it. You do it when you’re afraid to show it to anyone for fear they’ll erupt in hysterical laughter or tear apart every phrase you toiled over. You do it even when you’re not sure your story will ever be read by another human being.

To get past all that, you have to understand why it is that you want to write.

Do it because you have something to say. Something to share. Pain you need to heal from. Hope you keep close to your heart that things can turn out for the better, even if only in a fictional world. Do it because you believe in true love, conquering fear, happy endings and good guys saving the world. Write to connect with others. Because whatever you feel in the deepest, most hidden recesses of your soul, someone else has probably felt that way, too.

The Best Stories

The best stories reveal truths about ourselves and our worlds that we weren’t aware of before. They bring us closer together. They move us emotionally.

When I was a teenager, I was in love with the idea of being a writer. I had a typewriter and desk tucked away in my closet. I’d write a page or two of a story and abandon it. I didn’t yet understand that writing a book was a long and often tedious process.

That dream, though, of being a writer eventually drew me back – but not for another twenty plus years. Even at thirty, I didn’t yet possess enough confidence in how to portray my ideas, or understand the parts of a story, or have the commitment to write an entire book. To those of you at this stage, don’t let that stop you. Start somewhere. Write journal entries, write articles, write blog posts. Just … write.

Write as if no one but you is ever going to read it. Because when you start to worry about criticism, rejection or disinterest, you aren’t going to write in your most authentic voice. When you worry about even finishing the blessed book, the whole task can seem so daunting that you chuck it early on to save yourself the grief. 

Take it one paragraph at a time

A writing instructor once asked the class I was in what defines you as a writer. Most of us said having a book published. His answer was: Writers write. Plain and simple.

Now, becoming a ‘published author’ is another matter. Luckily, it’s more attainable than ever these days. Computers, the internet, and digital self-publishing make it a thousand times easier than it was a decade or two ago.

Just remember, before you can become a published author, first you must write.

Until later,

Gemi

About the Author

N. Gemini Sasson is the author of six historical novels set in 14th and 15th century Scotland, England and Wales, including The Bruce Trilogy and Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer (2011 IPPY Silver Medalist in Historical Fiction).

Her latest release is Uneasy Lies the Crown, A Novel of Owain Glyndwr. Long after writing about Robert the Bruce and Queen Isabella, Sasson learned she is a descendant of both.

If you'd like to learn more about N. Gemini Sasson's books, visit her website www.ngeminsasson.com or blog http://ngeminisasson.blogspot.com and find her on Twitter @NGeminiSasson

Book Launch ~ Forever Doomed by MaryAnne Kempher @MaryAnnKempher

It's not wise to wander the cruise ship FOREVER alone at night.

You might not live to see daylight.

Detective Jack Harney agrees to do an old Army buddy a favor. Curt Noble had some personal business to attend to, he didn’t say what. What he did say was he needed someone to temporarily take over his duties as head of security on the struggling cruise ship Forever. Jack hesitates, but he owes Curt his life so agrees. 

He’s told the worst mischief he can expect to encounter will be the occasional shoplifter, or drunk. Instead, one week into the cruise, a beautiful red head and a member of the crew are ruthlessly murdered. Are the two murders connected? It’s up to Jack to find out. He must find the killer before the ship returns to Tampa’s port, or worse, before another dead body is found. This won't be easy. The ship is old, it's security systems outdated, and clues are few, or so it seems at first

It’s not just a sense of obligation that motivates Jack to agree to Curt's request; Jack moved thousands of miles, started over, and still can't get Amy O'Brian out of his heart or mind. When she shows up on the ship, as part of a large wedding party, Jack must fight to stay focused. To make matters worse, Amy isn't his only distraction; a sexy and mysterious woman has made it her mission to seduce Jack.

As the body count rises, and time slips away, Jack has to ask himself, “Did someone commit the perfect crime?” 

10 5 * reviews on Amazon US - 'It will keep you guessing until the end.' 

Forever Doomed is available on Amazon US and Amazon UK

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About the Author

MaryAnn Kempher's writing is infused with mystery and romance. She spent her teen years spent living in Reno NV where her first book, Mocha, Moonlight, and Murder is set. The setting for her second book, Forever Doomed, was inspired by her love of the ocean. Her writing influences include favorite authors Agatha Christie, Jane Austen and Janet Evanovich. Her guilty pleasures include any and all sweets, including a good cup of Mocha. She is married with two children.

For more about MaryAnn Kempher, visit her author Facebook page find her on Twitter @MaryAnnKempher and visit her website: mkempher.com

Purchase MaryAnn’s books here:

http://amazon.com

http://BarnesandNoble.com

http://amazon.co.uk

http://amazon.ca

If you purchase Forever Doomed in paperback for uner $11, you can get the Kindle version for just 99 cents.

Forced Entry (MP3 Download) by Michael Brookes @TheCultofMe

Forced Entry audio short is now available! 

Terrorists have seized a suburban dwelling and a special forces unit is despatched to rescue the hostages. They're trained for every conceivable eventuality, but they haven't trained for the horror they encounter. Inside the house they find a sealed basement door and a trail of blood leading to the bedroom. None of them were prepared for what awaits them: Mystery and unimaginable evil...

Forced Entry is only £1.99 and can be downloaded from The Radio Theatre Workshop online store

• Running Time: 18 mins
• Cast: Janet Westwood Wilson, Benjamin Goodman, Liam McCauley, Christopher Jarvis
• Adapted and Directed by Christopher Jarvis
• Music by Allen Stroud.

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Writers: If you would like to discuss producing a high quality audio book get in touch with specialists The Radio Theatre Workshop HERE or find them on Twitter @theradiotheatre 

Stephen King on the Craft of Short Story Writing

What are you waiting for? START WRITING! ~ Guest Post by Madeline Courtney

Hey, guys! This is my first guest blog, so here goes. My name is Madeline Courtney and I'm a Writer from Carthage, Missouri.  I'm seventeen years old and I'm self-publishing my first novel, THE CASE OF IRENE ADLER, which is a retelling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. It is also the first book in my Sherlock Holmes series.

So, I'm going to blog about Writing and my routines. I chose this topic because a lot of people (followers on Twitter, emails, etc.) have asked me how I make time to write a whole novel and continue going to school. My answer to this question is always the same. If you really want to do something then you'll make time. It's also easier because, after suffering from very serious bullying at school, I am being homeschooled and taking classes online. Because of this, I am not only publishing my first novel, but also graduating highschool a whole year early.

I have a very strict schedule, as all Writers should, and I follow it completely.

As of lately, my grandparents have had the laptop so I've been having to use the desktop (not fun, as it is located right in the middle of the living room, where everyone likes to hang out.) 

I force myself to push through it by plugging in my headphones and turning them up all the way to drown out the noise of the TV and family talking. My family know that if they want to talk to while I'm writing they either text me or wait until I'm done.

Usually I try to write two to three hours everyday without a break except for more British Tea. I guess, what I'm trying to say is, if you want to write a book YOU HAVE TO HAVE A CAVE. There is no other way around it. At least for one hour a day you have to go into The Cave and just WRITE because if you don't you never will. If you want people to take you seriously as a Writer, you have to take being a Writer seriously.

Ksenia Anske (@kseniaanske on twitter) is a big inspiration for me because she helped talk me into writing to deal with my depression.  If you can get past the Blocks, the lack of confidence (we all get it!), and everything else you should really try Writing. It's a wonderful way to relax and it's brilliant for therapy (part of the reason I started!) Writing THE CASE OF IRENE ADLER has helped me escape my depression. My best friend Melissa has always been supportive of my dream and for that I am thankful. I guess you could say I write because I have to. 

I am a Writer. I am a survivor. And I hope everyone who reads my novel will finally understand the real me.  If you ever want to talk about Writing or publishing or just need to talk I am on twitter  @MaddieC123  my blog is MadelineCourtney.blogspot.com and you can email me MadelineCourtney58@gmail.com

A Dylan Odyssey ~ A Series of Unique Dylan Thomas Inspired Tours

To celebrate Dylan Thomas’ centenary in 2014, Literature Wales presents A Dylan Odyssey,a series of twenty three totally unique and extraordinary events which will take visitors to the very heart of Dylan Thomas’ worlds, exploring the richness of these places by boat, canoe, horse-drawn carriage, bus, steam train, foot and even on horseback!

Tours will be guided through the eyes of some of Wales’ best living artists, including comedian Griff Rhys Jones, author and scriptwriter Andrew Davies, actor Helen Griffin, National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke, former Archdruid T. James Jones and writer Owen Sheers.

A formidable voice when it came to the literature of place, Dylan Thomas left an imprint on the memory of the vast seascapes, village tracks, urban greys, dusky moorlands, brimming meadows and lush parklands he knew, from Wales to England and the United States.

A Dylan Odyssey will run from May to November 2014 and forms part of the Welsh Government-led Dylan Thomas 100 Festival. One day tours range from £7.00 - £47.00 in price. In partnership with Rare Hospitality, Literature Wales is also offering a range of residential packages incorporating the Welsh Rarebits and Great Little Place country hotels, historic inns and boutique townhouses. 

For further information, see or download the brochure here or send a self-addressed envelope to: Literature Wales, Cambrian Buildings, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff, CF10 5FL or email post@literaturewales.org.