Facebook Author Pages

I’ve mentioned in this series of posts that I’ve been attending workshops, reading books, and finding articles about using social media outlets as an author. “Marketing R Us” should be emblazoned on any work about becoming a writer.

Don’t like it? That’s kinda too bad. ‘Cause this is the reality for a professional writer. And that’s you, right? Professional writers do what they must in the craft and business parts of the professional writer’s life.

One aspect that I’m paying more attention to after one such workshop, is my Facebook Author Pages. That’s right. Pages. When you write more than one genre, you need an identity for each, even the as-yet unpublished ones. I subscribe to Christina Katz’s perspective, Get Known Before the Book Deal.

That book was the first book I read on marketing. The year was 2010. She convinced me since I wasn’t known and had no book deals yet. Since then, I’ve published with two traditional, if small, presses and will publish with a third this fall. I’m a believer.

Back to Facebook Author Pages, I didn’t have all four at first. In fact, number four, Caroline Adams Writer, was added this summer. I think by next summer, I may add number five, Olivia Lucas, who writes women’s fiction.

By the way, I’d love it if you’d follow me on all four! Links below. Is that a cheeky ask, or what? Just click on a name to go to the Facebook author page.

So what do they all write, in the order I created the pages, and what do I post for each of them every day? As a side note, the postings I suggest here also work for Twitter! Get a two-fer by posting the same content both places.

Sharon Arthur Moore-Author writes cozy culinary mysteries. Her first book, now unavailable, was MISSION IMPASTABLE. The book will be re-issued from a different publisher as PASTABILITIES this fall. The “Murders with Taste” series is planned as a six-book series with recipes that mostly reflect the titles. A second culinary mystery series (in the planning stages) will be set in Alaska.

She belongs to several affinity groups on FB related to mystery writing and to cooking. On her FB page, she posts recipes, mystery book links, food holidays, and cooking tools and facts. She is also starting a newsletter she is trying to get subscribers for.

Angelica French writes about relationships: romantic, familial, friendship, and business. She is all about communication and empathy. Her first book is an erotic romance (180 degrees from culinary mysteries, thus the need for a pen name. STREETWALKER is a story of trust and redemption.

She belongs to several Facebook affinity groups for romance writers. On Angelica’s FB page, I post links to books I get from other Facebook groups, articles I find online, and links to articles about popular culture.

River Glynn-Author has a bit of an identity crisis. She is, as yet, unpublished, but she’s written a novel with a ghost story and has written a full-length play with a “ghost” in it. She also likes science and science fiction and has some books outlined for topics like the Voynich Document and a future dystopian society. River is also a high fantasy fan and would love to do a fantasy series with paranormal elements.

She belongs to some FB paranormal groups and also follows a lot of them as well as science folks on Twitter.

She posts science events (past and present), weird holidays, links to paranormal, scifi, and fantasy books, links to articles about science facts and paranormal tales.

Caroline Adams Writer is my newest persona. She writes historical fiction and Intrepid Women biographies for middle grade readers. She has an historical fiction romance, LUCINDA, that is as-yet unpublished, though there has been some interest in her work from agents and editors at conferences. She wants to write about a Singuan woman she thinks was one of her previous incarnations. She also has plans for a Viking-settlement historical fiction novel. She is fascinated by many eras in history. Too many? Possibly.  

Caroline belongs to historical fiction affinity groups on FB. I post for her links to historical fiction books, archaeology finds, articles about historical eras, and historical trivia facts.

See, it’s easy to find stuff to post for your FB author page and Twitter. Just keep the focus for your persona.

FACEBOOK: Authors, do you struggle with what content to post on your FB author page or Twitter beyond links to buy your books? Struggle no more with these suggestions that will help. http://bit.ly/2EjWU6b

TWITTER: #Authors sometime struggle with what to post on Facebook and Twitter that isn’t just links to their own books. Try some of these ideas from @Good2Tweat. http://bit.ly/2EjWU6b

Building Your Writing Platform-How Much is Enough?

  Okay. I admit it. I’m out of control. I started my fourth blog. Whaaat???

I hear you saying, “Sharon, you are not a model for other bloggers on keeping up with the three (whaaat???) blogs you already had. So, what’s the deal?”

The thing is, I’m insecure. Nobody knows me. Nobody reads my books. Nobody . . . You got the idea. So how do I combat the insecurities as I do battle to convince myself I’m a professional writer? Yep. I write more. Not on my novels, of course. I write tweets for my four accounts, I blog on my four accounts, I post on my five Facebook pages, and try to periodically update my website. And ask me to guest post for you, and I’m there.

All of this, okay, sure, I know it . . . all of this is the illusion of a platform. My attempt to point a dozen fingers at myself so that people will find me, notice me, read me. But if people don’t see the hands on which the fingers reside, they never see them pointing.

Ah, the conundrum. No hands with fingers pointing? Then how do people find you? Hands with fingers pointing, but, still, how do people find you?

Platforms are the stuff of conference sessions, on-line classes, and dozens of books. All part of your marketing plan, right? I was pretty green about the jargon of the writing field when I first began to professionalize my writing. In my first writing conference, I saw a session about “developing your author platform.”

Platform, I remember wondering? Platform shoes? Train platform? I was bumfoozled. What in the heck is platform in relation to writing. It sounds silly now, I know, but I honestly didn’t get it.

At the session, I learned that an author’s platform is simply about increasing your visibility and name recognition. That’s it. The corollary being that visibility/name recognition translates to book sales. Okay. I got it. McDonald’s has huge visibility and name recognition. Starving? Get a Big Mac.

But are people “starving” for the kind of books I write? And where Ronald McDonald has maybe a dozen others vying for that burger sale, I am in a sea with millions of authors, thousands of whom write culinary mysteries. One fish in a large sea. How would anyone cast a hook my direction?

Supposedly, the theory goes, I become a household name because I offer substantive content on my Twitter, Facebook, blog, and website accounts. And because I offer substantive content, I will be “discovered”. Oh, and I must write great books, too.

Discovery hasn’t happened yet. And I know I’m not the only author to be wondering what else I can do. So I started another blog. Maybe this one will be the straw that turned to gold (instead of breaking my back). 

Oh, FYI. Whereas, STREETWALKER is still on Amazon, MISSION IMPASTABLE isn’t available right now while I change publishers. One more impediment.

Want to read more? Check out this article

Article from Writer Unboxed on Writer Platforms:

http://writerunboxed.com/2012/10/22/building-a-writer-platform-how-much-is-enough/

Please point a finger at me! Tweet or post on Facebook to get people to read this article. Here’re a couple to copy/paste. Thank you!

Twitter: What #writing platforms are supposed to do and how much is enough. Read @good2tweat’s post http://bit.ly/2vkbQdx

Facebook: Authors, do you ever wonder how much is enough for your writing platform? Does your platform translate to sales? See what Sharon Arthur Moore thinks. http://bit.ly/2vkbQdx

Author Platform—Yes, Again!

I know. Here I am again writing about building an author platform. Obsessed, you say? One woman's obsession is another woman’s focus. Call me focused. Really, really, really focused.

I have a sign revealed unto me. Truly. The last two days my “horrorscope” has scared me straight. Straight back to getting more writing done. The whole raison d’etre, eh, for marketing. So, here are they are. What do you think they mean?

“You are in the process of learning, growing, and improving. There’s a limit to how much of this you can do in a day. Go easy.”

Yikes! Did that not sound to you like a warn-off for Twitter/FB/blogging/website-ing? I mean, really, how can there be any other interpretation. “You have learned much about social media networking. Now get back to your writing.” Very clear! Wasn’t it? Or did it mean . . . Never mind, here is #2:

“You might procrastinate. It’s not because you can’t be bothered to take action. It’s because you are busy with important things.”

Okay. Call me crazy. Don’t those two contradict one another?

Tuesday’s horrorscope told me to stop on-lining (a non-drug type of mainlining). Wednesday’s said it’s okay because that stuff is more important than your writing. Or at least as important.

So what do I do with the sign? I mean, the Old Testament is filled with guys who ignored signs. Job was whale food. Noah presided over “the end of the world as we know it.” Eve . . .well, we all know how that turned out. The signs are there for a purpose. So what to do?

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Twitter or give me Facebook. Or the other way around.

Excuse me, please. I gotta get stuff posted today so more and more people will be screaming for the book I will write on weekends and during commercial breaks. Author Platform or Bust!

Building Author Platform While Tearing Down Writing (Time)

Members of both my critique groups have asked how I can be spending so much time on building my author platform? “Aren’t you losing writing time?”

Yes, indeed, I am. I try to keep up with two blogs, two Twitter accounts, a website, and two Facebook pages. Social Media Networking, indeed! I hardly ever see real people. Mostly my day is spent with virtual “friends” and “followers”. I am losing big writing time as I prepare blogs, tweet, and FB postings.

I post (mostly) on this, my writing blog, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I post on my foodie blog (www.sharonarthurmoore.blogspot.com). I try to write one or two of these articles a day so I have a storehouse to pick from when it is time to post. Then I must replenish the stock.

Everyday I post on Twitter accounts @RomanceRighter (where I give relationship advice and share links to relationship articles among other things) and @good2tweat (recipes, links to food articles, food quotes, etc.). I keep a tweets page for each account minimized on my desktop so I can post something every hour or so throughout the day. That keeps my name floating around so no matter what time someone signs on, I am there.

On Facebook, I have a personal page and a fan page. Truly, if I could figure out how to do it, I would eliminate the personal page and just do the fan page. That would be more in line with my writing goals, and it would have a sharper focus. Most of my posts there are to drive people to my Twitter accounts or my blogs.

Except for Twitter, I don’t post much, if at all, on weekends. I give myself that time off. Ha! Instead I spend the weekend preparing future postings, trying to get ahead of the daily grind of having meaningful posts.

So why am I spending these hours doing what I never thought I’d be doing? Why don’t I just write, as I saw myself doing when I “transitioned” a few years ago. Because it works! I have seen more traffic at both blogs, and people I don’t follow on Twitter are following me. How they found me, I don’t know or care.

As I have addressed on these pages before, the new reality is that I must market my own materials along with the publisher. When I attend the Southern California Writing Conference in San Diego next month, and meet there with agents and editors one-on-one, I want to be able to say, “I can let 2500 people know instantaneously that I have a book contract. And those 2500 are connected to tens of thousands more people.” So I build my platform, friend by friend, follower by follower.

But the underlying purpose of it all is based in my writing. I’m thinking of buying one of those books on being a weekend novelist, since that seems to be where most of my writing time comes from these days.