Hey, Y’All,
My last blog post asked which cover of my new book you preferred. I got quite a few responses, pretty much evenly divided between the two covers, and some good suggestions as well. I changed the title yet again, this time to Reinventing Joan, published the book last Wednesday and ordered a proof copy. It arrived Saturday and here it is! You will recall that Joan is a spinoff character from Testing Michael. My friend and I went to the Bentonville Battlefield, here in North Carolina, Saturday and seeing the canons, uniforms, tents, etc. I felt as though I were seeing a 3-D version of Michael. It was thrilling.
Reinventing Joan will be available on Amazon by next week and soon will be available on Kindle as well. Enjoy.
.Now get ready, I
have a surprise for you today. Through her webinar on marketing, I met a
delightful author named Nev March. We corresponded with each other and she was
kind enough to write a guest blog for you. Since her blog is about social media, I’m in the
process of trying to learn my way around Instagram and have contacted a tech
savvy teenager to help me. Today’s kids have grown up on Instagram, Twitter/X,
etc. and treat social media like a second language. Or, maybe a first language.
At any rate, I’m interested in having him help me iron out a few problems I’m
having with Instagram.
Now to my guest. Nev March. Nev was
born in India, now lives in the U.S., and is an award-winning murder mystery author. She has
written Murder in Old Bombay, Peril at the Exposition, and The
Spanish Diplomat’s Secret. Nev has a bubbling spirit and is a delight to
know. Thanks to her suggestion, I am now a member of the Historical Novel
Society. Here is her gift to you:
Guest Blog – Nev March
How to get found on Social Media
Whether you are an Indie author or traditionally published, these days,
having a social media presence is how we can grow our audience and potentially,
our readership. So how does one appeal to new readers and expand one’s
audience? Here are some tips to ‘Get Found’.
First and foremost, the quality of your interactions is FAR more
important than the number of views or followers (I worry about getting ‘fake’
followers who are just bots!) So, start small and engage with people you know,
follow your favorite authors and put out a few posts. Soon you will have a set
of loyal readers who follow you, are curious about your books, writing you’re
your opinions well. Readers like to know about writers’ lives. One shouldn’t
reveal personal details (your number, where you live!) but what you’re eating
or drinking, places you’ve visited, books you’re reading are fair game.
Facebook, Insta and X have a host of fun content, so you’ll start
following topics you’re interested in. (Just search the term with a hashtag.
#music #classicalmusic #violin #concerto for example.) That’s it! Your readers
are following hashtags too!
Hashtags are how you get 'found' on Instagram and Twitter/X. (I believe
Facebook does not yet use them.) Think of it this way: avid readers follow the
hashtag #cozymystery so you would want to include that (one word) in your
posts. Here are three tips.
1.
What topics or genre
does your book cover? If your book is about the Civil War, #civilwar and
#historicalfiction are valid tags. How can you know? Open instagram.com and type in #
followed by the word. As you start typing it will show you what the
popular ones are!
2.
You can also do a google
search on 'best hashtags for historical fiction' and see what comes up. Use
different variations in your posts, so you get different groups of people to
see your posts.
3.
Repost, like and save
posts from authors you like, especially those which have over a thousand
likes—look at them closely. What did they do well? Was it the intriguing image?
The catchy text? Which hashtags (also called tags) did they list? Copy these out
into a spreadsheet to use with your own posts!
Many thanks to my new friend, Nev March.
Quote of the day: Social media is a very,
very powerful tool. It also gives power to tools. Chris Young
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