Chapter Two Posted! Take that, #MrDarcy!

Well, I'm another week into my serial novel, The Perfidious Mister Wickham... I cordially invite you to pop over and check it out here, and let me know what you think, not just of the story, but the concept of a serialized novel, and the presentation method, which is a rather neat embedded book made using FlipSnack... 


If you're thinking about presenting written media online, this might be a way to do it to stand out a bit from the norm...


A few other notes of interest - Triberr users, consider adding hashtags (sparingly!) to your post titles, as this will cause your Triberr-tweeted Tweets to get better visibility from people following a particular item of interest... And foreign audiences - are you making an effort to engage with them? I've recently discovered there's an ardent base of Jane Austen fans in Brazil, and I'm preparing to release my first German translation of a short story, so as I figure out what the best way to connect with an audience when you don't speak the language, I'll be sure to post and let you know... But if you have any experience or suggestions, I'm all ears!


Have a great week!
Edward

Terra Cotta Warriors and #ROW80 Update!

Well, it's Sunday here in China, which means it's time to check in with my ROW80 progress. I'd like to say that I've got lots to report, but... Still lagging on my French / fitness goals, but looking forward to getting focused on both next week when I'm back in one place for a few days.

Looking back over my original goals in writing / publishing / artistic / networking, I see that I'm sitting at:

WRITING - 12% Complete - Behind on finishing up Charming, The Welsh Mouse, The Artillerists, and Merry Christmas Mister Washington and logging the required number of chapters for my two non-fiction works-in-progress. In my defense, I just wrote 2700 words of a brand new short story inspired by my latest travels, and completed a similarly inspired flash fiction story.

PUBLISHING - 50% Complete - Got Lethargica launched, and the German translation of Happily Ever After is nearly complete, thanks to the awesome efforts of Sabine Ströbele. Once I have the translation in hand, I'll be able to format and upload it to Kindle, and see how well it's received in Germany.

ARTISTIC - 100% Complete (video trailer and cover art for Lethargica) - and a bonus here as the draft cover art for A Matter of Honor and The Perfidious Mister Wickham have also been created.

NETWORKING - 50% Complete - got caught up on Author Karma, but still behind on building my Core Group. I did get some bonuses here as well, getting onto Triberr and Klout, and also found some Twitter tools to help me improve my use of that platform. Wrote a guest post, got all my critiques in on Author Salon, and have an author interview pending.

PROMOTIONS - 100% Complete - Ran 3 KDP Select promotions and blogged about the results, which I'll use to hopefully improve the sales rank of future releases and promotional days.

Last but not least, I have built a good bit of the framework (websites, write-ups, Twitter accounts, Facebook celebrity pages, etc.) necessary for a couple of upcoming Kickstarter projects; one of the being a serialized release of my first novel, and the other being a test for an alternate payment model for future short story releases.

The bad news - with 69% of this round behind me, I've only accomplished about 43% of my original goals; the worse news - the thing that has suffered most is the thing that should be the most important for an author - writing.

So, I clearly need to get focused and knock out some of these unfinished projects.

Wishing you all the best in the coming week,
Edward

Censorship Sucks!

Great Wall, China. Your Censorship Policy? Not so great!

So, some of you may have been wondering why I've been so quiet in the social media world the last few days -    and the reason is simple - I've left Vietnam (where they only blocked Facebook) and have been in China since Wednesday, where, it turns out, they block Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger.

What's funny about this is that it's such an easy thing to hack, you wonder why they do it. It's just an inconvenience, that's all.

I had to set up a VPN proxy with Astrill to get connected again to my various social media tools, which cost about $30 and didn't take long to get set up.

So, for better or worse, I'll be back up on my Twitter, Facebook, and most importantly, can blog again. Interestingly enough, Triberr wasn't blocked, and I could still connect through my Blackberry for Facebook and Twitter.

It's good to be able to connect freely - but I have to admit, it was a bit liberating not to be able to hook into the hive mind for a couple of days! But it looks like resistance is futile. It looks like between overnight train rides, visits to Xian and Shanghai, and eating a lot of great food, I'll have no excuse not to keep up on social media.

Best to all,
Edward

Social Media for Marketing: An Overview (Part I)

Since beginning my adventure in self-publishing, I’ve identified several key tools for creating a social media network that will help market your story. I’ll touch on each aspect briefly here, and then devote a full section to each one.

Let’s start with Facebook. As tempting as it is to think your hundreds of current family and friends will be an instant market and take your story viral as soon as you put up a post on your Timeline, I’m here to tell you that simply is not going to happen. You’ll actually need to create a unique presence with an Author page (see here for an example) build up a legion of followers (people who “Like” your Author page) and then use some very specific promotions to generate downloads and sales of your story.

This leads us to Author Karma. Founded by Emlyn Chand from Novel Publicity, Author Karma is an initiative that gets indie authors supporting one another on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, etc. It’s an invaluable network and the best way I know to rapidly build your following. That said, remember that these aren’t “real” fans. They probably will not download your story – remember, they’re writers first, and readers second, and they’re focused on building their own networks, not reading your great American short story. However, they have lots of their own fans and followers, who are readers, and who may well discover your work through them. And, sometimes they actually will download your story – I have discovered a few authors whose work I’ve bought through Author Karma, but it’s literally a one-in-a-hundred case for me. That said, I've also found some other excellent sites and resources by reading the pages and posts of these authors, so this is high up on my "must join" groups for indie authors.

Goodreads is Facebook for readers. Well, not quite, but it is probably the biggest and best of the websites where readers congregate to list their own digital libraries, recommend books to others, search for new material, join virtual book clubs, etc. It’s a key place to establish your presence as an indie author. 

LibraryThing is a similar site, although it’s a bit more technically challenging to negotiate, and seems to attract a more high-brow crowd. That said, LibraryThing offers you the ability to offer a “book giveaway” featuring your e-book; something Goodreads does not yet do.

Twitter is a great way for getting a short message out to a lot of people. A lot of people. The beauty of Twitter is how far and fast the extended network of “followers” can distribute your message. Here’s an example. When I was testing promotional methods, I sent a Tweet about a free download for one of my stories to 44 people. Out of those 44 notes, 21 were re-Tweeted – that is, the person I sent it to forwarded it on to all of their followers. I did a little calculation to see how many people that one note reached (assuming it was never re-Tweeted by any of the people who read it on one of my followers Twitter streams) – the answer? That one note, sent to 44 of my followers was read by 97,292 of their followers. It doesn’t take a genius to see that you don’t need a very high percentage of Twitter readers to actually click through and download your story, because even a small percentage, multiplied by a big number like 97,292 is going to result in a lot of sales.

Now, if you’re going to use Twitter, you definitely need to use Bitly. While it’s not a social networking site itself, it lets you take a long web address (like  http://www.amazon.com/Happily-Ever-After-ebook/dp/B006RQUZ3I/ ) and shorten it down to the more manageable http://amzn.to/JeTTfd. Completely free, and vital so you can make the most of your 140 text characters in a standard Tweet.

Another site that builds on the power of Twitter is Triberr, which lets you band together with other authors to share your blog posts automatically through Twitter. This does a few things; most importantly, it raises your social capital with people in your “tribes” because they see you reTweeting their posts, and will be more likely to return the favor; and their followers see your blog posts, which means (if you’ve set your blog up right) that they are being exposed to your stories, your writing style, etc. Again, case in point; my 4 tribes, which have a total of 30 members, has a social reach on Twitter of 24,824. That means every time I have a blog post, the title blurb is going out to 24,824 people. Again, even if only a small percentage are interested, that’s still a lot of traffic for my blog. Want to join a Tribe? Send me a Tweet to @E_H_Carpenter and I'll send you an invite!

OK, that's a start, and definitely enough for one post. But there's more. Stay tuned!

Best always,

Edward

Koala bears, Cover Art, and ROW80 Updates!

So, it's Monday in Australia, which means its Sunday on the other side of the world, and thus time for a ROW80 update.

It has been a moderately productive week; I finished one story, which has already received a few favorable beta reads and critiques, finished the cover art for LETHARGICA, which you can see here (and your comments would be greatly appreciated)

I also held a koala bear, fed some kangaroos and wallabies, petted a little lamb, and saw a platypus. So, life is good.

Things I haven't done as well with are my fitness and French study goals. I really find that for both exercise and serious study, I need to be living in one place, where I can get into a set routine. But since I'll still be traveling for the next month, through Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China, I'll need to see if I can figure out a way to create those routines in the context of a fluid and ever-changing environment... Any suggestions?

WRITING

- Finished “A Matter of Honor” - 100% complete

- Wrote 0.5 Chapters of my “Learning Indonesian” book - 15% complete

ARTISTIC

- Created the cover for "LETHARGICA" - 100% complete

NETWORKING

- Spent 30 minutes this week on the “Author Karma” page getting caught up

- Got my Triberr account working

- Put out a post on how I'll be managing my Twitter account in the future.

Now it's time to pack my backpack again, and catch a flight from Brisbane to Darwin... A few more days in beautiful, sunny Australia, and then it's back to Jakarta to get ready for my next adventure. A bientot!

How to Make My Twitter Feed Work for You!

Greetings and Salutations!

Like many people, as my list of followers (and people followed) grows on Twitter, I have found myself looking for a good way to stay on top of things.

So, to help you understand my process for Re-Tweeting (and thereby maximize its potential!) please read through this short note.

If you really want something promoted, Tweet @ me.. I'll generally be happy to RT free book offerings, notes for blog posts that make interesting reading, etc. And I'll RT the occasional product placement Tweet. What I probably won't RT are repetitve "buy my product posts", etc. If I see these every day in my own feed, I'm just not likely to RT.

That said, I will check my Twitter feed 4x daily, on those days when I'm around a computer and connected. The same general criteria will apply, but here I'm much more likely to RT someone else's RT about your topic. Especially for product placement. But, free or first-time releases will always get a nod, and good articles. Note that this is really luck-of-the draw; is your Tweet in the Top 100 of the list when I log on and scroll down.

And of course, I'll try to follow the same guidelines for you - if there's something I'd really like RT'd, I'll send it @ you, and I won't clog your feed with a lot of self-promo.

You can also connect with me on Triberr, if you are a blogger who generates a lot of content. DM me (@E_H_Carpenter) and we'll sort it out.

I hope this is useful info, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think, especially if you have any suggestions for improvement!

Oh, and if you enjoyed this post and found it useful, please click my Triberr button on the right and give me a little karma! Thanks!