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INSIGHT: Marketing

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Suspicions confirmed: Twitter and Facebook are time-sucking wastes of your marketing energy.

Here’s a fellow that I stumbled upon at (where else?) Twitter: a gent named Derek Haines, who not only mounts endless social media and other types of campaigns to market his bookoids, but who largely advises against the same.

To stuff his message into a nutshell, he says that the sole purpose of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and waypoints is to drive readers to your blogs.

Flogging your books on Twitter, as so many people do, may or may not be a waste of time (his opinion is mixed; I’d suggest it is a waste of time, but only from a subjective viewpoint: my brain filters out anything that looks like an ad). Post your content and your message not on Twitter but on your blogsite. Then at the bleatfests, post cogent “hooks” of reasonably entertaining or useful messages with links to your site.

Furthermore, Haines suggests that Google+ is far more effective than Twitter as a way to build visibility, because Google puts (correctly designed) Google+ bleats in its search rankings. Apparently it does not do that with all the other social bleating.

That notwithstanding, says he, what you need is not brain-banging time-sucking social media campaigns. What you need is a decent mailing list.

Dayum!

Do you have a clue to how much time this will save? I have been wasting SO goddamn much time on Twitter! Ugh, ugh, and ugh!

And you know, down at the Small Business Administration, one of the mentor/instructors remarked that for any given small business owner, an hour of one’s time is worth (hang onto your hats, folks), TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS.

In that scenario, I’ve probably lost $78,000± over the past few weeks, diddled away on trying to make an impression in the bleatfest of social media.

So, here’s what I think to be the case, when it comes to marketing b2c: business to customer:

  1. Get on Google+
  2. Maintain a Twitter presence, if you must
  3. Build one or two excellent blogs, in which you  post content that someone, somewhere wants to read.
  4. Advertise the product on those blogs as an apparent afterthought (heh!)
  5. Use Google+ and Twitter to direct people to your blogsites.
  6. Once they’re at the site, provide them with useful information or entertainment.
  7. Have ads for the product available at the website
  8. Provide mailing list sign-ups for readers, and send worthwhile content to those who agree to subscribe.
  9. If what you’re selling b2c is books, build a platform at Amazon Author and Goodreads…and what? Yes: use them to direct people to your blogsites.

Duh!

This is SO much less work, SO much less tedium, and SO much easier than dorking with Twitter and FB four or five or six times a day…it defies belief.

It is after 10 p.m. I have devoted the requisite 3 hours to marketing, 3 hours to editing, 3 hours to writing, and then some, then some, and then some. And so, my friends, to bed. Watch this site for more and better content!

Overworked and Underpaid…

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😀 As usual!

Don’t forget, if you’d like to get me paid, that the FIRST THREE FIRE-RIDER BOOKS ARE ON SALE: just 99 cents!!

That would be A Gift for the Kubna, The Spoils of War, and The Journey Begins. So buy them — reviews are good already, and so there’s a mighty good chance you’ll enjoy them.

A-n-n-d… Over at Camptown Races Press, we’re giving away a free advance copy of Janet and the Djinn to anyone who signs up for our newsletter. It’s a whimsical story of a sad lady whose Craig’s List adventure plays right into October’s spooky Halloween mood. Very fun. If you like your erotic romance spiced with magical realism, you’ll love this story!

Time to get up and start working right now. If you wonder what’s been up the past couple of days, check out The Writing Life at Writers Plain & Simple. Whew!

 

Why a “connected” home is a bad idea

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appleairportthingieSo yesterday afternoon I came home from a three-hour meeting (+ two hours of commute time) to find the wireless connection was down. Apparently the power was out for about an hour and a half.

The fix for this is to shut everything down on both the laptop and the desktop (quite a time-suck, since I always have a bunch of files open at once — the joys of multitasking!), disconnect the modem and the router, wait for a few minutes, replug the modem and router, and reboot the computers.

This worked last night…for about ten minutes. The wireless network came up for about ten minutes and then disappeared again. Several attempts had the same result.

Finally, I had to go to bed. So I left the modem and router disconnected overnight and rebooted again this morning. Same story.

When I got up this morning, the Nest thermostat informed me that it couldn’t find the wireless connnection.

Fortunately, it will drive the AC without being “connected” to the Internet. But…uhmmmm…. What if it didn’t?

Yeah. What if it didn’t? What if the refrigerator and the stove and the freezer and the lights and the locks on the doors and the watering system and the car and for godsake maybe even the toilet were connected to the Internet? The way, say, Google would like them to be?

What would happen if your modem went down then? You not only wouldn’t be able to publish and advertise your books on the Internet, you wouldn’t be able to effing LIVE.

Connecting your entire life to the Internet not only means you dispense with privacy, it means you dispense with the basic ability to survive autonomously. Or more or less autonomously — obviously you depend to a large degree on the power grid and the transportation system to go about your daily life. But…do we really need another system to have to depend on? Another system that leaves us in deep sh!t every time it goes down?

When the power goes down, you have a few headaches, but — assuming you don’t depend on it to operate a life-sustaining tool like a breathing aid — the hassles are inconvenient but minor. When the wireless goes down, you can’t do business at all.

To get online to all the sites I have to operate, I need a collection of passwords that is FIFTEEN SINGLE-SPACED PAGES LONG. To get into Amazon to post the next Racy Book we’re about to put online, I need an Excel workbook that contains ELEVEN SPREADSHEETS, one of which winds out like toilet paper. These things need to be open and on the terminal where I’m working in order for me to navigate the tasks I have to do. I also need access to folders that contain not only each book’s contents in PDF, .mobi, ePub, and Wyrd formats, but its cover image in Powerpoint, a high-resolution TIFF file sized for Amazon, a high-res JPEG sized for Smashwords, a low-res JPEG sized for Bowker, and a low-res JPEG sized for thumbnails. Just now there are eight books actively in play.

To move from one computer to another — as I had to do overnight — I have to transfer TWENTY-ONE GIGABYTES of data!

Fortunately, just a week or so ago I bought a large flash drive, since I wanted to back that data up not only to a thumb drive that could be disconnected and kept safely out of reach of hackers but also to the big desktop, which is connected to Time Machine, which not only backs up but encrypts your data as you type.

The desktop iMac, a fantastic piece of equipment, is hardwired to the Internet. However…

Yesh. However. The problem is, I can’t work at it for any length of time because the back and hip pain flare up (with a fuckin’ VENGEANCE) every time I sit in a desk chair for longer than ten or fifteen minutes. Just writing this blog post is gonna freaking cripple me.

Consider: I’ve been putting in twelve and fourteen-hour days, seven days a week! If I can’t get back online with the laptop, I’m essentially out of business.

Now transfer that thought to “no wireless connection” to operate the air-conditioning and the heat and the refrigerator and the stove and the freezer and the lights and the locks on the doors and the watering system and the car and for godsake maybe even the toilet.

To be fair, Google proposes to use the Nest thermostat as a kind of hub that will allow a “smart” home’s devices to keep talking to each other even if the wireless is down. But…has anyone noticed what Google DID to the Nest device after it purchased the company? The Nest on my wall was originally fairly simple to operate — certainly not as easy as an old Honeywell round bump on the wall, but once you figured it out, not a freaking nightmare. Shortly after Google took over, they force-fed new software into the thing, and it’s now screaming incomprehensible. I can no longer program it — that’s way, way beyond my skills and patience. It’s all I can do to turn it on and off and change the temperature setting.

Why would anyone want to depend on a complicated nightmare of a gadget that requires a degree in computer engineering to operate?

The last thing on this earth we need is to have to be “connected” to go about our daily lives. It’s risky enough that our business lives depend on this technology.

It’s HERE!

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Hot diggety, folks. Camptown Races’ VERY FIRST Racy Book for Racy Readers is live and online at Amazon!! WooHOO! And how silly and fun can you get?

Really, I’m pretty proud of this little gem. The story is entertaining and promises to develop into something much more entertaining as the series progresses (we have a murder…accident?…in the Bobbi’s future), the writing is better than most of my efforts (IMHO), and the characters are a hoot.

Full-size BB1 jpeg

Oh! What a hunk, eh?

One of the most prominent publishing experts in the industry looked at that image and remarked, “Excellent cover, by the way. Even if most bikers have beer bellies and b.o. It’s fantasy, right!”

LOL!

So how does the Bobbi thing go?  After her car and her cell phone die in 115-degree heat, Professor Bobbi Stuart is rescued by an alarming man. Things heat up from there…

So…if you don’t mind reading erotica for the sheer joy of erotica, you really must buy this book.

 

 

Today’s the Day!

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TODAY our first Racy Book for Racy Readers gets “published” at Amazon. It probably won’t be available until later in the day or tomorrow. Will let you know with a link when it’s online.

We now have four, possibly five writers working for Camptown Races Press. We have enough copy to post eight books (possibly nine) this month and that many again next month. And we’ll be working toward meeting our goal of ten a month between now and next March, when we either start to make a profit or go broke.

😀

I just picked up three editorial projects that will stave off brokitude another month or so, plus enough money came in from the blog to cover the corporation’s September bills.

We shall soon see, then, if it’s true that erotica sells, and sells in enough quantity to support its scribblers.

Yesterday I met with a social media specialist. She likes The Girls’ Twitter page (@RacyLadies) but wasn’t so crazy about their blogsite, which we had to admit was pretty lame. (That would be why we were meeting with a social media specialist!) She had a few great suggestions, most of which will have to be implemented by our web guru, Grayson. In the interim — until he can get around to making some of her ideas happen — I adjusted the banner to echo the elements she liked on the Twitter presence. Just those small changes make a difference. But I hope Grayson will be able to improve it significantly, given the advice we received yesterday.

Funny about Money has been neglected — as has most of the rest of my life — while I struggle with the enormous workload. Starting a business is a project that sucks all the time out of a room. Incredible!

I’ve decided to break the day into four three-hour chunks: three hours on editing, three hours on social media marketing, three hours on preparing copy for press, three hours on everything else. We’ll see if that works better than the usual listing.

Lists, as usual, work for me. But there’s so damn MUCH to have to get done every day that I still find myself feeling pretty frantic. You know…that “life is totally out of control” feeling?

Ugh, I hate that sensation!

Anyway, I haven’t forgotten about Funny’s readers!

And for your delectation: it’s still not too late to get an advance copy of Billy and the Biker, since it will be half a day or more before the book goes live at Amazon. Come on over to The Ladies’ website, sign up for their newsletter, and we’ll send you a copy in .mobi and PDF forms! The link to sign up is at the VERY tip-top of the page — a little hard to see just now. That’s one of the things we have to fix. But if you can’t find it, just leave a comment to that post, and we’ll sign you up and send you a copy.

Beautiful mornings, hot days, hot stuff comin’ up

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October is…what? a day and a half away and lovely uptown Phoenix is still enjoying triple-digit temps. That’s OK, though: it means the pool is still warm enough to swim in.

And still growing its favorite crop: algae. 😀

This is the time of year when I like to get out and do some gardening. Fall is Arizona’s springtime. But I’ve been too busy to mess with it, plus by the time my act is together in the morning, it’s too hot out here to accomplish much without risking a heat stroke. I did finally get around to extirpating the garden in front the one I tried to carve out of the desert landscaping. That came under the heading of “ridiculous mistake.” Or possibly you could file it under “forlorn hopes.” Nothing would grow there in spite of irrigation nozzles right on the plants. So it looks a little better out there.

I dragged off pots whose plants had died. I’d like to use them for some mâche and some red chard and another rosemary plant (the old one died of old age or hyperthermia over the summer). But again: too lazy, too preoccupied to function.

And in the preoccupation department: October is THE MONTH! Starting next week, we launch our new enterprise, Camptown Races Press, with a flourish. I’ve posted an announcement — rather too unprepossessing, IMHO — on the Press’s homepage and today must get the Ladies to chattering about it. Speaking of the whom, they’re up to 381 Twitter followers this morning.

My goal was 400 by the end of the weekend, but again…too preoccupied to fiddle with that.

I now have all but two of October’s eight completed books ready to snare ISBNs and post on Amazon. Most of the cover images are done.

We’re told that you should hire someone to do your cover images because, unless have an MFA in graphic design or some such, you’re such an amateur that your covers will look horrible.

I’m not so sure about that. Out there, you’ll hear quiet murmurs to the contrary: just yesterday I read a site where a micropublisher remarked that no credible research has been done to prove that assertion. And elsewhere, I’ve read that where p0rn is concerned, the cover is not what readers are after. One p0rn0grapher remarked that it scarcely matters what you put on the cover, and another observed that these things market themselves.

Heh. Well, we shall see.

I’ve learned that you can use PowerPoint to generate hi-res TIFFs and JPEGS, which work handsomely for Amazon’s purposes. There’s a trick to it: Save as .pptx; save as .pdf at 300 dps; convert to .tif; crop and size; save back down to .tif at 300 dps; convert to .jpg. The result is a high-resolution image in any size you please.

And you know, I’ve worked with print magazine production for a lot of years. True, I was on the editorial side, but we worked closely with the art department. As a result, I do know something about cover composition and cover lines. Let’s see if we can get WordPress to upload the latest draft effort… It still needs some work, especially with the fonts, but it’s getting there. You’ll have to click on the image to see its full glory:

cabinFevercoverLORESEven at this stage, I don’t think it looks even half terrible. Does it layer images? No. But I have  learned how to layer images and text in PowerPoint. And how to adjust levels of transparency (the lines around the font above are at about 52% transparency). It’s actually quite easy. As a matter of fact, yesterday I came up with this, by layering images:

Craig's List JanetLOWRESHeeee! Have you ever seen anything so strange in your life? The male character — who’s a genie come to answer the female protagonist’s unspoken prayers — is described as having a tattoo of an Aladdin’s lamp on his spectacular bicep.

Lo! What should I find but the very lamp itself, and smokin’ (a lot like our guy…). With a little fiddling around, we have the author’s name seeming to smoke up out of the Aladdin’s lamp.

Yes. Your Wish Is Granted!

Speaking of the which, I must fly. In an hour I have a teleconference with a book marketing agent. Then a mountain more work to do (including perfecting the Cabin Fever cover). Then Quickbooks to…uhm, quicken.

Tomorrow: another SBA seminar: Social media shortcuts.

Wednesday: an interview with a potential new editing client who may also be interested in writing for us. One more writer will do the trick, if I can find someone who can churn this stuff out the way some of the present team can do. Job description: Sense of humor required. 😀

Thursday I’m meeting with a social media expert who’s already taught me a lot of stuff (if only I could figure out how to find time to do the things she recommends).

And so…up, up, and AWAY!