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Young Writers Society


A question about promotion



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Thu Dec 04, 2014 1:17 am
MRHILL92 says...



How do you do it? Seriously. How? I've been on Twitter, and other sites so far. How do I do a more advanced level of promoting?
  





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Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:09 am
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Rosendorn says...



Promoting yourself requires a certain amount of give and take. While you are on social media to promote yourself, you are also there to build relationships with others and promote them.

You are not an island. You are here to interact with people. In order to promote yourself properly, you have to not promote yourself.

Allow me to explain.

In order to have people check you out, you have to provide genuine interest in them. Interact with their twitter feeds and blog posts. Participate when they ask questions and look for feedback.

Then, when they do check you out, make sure you're giving valuable stuff. If you're trying to promote your writing, share articles about things you find interesting, things you've used, things you just read. Retweet.

You'll notice I haven't said anything about when you promote your own work. This is on purpose. Always talking about yourself, your own work, and your latest new thing is boring. The word "social" is in "social network" for a very good reason; the goal of social networking is to meet other people and get people to like you.

Save promotion for exciting things, and only say really important things maybe two or three times. If you're going to talk about yourself, talk about yourself like you would to a friend. An appropriate tweet would be "Anybody have any ideas how to get two people to meet in a non-cliche way?" That tweet does two things right:

1- It hints at what you're doing to get people interested
2- It involves other people and shows you're connected to others/willing to take feedback

Another appropriate thing would be "Guys! I just got published! Click here to check it out!" because you're showing excitement and it's news you'd tell your friends, anyway. Just don't repeat it too often, or else it gets annoying.

Promoting yourself is basically like talking to a giant group of friends with frequent breaks to mingle in a huge party. You share things you like, learn about them, talk a little about yourself, and answer questions when there's an open forum. Nowhere in the promotions party is there a podium for you to exclusively broadcast your stuff because your voice is more important. It's not. You have to mingle with everybody to get noticed.

If you want to expand the number of networks you use, I'd suggest blogs. Pick your poison, cause there are a few dozen sites to blog with. Wordpress and tumblr are my favourites, but I use them for different things. Tumblr is more a community that's honestly akin to Twitter with private messaging, while wordpress is more focused on the blog entries proper. Both have their uses, though. If you want to get to know people, take tumblr. If you want to know ideas, take wordpress.

You don't have to expand into every single network, unless your publisher so happens to require it. However, for your own use to establish yourself before a publisher, then it's better to stay small but do one or two networks very well instead of spreading yourself thin and not doing well on any network. Pick the places to pour your energy in based on where the people you want to get to know are, and what your own personality style is better for. Then go off and meet people, have fun, and share your interests.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Thu Dec 04, 2014 2:52 pm
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LadySpark says...



I'm going to expand a bit on what Rosey said about blogs. Many, many authors nowadays are using tumblr a /lot/. John Green comes to mind, but there's hundreds of others. If you want to go along that avenue, start it as a general writing blog. Link to all your friends who have a tumblr. Follow all kinds of writing blogs. Reblog. Write articles about writing. You'll build up a fanbase /that/ way very quickly if you tag your posts properly and take care to keep your blog up and running. Then, when it's time to promote your book or what have you, you'll have ready made fans waiting for you. They'll trust you because they like your blog so much and may be willing to buy anything you ask them too. It's a great way to make connections with people. I would highly suggest getting a tumblr. Make sure to have a catchy url, an easy to operate theme, and to keep your ask box open for any fans that might want to talk to you.
It might take awhile for you to develop the fanbase you want. But it's a step I think could really help any author looking out there looking to expand their fanbase, or even create one.
hush, my sweet
these tornadoes are for you


-Richard Siken


Formerly SparkToFlame
  





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Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:46 am
MRHILL92 says...



Thanks for the replies guys. Have you both created your own blogs and Twitters? I'd love to follow you.
  





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Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:26 pm
Holysocks says...



To expand upon the expanded: Simply get yourself out there. Try YouTube as well, perhaps? But make sure when you start something like that, you keep active. People can't be fans if you don't ever post anything. And yeah, participate with those around you.

I guess I'm just kind of repeating, rather then expanding! XD
100% autistic
  





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Fri Dec 12, 2014 10:51 pm
MRHILL92 says...



Cool. Thanks a lot.
  








Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.
— Sigmund Freud