Month: January 2013

Writing Reviews: What many readers don’t know

A Guest Post
by T.K. McEachin

It’s no secret to those who know me personally that I am not a huge fan of the Harry Potter novels. Needless to say, if these novels or any others encourage reading in children, that alone is reason enough to admire & respect the authors. So, a few months ago, J.K. Rowling enters the adult fiction genre with her latest book, The Casual Vacancy. After reading so many of the bad reviews that were unrelated to the quality of the book itself (silly comparisons to Harry Potter, for example), I realized one thing: many readers simply do not understand the purpose of the reviewing ability many websites give them. I estimate that approximately 20-40% of reader reviews are unfair & biased (which is their right upon coughing up the cash for the book, technically). Many are useless in that they tell you nothing about the book itself. I’m one of those avid readers who will peruse dozens of reviews for a work of fiction, to aid in my buying decision. This is especially the case, when deciding whether or not to buy a new book that a seasoned author has written, when I didn’t care for the previous one(s). Even if I don’t like a book, I don’t always give up on an author and when reviewing, I try to find some redeeming quality to share along with the negative aspects, after all, I’m a writer as well. Continue reading “Writing Reviews: What many readers don’t know”

Indie News Beat: Goodbye to eReaders?

Every journalist has to get an angle on the story, so the reader can relate to the subject and feel informed. But sometimes, the real story is not the one being written about.

Let me explain.

In this article on The Guardian, we have a fairly straightforward but misleading angle. The title of the story, ‘Print book sales rise hailed as a sign of a fight back in a digital world’, assumes that there is a battle going on, and that one type of book is bad, and another type of book is good. As this is The Guardian, there are no prizes for guessing which are the bad books. The story is misleading because it is based on seasonal figures: in a rare statistical turnaround, the UK Christmas sales rush saw many more print books sold than e-books, likely to be given as gifts, and the biggest sellers were TV tie-ins specific to the UK market. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Goodbye to eReaders?”

Tutorial: Socl

Our Jim Devitt wrote an introductory post about a new social media platform called Socl. If you missed Jim’s post, you can read it here. Personally, I’m not crazy about any platform that only gives you options to sign in through other social media outlets. I don’t like giving apps access to my Facebook account. But that’s just me. Being a photographer, I figured this was a platform I should check out, so I sucked it up and signed up for Socl. You’re welcome.

Once you’ve given Socl permission to violate you, I mean access you, through Facebook or WindowsLive, you’re good to go. Now you should set up your profile. At the top of the screen, you’ll see the word “me.” Go ahead and click on that and it will bring you to the profile screen at left. Then, click on settings (pink arrow). Continue reading “Tutorial: Socl”

Becoming a Triberr Warrior

When I first encountered Triberr, for some unfathomable reason I had a Lord of the Flies moment and pictured small boys on an island wearing war paint. After battling away with it, as I do with all things social media, I discovered it was a fantastic place. I stripped off my clothes, grabbed a conch shell and had a go at finding others.

Indie authors need to leverage all kinds of social media in order to effectively sell their books. Running a blog has been a great way for me to get the word out about books and other writing, but it’s also a way to share information that helps my book marketing. Triberr enables you to grow that blogging community.

Indie Authors and Triberr.

Triberr was started by Dino Dogan and Dan Cristo. Their idea is simple: have a site in which everyone in your Tribe tweets your new blog posts, and you do the same for others in your Tribe.

All you have to do is approve the tweets and Triberr does the rest. It’s a great way to build your blog following quickly and effectively. Continue reading “Becoming a Triberr Warrior”