Month: April 2014

Anonymity – the dark side of social media

disguiseAs authors, we all know that discoverability is the up side of social media. If we manage to harness the massive power of the social networks, and the positive word-of-mouth recommendations they generate, we have a better chance of being read. And, of course, once we have a readership, we also have a better chance of actually earning some money from our work.

But what happens when the buzz on social media turns sour?

I’m not talking about the odd, poor review here. Those definitely call for a dignified turning of the other cheek. What I am talking about are those hate campaigns in which a flood of virulent, 1-star reviews suddenly appear out of nowhere. Continue reading “Anonymity – the dark side of social media”

Featured Collection: The Mr. Pish Educational Series

pish head for farm sign clearApril is Mr. Pish month. We continue our celebration of the life and exploits of the famous traveling Terrier with this collection from his educational series of books.

Mr. Pish visited 41 States, Washington DC, and 7 Provinces of Canada to discover awesome places to share with his readers.

All of Mr. Pish’s books promote outdoor learning and literacy and are reviewed by a panel of seasoned educators before release. The Mr. Pish Educational Series currently contains six books, three calendars, and will soon include apps for Apple and Droid products.

Click a book to learn more about it!

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To Select or Not to Select?

KDP Select logoBack in the good old days, before Amazon started tweaking their sales algorithms, an indie author would have been crazy not to enroll a book in KDP Select. You could put your book free for a few days, give away thousands of copies, and get a lovely bounce in paid sales when the promotion was over. Some indies made their careers from that bounce.

Of course, even in the heyday of Select, curmudgeons muttered darkly about Amazon being an evil corporation that would turn on indies when we least expected it, and so we shouldn’t be putting all our eggs in one basket, and so on. And some authors had books that sold pretty well at B&N and Kobo (although perhaps not as well as on Amazon). For these folks, Select might have been a temptation, but not enough of one to entice them into publishing with Amazon exclusively. Continue reading “To Select or Not to Select?”

How to Get Visible on Facebook

shaun inmonGuest Post
by Shawn Inmon

Do you have a Facebook page? Of course you do. Here’s the more relevant question: is your message getting out to your fans, or do you sometimes feel like you’re shouting down a well?

Life was easier in the early days of Facebook. You posted content and it was delivered to the walls of your fans. Then FB went public and monetized their platform, confirming the adage If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Suddenly, you needed to pay money to reach your fans.

There is a better way, of course—beating the Facebook algorithms. Every professional page tells you what your “Talking About This” number is. What does that number measure? My understanding is that it measures the number of unique users who Like, Comment, or Share a post on your page over a rolling seven day period. The higher that number is, the more of your posts will be seen by your fans. My understanding is that the average TAT is between 5-7%. So, if you have a thousand fans on your page, the average TAT number is 50-70. Continue reading “How to Get Visible on Facebook”