Tag: author publicity

Tuesday Tutorial: That “Thing” – LibraryThing

What IS LibraryThing? From their website: LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.

So, yes, it’s like a Goodreads or a Shelfari, and the now-defunct BookArmy. You can do author give-aways, or chats, and more.

Welcome to LibraryThing!
Welcome to LibraryThing! (Figure 1.)

The first thing you need to do is sign up for a free account and then become a LibraryThing author. Currently there are just over 8400 authors on LibraryThing making it a worthwhile investment in your time – consider how many authors are on Amazon.com! Information about becoming a LibraryThing author can be found here. Once you’ve gotten your account established, sign in. From your home page, click on Profile in the bar of tabs across the top (Figure 1.). Continue reading “Tuesday Tutorial: That “Thing” – LibraryThing”

“Friends Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…”

Got your first author gig? Giving a speech? That first speech or book signing event can be pretty daunting. *Julius Caesar may have been a great statesman and a gifted orator but we are merely authors. We are not practised in such verbal skills. We rarely employ rhetorical irony to win over our listeners (actually, I take that bit back. Some of the IU team are very gifted in that direction), or are blessed with oratory prowess. Continue reading ““Friends Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…””

Tuesday Tutorial: Strut Your Stuff on LinkedIn

Unfortunately, LinkedIn has discontinued this Amazon.com reading list feature.

LinkedIn gives you an opportunity to show off your books without ever saying a word. Yes, it’s true. And for those of you who whine “but these people don’t know I write and I don’t want to tell them” – you don’t have to. That’s the beauty of it all.

LinkedIn has an option called “Reading List by Amazon.” Sure, you can add whatever you’re reading to that list – but why do that? Add your own books, and they’ll show up every time someone looks at your profile. Genius, eh?

LinkedIn Profile ScreenSo, go to your profile. Click on “More” on the Nav Bar across the top, then click on “Reading List by Amazon.”

That will take you to a new screen, with books that other people in your networks are reading. There is also a big blank box where you can type in the name of your book. So go ahead and do that, then click “Search Books.” (See next image.) Continue reading “Tuesday Tutorial: Strut Your Stuff on LinkedIn”

What to Like about Like-Fests

young buck by KSBrooks
Like-fests are fun and leave your breath minty fresh.

Each Wednesday morning at 5 a.m. Pacific time, we here at Indies Unlimited host a “like-fest.” Sometimes it will be for Amazon.com author or book pages, Facebook pages, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Goodreads or other social networking platforms. One thing is certain – every Wednesday a large community of authors, readers and reviewers stop by and a good time is had by all.

This past Wednesday, we ran an Amazon.com like-fest. The turn-out was great and we had lots of new participants and books. An interesting question was posed to me by an author: Maybe you can explain something to me about this amazon.com Building Your Empire-Fest. Why should I care about other writers following me or liking me on Amazon? I’m trying to get readers to read my work, not other writers.

Valid question. It’s debatable what technical purpose “likes” serve. There have been rumors that Amazon.com “pushes” books up in the search results if they have over a certain number of likes. I have not been able to corroborate this from an actual source, so as far as I know, it’s still a rumor. Continue reading “What to Like about Like-Fests”