By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills and @EdieMelson
A writer’s social media platform helps brand her in the publishing world. This post is to help you reach your writing and publishing goals through social media.
Edie and I want to encourage you to establish and maintain your social media presence regularly. If you’ve taken our classes, you’ve heard us say our posts should be about the reader. In order to fill those reader needs, we must discover the character of our readers and offer our expertise.
We know the process of building a writer’s platform and brand can be daunting, but Edie and I know from experience it CAN be done effectively and efficiently in 30 minutes a day.
Every writer will be branded, and if she fails to take positive and appropriate steps, the process will be done for her. And it may not be what the writer envisioned or desired.
We’ve been where you are! So many questions and concerns about social media. Where do we begin? How do we know what and how to post? How is organization accomplished?
We want to help you answer your questions about social media, marketing, and branding.
Please comment below with your questions about social media. [os-widget path=”/millsdg1/survey-06-04″ of=”millsdg1″ comments=”false”]
In the weeks to come, we will post answers to your questions each Tuesday based on your responses. Your feedback will also help us develop our content for the Mountainside Marketing Conference January 12-15, 2017.
We look forward to your feedback!
DiAnn and Edie
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. Firewall, the first book in her Houston: FBI series, was listed by Library Journal as one of the best Christian Fiction books of 2014.
DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Suspense Sister, and International Thriller Writers. She is co-director of The Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference and The Mountainside Marketing Conference with social media specialist Edie Melson. She teaches writing workshops around the country. DiAnn is active online and would love to connect with readers on any of the social media platforms listed at www.diannmills.com.
Edie Melson is the author of numerous books, as well as a freelance writer and editor. Her blog, The Write Conversation, reaches thousands each month and has been named to the 2017 Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers. She’s the Director of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference and the Social Media Mentor at My Book Therapy. She’s also the Military Family Blogger at Guideposts. Com, Social Media Director for Southern Writers Magazine and the Senior Editor for NovelRocket.com. Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.
The Conversation
Hello! How do I know what pictures I can or cannot use? I know there are free websites with photos. But what about pulling one off the internet not from those sites? Can I use it if I give the source credit? Are there exact guidelines I can follow so I don’t break the law? : ) thank you!
Deborah, it has no bearing on whether or not we’re breaking the law if we give source credit or aren’t making any money. My advice is to NEVER pull an image off the Internet and use it. Actually, I don’t even do an Internet search when I’m looking for a specific image. It’s just too tempting. I ONLY go to sites that offer legal images to search. Here’s a link to a post detailing what you can and cannot use on the Internet: http://thewriteconversation.blogspot.com/2015/03/where-to-find-free-images-online-to-use.html
Where can we find out more info on the Mountainside Marketing Conference?
Hi Melanie, the link to register for Mountainside Marketing Conference will be available on the Ridgecrest website by the end of the week. The announcement with the link will be posted on social media sites, and I will personally respond to you with the info.
These are some things I’d love to hear more about at the conference. (Don’t feel like you have to answer these in the comments, because it’s a long list)
–I think that if I understood why social media is important, I would be even more motivated to work on my social media presence. Not whether it’s important to publishers, which is a given, but why is it important to publishers? Eg, does it really sell that many books? I usually find books from publisher pages or Amazon searches, not social media, so that’s the main source of my doubts.
–Specific examples are always helpful to me. Samples of good social media outreach on a projector screen would be helpful at the conference.
–One of my challenges is the fact that I don’t want to spend time writing on my blog if I can just put my efforts toward writing my topic for publication in a book or magazine. Why would I want to “waste” a story by just slapping it on my blog? (I know this is wrong, I just need to be convinced why)
–What if we don’t have many Facebook friends or Twitter followers? What’s a non-cheating way to build our presence? Blog posts, guest posts?
–How do hash tags work? Are they effective?
–Are publishers open to the idea that authors may not have a lot of social media followers before a book is published, but may gain followers once the book is published? Or do they want a lot of followers before publication?
–What if I don’t like social media? What if it annoys me?
Lauren, I can tell you’re super frustrated with the thought of doing social media. I understand that, but it’s the world where we live and it’s one part of the publishing job that many of us don’t care for. That means we need to work smarter, not harder when we do it.
You ask why we do it. A simple answer is that it’s the way we connect with readers and potential readers. No longer do mid-list and beginning authors get to go on book tours to find their readers. Now it’s all done through social media.
For publishing today, unless we already have a HUGE readership (like Davis Bunn, Tosca Lee, or Steven James) social media is required. So we learn how to do it well and with as little time away from writing as possible.
These are great ideas for things to share about social media! Some of them have already been covered in previous blog posts, but we’ll delve more deeply into many in the coming months.
Hang in there! Blessings, E