Pat Bertram, author or A Spark of Heavenly Fire and More Deaths Than One, is my guest Over Coffee today. Not only is Pat a wonderful storyteller, but also she is also very savvy when it comes to promotion and in particular, online promotion. What’s amazing to me is the fact Pat never had Internet until just about two years ago. She had to learn everything from scratch. Pat is currently the administrator of several groups on Facebook and Goodreads as well as being the author of two popular blogs, Book Marketing Floozy,
http://marketingfloozy.wordpress.com/ and Bertram’s Blog http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/. There is a wealth of information in the archives of Book Marketing Floozy regarding about every aspect of promotion. I would highly recommend purusing the archives.
Pat discusses the power of boldness when doing online promotion and how to use the social networks to promote both yourself and your books. She also shares some of her magical moments with us.
Writing a book was hard. Editing it was harder, and finding a publisher even harder. Waiting for it to be released after acceptance was murderous, and now promoting the book is . . .
Ha! Bet you thought I was going to say it was hardest of all -- most authors find promoting to be an arduous task, but not me. I enjoy it. What’s not to like? I get to meet wonderful people and have wonderful conversations. I get to write articles about anything I want and post them all over the internet. I get to . . . well, those two points are enough. Or should be. My books are still so new that they haven’t developed momentum, but I do believe that social networking is an incredible tool for book promotion.
Goethe wrote, “What you can do, or dream you can, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” So, gather a bit of boldness and begin. Join sites like Facebook and Goodreads. Add friends. Take the time to get to know people by commenting on your new friends’ content, by sharing with links to some of your new friend's articles and content. And bit by bit the magic happens.
Let me share some of the magic that has happened to me.
I had the honor of hosting Michael Palmer’s very first guest appearance on a blog. How magical is that?
I had the privilege of meeting Bruce DeSilva, the writing coach for Associated Press, who introduced me (virtually speaking) to his wonderful wife, the poet Patricia Smith. Or is it his wife, the wonderful poet Patricia Smith? Either way, a remarkable experience.
I managed to impress award-winning ad exec Marshall Karp with the way I promoted his stop at Bertram’s Blog during his blog tour. Still don’t know how I did that. I just thought I was having fun.
Through one of my Facebook discussion groups, I met Rita Schiano, who is going to interview me live on her blogtalkradio show, Talk to Me…Conversations with Creative, Unconventional People, on June 16, 2009 at 8:30pm ET. Being a bit nervous, since I have not spoken before a group of people in decades, I posted articles asking for advice on both Gather and Facebook, and I received the most wonderful tips and suggestions. So if I screw up, it’s my own fault. (One bit of advice I got is to not talk longer than 2 minutes at a time, but it’s probably the one suggestion I won’t be able to follow. I do tend to rhapsodize about social networking. As if you haven’t figured out already.)
Am I bragging? Maybe, but the truth is, I am honored to have met these people and to have shared a moment of their lives. But it would never have happened if I hadn’t created a presence on Facebook and various other social networking sites.
The key to social networking is to be social. Spamming people with mass emails is not social. Nor is setting up a profile and expecting it to run itself. You need to add friends and take time to get to know them. Update your status frequently and include interesting links so your new friends seek you out. Reward those who post great content by leaving a comment or participating in their discussions. You need to take an interest in them. It’s up to you. You can treat book promotion as an arduous task, or you can be bold, give a bit of yourself, and perhaps create magic.
What are some of the magical moments you’ve had using social networks? What tips would you share with others?
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Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado and a lifelong resident. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book -- character and story driven novels that can't easily be slotted into a genre -- she decided to write her own.Pat's books are available for order through the Second Wind Website http://www.secondwindpublishing.com/in ebook and paperback forms. Paperbacks are also available from Amazon and in Kindle format as well.
