Author: jjackson42

This is a follow-on from the last session. In this one, we should all have (at least) basic accounts, profiles or pages in:

1. Facebook
2. A Facebook Personal page
3. A Facebook Authors page.
4. Goodreads
   1. A Goodreads Readers page
   1. A Goodreads Authors page
5. A Twitter page
6. An Instagram page
7. A Pinterest page.

You should also know how to find the PYA Youtube page. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwvgdKFqUji1YFvlR9dOmBw/featured

You should also have decided what name you want to use. You might want to pick a name that sounds more like an “Authors Name”. Your publisher, when and if you get taken up, may tell you to change your name. An advantage of using a nom-de-plume is that you can keep your “real name personal page” for actual friends and family.

In Facebook, we are going to look at “Friending people” and responding to Friend Requests. We will also look briefly at Following, and at Liking pages.

I’m also going to include something on Facebook Groups

Remember, Facebook Friends – especially Friends with your “Nom-de-Plume” profile are not just personal friends (at least some of them) but BUSINESS CONTACTS. I recommend that you add as many Friends as you can. Not random strangers, but fellow-authors, fellow peer-group members, book bloggers, reviewers, readers, etc.

 You may find – as I have done – that many of these will become personal friends over the course of time.

Finding Friends.

1. If you know someone, ask if they have a Facebook page, and send them a Friend Request. This is the most basic way of “making friends”
2. Look at your existing friends, and at THEIR friends.

This is my Facebook page, showing my Friends. As it happens, these profiles are of “new friends” who have just joined the Romantic Novelists Assoc.

• You can scroll down my page to see if you recognise anyone and send a Friend request if you so desire.
• You can also go down and see HOW MANY FRIENDS YOU HAVE IN COMMON!
• If you have at least 60 Friends in common, then you will certainly have a range of common interests, or “something to talk about”
• If they are also members of Promoting Yorkshire Authors, or any other relevant group you belong to, such asm in my case, the Romantic Novelists Association, you should send them ALL friend requests.
• You can also click on someone’s profile and see their location and occupation, depending on the level of security they have set. This is another reason for using a nom-de-plume. This is business, and you want to give MAXIMUM info to potential readers and buyers of your book. You WANT people to see what you do (an Author) where you live (York, for me) and who are YOUR friends.
• There is, officially, no limit on the number of friend requests you can make in a day. Facebook will suddenly change its rules though, so a certain amount of discretion is advised. Do not send more than 50 Friend Requests per day. It just seems needy! 😉
• Also, do NOT send a lot of Friend Requests, have them accepted, and then unfriend them all. This is known as “churning” and Facebook DO NOT like it!
• You have a limit of 5000 Friends on Facebook. You are not likely to come too close for a long time.

1. It is also essential that you set your profile to ACCEPT FRIEND REQUESTS!

Click on Settings (the little down arrow in the top margin, then Settings, near the bottom)

Click on Privacy.

Privacy Settings and Tools Your activity

Who can see your future posts? Public

Review all your posts and things you’re tagged in. Use Activity Log

Limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public? Limit Past Posts

How people can find and contact you

Who can send you friend requests? Friends of friends

Who can see your friends list? Friends

Who can look you up using the email address you provided? Friends of friends

Who can look you up using the phone number you provided? Friends of friends

Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your Profile? Yes

You have a degree of protection from idiots and oddballs by restricting visibility to “Friends of friends”.  I’ve found this works pretty well.

So you are now dipping your toe into social media. Putting bits of your daily life on Facebook, pictures of cats (or hedgehogs), etc.

You are also putting EVERY reasonable picture relating to your books that you can. Don’t forget to tell your friends about any 5* reviews you get, on Amazon OR Goodreads.

If in any doubt, have a look at a potential Friend’s timeline, especially people who are sending YOU Friends requests. Do they post anything interesting? Do they post hate-speech, or extreme politics? Is it likely to be a fake profile? (a retired US General, a pneumatic lady of negotiable affections, an Arab sheik, a Prince?)  When you Decline a Friend request, you can also mark it as Spam.

The sort of news to post.

1. When your cover comes out.
2. When you get a publishing date.
3. When you sign a contract with a publisher
4. When you are signed by an agent.
5. When your book appears in the best seller lists.
6. When your book is referenced in the press.
7. When you get a review.
8. When you work up a new advert for your book.
9. When you are having a launch party
10. When you are having a blog tour
11. When you are appearing in anyone else’s Blog, or on their page.
12. When you are going to a writing event
13. When you have been to one (especially with photos)
14. When you have a new entry on your own blog or page.
15. When you are meeting writing friends socially
16. When you are starting your edits
17. When you are finishing them.
18. When you see your book on a shelf for sale.

Always – with any of the above – include a link to the event / page, etc.

Once you have been using Facebook for a while, when you click on “Friends” on your profile, it will show you those Friends who you “talk” to most.

Also, always try to include a photo or two. They don’t have to be taken by you but do ask if you are using other peoples.

If you are taking pictures on your phone, you can post them straight to your Instagram page, and at the same time, share the post to Facebook and Twitter.

Liking Pages, and Asking for your own author Page to be Liked (on Facebook)

People may well ask you to “Like” their Facebook page. Some people do not like doing this. However, “Page Likes” are considered important as a measure of success. You are being asked to indicate support, not pledging your lifelong devotion to a page. I will always Like my Friends pages. All it takes is a mouse-click.

I do, naturally, check on the page and make sure its not a porn page or promoting extremist views. Also, I won’t like your page if it’s written in a foreign script. Common sense rules.

Facebook will also suggest pages you may like. These will be based on your Friends and your Location. Their recommendations can be quite useful.

You can see what you have Liked. On your page, Click on More, and then on Likes.

There is no restriction on the number of Pages you can like, but there is on “the number of Pages you can like in a day”.

There is a degree of “tit-for-tat! In that if you like someone’s Page, they should like yours.

One big difference between Facebook and Twitter is that, with Facebook, someone has to send you a Friend Request. So you have control over whether they become your friend. Its “Ask First”

Twitter is “Do it Anyway”; i.e. Anyone can Follow you on Twitter.  This means that it is worth checking over your recent followers to see if there are any “undesirables” there; i.e. People who want to sell you Followers, People with no Profile Picture, or with a name where the spelling of the name is TOTALLY different from the name itself.

If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Just Block the person. VERY easy. Click on the 3 vertical dots next to the persons name. You will see something like this.

Tweet to @Twittername

Send a Direct Message

Add or remove from lists…

Mute @Twittername

Block @Twittername

Report @Twittername

Embed this Profile

Then Click on Block @Twittername

As I was writing this chapter, I had a Follow, followed by a DM (Direct Message) This was it.

FazzaHa05646288 Fazza Hamdan

Greetings my dear friend, hope all is well with you? I write you in peace and it will be my pleasure to make a good acquaintance with you if you wouldn’t mind. My name is Prince Hamdan the Crown Prince of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. You are probably very informed about me or not but that means less when you meet new friends because all you will need is a proper introduction and time. And I know you still wonder why am contacting you through this medium, lots of questions in your mind I know.. Will be glad to answer if you give me the chance. Well everything I can tell you about myself is already online … Hope you can let me know a little about you for the time being ?

So Blocked immediately. Crown Princes don’t go following random foreign nationals!

Facebook Groups.

There are HUNDREDS of Facebook Groups devoted to Writing or Selling books.

There are WELL over 300 Facebook Groups available to join – and these are just the ones concerned with Writers/Authors. Some Groups let you join immediately; others require you to be approved by a Moderator.

Some Groups ask you to answer some questions.

They can be split roughly into 2 sorts.

a. Those where you can promote or sell your books.

b. Those where no promotion is allowed.

There is a small amount of “Crossover” where a Group will allow a very limited amount of promotion, on, say, Publication Day.

Groups also vary in size, with some of the new groups having as few as, say, 50 members, while at the other end of the scale one or two groups have over 50,000 members. Some of the “non-promotion” groups have over 200,000 members.

Within these divisions, Groups also divide by Genre.

While the obvious reaction might be to post to ALL the groups, Facebook will NOT like this, and may regard your post as Spam. In the worst case, you could find yourself sent to the Facebook “Naughty Step” and prohibited from posting to Groups, or possibly from posting altogether.

Facebook has very definite Rules as to what constitutes Spam, however:-

a. They are NOT telling you what these Rules are,

b. They change the rules at the drop of a hat, and again, won’t tell you.

Broadly speaking, avoid sending, sharing or re-posting the SAME message more than, say, 20 times in a day.

DO NOT post too fast. If you try and be systematic and efficient, then Facebook interprets this a Spamming, EVEN if there is no commercial link in your posts.

Facebook doesn’t look at your posts – it just checks to see if they are identical.

Facebook now want you to avoid commercial promotion from your own Personal Page. Keep yourself on-side by setting up and using an Author Page, and preferably an Author Page Group. Invite all your friends and likers-of-your page to join the Group, and then use the Group page as the base page for your Advertising shots, fliers, etc.

If you join a LOT of groups, you can find your Facebook feed swamped by Notifications. So, when you join a Group, click on the Notifications tab and switch the Notifications to Off, or to Friends Only.

Even where a Group is listed as “Promos OK” they may have some limitations. It is up to you to check and make sure that you follow their requirements.

As a general rule:

a. Do not post more than once a day in a Group

b. Do not post anything NOT related to books.

c. Do NOT post porn links / pics etc.

As a specific rule: Make sure you are posting in the right Genre.

When you join a group, you need to consider its size, and its popularity. If a group has 50k members, and they all post every day, YOUR post is going to flick through the feed and disappear in seconds. If you post in a group with 100 members, and only 20 are posting every day, then you will be seen for much longer, but only by 100 people.

So pick a selection of groups that will give you the best exposure you want.

Click on “About” on a Group page you don’t belong to and you will see something like this.

Activity

2 New posts today

236 in the last 30 days

2,641 Members

+25 in the last 30 days

Created: about 10 years ago

This helps you decide if you want to join a Group.

Do remember that Facebook has certain limits. You cannot have more than 5000 Friends (but you can have more members of your Author Page Group).

Some Groups worth joining (for Writers)

1. Your “Peer Groups” Group. This includes the big associations. They all have Facebook Groups. If you belong to one, then join their Facebook Group.
   1. These include:
      1. The Romantic Novelists Association
      1. The Crime Writers Association
      1. The Historical Novel Society
      1. The Horror Writers Association

• Your Local Writers Group
  • These include:
    • Promoting Yorkshire Authors
    • North East Authors & Readers

• Event Groups (if you are attending)
  • These include:
    • Manchester & Liverpool Author Events
    • Leeds Literary Lovelies
    • Heart of Steel Book Signing Event 2019

• Groups that DON’T allow you to promote your books (i.e. Writing, rather than Marketing Groups)
  • These include:
    • THE Book Club (TBC)
    • Wannabe A Writer
    • 20BooksTo50000
    • Facebook Book Club

• Groups that allow you to promote your book.
  • These include:
    • Book Connectors
    • Historical Fiction Book Club
    • THE HISTORICAL NOVEL CLUB
    • Fantasy Focus
    • Marketing for Romance Writers
    • Promote Your Books
    • Authors
    • Book Club UK.com
    • Book Pimp
    • The Bookshop Café
    • The Writers Message Board
    • Aroma Books & More
    • Book promotions
    • Book Viral
    • Creative Writers
    • Euphrates Bookstore
    • Great Books to read!
    • Independent Authors eBooks and reviews please!
    • Kindle Amazon Book Club – Authors Promote Here!
    • Julies Book Review- Reviewers for Authors
    • Kindle, Kindle, and Kindle.

• Don’t try and join EVERY group. Join Groups that are appropriate for you.

You can search on your Genre in the Facebook Searchbox, and then click on Groups.

For Poetry:

For Children’s Books

Whatever Groups you do join, make sure you follow THEIR Rules. These will be in the “About” section of the group

Here is an example of a Group’s Rules.

Lastly, about Facebook Groups. When you join a Group, you will start to receive Notifications when someone posts. You can restrict the number of notifications that you see by clicking on Notifications (on the Group page) and then selecting Friends Posts, or Off.  This will stop you being overwhelmed.

That’s definitely enough for this week!

Next week – Hashtags, and more Tips and Tricks.

A tiny oak door opened into the warmth of the Romantic Novelists’ Association event, and a hearty welcome glowed from Lynda Stacey and John Jackson. The guests of the RNA York charmed me, and I fell in love with a family of romance writers.

Source: Falling in Love with the Romantic Novelists’ Association

It seemed an appropriate way of introducing Val Penny, a fellow Crooked-Cat author, and writer of the very successful Hunter series of detective novels set in and around Edinburgh.

1            What makes a good story? Characters. A good plot is essential, but if the reader doesn’t buy into your characters, all is lost.

2            How have YOU become a better writer? By reading lots of good books in all the different genres. I firmly believe that before you write a word, you should read voraciously.

3            What inspires you? People. I think people are fascinating and a snippet of conversation or interesting outfit can inspire a whole novel.

4            What does your family think of your writing? I am lucky that my whole family is very supportive of my writing endeavours. They turn up at events, tell their friends, share things on Facebook and even buy the books!

5            What were the most surprising things you learned about yourself in creating your books? The amount of bad language I put into them!

6            If you could have written any book, what would it have been and why? I am quite happy writing the novels I write without being envious of those written by others, but I do enjoy the books written by Linwood Barclay and Erin Kelly.

7            How much research do you do? I have to do quite a lot of research into the crimes my characters commit, the language they would use and, at the other end of the scale, I need to research the CSI and forensic expertise and police procedures.

8            How do you relax? I spend time with my family, swim, knit and read. I also love to travel and find much inspiration from ‘people watching’ on my journeys.

9            Do you have any writing quirks? (and if so what?) I suppose we all have quirks, but I had never thought about it until now! I think I am quite organised, I write for promoting my work and write blog posts in the mornings and work on my novel in the afternoons. I am very focused while I am writing, I like to have a quiet writing space so that I can hear the voices of my characters in my head.

10         Why write in your genre? I enjoy reading crime thrillers and I started writing them simply because they are my favourite kind of stories.

11         How is your writing different now from when you started writing? I think it is more sophisticated and the plots are more closely interwoven.

12         What do people THINK they know about your subject/genre, that they don’t? They think crime novels are easy to write! They are not ‘literary pieces’: believe me, they are not a soft option from a writer’s point of view.

13         Your 3 favourite authors? Erin Kelly, Michael Jecks and Katharine Johnson.

14         In what ways do you ’service’ or ‘support’ your books? I try to share my stories by making author visits in real life and online. Support from other authors and all my readers is terribly important.

15         What are your thoughts on good/bad reviews? Everybody is entitled to an opinion. It is lovely to read good reviews but no writer will ever produce something everybody enjoys, so bad reviews are inevitable. I view getting good and bad reviews as a right of passage for authors. I think it was Harper Lee (who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird) who said, ‘I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent, he would be wise to develop a thick hide.’ She was right!

16         What makes your book(s) stand out from the crowd? One of the things I love about my books is the cover. They are produced by my publishers, Crooked Cat Books, but I think they are fabulous.

17         Tell us something about your road to being published. I began writing my first novel when I was recovering from cancer. I did not have the energy to go out with friends and family, travel and I was not allowed to swim during my treatment. However, I had the energy to read, and subsequently to write.

18         Plotter or Pantser. I was a pantser until I attended a course run by the inimitable Sue Moorcroft. She convinced me of the usefulness of plotting. So now I plot quite thoroughly, except for the very end – I never know who done it until I have finished writing.

19         Your main character. What makes him or her so special? Hunter Wilson is calm, thorough and thoughtful. He is flawed but compassionate and determined to uncover the truth.

20         What question do you wish that someone would ask about your book, but nobody has? Can I make Hunter’s Chase into a movie?

Val Penny is an American author living in SW Scotland. She has two adult daughters of whom she is justly proud and lives with her husband and two cats. She has a Law degree from Edinburgh University and her MSc from Napier University.

This week on the Blog I’m delighted to host my fellow “Crooked Cat” (and fellow RNA Member) Jane Bwye.

Jane writes both contemporary fiction and non-fiction. As a long-term resident in Kenya, she draws on her life and experiences there to people her fiction.

I gave her some questions to answer: (and some good answers came back)

What was the most surprising things you learned about yourself in creating your books?

That I was actually successful in writing four published books. That, although I’ve been an intermittent journalist all my life, I had lots to learn about writing a book, and learning while doing is not the most satisfactory way of achieving.

My first book, BREATH OF AFRICA suffered a string of re-edits and re-writes over thirty-plus years. I believe GRASS SHOOTS is better written – more structured and organised. But Breath of Africa is more popular, maybe because I wrote with my heart.

GRASS SHOOTS is less emotional. It was written with a purpose – a mission, exploring how best to help Africa while at the same time allowing Africa to help itself.

How do you relax?

That’s easy – curling up in my armchair with a good book. Sometimes it’s a novel. I like cosy crime or historical fiction; sometimes an autobiography; it depends on my mood, and what’s to hand.

In bed, at night there’s nothing better than a few chapters to calm me down before going to sleep.

When I need a break from the intensity of my computer, I head off for a walk on the downs. I’m lucky they’re on my doorstep – provided the weather is fine, of course.

Otherwise, I usually have a jigsaw puzzle on the go or do a sudoku. I’ve started playing tennis again – just one or two gentle sets with a rest in between. There’s nothing like it to clear the head, especially when it’s windy.

And to keep my brain ticking over in a relaxed manner with a like-minded partner, a game of bridge is just the ticket.

Why write in your genre? 

What genre? When I set out on the journey of writing my first novel, I didn’t even know what a genre was. I wrote from the heart. I wrote the kind of novel I wanted to read, especially when it came to romance. Because I am a historian at heart, I wrote it like a historical novel, based on fact, with notes and dates heading the different sections and a glossary at the end.

Naturally, I tried to market it to agents and publishers as historical fiction. Then, I had to learn something about genre. It was only when I changed tactics and presented it as contemporary fiction, that I found my publishers.

Apart from my latest deviation into non-fiction (GOING IT ALONE – a beginner’s guide to starting your own business), I’ve stuck to the literary fiction/contemporary fiction genre. It is nicely broad, giving me scope. But none of my books has succeeded like Breath of Africa, which is going out of print in October.

Then, perhaps its successor, GRASS SHOOTS might come into its own under the contemporary fiction genre; although one reviewer stated it isn’t an easy book to categorize, having historical, romantic, travelogue and social elements.

Your main character. What makes him or her so special?

Charles may not be the most obvious main character, but he is my favourite, as his development epitomises the contrasts of contemporary Africa. He starts life as the son of a humble farm guard, then realises his full academic potential by graduating from Oxford University (not a far-fetched feat, as several Africans have followed similar routes). Charles suffers from the natural sexual failings of most men and his life is a roller-coaster of highs and lows as he pursues several women and a career of journalism in Nairobi, before calamity hits.

In GRASS SHOOTS, he is able to come to terms with events from his past, resume his career, and restart relationships he had allowed to fray or break. One of my reviewers, who had not read Breath of Africa, said: “he was the most interesting and complex character, prickly and not always likeable but trying to make things at least better when they can’t be good.”

Jane – Many thanks!

I am delighted to host my fellow Crooked Cat author, Val Penny, on the blog today.

Val! Take it away…

I am delighted to be visiting your blog today to chat about so many of the exciting events and opportunities 2018 has offered me and my family.

It was clear by the end of last year that 2018 would be an exciting one for our family, because my husband had learned last May that he had qualified, again, to represent his country in their International Fishing Team. This is his third Scottish Cap for his beloved fishing. We are all very proud of him.

Imagine our happiness when our older daughter and her husband compounded our excitement by making us grandparents for the first time in April. Joy of joys! A beautiful baby girl. Of course, I have never seen a more beautiful baby nor one more fascinating. Time to get knitting.

I also made a New Year Resolution this year. The first one I have made in many years, and it is one I have found very easy to keep. I resolved to read more books by authors with whose work I was not familiar. This has been a fabulous resolution. I have been thrilled by a historical romance, ‘Heart of Stone‘ by John Jackson, spooked by the ghost story ‘Woman in Back‘  by Susan Hill and intrigued by the mystery that is ‘The Silence’ by Katharine Johnson. The book that I have found most compelling book so far is the autobiography ‘Born a Crime‘ by Trevor Noah. He is a South African comedian and presenter who grew up during the period of Apartheid. As the son of a black South African mother and a white Swiss father his tales of life as a child in his native country are fascinating.  This is the best resolution I have ever made.

But the thrills of 2018 continued to roll in. My debut crime novel, the first in The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries series, was ‘Hunter’s Chase‘. The book, set in Edinburgh was published by Crooked Cat Books on 02.02.2018. I was excited and nervous about that, in equal measure. So, when my publishers confirmed that they were accepting the second book in The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries series, ‘Hunter’s Revenge‘, with a view to launching it on 09.09.2018, I really did not think things could be any better.

I was wrong. In a good way, but I was wrong: things could and did get better when I was asked to lead a session on publicising your work at the prestigious Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in England in August. I have no doubt that the magic of Swanwick gave me the confidence to show ‘Hunter’s Chase’ to my publishers in the first place, so it will be a delight to be back.

All in all, 2018 has been an extraordinary year for me and my family. I hope it will be similarly exciting for you and all your readers.

Val Penny is the author of The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries. The first on the series, ‘Hunter’s Chase’, was published by Crooked Cat Books on 02.02.2018 while the sequel, ‘Hunter’s Revenge’, will be published on 09.09.2018. Both books are available to order from Amazon.

Hunter’s Revenge 

Hunter by name – Hunter by nature: DI Hunter Wilson will not rest until his friend’s death is revenged.

 DI Hunter Wilson is called to the scene of a murder. He is shocked to find the victim is his friend and colleague, George Reinbold. Who would want to harm the quiet, old man? Why was a book worth £23,000 delivered to him that morning? Why is the security in George’s home so intense? Hunter must investigate his friend’s past as well as the present to identify the killer and identify George’s killer. Hunter also finds a new supply of cocaine from Peru flooding HMP Edinburgh and the city. The courier leads Hunter to the criminal gang but Hunter requires the help of his nemesis, the former Chief Constable, Sir Peter Myerscough and local gangster Ian Thomson to make his case. Hunter’s perseverance and patience are put to the test time after time in this taught crime thriller.

About Val:

Val Penny is an American author living in SW Scotland. She has two adult daughters of whom she is justly proud and lives with her husband and two cats. She has a Law degree from Edinburgh University and her MSc from Napier University. She has had many jobs including hairdresser, waitress, lawyer, banker, azalea farmer and lecturer. However she has not yet achieved either of her childhood dreams of being a ballerina or owning a candy store. Until those dreams come true, she has turned her hand to writing poetry, short stories and novels. Her crime novels, ‘Hunter’s Chase’ and Hunter’s Revenge are set in Edinburgh, Scotland, published by Crooked Cat Books.

The third book in the series, Hunter’s Force, follows shortly.