Then Tweeting Magic attracting new readers to your Blog and/or books
Several years ago I joined Twitter and set up an automatic feed from my first Blog—iLookChina.net; then I ignored Twitter for more than four years. I had no idea how to use Twitter or Facebook properly. Both sites confused me and Facebook still does.
In fact, it’s been so long since I signed up for my Twitter account, I had to visit Twopcharts.com to discover that I first signed up on March 16, 2009—1,782 days counting back from January 31, 2014, but I started building my author’s platform December 2007 when I launched my first website. The blogs came later, and after I started to seriously blog in 2010, sales took off from 341 for 2009 to 2,375 for 2010, and in 2013, my work sold 5,044 books—the best year yet.
Then last May—1,531 days or 4.19 years after I signed up for my Twitter account—I was encouraged by another author to seriously start working it. A week later a speaker at the Berkeley Branch of the California Writers Club (est. 1906 by Jack London and friends)—where I am a member—told the audience that writers/authors needed to be on Twitter—that Twitter was crucial for an author’s platform.
Blogs don't have much value if the blogger doesn't know what they are doing. For instance, without knowing what I was doing, I fumbled around for two years with blogging. Then I took two workshops and learned the most from the all day workshop.
Results:
In 2008 when I was a guest on 31 talk radio shows that reached millions, my first book only sold 221 copies. In 2009, I went on two book blog tours and My Splendid Concubine sold 341 copies.
Then I took the first, all-day blogging workshop near the end of 2009 and then launched iLookChina. In the next nine months, I wrote and posted 1,000 posts on that Blog and sold 2,375 copies of My Splendid Concubine. iLookChina has also has about 500,000 views and still gets a few hundred daily.
In 2011, My Splendid Concubine sold 4,461 books. In 2012, 4,158 copies sold, and in 2013 5,044.
I now have several Blogs and three of the Blogs focus on themes and specific subjects that have little or nothing to do with being a writer. Only my signature blog . Lloyd Lofthouse.org covers writing and any subject I feel like sharing.
A blog without search engine rank in the top 1% of an Alexa ranking is not going to do much for an author, but if the topics a gblogger writes about are on a blog in the Alexa top 1% search engine ranking, viewers will show up through search engines.
But it takes a lot of work to earn a top 1% Alexa search engine ranking and if you stop posting, the rank drops out of the coveted spot in the top 1%.
Thank you for "because your work is good", but without a way to attract readers interested in what I write, readers aren't going to find my work because there's millions of titles out there for readers to choose from.
Frankly, I don't see the value of blogs (unless they contain good content), Facebook, or Twitter. Most social connections are pastimes, derived from two words: passing and time. I would interpret that to mean wasting time from writing good work.
I believe your success is not through all this social networking, but because your work is good. You also are doing something that I wish I could do, and that is belong to a really good writer's group. I belong to one for a while, but the leader of the group was notorious for not showing up for meetings or being very late, and catering to her (English) students rather than working on making the group work together.
Essays dedicated to the new media, doing business on the web, digital content, its creation and distribution, e-publishing, e-books, digital reference, DRM technology, and other related issues.
This book is about Poetry. Many different kinds of fables, short stories about life experiences, laughter, drama, children, humor, love, inspiration and some urban styles of poetry.
Essays dedicated to the new media, doing business on the web, digital content, its creation and distribution, e-publishing, e-books, digital reference, DRM technology, and other related issues.
Blogs don't have much value if the blogger doesn't know what they are doing. For instance, without knowing what I was doing, I fumbled around for two years with blogging. Then I took two workshops and learned the most from the all day workshop.
Results:
In 2008 when I was a guest on 31 talk radio shows that reached millions, my first book only sold 221 copies. In 2009, I went on two book blog tours and My Splendid Concubine sold 341 copies.
Then I took the first, all-day blogging workshop near the end of 2009 and then launched iLookChina. In the next nine months, I wrote and posted 1,000 posts on that Blog and sold 2,375 copies of My Splendid Concubine. iLookChina has also has about 500,000 views and still gets a few hundred daily.
In 2011, My Splendid Concubine sold 4,461 books. In 2012, 4,158 copies sold, and in 2013 5,044.
I now have several Blogs and three of the Blogs focus on themes and specific subjects that have little or nothing to do with being a writer. Only my signature blog . Lloyd Lofthouse.org covers writing and any subject I feel like sharing.
A blog without search engine rank in the top 1% of an Alexa ranking is not going to do much for an author, but if the topics a gblogger writes about are on a blog in the Alexa top 1% search engine ranking, viewers will show up through search engines.
But it takes a lot of work to earn a top 1% Alexa search engine ranking and if you stop posting, the rank drops out of the coveted spot in the top 1%.
Thank you for "because your work is good", but without a way to attract readers interested in what I write, readers aren't going to find my work because there's millions of titles out there for readers to choose from.
enjoyed reading
I believe your success is not through all this social networking, but because your work is good. You also are doing something that I wish I could do, and that is belong to a really good writer's group. I belong to one for a while, but the leader of the group was notorious for not showing up for meetings or being very late, and catering to her (English) students rather than working on making the group work together.
Ron