My goal, some adivice?

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AnOldBlackMarble

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My goal for the rest of this year is to get over 100,000 followers for my Lightship Chronicles, but I'm falling far short, and I'm stuck, and my confidence is falling fast. I don't know what else to do. For those of you with more experience than me, my question is, is this reasonable? Or are my expectations too high? I really thought that since I'm giving it away for free I would get a flood of readers.:tongue

My biggest issue is that I'm really bad at self promotion, and I'm a bit antisocial even online. For me even talking to people on forums, or using twitter and facebook is like going to the dentist. Very uncomfortable and unpleasant. So I'm worried that I'll never reach my 100000 goal. I'm clueless when it comes to promoting online. I've tried posting to Twitter and Facebook, but other than posts like; hey, here's a free story for you, I don't know how else to promote myself. How do you guys do it? Or is the only option to spend thousands of dollars buying advertising. At this point I can't do this because I'm in a bad financial situation. And all this stress and worry, on top of my day job, is interfering with my ability to continue writing this series. So I'm afraid I'm not going to reach my goal from two angles. First, it doesn't seem that I have the knowledge to correctly promote the story and find its audience, and second, the stress of that, in addition to other issues, may kill the series all together. That would be devastating. So any advice or insight from your success stories would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
 

AJakeR

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If you google ways to self-promote, I'm pretty sure there are dozens, if not hundreds of ways of doing it. Starting a secondary blog and just putting down some esoteric thoughts is useful, and it creates a fair following - you just have to stick at it quite regularly. Having a facebook page is a good way of getting followers, and keeping people updated. You can post links to your story whenever a new chapter is uploaded so people don't even have to go searching for your website, they're just on google and it's there. For Facebook though I'd recommend an author's page for yourself, rather than a page for your story. An author's page can cover all the bases, and it creates a following for yourself, rather than just the story. Which is great further down the line. If you're using twitter then use tags wisely. More often than not the hashtag #amwriting is trending, so people are noticing it. The way to earn twitter followers is easy: just tweet a lot. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be something. Even if it's occasionally re-tweeting someone else (which is also a great way to integrate into the community.) Make a hashtag for your story so that people can find out exactly what is going on in the story and you can provide updates to anyone interested. Then there's reddit, which has so many rules and caveats I ain't even gunna go into it.

I don't think your goal is ambitious in itself. It's only ambitious if you're worried about self-promoting. You can't expect to get more than half a dozen followers if you don't self-promote. You just have to put the time into doing that, as well as writing. You can tweet from work. You can post excerpts from the story on Facebook. This isn't communication, this is you shouting into the internet, no one has to reply. And if they do, you don't have to pay attention. You shouldn't feel queasy about just shouting into a void. If you do...well it takes courage to post anything of yours online. To put it out there. So just use that courage and self-promote. Feel whichever ways make you most comfortable, and use them.

I'm also sure there are better ways of self-promoting than I listed. Those are the most common. Google, and find others :)
 

HeavyAirship

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Yes, Google is your friend. I would also recommend finding online hangouts for people who like the genre you write in. I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's sci-fi so just chatting with people in Star Trek, Star Wars, BSG, or Firefly forums with a link to your story in your sig will probably get you some attention from your target audience. People are jonesing pretty hard for Star Wars right now and looking to get their sci-fi fix somewhere so you could capitalize on all the Star Wars promotion by retweeting the stuff they release which would get you noticed by their fans.

I've never done this stuff before so feel free to call me an idiot and ignore everything I just said:p
 

Stepha

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I'm a complete noob, but will chime in my 2 cents as a reader. I love the idea of a serial-type story that you can read snippets/chapters of regularly, and I would bet that others would too. I think what has been said above is key: start a blog and add to it VERY REGULARLY, and get a Facebook page for yourself as author, and even trying paying a little bit for some of the ads... I don't know what they're called... that get your page in front of more people. I LOVE contests, so maybe put together some regular contests for those who find their way to you, to encourage them to subscribe.

I think the key with an online presence isn't so much the coverage (ie. how many different sites you're on), but the frequency and regularity. Someone chime in if that's bunk, but that's my opinion. RSS feeds aside, I check out a new site (blog, Facebook page, etc.) that I'm interested in two or three times over the course of a week or two. If there isn't new content in that time, I will likely move on and not bother checking again.

By the way, sorry if this is a dumb question, but why 100,000? What's the magic there for you, at that number?
 

NateSean

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As to Twitter, you're a smart person. You don't have to be particularly social on Twitter, just play some Hashtag games. I bet you could come up with some witty entries, and it's the best way to gain followers.
 

Tim@ArmaVirum

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Hey, I'll add my two cents because I like what you are doing and appreciate your sincerity. At first glance, your website looks great, exceptionally professional. The serialized concept is good, very Dickensian (little Wire reference there). Here's where I think you can improve-- stop putting so much pressure on yourself. Goals are not as important as process. You should be developing a systematic approach to your writing and your business. Set small incremental goals that you know you can achieve. For example, I noticed that you want to publish one chapter a month. That is a realistic goal that you should commit to achieving every month. Your readers will appreciate your commitment. Your ability to deliver content will build a core following and your readers will trust you. If you work on that goal every month, you may not hit 100,000 readers, but that's okay because the process/ system you're developing is more important and it will pay off in the long run. For myself as a writer with a very demanding full time job, my goal is to write 2k words a day. This is more realistic than having a goal of writing 5 books a year, for example. The process is what's important. I hope that concept helps you. If not, no worries, just one man's humble opinion. Cheers!
 
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Vertle

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I think that everyone has given good advice on how to get noticed a little more so I'm not going to bother adding to that. What I am curious about is why you aren't selling your work rather than giving it out for free? I can understand if you simply write for the sake of enjoying to write but I think that selling it might actually attract more readers. I love getting something for free as much as anyone else but buying a piece of writing is an investment and therefore a push to actually read it, so that you don't waste your money. I am, however, quite interested at what your series sounds like and am wondering if you could post a link to it so I can have a look?
 

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Hi all,

If gaining 100,000 followers is interfering with writing the other books in this story then you need to cut back on social media. The problem is that if the other books aren't available within a certain time frame it may show your readers that you're not serious about fulfilling your contract with them.
This contract is the promise of the other books in the series. The longer readers have to wait for the next book, the less forgiving they are. For fiction books readers are usually willing to wait a year, although six months (if you can manage it) is even better.
The more books you have out, the more readers will be able to find you.

Social Media Secret Sauce is a great book that teaches how to use social media to gain followers in one hour a day. Hootsuite also has a video course that shows you how to fill out your social media profiles.

Making sure your social media profiles are filled out as much as possible will convert more readers. I would advise only focusing on the profiles that your target audience uses the most.
 
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AnOldBlackMarble

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I think that everyone has given good advice on how to get noticed a little more so I'm not going to bother adding to that. What I am curious about is why you aren't selling your work rather than giving it out for free? I can understand if you simply write for the sake of enjoying to write but I think that selling it might actually attract more readers. I love getting something for free as much as anyone else but buying a piece of writing is an investment and therefore a push to actually read it, so that you don't waste your money. I am, however, quite interested at what your series sounds like and am wondering if you could post a link to it so I can have a look?

I do have other complete books that I am selling, but I had an even harder time promoting those. I feel exhausted with facebook and twitter because every time I post there I'm advertising to the same few followers over and over. And I don't know how to find new flowers efficiently. That's why I decided to put out this series for free in the hopes of getting an audience, and then selling the later books. My goal was 100000 followers, because if I have that many people into the story, than the next books I would expect they would buy because they are now along for the ride, but the problem is that it's not working the way I was expecting.

To be honest, I thought that because it is free, and growing every month, the following would grow as well from word of mouth, but it is not happening. And I admit I am not up to speed on how to promote online, neither patient enough to spend hours on tweeter and Facebook every day. But the hours I do spend there seem futile, since after hours of Facebook and Twitter posts I may get 10 to 15 people to visit my site. The numbers don't add up. And every time I post a new chapter I get 20 to 30 people, not 100s coming back like the cumulative visits per month. So does this mean I only have 20 to 30 followers that constantly visit the site to make the numbers? I'm really frustrated. And I know I have a good story. The story is not the issue, so I'm lost, I don't get it. I've stopped watching TV because of all the crap on there, yet people are making millions of it. And I can't even give a quality story away for free. I just don't know what to do. I feel like I'm in upside down world.

Sorry for my rant.
 

KellyH

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I do have other complete books that I am selling, but I had an even harder time promoting those. I feel exhausted with facebook and twitter because every time I post there I'm advertising to the same few followers over and over. And I don't know how to find new flowers efficiently. That's why I decided to put out this series for free in the hopes of getting an audience, and then selling the later books.

To be honest, I thought that because it is free, and growing every month, the following would grow as well from word of mouth, but it is not happening. And I admit I am not up to speed on how to promote online, neither patient enough to spend hours on tweeter and Facebook every day. But the hours I do spend there seem futile, since after hours of Facebook and Twitter posts I may get 10 to 15 people to visit my site. The numbers don't add up. And every time I post a new chapter I get 20 to 30 people, not 100s coming back like the cumulative visits per month. So does this mean I only have 20 to 30 followers that constantly visit the site to make the numbers? I'm really frustrated. And I know I have a good story. The story is not the issue, so I'm lost, I don't get it. I've stopped watching TV because of all the crap on there, yet people are making millions of it. And I can't even give a quality story away for free. I just don't know what to do. I feel like I'm in upside down world.

Sorry for my rant.

I think it is perfectly normal to feel this way when marketing. It's a hard slog, even for those that have an idea of how to go about it. To tell you the truth I hardly ever use Twitter apart from posting updates about new blogs. This is because Twitter conversations move too fast to make any kind of a connection.

Take a step back and look at your overall platform, including the books you already have available and your marketing so far. See if you are marketing to the right groups and if there is anything you can improve. Check out some marketing blogs and books to see if you can glean any ideas or tactics from them.

Don't give up, keep learning about the writing, marketing and social media, and one day you will get up and realise you have gained 20 followers overnight and it will keep rising from there.

I had a look at your website and realised that you have no way of tracking or keeping in contact with your followers. You really need to get an email list going so that you can get people to subscribe to your list and notify them whenever a new chapter is added. This way you can also notify them when you release a new book. I have one in the sidebar of my blog and use Aweber to do this.

Hope this info helps you.
 

AnOldBlackMarble

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Sounds good thanks. I still have a lot to learn. My previous projects I had no idea who my audience was, but the current one is very clear. But I still haven't figured out how to promote without spending thousands. I just can't spend that kind of cash for something I'm giving away for free.
 
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