The Social Media Scheduling Free Ride is Over

scheduling social media posts for authors mobile-phone-1917737_1280Companies like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Dlvr.It are done letting you schedule a ton of social media posts without paying up. I was scheduling promotional tweets this month when I suddenly got a message saying I’d reach my limit of ten scheduled tweets.

I’d never seen this before. I tended to schedule a daily tweet that promoted at least one book, and I tended to, around the first weekend of each month, schedule tweets for the entire month (roughly thirty). I’d also schedule a few tweets for the week of interesting articles or quotes. I don’t like the idea of someone checking out my Facebook or Twitter accounts to find I haven’t posted anything in months, so scheduling allowed me to look active, even if it didn’t include high levels of engagement. (And don’t get me started on the importance of engagement. That’s for another article.) Continue reading “The Social Media Scheduling Free Ride is Over”

Five Social Media Engagement Tips for Writers

writers and social media marketing business-people-1166576_1920Are you gaining maximum bounce from your social networks? Are Facebook’s new algorithms helping or hindering you from adding readers to your mailing list? Are Instagram and LinkedIn helping you gain subscribers? How can you really get more Instagram followers? What about Twitter or Pinterest? What are they doing for you? Did you know there’s an actual condition called “Social Media Fatigue”? Yes, there is. Are you feeling overwhelmed yet? Continue reading “Five Social Media Engagement Tips for Writers”

Book Marketing and Social Media: Do I Have to?

book marketing and social mediaIndies Unlimited recently received a letter from a reader packed full of questions about social media and book marketing. Should I join Twitter? Do I need a newsletter? My book won’t be released for another year; should I start marketing now?

Shawn Inmon wrote a very helpful post covering various marketing strategies he’s found to be useful and that he wishes he’d begun sooner. But as the minions sat around the gruel pot discussing the issue, I brought up the possibility that a “nay” post might be in order to share a different point of view. Continue reading “Book Marketing and Social Media: Do I Have to?”

Tutorial: How to Create Image Quotes

regret_tlt_quoteYesterday, we talked about using image quotes as a way to get your book-related text out on image-based sites. Today, we’ll go through a very simple method of creating these quote images.

You can make your own image quotes on programs like GIMP (free download), PhotoShop (a paid program), or even PowerPoint. You just need a program that allows you to add a background color and save your document as a JPEG. (You can even use the techniques in this MS Publisher book cover tutorial.) The process is not particularly difficult, so I’m going to offer some barebones instructions on how to do this on Google Drive, which is free, internet-based software available to anyone with a Gmail account. Continue reading “Tutorial: How to Create Image Quotes”