3/24/2014

Page Versus Group on Facebook

Like many independent authors, I set up a Facebook Page as a matter of course early on in my self-publishing days. It seemed the businesslike way to gather and communicate with readers and potential readers ... everyone seemed to be doing it.

I loved seeing my number of fans grow, and quite quickly my tribe grew to number in the hundreds. I began to notice something though ... on some posts, especially those I most wanted my followers to see, only a small portion of my followers ever got to see them. 

As time went by, I could see patterns developing ... posts with pictures or just text went out to 20%-30% of my followers, and posts with links in them went out to 10% or less of my followers.

Facebook offered me the option to pay to 'boost' individual posts, an option I took a number of times ... still though, it bugged me.

Facebook was asking me to pay to communicate with people who had expressed an interest in communicating with me on their (already ad-supported) social media network. If I refused to pay for the privilege, they throttled my posts back so that it reached 5%-10% of my followers.

I decided the other day that I had had enough of FB's greed and manipulation, so I pad to boost one final post ... announcing that I was migrating my communications on FB from the page to a group.



A group would seem to have significant advantages over the page for the purpose of communicating with readers and hopefully reaching new readers ... I hope so, and will report back with updates as to how things are working out.


Thanks,

Jamie

3/17/2014

March is Officially My Best Sales Month Ever!

There are still two weeks left in the month of March, and it is already by far my best month of sales for me as a writer!

I ran a number of promotions involving some targeted giveaways and price cuts, in combination with ads placed with various online ebook promotion outfits.

I'll post with final numbers at the end of the month, but the totals as of today are:
  • almost 6,000 copies of my two novellas delivered (for free) into the hands of potential readers/reviewers (some of who have already read and reviewed these shorter works, and moved onto the novels)
  • 50 copies of my novellas, "Mickey Slips" and "Bound for Home" purchased
  • over 400 copies of my new novel "Caretakers" purchased
  • over 500 copies of my first novel "Here Be Monsters" purchased
  • a couple dozen new reviews on Amazon and GoodReads for my books
I'm also (reasonably) hard at work on the next Tyler Cunningham novella, which should be out in the next month or so, and enjoying reading an interesting variety of books.

Thanks!

Jamie

3/10/2014

Missing

Two plates in the dishwasher after dinner, not three,
Bedtime with no forehead to kiss, no song to sing.

Grown-up talk at dinner,
Reading a book until I'm ready to put it down,
Television after dark with the volume loud as we want.

Something - someone - is missing ... and missed.

No hugs from my mini-me,
No quiet, "I love you Dad" when I pad quietly past his door before dawn.

Not grown, but growing, 
and the 14th of many ties/restrictions/bonds between us has been severed.
(I somehow overlooked the first 13 ... bad luck for me)

My Ben ... I miss him.



Jamie, 3/14

3/05/2014

Spring Break!

Not mine ... my son's actually, but I took the day off anyway to do some skiing with him at Whiteface Mountain. We got here when the lifts opened, and skied for a while before a friend of his arrived.

They're way better than me, so after a pity-run together, I sent them on their way, and after a few additional runs, I de-booted and found a nice spot in the lodge to write. We met for lunch, and they've been out on the slopes for the last few hours while I've been writing.

I'm still pretty new to writing in such a public and crowded and noisy place, but I'm getting better at it (as opposed to my usual writing sessions, which find me cloistered in the woods, shushing the occasional bid or squirrel).

I gained some ground in the next Tyler Cunningham novella, which should be out sometime in the beginning of April if things keep moving along as they have been.

I signed up for the July 2014 Camp NaNoWriMo, setting a goal of 75k, and soft-committing to a title and synopsis of the next book.

I was able to do some research for the next novel, and reach out to a couple of SME's I will need to consult with if I hope to avoid looking like a muttonhead (which I try to do when possible).

I organized some ideas and notes that I have for the serial fiction project I'm going to start soon, hopefully in April.

I'm in the second day of a giveaway of a pair of Tyler Cunningham novellas, "Mickey Slips" and "Bound for Home" ... so far, I've given a bit more than 4,000 free copies of these novellas (I'm hoping this will generate some reviews, as well as people coming back willing to pay for the novels).

It seems to also be driving people to my Amazon page, because I've sold a couple of dozen copies of "Here Be Monsters" and "Caretakers" ... hooray for unanticipated benefits of seemingly stupid things indie authors do.

Thanks for checking in!

Jamie