Bookmarks here too. I'm using one right now - Year Of The Sheep.
The new publicity
- Thread starter Stephen Palmer
- Start date
Oh! And aside from putting links to reviews, interviews, and like prominently in your blog navigation, also don't forget to ensure you have a Wikipedia page, where you should also do the same!
@Kissmequick @Anne Lyle @Clifford Beal @M Harold Page
@Gary Compton - make sure all your authors set up a Wikipedia page for themselves, providing a short biography and references, once published! And one for yourself.
@Kissmequick @Anne Lyle @Clifford Beal @M Harold Page
@Gary Compton - make sure all your authors set up a Wikipedia page for themselves, providing a short biography and references, once published! And one for yourself.
Gary Compton
I miss you, wor kid.
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2007
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- 3,247
I like the book marks. Jeff sent me some and it could be a good idea to have say sci-fi on one and fantasy on other. I am designing as we speak.
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- Jan 22, 2008
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Wikipedia pages aren't that easy, unfortunately, because Wikipedia has to approve them. Despite the efforts of friends and publisher, I apparently don't exist.
I have a Facebook group, which works quite well and seems to keep itself going, along with a twitter account that I don't often use (twitter, as far as I can tell, belongs almost entirely to Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry). I have a Pinterest page, which is more for my own entertainment than anything else. Perhaps the most substantial thing, apart from the websites which I paid someone else to do, is my own small wiki devoted to the Smith books and their setting. It contains extra material, and is quite good for background and stuff to random to go anywhere else.
I have a Facebook group, which works quite well and seems to keep itself going, along with a twitter account that I don't often use (twitter, as far as I can tell, belongs almost entirely to Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry). I have a Pinterest page, which is more for my own entertainment than anything else. Perhaps the most substantial thing, apart from the websites which I paid someone else to do, is my own small wiki devoted to the Smith books and their setting. It contains extra material, and is quite good for background and stuff to random to go anywhere else.
Ray McCarthy
Sentient Marmite: The Truth may make you fret.
Some mysterious entity has to decide you're notable to be on the real Wikipedia.
I'm on Wikipedia. Someone wrote an entry and submitted it, and it was approved. I don't know how much publicity it's worth, since you have to already know my name and look it up. But I am cited or referred to in a handful of articles -- I suspect that a couple of those were inserted into other articles by the same person who wrote the entry. Those might be useful, but I have no idea if they are.
One is a quote of something I said twenty years or so ago, on a private bulletin board (in the old dial-up days). I have no idea how it ended up being quoted in several different web articles. It shocked me when I found out about it, because at the time I said it there was no web connecting everybody in the world and I had no idea that it might end up where everyone in existence could read it. It's not anything awful or embarrassing but I have to say, if I had known it would be handed down to posterity I would have made it sound a lot more clever. (Some of the things I've said that I think are immensely clever and that I would like to be known for get attributed to somebody else. Fate is fickle that way.) Does it make people want to look up my books? I doubt it, because it's rather bland, but it does make me look like a sort of expert on the subject of Fantasy of Manners, just because somebody thought what I said was worth quoting, so maybe two or three people in the history of the internet have bought a book of mine because of it. The important thing that it taught me is to never say anything in a forum that I am not willing to stand by, that could embarrass me later, because if that one innocuous thing ended up several places on the web, the same thing could happen to something that I didn't want to see repeated.
But I think a Wikipedia page is worth doing, just in case it helps. I don't believe it's a huge amount of work, so why not?
On the subject of bookmarks: all the romance novelists I ever met used them, and it's my understanding that they are used extensively in the industry. Sometimes the publisher makes them, and sometimes the author has them made up. And romance is by far the most popular genre in the US. So while they might not work for everybody, collectively they seem to work very well, and unless you give it a go you'll never know if you are one of those a bookmark would work for.
One is a quote of something I said twenty years or so ago, on a private bulletin board (in the old dial-up days). I have no idea how it ended up being quoted in several different web articles. It shocked me when I found out about it, because at the time I said it there was no web connecting everybody in the world and I had no idea that it might end up where everyone in existence could read it. It's not anything awful or embarrassing but I have to say, if I had known it would be handed down to posterity I would have made it sound a lot more clever. (Some of the things I've said that I think are immensely clever and that I would like to be known for get attributed to somebody else. Fate is fickle that way.) Does it make people want to look up my books? I doubt it, because it's rather bland, but it does make me look like a sort of expert on the subject of Fantasy of Manners, just because somebody thought what I said was worth quoting, so maybe two or three people in the history of the internet have bought a book of mine because of it. The important thing that it taught me is to never say anything in a forum that I am not willing to stand by, that could embarrass me later, because if that one innocuous thing ended up several places on the web, the same thing could happen to something that I didn't want to see repeated.
But I think a Wikipedia page is worth doing, just in case it helps. I don't believe it's a huge amount of work, so why not?
On the subject of bookmarks: all the romance novelists I ever met used them, and it's my understanding that they are used extensively in the industry. Sometimes the publisher makes them, and sometimes the author has them made up. And romance is by far the most popular genre in the US. So while they might not work for everybody, collectively they seem to work very well, and unless you give it a go you'll never know if you are one of those a bookmark would work for.
Ray McCarthy
Sentient Marmite: The Truth may make you fret.
Some of my websites where I use my real name or have done articles are cited in Wikipedia technical articles. I think unless I'm actually successfully published there is little point in wikipedia page in my own name.
Of course world wide Internet and email (some of which was separate networks using gateways to Internet) existed in 1980s, while actual web sites didn't exist till about 1992. I had Internet access from about 1994, but email from 1987, though I'd used dialup services from 1981 or 1982.
Spam started in the 19th Century as soon as people had personal (Business usually) Telegraph terminals.
I must discover what this "Romance" you speak of is. Aliens and strange fantasy creatures like Dryads and Elves may indulge in it as well as Humans.
Google dishonestly gives certain sites a higher ranking than they should have, so yes a Wikipedia page will be high on Google results. Google also copes so well with bad spelling, that I use it as a spelling corrector, or if I can't exactly remember the name of an author!
Of course world wide Internet and email (some of which was separate networks using gateways to Internet) existed in 1980s, while actual web sites didn't exist till about 1992. I had Internet access from about 1994, but email from 1987, though I'd used dialup services from 1981 or 1982.
Spam started in the 19th Century as soon as people had personal (Business usually) Telegraph terminals.
I must discover what this "Romance" you speak of is. Aliens and strange fantasy creatures like Dryads and Elves may indulge in it as well as Humans.
Google dishonestly gives certain sites a higher ranking than they should have, so yes a Wikipedia page will be high on Google results. Google also copes so well with bad spelling, that I use it as a spelling corrector, or if I can't exactly remember the name of an author!
It's called "paranormal romance" when something like that is published under a romance imprint, Ray. It is -- or was -- very popular at one time. These days the vast majority of it seems to be urban fantasy, YA, or time-travel.
A true story: I sat next to Diana Gabaldon at lunch at a World Fantasy Convention just before her first book was published. She said it was fantasy but also romance, so her publishers had decided to bring it out as a romance, because it would sell better that way. They certainly called that one right! Outlander was a huge success at the time and is still popular now, and it gave birth to numerous sequels and a related series. They even adapted it for television.
Ray McCarthy
Sentient Marmite: The Truth may make you fret.
/me changes name to Rae and queries the "Talent" books as Romance instead of SF ... (well there *IS* romance and people get married in books 3 & 4! ) and the Black Enchanter as Romance instead of Fantasy.
and the Black Enchanter as Romance instead of Fantasy.
There has to be a lot of romance, though, between the protagonists, who generally have to have an HEA by the end of the book. (It's not necessary to learn the lingo, but it helps. Especially if you are promoting the book and you can sprinkle enough of the proper initials throughout your conversation. Yes, initials are big.)
@Gary Compton - make sure all your authors set up a Wikipedia page for themselves, providing a short biography and references, once published! And one for yourself.
This is considerably more difficult than people realise. You have to be Somebody Notable (as my editor was politely informed when discussing an entry for me).
Ray McCarthy
Sentient Marmite: The Truth may make you fret.
I don't like stories without "Happily Ever After." I felt very cheated by the Film "Message in a Bottle".
tinkerdan
∞<Q-Satis
I often end up at author wiki pages when they have them; but I prefer websites if I'm at all interested in their work. However if they have been deceased for a time the wiki page is often a better place to start.
Scholastic books often does a forum specific advertising campaign.
Here is a link to one of their young adult launch vehicles upon the target market heavy forum, gaia online. (A forum that has a membership base of over twenty million people in the young adult age group, and constant forum activity by between twenty and fifty thousand people at any given moment, from all across the world)
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/sin...r-poll-vote-to-receive-a-new-item/t.96322043/
Thought it was an interesting marketing vehicle.
Gaia online has advertising in similar forms for independant and self published authors.
Here is a link to one of their young adult launch vehicles upon the target market heavy forum, gaia online. (A forum that has a membership base of over twenty million people in the young adult age group, and constant forum activity by between twenty and fifty thousand people at any given moment, from all across the world)
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/sin...r-poll-vote-to-receive-a-new-item/t.96322043/
Thought it was an interesting marketing vehicle.
Gaia online has advertising in similar forms for independant and self published authors.
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People need to be very careful attempting this - presumably, sites such as Gaia online have a clear policy on how to approach this.
If you do not follow forum policies on self-promotion, most "forum advertising" is going to be regarded as spam. Not only can this mean that the user is banned and their information deleted, but because forums now commonly used shared blacklist databases, it can flag those people as spammers for other forum owners, preventing their signing up elsewhere.
Brian it can only be set up through the ádvertising and promotions department people of the website.
Self promotion as you call it is done through peoples posting signatures.
Also quite allowed. As are outside links to websites. The link has to be to legitimate sites though.
Spamming rules on gaia online are a little bit different then here.
David Balducci is promoting "Finisher" on the site, currently.
Another recently promoted book was "The False Prince".
Here is a link to author Michael Scott's thoughts upon his book being promoted with gaia online
http://www.technologytell.com/gamin...eal-scott-on-promoting-books-through-gaia-on/
And a PDF on how virtual worlds like Gaia can be exploited as a market
http://2012books.lardbucket.org/pdfs/advertising-campaigns-start-to-finish/s03-preface.pdf
And while gaia does ban people its usually for hacking or morality code violations.
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