I have been involved in several conversations lately where the topic of Twitter comes up. Sometimes I tell someone I’m on Twitter and sometimes that person asks me if I’ve heard of it. In both cases, the person I’m talking with sometimes says something like “I don’t bother with Twitter because it’s just for sharing inane information” (i.e. what the tweeter had for breakfast, tracking naps, having bowel movements, etc.).

I always find these conversations to be an uphill battle because I have to first convince the party at hand that while there is something to what they are saying, that isn’t the end of it all. Note that I didn’t say those sorts of tweets don’t happen.

In point of fact, it is precisely those types of tweets that makes Twitter an interesting social medium. You are getting some of the nitty gritty details that make us human and give you a picture into someone’s life. Granted, some of the details go too far (I don’t care about your bathroom schedule, honest!) and there are some people on Twitter who miss the point as much as those people who ask me about it.

Ideally, the tweeter gives you some intimate details about daily living interspersed with thoughts, feelings and what they are working on. That gives you, the follower (in Twitter), a more complete picture of that person’s life. This brings me to the point of Twitter.

Twitter is a social media tool. The intent of social media is to connect with people in a meaningful way. That connection may be to simply make friends or it might be (like in the case of an author) to grow an audience.

So let me bring this to how I approach Twitter. What do I hope to gain from it?

First and foremost, I use Twitter to make new friends and stay connected with existing ones. That is where I get the most value from Twitter. When I am looking for new friends and/or people to connect with, I look for individuals with similar interests to me. It should come as no surprise that I look for people who love books, whether they are readers, writers, agents, editors or publishers (or any other book-loving people). I also look for people interested in podcasting.

Secondly, I use Twitter to promote my podcast and my blog. My expectation is, with the group of people I’ve connected with, those things will be of interest. I want to emphasize that I don’t ONLY promote my own work. Just like those people who focus on the trivial, it would be missing the point. It’s just a part of my updates.

Thirdly, I do occasionally talk about the act of living. If I’m having a bad day and need to vent (a little) I might do it on Twitter (you DO need to use a personal filter to decide if your venting is appropriate, of course) or if I simply want to wish everyone a good day, I do that too.

So that’s how I use Twitter. My time on Twitter has also shown me a few things NOT to do (besides the bathroom schedule) that I won’t tolerate:

• don’t bother me if you are dealing porn.
• don’t bother me if you have cash-making schemes.
• don’t bother me if all you do is deal in trivialities..
• don’t bother me if you claim to be a “Social Media” expert or if you want to coach me how to get a ton of followers. I am more interested in quality than quantity and clearly you are not quality.
• don’t bother me if you are a voyeur (you simply watch tweets and don’t contribute).
• don’t bother me if all you do is complain or try to spout your political/social agenda.
• don’t be a hater.

I have tweets who occasional do some of the above but, to be clear, they talk about many other things too. It is the complete conversation that is necessary and important.

Personal Updates

I am busily working on the fantasy novel and I’m feeling really good about it. The suggested changes/additions are making the story even better. It’s a great feeling.

Tags: irreverent muse, Michell Plested, social media, twitter

I’ve talked about Amazon Rushes a few times, both on this blog and with various people. Quite often the first response I get is a blank stare. People know what Amazon is and they know what a rush is but put those two words together and you get confusion.

So what is an Amazon Rush anyway?

In its simplest terms, an Amazon Rush is an event held by an author where readers are encouraged to buy a copy or copies of a specific book on a specific day at a specific time (or during a period of time). It should also be mentioned that an Amazon Rush is a social media tool.

From that brief description several questions arise. The first and probably most obvious one is “Why?”.

In order to answer that question I should begin with some background. It goes something like this: writers who wish to have success as published authors need to sell books because if their sales are good enough they will get the opportunity to publish another book. In order to sell books an audience is needed. In the traditional publishing world this was accomplished through marketing and advertising efforts by the publisher and the author. Unfortunately, in today’s marketplace most books get little to no advertising or marketing budgets for traditional efforts.

That all being said, how does an author get the word out to get readers to purchase his or her book?

That’s where the social media element comes in. Authors need to spend time building an audience. This can be done through many (social media) efforts and some traditional ones. They can blog, they can post stories and they can podcast. Naturally, they can also meet people on the street, on the bus and at conventions too.

To continue, let’s talk about a typical (in this case, imaginary) author. For the sake of this exercise we’ll assume that our imaginary author has gained a respectable audience (say a few hundred people) and has been successful in signing a publishing deal. Their book has a release date but the publisher doesn’t have great distribution and doesn’t have much money to market the book.

That’s fine because the author has an audience already and the audience has shown a willingness to support the author. Chances are good that the author will sell a few hundred copies of the book over the course of several weeks or months.

The problem with that is steady but small sales don’t get anyone’s attention. At least they don’t get the attention of the big NY publishers or agents. Keep in mind that the general rule is: the bigger the publisher, the bigger the potential audience and the better the earning potential of a book.

So what should our imaginary author do to overcome this? How about an Amazon Rush? If all the author’s audience purchase a copy of the book on the same day at the same time it should (theoretically) shoot up the Amazon charts and then it WILL (again theoretically) be noticed by NY publishers and agents.

It also has the added advantage that books in the top of their respective categories will sometimes be picked up by those readers who pick up “trendy” books. If it is number 1 in Amazon Movers and Shakers, it must be worth buying, right?

So it’s all about making more money then, isn’t it?

Not really. In most of the rushes I’ve seen the author hasn’t sold enough books to pay back their entire royalty advance. It helps, certainly, but it doesn’t quite exceed it. The publisher also doesn’t stand to earn back their entire investment either. Amazon pays bottom dollar (something like 35% of cover) so the publisher is making back their investment and a little more. The money is often made in a book that sells well over a period of time.

So what is the point? A little recognition? What does that do?

Well, there have been some definite examples where authors have gone on to sign with bigger publishing houses because of their Amazon Rush success. I have also heard that agents and publishers are starting to sit up and notice Amazon Rush results.

Is it a guaranteed win? Not by a long shot, but you can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket (as the saying goes). What’s the worst that can happen? You get bragging rights about how high your book actually got.

There is one factor that must be considered with Amazon Rushes. Do you have an existing audience? If you don’t, who will you ask to buy? It’s great if you can get your parents and siblings to each buy a copy and maybe include a few friends too, but will that really affect your numbers enough?

That’s where the time investment comes in to work and generate a following ahead of time.

Personal Update

Not much to report except for the completion of edits on my fantasy novel. Yup, 80,000 words worth of editing done over the holiday. Yay!

Tags: amazon rush, irreverent muse, Michell Plested, social media