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Tweet-y Bird

November 13, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I received a direct message from someone I was following on Twitter. (Notice I said was following? Anyone who sends me junk gets unfollowed.) The message included a link to a site that promised to automate my Twitter. It will find followers for me, it will Tweet for me, and it will read the feed for me. Well, perhaps I exaggerating a bit when it comes to the last point, but the first two are true. It makes me wonder what the point of it is. Who are we tweeting to? Birds? Bugs? Bots?

Even without signing up for the various sites that purport to help me live a tweeter life, I still participate in a bit of automation. Whenever I post a blog, WordPress automatically updates Twitter, which in turn updates MySpace and LinkedIn. Perhaps I am missing the point. I do know Twitter is supposed to about real people talking in real time about real subjects, but I have yet to participate in a real conversation. Occasionally I RT (retweet) someone’s update, sometimes I remember to return a #FF (Follow Friday), but for the most part I don’t see anything I want to comment on. As I said, I could be missing the point.

I’m rethinking my social networking time. After my blog tour, I’m going to be spending way less time on the computer. (Eyestrain, anyone?) I want to go more for quality than quantity. I used to friend everyone on Facebook I could, but now I unfriend anyone who spams me. I have a particular dislike of people who arbitrarily stick me in a group in order to send me junk, because even if I delete the message, I keep getting messages as long as anyone in the group responds. Don’t get me wrong — I like getting messages that are sent to me, specifically, and I always respond. I just don’t like anonymity. (If you knew me in offline life, you would be laughing at the irony of such a statement. Offline, I am the epitome of privacy.)

I’m looking forward to taking a step back from online activities. So much of it seems counterproductive, even foolish, that I will be better off working on my poor neglected WIP. At least I will have accomplished something.

Don’t worry, though. I bet none of you will notice any difference. I’ll still be blogging three or four times a week, will keep up with my discussion groups, will respond to genuine messages.

I’ll even tweet. And if I don’t, WordPress will do it for me.

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Posted in blogging, internet, life, writing. Tags: #FF, Facebook, Follow Friday, retweet, RT, social networking, spam, Twitter. 13 Comments »

Thinking Inside the Box

November 11, 2009 — Pat Bertram

Sometimes it amazes me that there is an entire world one can enter through the portal of a electronic box. The only reason this doesn’t always amaze me is that I tend to take the Internet for granted, which, perhaps, is a sign of my addiction. The cyber world is infinitely fascinating and filled with exciting possibilities. A potential friend could lurk behind an anonymous blog view. A possible fan might discover one of my books because of a guest appearance on a blog. I might learn something new on a discussion thread, or I might read a comment that fires my imagination.

I’ve put my addiction to the Internet to good use. I’ve wanted to do all I can to give my books a good send-off, and since I started from zero, I had to learn how to blog, to discuss, to connect on the internet. That in itself satisfied my creative bent for a long time, but now the doubts are starting to creep in. I’m getting known as a blogger and a promoter, but am I getting known as an author?

At Sun Singer’s Travels, author Malcolm Campbell asks: Are you tired of spending more hours a week on Facebook than you are writing? Are you tired of writing more words on all your blogs than you’re writing in all your novels? And, do you ever wonder if you’re becoming less yourself by trying to think of a constant stream of posts, status updates, comments and links that match all the latest trends enough that somebody will notice and stop and look for a moment?

Such interesting questions, ones I hadn’t asked myself until recently. I used to think that I am more myself online than offline, but now I am beginning to wonder if I am losing my offline self. Are my posts and comments reflecting me, or are they creating me? Am I still a writer, or have I simply become a blogger? I know that whatever I am doing is helping establish my online presence, but will it sell books?

I do believe in the Internet. I think the future of books (or at least my books) will come from online promotion, but I’ve begun to realize that promotion is a marathon, not a sprint. It also seems silly at times, a matter of “The House that Jack Built.” Every day I write and promote an article on my blog that promotes the blog where I have another article that’s supposed to promote the book that I wrote. Whew! Sometimes I even write a second article to promote the one on my blog that promotes the one on someone else’s blog that promotes the book that I wrote.

I have ten days left of my Daughter Am I blog tour, and then it will be time to re-evaluate my online life.

All these words just to announce today’s blog tour stop: The Challenge of Research. You can also register to win a free print copy of Daughter Am I.

Description of Daughter Am I: When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents — grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born — she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. Along the way she accumulates a crew of feisty octogenarians — former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. She meets and falls in love Tim Olson, whose grandfather shared a deadly secret with her great-grandfather. Now Mary and Tim need to stay one step ahead of the killer who is desperate to dig up that secret.

Daughter Am I is Bertram’s third novel to be published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC. Also available are More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, life, writing. Tags: blog tour, blogger, book promotion, Facebook, Malcolm R. Campbell, online presence, Sun Singer's Travels. 2 Comments »

Live Chat and Dead Darlings

November 8, 2009 — Pat Bertram

This seems to be a slow weekend here on the Internet. I can never figure out where people disappear to or why. What could possibly be more fascinating than roaming cyberspace? 🙂 I realize in some places the weather is too nice to stay inside, in other places it’s too nasty to do anything online. Many writers are involved in National Novel Writing Month. Many others are busy procrastinating. And me . . . well, here I am, still virtually book touring.

Today’s stops:

Beth’s Book Review Blog — Reading Fiction to Make Sense of Life’s Disorder

Writer’s Sanctuary –- Passion and Puzzles

Facebook — Live Chat: Fate, Writing, and the Power of Three

Dragon My Feet — Dead Darling From Daughter Am I

The Dead Darling stop is actually yesterday’s but I liked the parallelism of live chat and dead darling. Speaking of the live chat — it will be tonight at 8:00pm ET on Facebook. You should be able to follow the chat without belonging to the Second Wind Publishing group, but if you wish to participate, you will need to join. I hope you do. I’d enjoy discussing writing and the writing life with you.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

Click here to download 30% of Daughter Am I free from Smashwords.

Click here to read the first chapter of Daughter Am I.

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: blog tour, Dead darlings, Facebook, live chat, virtual book tour. 4 Comments »

I Had an Epiphany Today!

October 5, 2009 — Pat Bertram

For the past six to eight months, I’ve been trying to figure out how to sell books online. I’ve been roaming the internet, experimenting with various social networking sites, but everywhere I went I ended up in a writers’ community. Not that it’s a problem — I’ve met many fine authors, found some good books, learned much about writing. Still, I want my novels to find a readership, so I roamed further afield, signed up for some author/reader sites. And guess what — there I found those same authors. Finally I decided to spend my time on Goodreads and other book sites and have found mostly . . . yep. Authors.

I’m exaggerating here. Of course I’ve met readers, voracious readers. The problem many readers are struggling with is that they already have stacks of books to read, or they read constantly and can’t afford to buy all the books they want to read so they haunt libraries and used bookstores, or else they set up books blogs and do reviews and get so many free books they don’t need to buy any. Readers also tend to stick with a single genre and the authors they’ve already read. Many, of course, are adventuresome, and will try new books by new authors, but these readers are so overwhelmed by the incredible number of books available, that the chances of them finding your book are zero to zilch.

So, what do we poor authors do? Ah, here’s where I had my epiphany. Promote to non-readers! Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Think about it though. We all talk about there being so few readers in the world, yet DB has sold zillions of books. Who is he selling the books to? It has to be people who seldom read. Somehow, someone convinced those non-readers that they had to read his books, and they rushed out to buy the novels.

How does one reach these non-reading readers? If I knew that, my name would be as well known as Dan Brown’s.

Daughter Am I, my young woman/old gangsters coming of age adventure, will be available from Second Wind Publishing in two weeks!

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, life, writing. Tags: book promotion, Dan Brown, Facebook, Goodreads, non-readers, readers. 11 Comments »

Where Is Everyone?

October 1, 2009 — Pat Bertram

It seems odd that a community of mega millions can suddenly go quiet, but today the internet world seems deserted. There were few comments on blogs I, little going on at Facebook, even less going on at my live chat on Gather. (If you feel up to it, stop by to visit. We can use the company! We meet every Thursday night at 9:00 pm ET at the featured article at my discussion group: No Whine, Just Champagne. Tonight is our 84th discussion, and though we usually talk about a specific topic, lately we’ve just been gossiping about writing. Tonight we will be meeting here: No Whine, Just Champagne Discussion #84.)

Where do people go on the first day of the month that is more enticing than the internet? I know there are windstorms across the USA that might preclude the use of computers, but still, out of a community of millions, there should be something going on! Or perhaps the party moved, and I missed it. So, where is everyone?

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Posted in blogging, internet, writing. Tags: Facebook, internet, No Whine Just Champagne. 9 Comments »

How Do You Choose the Books You Want to Read?

September 14, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I took an informal poll to find out how people discover new authors. (Hmmmm. Wonder why I’m interested in that!) I posted the following on discussion boards on both Goodreads and Facebook:

It seems as if there are as many ways of discovering books as there are readers, but I’m curious as to how you choose the books you want to read. Do you go by reviews? By recommendations from friends? Because you’re familiar with other works by the author? Do you ever read a book because of an ad you saw? Because of a blog article? Because of a mention on a website such as Goodreads? Do you cruise book stores, libraries, or online sites like Amazon? Do you find them some way I haven’t mentioned, such as gifts, perhaps?

Admittedly, the questions were loaded, but I still got an interesting and probably quite accurate overview:

Favorite authors or previously read authors: 36
Word of mouth: 26
Blog reviews/Book websites: 26
Goodreads/Shelfari: 24
Local bookstores: 21
Amazon/B&N/other online stores: 15
Library: 13
Publisher sites/newsletters: 5
Social networking sites like Facebook: 5
Book Clubs: 5
Author appearances/writing conferences: 5
NY Times bestseller list: 5
Offline reviews: 5
Yard sales/second hand bookstores: 4
Advertising: 3
Saw the movie: 3
Oprah: 1
Free downloads: 1
Gifts: 1

I’m not sure exactly what this means in terms of promotion, except that ideally you want to become everyone’s favorite author and have them recommend you.

How do you discover the books you want to read? Or rather where. (A lot of people said they found books to read by the front cover or the blurb on the back, but I’m more curious as to where they saw the cover.)

Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: Amazon, book reviews, Facebook, favorite author, Goodreads, informal poll. 7 Comments »

“Now That My Book is Out, What is the First Thing I Should Do?”

September 13, 2009 — Pat Bertram

A newly published author asked me an interesting question today: “Now that my book is ‘out,’ what is the first thing I should do?” I ought to know the answer to that since I was in the same position not that long ago and will be again next month when Daughter Am I is released, but I’m still a bit mystified about how to promote effectively online.

So much of book promotion on the internet depends on social networking sites, which means that one’s promotion efforts have to start long before the book is ever published because you need people to promote to. That was the big lesson I learned during my first months as a published author. The internet is so vast that any message thrown casually out into cyberspace has about as much impact as a child’s balloon set free to drift on the wind. If you hand a child a balloon, however, at least one person for sure will see it, maybe even two or three. If you have “friends,” on social networking sites perhaps a few of them will see the messages you post on your profile and be glad for you. Or at least they will pretend to be glad for you since chances are they are promoting a book, too, and responding to such messages is part of their promotion campaign.

(Do I sound cynical? I don’t mean to. I am a bit disappointed that promoting on the internet hasn’t had the impact on my sales that I’d hoped, but on the other hand, I’m having a wonderful time meeting new people, discovering new books, rediscovering old friends, creating new relatives. In essence, I’m developing a whole new life, which is a thrill in itself.)

Some new authors send email messages to all their contacts, but unless you know the people personally, I don’t think it’s such a good idea. I’m hearing through the grapevine that spamming generally doesn’t have much impact on sales, and it only irritates people, which might cause a backlash. On the other hand, status updates on MySpace, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter are good, especially if you link the update to a blog article that tells about your struggles to get published or something else of an equally personal or helpful nature.

The secret to social networking is to be social. I admit I don’t do the one-on-one thing that well. I have a huge list of people I owe blog comments to, but somehow the days pass, and the list keeps getting longer. I’ve started responding to comments on my blog, though, which is a big step in the right direction. I used to think it was better to give commenters the last word, but recently my blog readers have convinced me they like a bit of dialogue, if only to let them know I read and enjoyed their comments. And I do. Read them and enjoy them, I mean.

I’m starting to ramble a bit here.

The point is . . . heck, if I knew what the point is, I’d be sitting back and counting my millions. Still, I have learned one thing — websites, blogs, tweets and status updates all work together to create something more than the individual parts. Who knows, that something may eventually turn out to be book sales.

Daughter Am I will be released by Second Wind Publishing, LLC in October, 2009

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: blogging, book promotion, cyberspace, Daughter Am I, debut novel, Facebook, MySpace, new author, online promotion, social networking, status updates, Twitter. 12 Comments »

A Shocking (And Embarrassing) Reality

July 22, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I received my second royalty check yesterday and was shocked (and a bit embarrassed) by how few books I had sold online in the past couple of months. I’ve been a big advocate of online promotion, and I’ve had a great time connecting with people on Facebook, Gather, Twitter, Goodreads, this blog, and other sites. Apparently, however, while I’ve been making friends, I haven’t been making sales. I realize the economy is bad, that people are spending money for vacations and back to school clothes, that many people are without work, but that can’t be the total answer since 30% of each of my books is available as a free download on Smashwords. And people aren’t downloading them.

I’ve been saying all along that I’m missing a piece of the on-line promotion puzzle, and this just proves that I am right. To be honest, I still don’t know what that missing piece is. I get dozens of emails from authors telling me about their books, giving a synopsis and a plea to buy. I won’t follow their example. Such emails might work — people are kind and often will follow through — but I find them intrusive. And annoying. So annoying that I don’t even bother to read them. Since I won’t do unto others what I won’t let them do unto me, emailing people is out.

I know many authors who continually speak and write of their books, cramming them down our gullets until we want to scream. We can’t scream, of course, because that book is gagging us. That’s why you never hear a protest against this sort of tactic.

I could do what other authors are doing — give up on promotion to concentrate on writing another book that might be “the one.” The problem with this (for me, anyway) is that I already have two more books that will soon be published. Daughter Am I (sort of a gangsterish book with my own twist on the bootlegger story) will be published in August, and Light Bringer (sort of a science fiction, alternate history, retelling of human history novel, with my own twist on the past), will be published in November.

I can see one problem — I can’t write an elevator speech! After all this time, I still don’t know how to describe my books in a single sentence. Nor have I figured out my genre. One reader emailed me (yes, I do read and respond happily to emails from people who aren’t trying to sell me something unless it is one of those endlessly forwarded messages that no one ever reads). She commented: I now see what you mean about an unnamed genre. Kind of a big picture conspiracy, behind the scenes machinations and how that affects the little guy (or gal) on the street. (Thank you, Wanda!)

So, what’s the answer? I promise, when I figure it out, I will let you know. By November, I hope. Light Bringer is my magnum opus (of the four people who have read it, two called it brilliant; the other two merely said it was wonderful), but how magnum can an opus be if no one reads it?

Meantime, my fame, such as it is, is spreading. In the past few days, I found my name in four different blog posts and links to my blogs in a couple of surprising places:

Murder in the Wind — I won! Thank you! By Sheila Deeth

I blog, you blog, we all blog — Why? By Claire Collins

To Kindle or Not to Kindle by Norm Brown

Interview with Alan Baxter on Smashwords

Bookselling Links on the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association website

Yahoo Answers

It’s a good beginning.

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Posted in blogging, books, fiction, internet, writing. Tags: book promotion, Facebook, Gather.com, Goodreads, online promotion, smashwords, Twitter. 27 Comments »

Twits and Tweets

July 1, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been sitting here for about thirty minutes trying to come up with a topic for my online live chat tomorrow night at No Whine, Just Champagne on gather.com, trying to think of a bloggery for the Second Wind blog tomorrow, trying to think of something to write for my blog tonight. While I’ve been waiting for my brain to kick into gear, I’ve been doing the online equivalent of channel surfing — checking my emails, checking Facebook to see if anything is going on, checking Twitter.

Ah, Twitter. Now that’s something I can talk about. Is Twitter still a good way of connecting with people? It seems as if the only people who are adding me are multi-level-marketers, people posting links to nude pictures, people actively looking to sell me something, or people with more than 10,000 followers. I can’t imagine that any of those people will see or care about my tweets. In fact, it’s probably time for me to go through my followers and block those I’m not interested in. I should also go through the list of those I am following. When I first started with Twitter, I followed everyone who followed me, but I can see that’s no way to use the site. Maybe it’s better to have just a few followers and followings, people who actually care about one another’s twits and tweets?

I’ve read that Twitter has a 60% 30 churn rate, which means that 60% of those who sign up don’t return after 30 days. So there’s a good chance that more than half of those who follow me or who I follow aren’t even on the site. If I had the time, it would be a good idea to clean up my account, but if no one is paying attention, does it matter?

What I’m really looking for is the next fun site. Facebook is fun for me, but that’s because I’ve figured out a few things to do on the site, and I’ve actually been able to connect with people. Same with Gather. Goodreads should be fun, since it’s about books, but I find I have nothing much to say about books any more. In fact, I have four books sitting here on my desk — Steel Waters and Toxic Shock Syndrome by Ken Coffman, and The Medicine People and Lacey Took a Holiday by Lazarus Barnhill — books I promised to review but haven’t (sorry Ken and Laz), books I read and loved, yet the only thing I can think of to say about all four books is, “Great book. Read it.” Not much of a review, though it is the truth. So the books sit here, taunting me. But I digress.

So, what is the next fun site? If you hear of a site that’s easy to use, that get’s your name out there, that helps you make friends and connections, let me know. I need more places to check when I go surfing.

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Posted in blogging, internet, life, writing. Tags: Facebook, Ken Coffman, Lacey Took a Holiday, Lazarus Barnhill, No Whine Just Champagne, Second Wind blog, Steel Waters, the Medicine People, Toxic Shock Syndrome, Twitter. 11 Comments »

“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” Silly Question, or Not?

May 15, 2009 — Pat Bertram

“Where do your stories come from?” A couple of people had a problem with this question in a discussion on Facebook today. One woman thought it was the worst discussion question ever. She said that our ideas come from our heads, and that it was the kind of question asked by an interviewer who hasn’t read the book. Another person agreed, saying that he expected the question from someone who knew nothing about fiction; that it had no single answer.

Whenever a guest on this blog talks about how he or she got his ideas, I get a huge response from readers, so I know it is a good topic — and one I never get tired of discussing — so I was surprised by the responses on the Facebook forum. I truly never understood why writers hate to be asked where they get their ideas, where their stories came from, or how their stories got started. I always thought it was a perfectly sensible question, and now that I am a writer (and published) I know that it’s a perfectly sensible question. Sure, ideas come from our heads, but how? And why does one particular idea take hold when others don’t?

Of course there is no one answer to the question — that’s the beauty of it. Your answer tells who you are as a writer. If you can’t answer it, there is a chance you are one of those writers who can sit down and write without thinking — just let the story flow. If you can answer it, you are probably a writer who needs to know the story before you can write. Either way, it does not negate the validity of the question.

For me, a story usually begins with a series of ideas or a combination of events. For example, after reading Albert Zuckerman’s book about how to create the blockbusting novel, I decided I wanted to write such a book. But stories of major ideas and ideals, personal upheavals and changes generally take place during times of great strife, and so I needed an extraordinary setting for my story of women with “a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up, and beams and blares in the dark hour of adversity.” Not wanting to write a war story, I searched about in my mind and finally settled upon an epidemic so severe that the entire state of Colorado had to be quarantined.

There is no way anyone can have learned that simply by reading my novel A Spark of Heavenly Fire. The evolution of a story is completely separate from the story itself, and the evolution begins with an idea. And where did my idea come from? I created it from the wild stretches of my imagination, reasearch, and lots of hard work.

So, where do your stories come from?

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