The One Thing You Need to Know About Social Media

Beverly Bambury/ July 7, 2017/ Facebook, Instagram, Public Relations, Self-Promotion, Social Media, Social Skills, Twitter, Useful Stuff/ 0 comments

I have said this before: “Social media is social.” Despite how often this is said by me and other social media types, people continue to miss the point of networking via social media. In case you missed it, the point is that it’s social. What does “social media is social” mean exactly? To be social is to interact, to listen as well as talk, to get to know others as they get to know you. I know the dance of socializing doesn’t come naturally to everyone. The beauty of online interaction is that if you really kind of hate people you can mask your natural distaste for human interaction. If you are a bit shy, it’s easy to put your best foot forward and

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Fall Workshops: First Lead-Up Exercise for Twitter

Beverly Bambury/ July 9, 2015/ Announcements, author services, authors, Book Marketing, DIY, Facebook, Marketing, Self-Promotion, Social Media, Social Skills, Twitter, Useful Stuff, Workshops/ 0 comments

Hello again, everyone! I have two social media for authors workshops coming in September, one in Pickering and one in Brampton. In preparation I have exercises participants can work on over the summer. They will then bring the results with them to the workshop on the day they attend. Since I am doing this in conjunction with BeNovel Marketing Services, the exercise is hosted on its site. Go take a look, and if you are in or have friends in the GTA, please share this with writers you think may be interested. Early-bird pricing has a few weeks to go and you won’t want to miss out on the hefty discount for getting in on it early! Register hereĀ (scroll down, the registration is right

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Teacher, Teach Thyself? Lessons Learned in Marketing Myself

Beverly Bambury/ March 25, 2014/ Marketing, Psychology, Public Relations, sales, Social Skills, writers/ 10 comments

It’s been interesting prepping for my upcoming self-promo webinar sessions. Over the last several years I’ve learned a lot about the different types of writing. Stuff I know both practically and from my education: sales writing, business writing, formal argumentation, Facebook posts, etc. So perhaps ironic would be a better way of describing my efforts instead of interesting; because I didn’t do a very good job getting this out the door. What happened was that I wasn’t getting nearly the number of conversions into ticket sales that I would have expected based on the even’ts page views. A couple of days ago it hit me hard: I’d left the Eventbrite page the same text as my rambling blog post. I’ve fixed it up now,

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How to Handle Social Media Missteps: Book Marketing without B.S. #9

Beverly Bambury/ January 27, 2014/ authors, BookMarketingWithoutBS, DIY, Facebook, Public Relations, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, Twitter/ 2 comments

Twitter is often an important tool in the writer’s networking arsenal. It’s fast, it’s short, it’s connected. Author Peter V. Brett was reminded last week that those strengths are also its obstacles. Today’s blog post is to illustrate that being careful how you compose tweets about controversial or sensitive topics makes a difference, and how you handle it when you misstep makes an even bigger difference. (And if you’re active and engaged, it is likely that you will at some point make a social media mistake.) A Social Media Problem is Born Last week’s genre author twitterstorm was set off when Peter retweeted the following: How did you read this tweet? Some people took it as he intended (more on that later), but many,

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The Value of Vulnerability: Book Marketing without B.S. #8

Beverly Bambury/ January 21, 2014/ BookMarketingWithoutBS, reviews, Self-Promotion, Social Skills/ 0 comments

Book Marketing without B.S. is a weekly publicity and marketing advice column for writers and other creators who prefer a realistic, clear, and no-nonsense approach. My goal is to help you cut through the bullshit with direct, understandable advice you won’t be embarrassed to follow. Send your questions to beverly@beverlybambury.com. Today I retweeted a blog post by writer and Guardian columnist Damien G. Walter. It was called The DOs and DO NOTs of Getting Your Book Reviewed and in it was the kind of solid, realistic advice I appreciate (and have written many times before). The first thing he says is that you probably need to work on your craft and write something good. Write something better. It seems obvious, but so many authors

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Changing/Correcting Guest Posts or Interviews, and More Replying to Reviews: Book Marketing without B.S. #3

Beverly Bambury/ November 15, 2013/ authors, Blog Tour, BookMarketingWithoutBS, Guest Post, Interviews, Publicity, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, writers/ 0 comments

Book Marketing without B.S. is a weekly publicity and marketing advice column for writers and other creators who prefer a realistic, clear, and no-nonsense approach. My goal is to help you cut through the bullshit with direct, understandable advice you won’t be embarrassed to follow. Send your questions to beverly@beverlybambury.com. Today there are two related questions. The first person asked “What if I want to change an interview or guest blog post reply after it’s already gone up?” Naturally, if there is an error of some kind–whether factual or typographical–you should politely ask the journalist or blogger to make the change and explain why if it isn’t obvious. I can’t think of any other reason you should ask to change something you’ve already vetted

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Social Media for the Misanthropic and the Anti-Social: Book Marketing without B.S. #2

Beverly Bambury/ November 7, 2013/ authors, BookMarketingWithoutBS, comic creators, DIY, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, Twitter, writers/ 3 comments

Book Marketing without B.S. is a weekly publicity and marketing advice column for writers and other creators who prefer a realistic, clear, and no-nonsense approach. My goal is to help you cut through the bullshit with direct, understandable advice you won’t be embarrassed to follow. Send your questions to beverly@beverlybambury.com. One of the best things about being a publicist, is that I get to do all the social, extrovert, asking-for-things work that my clients usually don’t want to do. I get to give them more time to create, and take away the stress of putting themselves directly out there. Also, given that my clients are overwhelmingly writers of dark fiction of some kind or another, they’re frequently put off by other social media tone

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Why You Shouldn’t Buy Followers: Book Marketing without B.S. #1

Beverly Bambury/ October 31, 2013/ BookMarketingWithoutBS, Facebook, Marketing, Publicity, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, Twitter/ 0 comments

Book Marketing without B.S. is a weekly publicity and marketing advice column for writers and other creators who prefer a realistic, clear, and no-nonsense approach. The marketing and publicity worlds are important for understanding audience and customers, and getting the right word out to the right people; but, let’s be honest. There’s also a lot of bullshit. My goal is to help you cut through the B.S. with direct, understandable advice you won’t be embarrassed to follow. Welcome to my inaugural Book Marketing withouth BS column. Today’s question was asked anonymously, and it’s about purchasing followers on Twitter (and by extension, purchasing likes/on other blogs and social media such as Facebook, Pinterest, etc.). The short answer to this is “Don’t do it”. Below is

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The Secret to Contacting Traditional Media for Book Publicity

Beverly Bambury/ October 23, 2013/ Book Marketing, DIY, Product Placement in Books, Queries, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, Traditional Media/ 0 comments

I haven’t contacted as many traditional media outlets as I have websites and bloggers for publicity–if for no other reason than traditional media is on a decline or integrating with online media–but, as it turns out, the secret is that there isn’t much of a secret. It still remains connections, politeness, reading directions, and being an all-around good human being. I go into some of this in my earlier article 5 Steps to a Quality Blog Tour, but here is more info with an eye toward bigger sites/traditional media publicity queries. ConnectionsThe main difference I’ve found with my work is that personal connections and networking count for even more with bigger publications, print, television, or otherwise. It’s not impossible to get into a major

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A Hard Line Against Twitter DMs for Promotion and Marketing

Beverly Bambury/ September 25, 2013/ Advertising, DIY, Marketing, Publicity, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, survey, Twitter/ 5 comments

Stop using Twitter DMs for marketing or publicizing your stuff. Just. Stop. (You’re going to like this one. It’s short to read and I am telling you to do less.) Here’s why: A minimum of 90% of the DMs I receive parrot the exact same stuff/links that is already on the sender’s Twitter profile or in a bunch of their tweets. If someone’s already looked at your profile and decided to add you, you don’t need to repeat yourself in a DM. “But I’ve got free stuff to share with followers! I need to make sure they don’t miss it!” Tweet it instead. Twitter is for tweeting. You can add it to your profile, too. It won’t be that hard to find. Honest. And

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