Kristen Lamb's Blog
Posts Tagged creating an author brand
Breaking Facebook Dependence—How to Create an Enduring Author Brand
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Blogging, Social Media Platform on July 25, 2016
Friday I wrote a post Is Facebook Dying? What’s Killing It? to relay what I strongly will be the next evolution of the Digital Age, a Web 3.0 if you will. Judging from the early success of augmented reality games (referencing Pokemon Go), I think we can expect to see more games and more variations.
And this is not necessarily a bad thing.
FB has been like a spoiled child garnering all the attention for far too long. Perhaps that is at least in part responsible for all the poor behavior. Thus, the new ARGs really are like that younger sibling that comes along.
Suddenly FB is no longer an “only” child and is going to have to learn to share attention. Does it mean we will never again pay attention to FB? No. But it certainly won’t have the monopoly on our affection it’s previously enjoyed.
What does this mean for writers creating a brand?
For any author who wants a stable brand, the focus must always be on people not on any particular social site. This was why I wrote my social media book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World the way that I did. I have been around long enough to watch what seemed like impenetrable giants topple…taking years of work and platform with them.
Thus, I wanted a way to trend-proof the author platform as much as I could because most of us are here for the long haul so we want our focus to be in the right place. A place that will be stable and has the ability to grow deep roots that are resilient to change, that can grow with us and is as dynamic as the Internet and the humans powering it.
We needed to grow roots where we would enjoy the most returns for our efforts. In short, authors must break their dependence on social media sites.
Sites like Facebook should always be servants of the greater brand…NEVER its master.
Some Things Never Change
Why is Shakespeare still relevant centuries later? Because as much as we’d like to believe we change, we really don’t. Humans don’t change. Humans still struggle with selfishness, greed, pride, ego, etc. We still crave love, attention, consideration, belonging, meaning and likely always will.
This means groups are also defined by the core realities of its component members. Any group of people will either evolve or devolve for the same reasons they have for thousands of years.
This means that all social sites are vulnerable. No matter how big a social site gets, it has critical nodes (areas of weakness) and it CAN go away. Our job is to understand this reality…then work around it.
The Blog
I know I get groans every time I mention the blog. Sure the name alone conjures images of some oozing, alien creature that ingests then liquifies teenagers dumb enough to skinny dip late at night. But, in reality, the blog is actually a writer’s best friend.
Why?
Because first of all, the blog plays to a writer’s strengths.
Writers write. It makes us leaner, meaner, faster and cleaner at what we do. Writing. So it is never a waste of time.
Additionally, a blog capitalizes on the constants. People will always want stories and information, regardless the form—from interpretational dance to digital.
Humans still crave advice, opinions, information, stories and community.
For years I’ve chastised writers for using their best content on Facebook. The writer would refuse to have a blog and would wail, But it takes too much time!
Problem was, they were spending the time anyway. They were posting content that would have been fantastic as a blog…but then it was squandered in a place with limited reach and where that content would no longer be a seed for something greater (and also a seed the writer no longer owned 😉 ).
Search Engine Blindness
Sure we get the immediate feel-good of all our “friends” liking the content we post places like FB, but no search engine ever is going to direct new people who don’t yet know us to our clever observation. We are feeding all this great “bait” to “fish” we’ve already caught. Sure, good content on Facebook will lead to more people “liking” our page, but the shelf life is incredibly short.
On a blog?
It is forever.
Well it is for at least as long as we have an internet and if the internet goes away we have way bigger problems than book sales.
Daily I get new followers who randomly googled something and who happened across this blog. Initially they like the blog (YAY!) but then they also see I have archives, that I am still posting and posting consistently. BAM! New subscriber. Recently I garnered two passionate new fans from a post I wrote eight years ago.
That is never going to happen on Facebook ever.
Search engines can also be our friends. Why? Because search engines use human behavior as a constant.
What do humans like? Okay. Send them there.
Blogs are Benevolent Dictatorships
I have a degree in Political Science which means I did a lot of studying on governments. The word democracy might conjure up fluffy feelings of patriotism, but it’s a word misused. Pure democracy is actually a living nightmare and doesn’t work once a group becomes larger than like five people. It inevitably devolves into mob rule. The majority wins.
This means if trolls are in the majority? They win.
Bizarrely enough the worst form of government is a dictatorship with the wrong person in power but ironically the best form of government is a dictatorship with the right person in power—aka the benevolent dictatorship. Of course the dictatorship can so easily go bad that it’s really no longer a preferred system of governing…unless we are talking blogs.
This blog is not a democracy. It has rules. MY rules.
Follow them and life is lovely. Fail to follow them and I trash the comment. I have no problem with commenters disagreeing with me or a fellow commenter, but we are to always be kind and respectful.
Lest the smiting commence.
I rule with an iron fist delete button and there is peace, happiness and prosperity in the land.
Our ability to give others a fun and safe place to socialize should not be underestimated, especially when the other choices are a cesspool of bickering and bullying. The only way a blog can be overrun by trolls is if the blogger fails to maintain the peace.
Blogs Grow as WE Grow
I started following Chuck Wendig years ago when both of us were relatively new writers (he even blurbed my first book). Both of us have kept blogging and our voice and ability has evolved with us. I was unpublished when I started and now have three successful books under my belt. Chuck was traditionally published…but only just recently earned the coveted title New York Times Best Selling Author.
So we’ve grown in our profession and our voice, but we have also grown in our reach. Chuck, a liberal hipster, probably wasn’t looking for fans among the military and yet on Saturday I saw his post, An Open Letter to Tiny House Hunters being shared among my special forces friends…who were dying laughing and sharing his content everywhere they could.
A big reason writers like Chuck and I have managed to keep growing and have this kind of reach is we’ve fad-proofed our brands with our blogs. We’ve both weathered MySpace, G+ and all the ups and downs of Twitter and FB not because we didn’t use those sites, rather…
We never made them our master.
We didn’t have to keep starting from Ground Zero the second the siren’s song of some new shiny came along. Even a Pokemon Shiny. Thing is people can’t play Pokemon 24/7. They do have jobs and…
Pokemon Go is to a degree reliant on good weather and we are about to see much less of that. When the snow comes, reading blogs is probably going to be preferable to wandering in subzero temps or trying to drive through a blizzard to find a Pokemon Stop. Additionally, people still have jobs and it is easier to check in on a favorite blog than to risk getting fired for wandering around catching virtual creatures.
Anyone who says “the blog” is dead is either is a technophile or doesn’t know people. I’ve heard all the gurus claiming the blog is dead. Have heard it for almost nine years now and most of those “gurus” are gone but guess who’s still here? 😉
Blogs offer an intimacy with authors second only to the books they write.
Thing is a blog done badly IS a veritable hell, so to shorten your learning curve, I’m offering a couple classes this coming month to get you started. Hey, the school supplies are for sale! Ya’ll know you can’t resist buying new pens and a notebook. Put them to use!
Blogging for Authors (August 26th) will teach you all you need to know to start an author blog good for going the distance. Additionally I would also recommend the class offered earlier that same week (August 22nd) Branding for Authors to help you with the BIG picture. These classes will benefit you greatly because most blogs will fail because writers waste a lot of time with stuff that won’t work and never will and that wastes a lot of time.
I am here to help with that 😉 .
What are your thoughts? Are you getting tired of all the new social media fads? Does it feel like you are a leaf in a river sometimes? Have you put down some good roots and are happy you did? Are you addicted to new school supplies and secretly want a new lunch kit and backpack?
I LOVE hearing from you!
To prove it and show my love, for the month of JULY, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).
Check out the other NEW classes below!
Upcoming Classes
All W.A.N.A. classes are on-line and all you need is an internet connection. Recordings are included in the class price.
We are doing ANOTHER round of Battle of the First Pages!!! August 5th
The first time we did this we had some tech issues doing this new format and we’ve since worked those out, but for now I am still keeping the price low ($25) until we get this streamlined to my tastes.
LIMITED SEATS. This is an open workshop where each person will submit his or her first page of the manuscript for critique. I will read the page aloud and “gong” where I would have stopped reading and explain why. This is an interactive workshop designed to see what works or what doesn’t. Are you ready to test your page in the fire?
Hooking the Reader—Your First Five Pages August 12th
The first five pages are the most essential part of the novel, your single most powerful selling tool. It’s how you will hook agents, editors and readers. This class will cover the most common blunders and also teach you how to hook hard and hook early. This class is 90 minutes long, 60 minutes of instruction and 30 minutes for Q&A.
Your First Five Pages Gold Level
This includes the webinar and a detailed critique your first five pages.
Your First Five Pages Platinum Level
This includes the webinar and a detailed critique of your first twenty pages.
Bullies & Baddies—Understanding the Antagonist August 19th
All fiction must have a core antagonist. The antagonist is the reason for the story problem, but the term “antagonist” can be highly confusing. Without a proper grasp of how to use antagonists, the plot can become a wandering nightmare for the author and the reader.
This class will help you understand how to create solid story problems (even those writing literary fiction) and then give you the skills to layer conflict internally and externally.
Bullies & Baddies—Understanding the Antagonist Gold
This is a personal workshop to make sure you have a clear story problem. And, if you don’t? I’ll help you create one and tell the story you want to tell. This is done by phone/virtual classroom and by appointment. Expect to block off at least a couple hours.
For those who need help building a platform and keeping it SIMPLE, pick up a copy of my latest social media/branding book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World on AMAZON, iBooks, or Nook.
broadening for authors, Can Pokemon Go Kill Facebook, creating an author brand, Facebook is dying, Kristen Lamb, Kristen Lamb Rise of the Machines, Pokemon Go, Rise of the Machines Human Authors in a Digital World, Social media for authors, We Are Not alone
Social Media, Book Signings & Why Neither Directly Impact Overall Sales
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Publishing on April 14, 2014
One of my AWESOME on-line pals posted something troublesome on my Facebook page. Apparently there is a recent article in a major writing magazine that declares social media does not sell books and, in a nutshell, isn’t worth the effort. I’ll warn you guys ahead of time that I went hunting for the article—at the last remaining Barnes & Noble within a 25 mile radius of my home—and couldn’t find said article (and have asked Kim to get me the specific issue). But, since this type of commentary is prevalent enough in the blogosphere, I feel I can address the overall thesis accurately enough.
Social Media Was NEVER About Selling Books Directly—Who KNEW?
I’ve been saying this for about ten years, because the idea of using social circles for sales is NOT new. About ten years ago, I recognized that social media would soon be a vital tool for writers to be able to create a brand and a platform before the book was even finished. This would shift the power away from sole control of Big Publishing and give writers more freedom. But, I knew social media could not be used for direct sales successfully.
How?
When I was in college, every multi-level-marketing company in the known world tried to recruit me. I delivered papers and worked nights most of my college career. Needless to say, I was always on the lookout for a more flexible job that didn’t require lugging fifty pounds of paper up and down three flights of apartment stairs at four in the morning.
I’d answer Want Ads in the paper thinking I was being interviewed for a good-paying job where I could make my own hours. Inevitably it would be some MLM company selling water filters, diet pills, vitamins, prepaid legal services, or soap.
And if I sat through the presentation, they fed me. This meant I sat through most of them.
What always creeped me out was how these types of companies did business. First, “target” family and friends to buy said product (and hopefully either sign them up to sell with you or at least “spread the word” and give business referrals). Hmmmm. Sound familiar?
The business model wasn’t really about meeting people, connecting and actually liking them just because they were good people. There was an endgame…SELL STUFF (or manipulate others into helping you sell stuff).
Ick.
Hey, you go to the gym anyway. Strike up a conversation. Say nice things, then give the sucker friend target a FREE SAMPLE. People who work out need vitamins. That isn’t ookey AT ALL!
The Battle of the Experts
I recall being part of a panel in NYC three years ago and the other experts were all excited about applications that could tweet for authors “saving time” or even certain tools that could measure what days and times Twitter was most active and when people would be most likely to see our tweets. All I could think was:
1) Are these people tweeting or ovulating?
2) If everyone uses this same tool, then all they will do is crowd the feed and no one will see anything. Left long enough, these “Golden Hours” will shift so people can avoid the barrage of ME, ME, ME! MY BOOK!
The panel’s moderator (ironically) worked for the CIA and was tickled silly that there were all kinds of algorithms that could “predict human behaviors.” Of course, I made myself WAY popular when I said, “The only way to accurately predict human behavior is if we all have a chip in our heads and someone else has a joystick.”
Yes, I can be blunt. My mom is from New York. I blame it on her.
My assertion was that, if this was true, and we could accurately predict human behavior, then we wouldn’t be worrying about crime, war or terrorism and that these algorithms were a mirage that gave a false sense of us “being in control” of the uncontrollable.
Also, how would she still have a job at the CIA?
Oooh, But We Can MEASURE…um, NO
In the 90s and early 21st century most people weren’t on-line. Computers were still cost-prohibitive and Internet service was mind-bendingly slow (dial-up?) and expensive. Social media was in its infancy and only early adopters trusted buying on-line.
Companies could launch ads and measure click-throughs. How long did a visitor stay on a web site’s page? Did the visitor click the ad on the page? Did that ad then translate into a sale? Companies still do this. I’m pretty sure authors can do this, but why would we want to?
Unlike Sephora, Gap or Walmart, most of us are a one-person operation. We don’t have a team of interns to do this stuff. We also don’t have a multi-million dollar corporate budget.
What IF an ad doesn’t work? How many of us have time and extra money to launch a new ad?
Also, there are SO many variables beyond our control. I’ve seen this with blogging. A holiday, time of year (kids getting out of school), a major world news event (Osama bin-Laden captured) can all affect traffic and click-throughs. To try and study our stats and juke them for advantage is a lot of time better used elsewhere (like writing more books).
Relationships are Key
Social media is social, meaning it’s about relationships. This means, 1) it will take time to build and 2) it cannot be outsourced 3) it cannot be automated.
Can you imagine trying to maintain relationships this way in the real world? Give your husband a call-in number:
For the location of clean socks, press 1. For a word of encouragement, press 2. For the item I need you to pick up from the store, press 3. For the real reason I haven’t talked to you since yesterday, please stay on the line and an operator will be with you shortly.
Your estimated call wait time is three days.
HINT: Anniversary.
Social media and author brands will sell books, just not directly and not in ways that can be measured looking at clicks and stats. Social media is essentially word-of-mouth which has been selling stuff books for centuries and no one can measure it.
The Bottom Line
Since I don’t have the article (sorry), I am limited here. But I imagine that, aside from telling writers social media was a waste of time that doesn’t sell books, I assume there was no panacea offered to replace social media. If social media doesn’t sell books, then what does? Ads don’t. Never have. Promotions are time-consuming, expensive and have a dismal ROI (Return on Investment).
Also, if social media is so grossly ineffective, what explanation do we have for the MASSIVE power shift from BIG NYC publishing to indie and self-published authors now 1) making a reasonable second income 2) making a decent enough living to finally write full-time 3) nontraditional authors taking up an increasing portion of major bestseller lists like the New York Times and USA Today and 4) the major inflation of fiction writers now making six and seven figures?
All the ones I know of (and there are MANY) use social media to some extent. All of these authors would never have gained visibility, traction or sales without social media.How can we explain these trends without including social media as a variable?
Notice I said social media as a variable. There is NO magic formula. Hard work, more books, good books and generating word of mouth (in part with a brand and on-line platform) is fundamental. Social media has been mistakenly touted as a formula to wealth and riches, but it isn’t. Neither is buying real estate using a proven program from an infomercial.
The Future
Bookstores are closing. Barnes & Noble is evaporating. Indie stores will have a resurgence, but they have limited space (and need to unless they want to go bankrupt like the megastores that tried to KILL them). THIS is the future of book sales. I saw this in the cosmetics section of my grocery store a few months ago. Insert a debit card and get a sample before you buy…
Oh, and these are popping up…
These kiosks sound familiar. Reminds me of one of my posts from over two years ago. I wrote a lot of other blogs that said basically the same stuff, posts that are even older. But I’ve written over 800 blogs and I’m lazy and have to get back to writing books. And I am not alone in seeing this trend. I’m no great genius. Other people saw this coming.
Um, clearly since I can’t claim I invented any of these machines. Ok, I could, but I try to restrict lying to my fiction.
But, if THESE kiosks are down the pipeline, how can we reasonably come to the conclusion that social media is a total waste of time? Relying totally on social media is a waste of time, but I’ve been saying that for years. As authors, we are wise to think in terms of our careers. Think like a business, as in short-term and long-term. Platforms and careers need a wide base, deep roots, a community of support, time and a heck of a lot of sweat equity.
Also, there are effective ways to do social media and ways that make others want to stab us in the face (which was why I wrote Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World).WANA ways WORK but they take time. ROM has a step-by-step plan. Heck, don’t buy my book. Browse my blogs for free. I just care about your success.
The Future IS Bright for Writers
The future for authors is wonderful, but there is no Social Media Shake Weight. Sorry. I was bummed, too. But here’s the thing. The same articles that will discourage writers from social media because it doesn’t sell books aren’t also demanding we halt all book signings. Book signings are fun, they are social, and they’ve historically been a way to connect authors to an audience in a personal way.
Until social media they were the only way.
But book signings were NEVER meant as a sole means to sell books. In fact, it was really never even the purpose of a signing. Rather it was connection with the author as a person.
Even if a writer has a line out the door, the most even a mega-author might sell is a thousand books. Let’s be generous. FIVE thousand books. A drop in the bucket if you’re Dan Brown. Is selling 5,000 books relevant when an author sells millions? When an author has to board a plane, stay in a hotel, sit in one spot signing for hours or even come up with a speech? And travel city to city to city for a month or more instead of writing?
Food for thought 😉 .
We live in a wonderful time to be a writer. Yes, it’s work, but there are a lot of reasons why this job isn’t for everyone. Success in anything is about staying power, passion, and effective action (solid social media, building relationships, and writing MORE books and GOOD books).
What are your thoughts? Are too many authors banking too much on social media? Do you feel social media has been sold to writers as a get-rich-quick-scheme? Do you see other authors approaching social media in a way you know is going to burn them out? Do you know of any nontraditional authors who sold zillions of books yet didn’t use social media at all? What did they do?
…ALIENS.
I LOVE hearing from you!
To prove it and show my love, for the month of APRIL, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).
Amazon, Barnes & Noble going bankrupt, book signings don't impact book sales, creating an author brand, how social media sells books, Kristen Lamb, Rise of the Machines Human Authors in a Digital World, social media doesn't sell books, the future of bookstores, WANA, We Are Not alone, why social media doesn't sell books, writers and social media
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