THE Group for Authors! discussion

"Someone To Call My Own" official book trailer.

http://youtu.be/kfuBs2POeEY

A widow, Camille Young, wants nothing more but to have someone to call her own; with the right man of course. Just when she thinks she found him in
Greg Langston – a smart, sexy, and brilliant attorney - who is very married and expecting his first child with his wife Michelle, their future gets put
on hold. When things don’t go Camille's way as she hoped, the pain of her past resurfaces.
Camille has a plan that will affect everyone around her. When Greg's wife is targeted, Greg turns to Camille for answers. Was this part of her plan?...Suddenly Greg finds himself in a situation with a woman who will stop at nothing to make him her own, even if it means destroying his family and her own life.
Camille's entire world seems to unravel as she spirals out of control, not letting anything or anyone get in her way. Someone to Call My Own is a compelling story of lies, desperation and betrayal, and the consequences that follow when an encounter with the wrong woman has a man fighting to save the lives of the ones he love.

Rated *****5 stars (Amazon)

facebook/authorbiancaharrison

Are you reviewing this book or promoting your own? Are we allowed to do that here in the conversation threads? I thought it was frowned upon and that we are to promote our own books elsewhere on the GR site.

Hey Charles, actually this is my book I'm promoting. Certain groups will let you promote. Also in some group discussions read the threads to see how to promote. I saw a lot of people promoting here and followed their thread post. You will get notified if your not able to promote.

Good luck :)

Ok, mine is a FIVE STAR RATED collection of short stories. Cannot work out how to start a new thread so am muscling in on Bianca's thread.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00955HHOI

Bianca wrote: "Hey Charles, actually this is my book I'm promoting. Certain groups will let you promote. Also in some group discussions read the threads to see how to promote. I saw a lot of people promoting here..."

Actually, Bianca, there is a sticky in this very subforum regarding self-promotion:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I do not intend the following as criticism, but rather, I'm trying to be helpful. I've noticed that the majority of your posts on Goodreads are just promotion for your book. I don't think you'll find that to be very successful. My advice would be to find groups that interest you personally and participate as a user. If people like you, or find you helpful, funny or insightful, they will visit your profile and check out your books.

"Actually, Bianca, there is a sticky in this very subforum regarding self-promotion." Does "sticky" refer to a stick-up note, or is a word missing here?

"My advice would be to find groups that interest you...."
Do you mean like Pinterest, Google +, Facebook, etc. or do you have something else in mind? I am asking because I need help too with promoting a horror trilogy.

BTW, Bianca, you might want to check your use of words.
It seems that you mean "you're" instead of "your," which is what you wrote.
Sorry. You are a published author, so I thought I would point this out.

Charles wrote: " Does "sticky" refer to a stick-up note, or is a word missing here?"

A sticky is a post in a group or forum that is set to stay at the top of the thread listing. In this case, I'm referring to the "Start Here" section, where this discussion is located. The post I linked to above is "stickied" so that it's at the top of the discussion list.

"Do you mean like Pinterest, Google +, Facebook, etc. or do you have something else in mind? I am asking because I need help too with promoting a horror trilogy."

I was referring to groups here on Goodreads, but the same applies elsewhere on the internet.

Here, there are several Horror groups, like this one:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

It's a great group, I used to belong to it. They do have strict rules about self-promotion, and offer a section of the group discussions for promotional posts. But by participating as a regular user, people will find your books. This is true for anywhere on the internet - your potential readers are real, interesting people, and they are far more interested in authors who are also real, interesting people. Find places on the internet that YOU enjoy, and that you think you will have the time and energy to keep up with. (And don't spread yourself too thin out of some need to "be everywhere" - it will only exhaust you, and the overall payoff is minimal and not worth your sanity.)

Above all, be sure to learn and follow any rules about self-promotion wherever you go. The first time you break one, people who notice will tune you out and ignore anything else you have to say (assuming you aren't outright banned from the group / site). It's not always fair, but people have gotten sensitive to anything that feels spammy, and I can't really blame them for that.

Note that pretending to participate as a regular user for the purpose of getting your name out there always fails. I'm not saying that you, specifically, would do this; I mention it for the benefit of anyone who may read this. It's a tactic that is all too common, and all too obvious. Don't pretend to be interested in conversations you aren't interested in. It will make you unhappy, and it's a waste of time.

These days, marketing is part of the author job description, there's no way around it. Your options are to do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. I suppose I will have an advantage if I decide to start writing again and publish, as I've got marketing experience, but that also gives me a clear picture of what a large task it is for anyone who is doing it themselves for the first time.

So ... sticky = pinned ?
Except that the particular pinned sticky is the sole posting ... replies have been banned. Ergo - no need to pin or stick it. Just FIND it.

Thanks, Christa, for the valuable advice and the time it took you to compose it. I have wondered about the book promoting that has gone on here on these conversation threads. I have even asked about them here --e.g., novel summaries and even some posted covers. I thought that the place for that was elsewhere on GR.

I did join one horror site HORROR HELLFIRE CLUB, at the advice of a friend. It looks like a good site so far. I did post an image of my first e-book novel in a horror trilogy.

I understand what you mean about your marketing experience. I have a little experience in advertising, but the several degrees in English help me to do my own editing and formatting. Then, of course, there are the novels themselves. What I am new at is working my way around the Internet, and maybe I am starting to spread myself too thin.

Thanks again.

You're welcome, Charles. I look at it this way - take care of yourself, then your product (your novels), then everything else. I learned that the hard way, though in a different creative field.

How much traffic are you getting on your wordpress blog? Do you enjoy that? If so, maybe that should be your central focus. Think of it more as "making friends and building community" rather than "selling books".

I'm a horror fan since I was a small child. If I think of any ideas more specific to your books, I'll let you know. I'll also try out the first book in your series, once I get my "next up" list down to something manageable. Lately I've been playing video games and focusing on photography more than reading.

Christa:

Thanks for your time. I don't know if I am getting much traffic on virgostone.wordpress. com or not. I don't think so. I set it up while still in China to be a paranormal site, to share experiences with the public regarding real happenings in their lives -- sort of like PARANORMAL STATE (which kept me company while teaching overseas). We had some ghosts in our faculty hotel building in Anshan, supposedly.

My father was a professional photographer with his own studio in a small town. I played around with 35mm SLRs, which he thought were toys. He should see the tiny digital cameras now. Like the Instamatics, they do look like toys.

That said, I have used one photo taken by a digital camera for my first horror novel in the trilogy. My brother took the second and third in Jacksonville. Don't know camera he used. But his look good in all their sepia-tone gloominess.

I also started out liking horror movies and novels as a kid, watching movies in my father's movie theatres (he owned three -- as well as the photography studio).

Cheers. Thanks for your time.

Hey everyone! It does state in the rules of this group that self-promotion is not allowed. As such I'm going to close this thread. Please remember to familiarize yourself with the rules before posting!