Tag: marketing

PitMad on X AKA Twitter

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PitMad on X AKA Twitter

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 15, 2026

The Late, Lamented PitMad on Twitter/X

Oh PitMad, why hast thou forsaken us?

Sadly, I am here to report that PitMad as an event is no more.

So had you ever seen the #PitMad hashtag on X? But, why should you have cared about PitMad?

So, here is a look at what PitMad was. … and a bit on how things are today.

What was #PitMad Back in the Day?

PitMad was a quarterly pitch session on X. So essentially what you would be doing was tweeting about your work. But it was only on specific dates, and agents and publishers were watching.

Oh, and I still call it tweeting. I bet many people do, too.

In addition, it only happened in March, June, September, and December.

It was a great idea! Agents and publishers would essentially scour the Twittersphere, searching for anyone using the hashtag. And, preferably, also using a genre hashtag or two. If an agent liked your pitch, then that was an invitation to query, or at least pitch a bit more.

Your friends could rally around you and offer their support by retweeting your tweets—but liking them was considered to be a faux pas.

When it was still going on, I would dive deep into hashtag and search for people who had not been retweeted much, if at all. And I would retweet them, either with words of encouragement or a comment about how interesting their premise sounded.

And if it were to return, I would do the same. Other writers are not my competition. After all, how many books do you have in your home or on your phone or e-reader?

How many are in the library? Your book most likely will not knock mine out of any of those places. And mine would never do that to yours, either.

Getting Ready With PitMad Hashtags

So you could do yourself a favor, and create your tweets in advance. As in, today.

The idea was to know what to tweet. And you wanted to be able to fit both the #PitMad hashtag into your tweet, but also the hashtag specific to your genre. So, according to Sub It Club and Brenda Drake, the hashtags were as follows:

Main Hashtags for PitMad

† #AC – Action
• #AD – Adventure
† #BIZ – Bizarro Fiction
• #CON – Contemporary
† #CR – Contemporary Romance
• #E – Erotica
† #ER – Erotic Romance
• #ES – Erotica Suspense
† #F – Fantasy
• #FTA = Fairy Tale Retelling
† #GN = Graphic Novel
• #H – Horror
† #HA – Humor
• #HF – Historical Fiction
† #HR – Historical Romance
• #INSP – Inspirational
† #LF – Literary Fiction

• #M – Mystery
† #MA = Mainstream
• #Mem – Memoir
† #MR – Magical Realism
• #NF – Non-fiction
† #P – Paranormal
• #PR – Paranormal Romance
† #R – Romance
• #RS – Romantic Suspense
† #S – Suspense
• #SF – SciFi
† #SFF – Science Fiction & Fantasy
• #SH = Superhero
† #SHRT = Short Story Collection
• #SPF = Speculative Fiction
† #STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics
• #T – Thriller
† #TT = Time Travel
• #UF – Urban Fantasy
† #VF = Visionary Fiction
• #W – Westerns
† #WF – Women’s Fiction

Age Categories

So, per the Pitmad site, you had to use an age category. And here they were:

• #A – Adult
† #C – Children’s
• #CB – Chapter Book
† #MG – Middle Grade
• #NA – New Adult
† #PB – Picture Book (this is the youngest age category)
• #YA – Young Adult

Added Hashtags (Optional)

† #DIS = Disability subject matter
• #IMM = Immigrant
† #IRMC = Interracial/Multicultural subject matter
• #LGBT = LGBTQIA+ subject matter
† #MH = Mental Health subject matter
• #ND = Neurodiverse subject matter
† #OWN = Own Voices
• #POC = Author is a Person of Color

Older Hashtags

† #AA – African American (might not be used anymore?)
• #CF – Christian Fiction (might not be used anymore?)

So there did not seem to be particular hashtags for Zombies or Vampires or the like.

What Were The Rules?

Per Ms. Drake and PitchWars (run by the same people), the rules were:

† You could only pitch complete, polished manuscripts. This meant, no works in progress were allowed!
• So, you could not pitch anything already published, no matter how many changes you had made to it.
† You had to keep the feed clear, so you were not supposed to favorite pitches made by your friends. But you could always retweet and even add commentary to the original post with the #PitMad hashtag.
• Also, you were not supposed to tweet agents or publishers unless they tweeted you first.
† Plus you had to be courteous and professional, of course.

• In addition, if you could not be there, you could use a scheduling program like HootSuite to schedule your pitches.
† You could only pitch three times during a dedicated #PitMad day. And the tweets had to differ somehow, even if it was just a difference of a period.
• But if you had more than one MS to pitch, you would get three tweets per MS.
† Finally, if you were invited to submit a manuscript, you had to be sure to put PitMad Request: TITLE in the subject line of your email when sending your request. Plus, of course, you had to follow all other submission guidelines for the requestor.

What was the Schedule?

It was March, June, September, and December. Also, the times were 8 AM – 8 PM, Eastern Time.

For 2021, the dates were:

• March 4
† June 3
• September 2 (hey, that’s my birthday!)
† December 2

Note: all of these were Thursdays.

Pitmad: Always and Forever

X and other social media platforms remain valuable places for independent authors to pitch their works. Currently, with no more official setup, and with certain rules in place, X is not necessarily the most hospitable place for such pitches.

After all, per the 4-1-1 strategy, a standard six posts should be four interesting or educational posts from other people, one educational post by you, and one promotional post by you.

Given that ratio, even attempting Pitmad now would mean a total of 18 posts per project you are trying to pitch (this is allowing for three separate Pitmad-style postings).

Is it impossible? No. Is this strategy a rule carved in stone? Of course not. But you can see how fast everything could multiply, particularly if you had more than one project to tout. And keep in mind: X has also changed demographically.

Per Sprout Social, the ratio of men to women is about 2:1. Users also post a lot, which can help to bury your pitch.

Pitmad: Takeaways

So, I am keeping the hashtags in this post because they are still useful on X, Bluesky, Facebook, and elsewhere.

Publishers and agents are still there—they are just not running under the auspices of PitMad anymore. And those publishers and agents are on these other social media platforms, too!

All in all, there are still many more agents and publishers out there. Consequently, you need to get their attention! Matching your ideal reader and their demographics to those on a particular platform is probably a better idea than ever before.

So you had better get crackin’!

And Now a Word About X, Today and Beyond

So, it is probably just as well that Pitmad has gone to that great tweet in the sky, for X itself at times teeters on the brink. Of course, that could change tomorrow. But right now, things still look a little grim.

However, while there have been some alternatives (such as Post and Mastodon), they are a bit lacking for one reason or another. Mastodon has a ton of individual servers (a bit like Discord). But these seem to be silos.

How do you find all your friends? Post seems just to be so new and not very big yet.

Bluesky, though, is looking considerably more promising!

So, even if PitMad were to be resurrected, those platforms are not necessarily the best new home for it. Perhaps they will be in time. But right now, despite its clear current problems, X still has its place.

But never count out Bluesky.

Want More About X?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about Twitter/X.

While it has a newish name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And they will often work with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

• Starting a Twitter Stream
† Demystifying Twitter/X
• X/Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† Verbal Elements on X
• Visual Elements on X
† Optimizing X
• Metrics and Timing on X
† Offsite Connections from X

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Optimizing X

Twitter, Twitter Stream, offsite connections, visual elements, Twitter followers, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, Demystifying Twitter, metrics, verbal elements, Amazoncart debuts, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, metrics, verbal elements, Bruins denounce Twitter hate, Twitter bigots, lost dogs, using Twitter to track, Shift in Twitter Trends

Optimizing X

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 10, 2026

Time to Start Optimizing X

Now that you are on it, it is time to start optimizing Twitter AKA X. And please keep in mind: a lot of what I am talking about where will work perfectly well on Bluesky and many other platforms. But Bluesky in particular.

After all, the same people made them both.

Using Lists for Optimizing X

What are lists on X?

You may have noticed people who have a rather different follower to following ratio than you do. What do I mean by that?

For instance, say you follow 100 people. And 1000 people follow you. The ratio of follower to following is 100:1000, or 1:10. This is fantastic.

Celebrities often have ratios that look like this, or even better, where they might be following 100 accounts but there are 100,000 people following them. Or more!

Newbies often end up at the other end of the spectrum, with 1000 people they are following and 100 are following them, for 10:1. If you want to just read for the most part, this is perfectly fine, except it tends to not mark you as a thought leader.

Celebs and Optimizing X

Now, most people do not sit down and calculate ratios. But they do glance at profiles.

Someone like soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, might be following some 200 people but he is followed by over 100,000,000. Hence people will really notice if he starts following them.

Does he (or any other celebrity, major or minor) have a sparse news feed? Probably not. Because he might be using lists.

Go to the profile of someone you want to follow but, instead of hitting follow, tap or click the more icon (the three dots), and select Add/remove from Lists.

Your lists will show up, and you can add someone to several at a time, or make a new list. You can even decide whether you want your list to be public.

Go to your own profile (e. g. click on your profile rather than your settings) and you will see whose lists you are on.

Why use a list rather than follow? You can still see that person’s tweets in your feed, but your ratio will not change. Furthermore, a public list tells everyone what you are interested in. How about lists for indie authors, agents, or publishers?

You can also follow lists made by other people. Maybe someone will find yours to be definitive and will follow it.

Who to Follow

Well, who should you follow on X?

Sometimes you want to publicly follow someone, rather than add them to a list. So long as you keep these people special, then this is perfectly great. I have tended to keep friends as open follows and anyone more business-related on lists. But you may prefer otherwise.

Follow fellow indie writers (this is a community, after all), or publishers, or agents. Consider who can help you, and who you can help, and follow accordingly.

How to #Hashtag

What is a hashtag, and how do you make one that is not lame?

A hashtag is a means of searching on X. Hashtag something as, say, #amwriting, and click on that, and it leads to a slice of X of everyone who used that hashtag. But beware hashtags do not look good if you use a ton of them.

Do not just indiscriminately hashtag! Also, keep them short.

#ILovePuppiesAndDolphinsAndUnicorns is probably not going to be something used by anyone else, or at least not that frequently. But #ILovePuppies is pretty popular.

Experiment by searching before you hashtag. Beware, your innocent-looking hashtag might already be coopted for an unexpected usage. Just do a search on #NeverForget or #IStayedBecause and you will know what I mean.

Does X Still Matter Enough That You Should Still Want to be Optimizing it?

Hard to say. But only you know your audience or readers. According to Sprout Social, the ratio of male-female X users is something like 2:1. The generation that dominates is Gen Z. So, keep in mind: Gen Z people are born between 1997 and 2012.

Are they the ideal market for your book? It depends. For a generational cohort where a good half or so of them are right around in the wheelhouse where it feels like everyone they know is getting married, having kids, or both, then a book for children could be ideal.

Or maybe books with young main characters out to change the world or destroy it would work better. Hard to say. Just because X is mainly male does not mean they never buy for children.

But some of them might want to continue publicly demonstrating how cool they are. Leaning into that with your marketing might work better.

Takeaways for Optimizing Twitter AKA X

Consider your peers. Who do you love to follow and read? In contrast, who seems like they are not trying too hard? Of course, if you want to start optimizing X, you should copy what the former does, versus the latter.

Want More About X AKA Twitter?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about X.

While it has changed considerably over time, a lot of these tips will still work. And often they will work with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

• Starting a Twitter Stream
† Demystifying Twitter/X
• Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism

† Conquering X/Twitter (verbal elements)
• Conquering Twitter/X (visual elements)
† Twitter/X (metrics and timing)
• X/Twitter (offsite connections)

And, if you are a fellow writer, you may also want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter/X

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Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review

Book Reviews, Killer UX Design, Content Nation by John Blossom, SEO Made Simple, Lee Odden, Dave Kerpen, Liana Evans, dummies, cluetrain manifesto, shama hyder kabadi, Numerati, Guerilla Marketing, White Space, Clay Shirky, Trust Agents, Kristina Halvorson, Stephen King, Zen, William Zinsser, Drupal for Dummies, Executive, XHTML, Communicating Design, Joshua Porter, Strategic Planning, Google Advertising Tools, Web Analytics, Right Hook, David Meerman Scott, web analytics, Revved Up, robot building, Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff, style guide, elements,

Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on August 4, 2026

A Look at Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans

Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans was a book that I might have read a little too late in the semester. In all fairness, I read this book toward the end of my first social media class at Quinnipiac (ICM 522).

Hence it felt like I already knew a lot of what she had written, but that was likely more a function of timing than anything else.

Sorry, Li.

Been There, Done That

So the Liana Evans book is interesting. However, I had just read a ton of other works about very similar work, strategies, and ideas. Therefore, it ended up being maybe one book too many. Plus it ended up an optional read, anyway.

Furthermore, other works seemed to have said it better. So these days, books just do not get published fast enough to take proper advantage of trends and new insights. Hence blogs, in general (although not always!) end up more current and relevant.

What Was the Best Thing I Learned from Liana Evans and Her Book?

Possibly the best takeaway I got from the book was when Evans talked about online communities, particularly in Chapter 33 – You Get What You Give. So on page 255, she writes –
• You need to invest your resources, such as …
† Time to research where the conversation is
• Time and resources to develop a strategy
† and Time and staff resources to engage community members
• Time to listen to what they are saying, in the communities
† Time and resources to measure successes and failures
• Giving valuable content
† It is similar to a bank account
• Don’t bribe the community

And ~

† Rewards come in all fashions
• Research who your audience is
† Give your audience something valuable and/or exclusive
• Don’t expect you’ll know everything
† Listen to what your audience says
• Admit when you are wrong
† Thank your community

Finally, much like we have been telling people for years on Able2know – listen before you speak!

Rating

Review: 4/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for social media resonate with you, then check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Social Media, SEO, Analytics, Design, and Strategy

• Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0, a Book Review
† The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition, a Book Review
• Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson, a Book Review
† Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, An Updated Book Review
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
† Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen
• The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott, A Book Review
† The Numerati by Stephen Baker, a Book Review
• Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book Review
† The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani, a Book Review

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Community Management for Indie Writers – Look at Me!

Community Management, Drawn to Scale. Freshening, Get Together, Love, Small Things, Without Management, True Community, Party Started, Terrible Netizen, Snakes in the Garden, Circle Game, Look at Me, Good Netizen, Corralling, Wandering off Topic, Facebook versus Forums, Superstar Users, Community Management Analytics, Community Roundtable, Community Management Haikus, Life of a Community Manager, Social Media Job Descriptions, Superstar Users, Community Roundtable 2010, community managers, off topic posts,

Community Management for Indie Writers – Look at Me!

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on June 2, 2026

Introverts, beware. Community management for the independent author is a big, old game of Look at Me.

Hey, Look at Me! Look at Me!

Come on and look!

Ah, marketing.

We have all seen it done well, and we have all seen it done not so well, and even downright poorly. And now, a look at applying it to your extant community. Which could be readers, prospective readers, beta readers, etc.

A poorly executed marketing strategy does more than turn off your preexisting users. It can also get your site marked as a spammer. And the scarlet S can get your site unceremoniously dumped from Google. And that means, essentially, the equivalent of the death of the site.

Spamming on Facebook will, of course, also get you dumped. Eventually.

Long Story Short: Never Spam

In order to effectively market your community, you need to cover three kinds of SEO/Marketing. Those are onsite, offsite and offline. Onsite will be covered elsewhere in this series.

You need good keywords and you need good content for onsite marketing. But after that, your optimization and marketing efforts need to move to something different. As in SEO.

Look at Me Doing Offsite Marketing

Note: this is not offline marketing, such as dropping your book on a train station bench, putting it into a little free library, or asking a bigger brick and mortar library to carry your book.

Offsite can be (mainly) divided into two areas:

1. Search Engines
2. Social Media

Consider Search Engines

You must submit your site to Google. However, do not submit to any other search engines. Why? Because the non-Google share of the market is virtually nonexistent (sorry, Bing). Hence this is a waste of your time, and they will likely pick up your site from Google anyway.

So do not use a blasting service. Heavens, no. You will never, ever need it and it is absolutely not worth it.

Consider search engines in other languages if applicable.

Look at Social Media

Social media implies interactivity, and not just voting links up or down, perhaps laced with the occasional comment.

While there are international ones (and if you have a perfect match between your content and their focus, then by all means establish a presence thereat), you really only care about the following:

• Facebook – an official fan page helps for any number of reasons. First of all, it can make your books and website known to friends, family members, business colleagues and any other connections to your currently friend list.

And you can use it to post photographs and links directly back to your site or where to buy your book.

† Twitter/X – even if your users are not, generally, on Twitter, it is still a useful marketing tool. Try feeding in a slice of the site via RSS. Just like with Facebook, this can expand the network of persons who know about your site and prose.

If X is not a fit ideologically (for you or your userbase or both), then by all means consider Bluesky or the like instead.

• LinkedIn (if applicable) – if your book is nonfiction and is about a going concern or about employment, then at minimum make sure your listing on LinkedIn is correct. You can add website and book buying URLs to your profile.

Furthermore, if going this route, make sure your site blog and social media streams are configured to feed and accept updates.

A Look at More Social Media

† Pinterest – demographics tend to skew heavily female and over thirty-five. Got books about a restaurant? A shoe store? Wedding products or services? A women’s health collective? A feminist bookstore? Go to Pinterest – but only if you have excellent images.

• Got great images but less of a female-centric slant? Consider Instagram instead.

† Tumblr – demographics skew heavily under thirty-five and even under twenty-five. Got a work about a video game? A work turned into an indie film (or about to be)? Go to Tumblr, but recognize that it is a lot more niche and fandom-centric.

Seeing as MySpace became niche before finally going belly up, you may find that Tumblr feels a little too much on its way out.

• Snapchat – demographics skew toward teens and tweens? Consider this fast-moving site for everything from YA (young adult) to NA (new adult).

† YouTube – longer form video content is a great way to get a message across.

• TikTok – 100% content-centric. Show this slice of the world what you are made of. This is for short-form video content and it is very algorithmically-driven, so you had better tag your stuff extremely well.

Back Linking

Backlinking is where you get others to add your site link to their own websites. Back-links help a great deal as Google gives them weight when determining the importance and influence of your site. And that is directly linked to search placement.

You always do better when more trusted sites link back to you. Do not get spammers to link to you.

Blogs

For your blog, go to other sites you admire. Just as importantly, post comments on those sites. This provides value to those other people, so they are more likely to spontaneously wish to link back to you.

Or link directly to them first, but do not leave it all to happenstance. Approach the webmaster of the other site and politely ask for a back link.

Some people are happy to oblige. Others are not, so remove their links from your site after a reasonable amount of time. Some may simply think about it, so give them a little time.

And be reasonable, but also be reasonable with yourself. If you are not getting link backs, try to figure out why. Are your requests too aggressive? Or do you ask people with wholly unrelated sites?

Do you, perhaps, have no content (or no meaningful content) for them to associate with? Look at your site with a critical eye before throwing in the towel.

Truly Offline Marketing and Optimization

Offline marketing and optimization can mean going back to techniques used before – shudder – there even was an Internet. Before computers even existed.

Depending upon your budget and the overall genre of your book, offline marketing can range from something as simple as business cards or baseball caps or tee shirts with the site logo to a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl.

It can even be completely free. After all, any time you mention your site or book to someone else, didn’t you just market it?

Look, sitting back and waiting for your site or books to take off will almost never work. You need to market, particularly in the beginning. Get your name out there!

Want More About Community Management?

If my experiences with community management resonate with you, then check out my other blog posts about how online communities work.

Here are some posts about my years in community management, and what I have learned.

• A Day in the Life of a Community Manager
† Analytics (see link below)
• Going From a Collection of Users to a True Community
† Risks of a Community Without Management
• Are Off Topic Posts Ever Okay?

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Working With a Facebook Page as an Indie Author

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on April 28, 2026

The Best Way to Start Working with a Facebook Page

How do you go about working with a Facebook page?

As an indie author, you are also, to be perfectly frank about it, a small business owner. As such, it makes the most sense to treat your Facebook page a lot like many other small business owners do.

That is, it works as a front door, an advertising platform, a means to exude professional authority, and a collaborative space for a community.

Always keep in mind that Facebook is constantly A/B testing. In other words, they are checking to see if new layouts or color schemes, etc. will make you click more.

So, these instructions might be a little out of date after a while. This is what currently works. Caveat emptor. Or maybe caveat clicker.

Adding Images When Working with a Facebook Page

Images are always helpful. Use them as a measure of branding for your work and always use images you have permission to post!

If someone else created or photographed an image you are using, even if you now own the rights, it is a courtesy to link to them and give them a shout out.

A lot of my father’s and husband’s photography is on my personal author page, and people like to see newer work from my husband.

It is just another way to acknowledge that this is a community and this solitary pursuit is far from being completely solitary.

Some Details for Working with a Facebook Page

Since the specifics change all the time, I cannot go into a lot of detail (sorry!). However, for your company or author page, you will most likely want to add to and update things like the background image. Add events and post to the wall as you like.

I would also strongly suggest adding an image every single time you update. Text-only updates get lost in people’s feeds. Images are less likely to be missed.

Updates

Retaining attention is all about the updates.

You can schedule a few months in advance, so make a point of doing this. In addition, you can cover a lot more if you spread out your work and set it to emerge at various times.

Just look at your insights to get an idea of when people are online, and match to those times as well as you are able to.

Setting Up a ‘Buy Now’ Button

You will definitely want one of these. Right in front of your background image, there are three buttons. The one on the left (which is actually in the middle of your background) is a variable.

Pull down on it and choose what you want to showcase. Select Edit Call to Action and enter a link directly to buy your work. Be sure it is a link directly to your work on Amazon or Smashwords or wherever.

That is, clear away the extraneous junk on the URL. So, for Amazon works, this is everything after the ISBN.

If you have nothing to currently sell, you can always upload a YouTube video and change the call to action to a call to watch a video on your site.

There are other choices such as Call Now. So, use whatever works best for your needs.

And if you want to start advertising on Facebook, well, that is a whole other thing…

Want More About Facebook?

If my experiences with Facebook resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about the largest social network on the planet, by far.

… And Facebook for All

• Creating a Facebook page
† … Your Profile Page
• Offsite Sharing
† All Your Account Settings
• Facebook versus Forums

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Your Elevator Pitch

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 27, 2026

Let’s Deconstruct Your Elevator Pitch

We have all heard of what an elevator pitch is. It seems like it is the kind of stuff for some overly eager new sales associates looking to make an impression on the big boss between floors.

But there is more to it than that.

Someone has just turned to you and asked, “You’re a writer. What is your book about?”

Don’t just stand there! You have got to be ready.

Some Ideas for Your Verbal Elevator Pitch

Try something like this on for size.

Imagine if animals started talking, and they told you what to do in a topsy-turvy world.
My book is about Alice; she’s a young girl, a little bored on a sunny afternoon, when she spots a white rabbit. The odd thing about this rabbit is, he’s wearing clothes and talking. She follows him down a rabbit hole, but then she can’t get out.

That is less than seventy words, and the person asking has the basic plot, the name of the main character, and a reason to want to know more.

Also, you do not give away any spoilers with this pitch. Is that important? You had better believe it is.

Your Pitch in Writing

Yes, you need one of these, too. But a written elevator pitch is going to be a little different.

Even if readers know you for writing sweeping, epic sagas, you should still write some short stories. They can be in your universe, or not, although it might help with both marketing and your own personal creativity if they can fit somewhere within your universe.

They do not even necessarily have to be sent out for publication, but they could be good for anthologies. Do not knock that. This is exactly how a lot of people get their starts.

In fact, if you are having trouble breaking in, or want to impress a publisher, try submitting to anthologies. You can get a publication credit and impress the publisher of the anthology. And maybe also impress other publishers.

That is a win-win right there.

Point them there, if someone wants to read a sampling of your work. Do not make them commit to a 100,000 word novel.

Unless, of course, you really feel like alienating a potential customer.

In all seriousness, never, ever do something like that.

How Do You End Both Types of Elevator Pitches?

Why, with a call to action, of course! Why, here’s one right now.

On Balance

Finally, try to have some fun with it. Is your main character funny?

What about quoting one of her best zingers, assuming you do not need to explain the joke (that is key)?

Now that is an off-beat idea for a pitch.

And it just might be memorable enough to snag you a customer.

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What Do You Look Like Online?

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What Do You Look Like Online?

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 3, 2024

So, What Do You Look Like Online?

This post is a riff on a rather old post, Do You Know What You Look Like Online. Essentially, the question is, if you were searching for someone (someone just like you, perhaps), what sorts of judgments would you make? What seems off?

What’s being suppressed, which aspects should you be promoting, and vice versa? Is the picture clear or fuzzy?

The gist of that article is, take control of your information, keep it as a uniform brand and check it every month or so. The corollary to this is one from Shama Hyder Khabani, which is, essentially, don’t spread yourself too thin. Concentrate in only a few places.

My Own Information—What I Look Like Online

Absolutely agreed. When I google my own last name, 40,900 hits come up. And, fortunately, my own website is on page 1 (Yay, SEO!). My Entrepreneur profile (writing I did for work) comes up on the first page of results. So do my Twitter/X and LinkedIn profiles.

Also on the first page are my Facebook profile, and my Amazon author page. Get to page 2 and there’s my profile on YouTube.

Another Angle

Putting my last name into quotation marks yields 6,480 hits. All of the same usual suspects come up on Page One of the results. And nothing is too weird or scandalous. Even MuckRack, which essentially just scrapes for your name, doesn’t have anything bad.

Hey, Bartleby published me!

How Accurate is the Information?

To my mind, checking and rechecking every single month might just be a bit excessive. Is there a need to keep your profile accurate? Sure. Flattering, or at least not damaging? Yes, particularly if you are looking for work.

But to keep it sterile and perfect, as you scramble to make it perfect every moment of every day? Eh, probably not so much.

My own profile is the product of just doing a lot, and it being published. It’s easy to find flattering info on me. What I look like online is competent more than anything else. There’s nothing radical.

As for less flattering stuff, well, let’s just say that I am glad the internet wasn’t around when I was in high school.

Yikes.

But…

I would like to think (am I naïve? Perhaps I am) that potential clients and employers will see the occasional typo and will, for the most part, let it slide unless the person is in copyediting.

I am not saying that resumes, for example, should not be as get-out perfect as possible. What I am saying, though, is that this kind of obsessive and constant vigilance seems a bit, I don’t know, much.

Will the world end if I accidentally type there instead of their on this blog? And, does it matter oh so much if I don’t catch the accident immediately? Even when you consider that I’m a writer. After all, I should know better, yes?

I mean, with all of this brushing behind ourselves to cover up and/or perfect our tracks, and all of the things we are leaving behind, where’s the time and energy to make fresh, new content and look in front of ourselves?

Clean Up Your Presence

To me, there is little joy in reading a blog post or website that looks like the person who put it together was barely literate. But there is also little joy in reading sterile, obsessively perfect websites and blog posts.

A little imperfection, I feel, is a bit of letting the ole personality creep in there. Genuineness – isn’t that what the whole Social Media experience is supposed to be about, anyway?

I refuse to believe – I hope and I pray – that a bit of individuality never cost me potential jobs or any company I’ve ever worked for potential clients.

And if it has, then that saddens me, to feel that, perhaps, people are paying a lot of lip service to the genuineness of Social Media but, when the chips are down, it’s just the same ole, same ole.

Genuineness is great. One you can fake that, you’ve got it made? Please, say it ain’t so.

And don’t get me started on AI.

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Teasing Your Work

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on July 25, 2023

Let’s Look at Teasing Your Work

Teasing is a subtle art. It is a lot like a fan dancer’s moves or a shy person’s come-on.

Teasing should feel like a movie trailer because that is exactly what movie trailers do.

Teasers are usually a bit longer than blurbs and are meant to generate excitement. They often end with a question, but they don’t have to. Think of how films are teased if you’re stumped for ideas.

She was spoiled, rich, and beautiful, until the Civil War ended it all.
Scarlett O’Hara has lost nearly everything.
But there’s a rich man who’s interested, and he might even love her.
Can she win Rhett Butler and save her beloved home, Tara?

Revealing Too Much

Don’t get too obvious! In this case, you do not do yourself any favors by spoiling your own book. Notice how the above teasing for Gone With The Wind does not go past maybe the middle of the film?

And how it never mentions Ashley or Melanie Wilkes, the burning of Atlanta, or Scarlett’s first two husbands? In short, it stays focused.

I deliberately left the teaser off at just about when the first big reel ends. It used to be, in the theater, Gone With The Wind would have an intermission, the film was so long. This teaser ends just about a minute after intermission ends.

In fact, this is at least part of how the actual film was edited. The book gives Scarlett two children before Bonnie—one each from her first two husbands. But Wade and Ella aren’t in the film.

Then again, they aren’t in the book that much, either.

Revealing Too Little

This is another problem. If I just said Scarlett was a wealthy woman living a life of luxury on the brink of the Civil War, that would feel a bit incomplete.

I can go a little further, plus adding Rhett Butler’s name to the teaser brings in the chief male character (he’s kind of a main character, but if I had to choose, the main character would be Scarlett).

Marrying Rhett is one of Scarlett O’Hara’s main character drivers, whether it is to secure finances for her family or due to love on her part.

Bringing Rhett into the conversation means the listener or reader gets an even better idea about who Scarlett is, and what motivates her.

So, providing her motivation really cinches it.

The Bare Bones

We have something of a framework here. Of course, none of this is set in concrete. But these elements seem to matter the most.

1. Mention the main character by name.
2. Give a brief background to orient the reader to time and place.
3. Introduce the problem/conflict.
4. Add one driver of the main character’s behavior.
5. Wrap it up with tying the first, smaller driver to the most important driver of the main character’s behavior.

A Teasing Sample

To wit:

Alice is just plain bored, so she gets to daydreaming. When she sees a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch, it piques her interest.
She follows the rabbit when she hears it talk, and ends up in Wonderland. But Wonderland is odd, exasperating, and often downright confusing.
Can Alice get out of Wonderland with her sanity intact?

Here’s a Second Teasing Sample

Kansas is dreary and nothing ever seems to happen there. It’s a tough place for Dorothy, a girl with big dreams. When a twister drops her, her little dog, and her house into the land of Oz, things seem to be looking up.
But Oz has perils for both Dorothy and her dog, Toto. And Dorothy realizes she misses Kansas and her family after all.
Can Dorothy and Toto get back to Kansas and the people they love?

Practical Teasing Practice

I love practicing on classic works because just about anyone you talk to knows them, even a little bit. And, because they aren’t your own work, the pressure is off. That is, messing up the teaser won’t result in you losing sales or other opportunities.

Less internal pressure can help you be more creative, too. So, consider the following exercise.

Can you write a teaser for a classic work? Try it in the Comments section, and let’s see how you do!

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Starting a Twitter Stream

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 12, 2023

Let’s Look at Starting a Twitter Stream

How do you go about starting a Twitter stream? Should you plunge right in, or hang back? And what about oversharing?

Yes, I know it’s called X now. Oh, and a lot of these tips are perfectly good for Bluesky as well!

Your Twitter Stream Account

You will need a name! Let’s say you’ve taken my advice (or you have decided this on your own), and gone with an account just for writing. If you want a personal account, or you already have one, then you would want to make a second one.

Fine, but you need a name. How about a word like writer or author somewhere in there? You can’t go beyond 15 characters. Fortunately, you’ve got both letters and numbers, so you could conceivably add wr1ter or auth0r if you liked.

Go as short as you can while remaining coherent and unique. An abbreviations like wrtr is well-known, so you don’t have to worry about people getting confused.

Your Look

Settings are important in X as they are with every social network. X moves them on occasion. Every large site does beta testing, where they experiment with different layouts and looks to see what you’ll click on more often—this is normal.

Currently, they are under where it says “More”.

But you change your profile image from the profile page. Add a profile image and make it a head shot or at least a picture of the cover of your book, if you have one. Don’t keep the egg!

A background image is nice but not strictly necessary. X has some pretty decent generic images if you are unsure of how you want things to look.

Who do you Follow?

Following is as much a part of starting a Twitter stream as tweeting is. After all, you’re going to be answering people on occasion, not just blathering to the wilderness. Er, you do realize that now, don’t you?

Spend a little time chasing hashtags. #amwriting, #amediting, and #MSWL are great for getting started. Know an author you like is on X? Then follow him or her!

Publishers and agents are also good choices, as are your friends from NaNoWriMo or Wattpad or the rest of the writing community, even the fan fiction writing community.

Follow people who put words together into sentences and stories. Applaud their efforts and read what they have to say. It matters.

Your First Tweet for Starting a Twitter Stream

Yes, I still call them tweets. Don’t most people?

There’s no reason not to just say hi. It doesn’t have to be momentous. Be kind and supportive. Other writers are not your enemy and they’re generally not your competition.

That is to say, you can own both Untrustworthy (note shameless plug) or the Twilight books. Owning one does not make it impossible to have the other. A book collection is only limited by space, taste, and budget. It’s not like pie.

More to come later!

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about Twitter/X. While it’s now got a new name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And they will often work with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

† Demystifying Twitter
• X/Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† Verbal Elements on X
• Visual Elements on X
† Optimizing Twitter/X
• Metrics and Timing on X
† Offsite Connections from X

And, if you are a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter

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When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 6, 2022

When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms

When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms? Timing, as you might expect, is everything when it comes to posting on social media platforms.

After all, if you, say, tweet when your audience is sleeping, they won’t see your tweet. It’ll be lost in the mountain of missed social media communications.

We all have such a mountain of missed communications and connections. Social media just moves way too quickly for us to see, comment on, share, and experience everything. We’re only human, and of course that’s fine.

Your mission, though, is to post when your audience will be around, not when they’ll be offline, or busy with work, or settled into bed for the night.

Note: this information is from a few years ago. Yet a lot of it is still valid.

And even if the information (the actual times) is imperfect, it should give you an idea of what will work. Or what will not work. Because that’s important, too.

Zzzz AKA La La La I Can’t Hear You!

According to Kate Rinsema of AllTop (Guy Kawasaki‘s great site), the following are the most godawful worst times to post.

• Facebook – midnight to 8 AM
† Instagram – midnight to 8 AM
• LinkedIn – 9 AM to 5 PM
† Pinterest – 1 to 7 AM and 5 – 7 PM
• Tumblr – 12 AM to 12 PM
† X – 8 PM – 8 AM

But pay attention to your audience. Because maybe they’re night owls. Or maybe they live on the other side of the planet.

I’m Here and I’m Listening

These are reportedly the best times to post on social media platforms:

† Facebook – 1 to 4 PM
• Instagram – 5 PM to 6 PM
† LinkedIn – 5 PM to 6 PM
• Pinterest – 8 PM to 11 PM
† Tumblr – 7 PM to 10 PM
• X – 1 PM to 3 PM

What About Social Media Platforms and Different Time Zones?

Articles like this often vex me, because there usually isn’t any consideration taken when it comes to customers, readers, and audience crossing time zones.

My suggestion is to take these times as your own, for your own time zone, unless your audience is on the other side of the Earth.

Try for some wiggle room, e. g. if you’re on the East Coast of the United States, like I am, you might want to time things for later during the window if you’re aiming for an audience pretty much only in America.

But for a European audience, you should aim for earlier in the window but recognize that, with a minimal five-hour difference, you might not hit the window perfectly.

Or, you could set at least your tweets to run more than once. If you do this, though, I suggest spreading them apart by a day, say, posting post #1 on Monday at the start of the window, and post #2 at the end, and then switching them on Wednesday or the like.

But repeating other postings could turn out to be overkill for your audience. Try using the #ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) tag when repeating your posts.

Or, it could be fine. Because we all know that we miss scads and scads of stuff online. Maybe your followers will be fine with a little repetition. Hell, many of them probably won’t even notice it.

Caveat marketer.

Want More About Social Media?

If my experiences with non-platform-specific social media resonate with you, then check out my other articles about navigating our social media obsessed world.

Tag: marketing

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So, What Do You Look Like Online?

My Own Information—What I Look Like Online

Another Angle

How Accurate is the Information?

But…

Clean Up Your Presence

Share this:

Like this:

Let’s Look at Teasing Your Work

Revealing Too Much

Revealing Too Little

The Bare Bones

A Teasing Sample

Here’s a Second Teasing Sample