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Writer GiveawaysPromotions, Swag, Exposition, Better Dialogue, Character Sexuality, Starting, Personal Writing Process, Starburst Method, how do I write a book, Supporting Indie Authors, Snowflake, Libraries, Descriptions, Ages, Dialogue Tags, Gender Swap, Pocket conflicts, Giveaways, Plotting, mental energy, Character Creation, Scene Setting, Transitioning, Genre Treatments, Easter Eggs, Accents, Plot Creation, Complex evil characters, Bechdel test, Writer Newsletter, Wattpad gets into the Digital Publishing Game, character reviews, Universal Explorations, Libraries, Awards, Social Signals, Blog Community, Query Letter,

Writer Giveaways

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on August 27, 2024

Giveaways

So giveaways can be helpful when you are first starting out. Because people do not know your writing, they might not be inclined to spend too much on your work. Rather than pricing down to nothing, do one better: give your book away as a prize. Amazon, in particular, makes it easy. And on GoodReads, this kind of a promotion costs you even less.

Prizes

A lot of the internet is gamified these days. So, what do I mean by that? Essentially, instead of simply telling you that your LinkedIn profile needs work, that site gives you a completion percentage. And it also pits you against your fellow job seekers. So never mind if they have your qualifications. The competition starts even if you don’t want it to. And this kind of competing tends to spur people to action.

Hence you can provide your work as a prize for really anything. I provide it as one of the prizes for the 24 Hours of G & T Fundraiser, and I’ll even send a signed copy if the winner is in the United States (where the shipping costs less; otherwise, I try to order my work directly through whichever Amazon applies to them and then pay the exchange rate).

So if you have some sort of event, there’s no reason you can’t raffle off your book. Do it for charity, even. Just, get it out there, and into the wild. The more copies out there, the better.

Advance Review Copies

Now, Amazon has been cracking down on this a bit so proceed with some caution. However, no one is stopping you from giving away your book for free. The issue arises when writers provide a copy of their work in exchange for a review (generally referred to as “an honest review“, as the intention is to get the truth out of the reviewer and not bribe them to shower you with unfounded praise).

Hence instead of doing an even exchange, your best bet is to simply provide a copy and ask that someone review your work if they see fit.

Spoiler Alert: for most people, if they have a free copy of your book and they liked it at all, they’ll usually leave some sort of a review. This is even if it’s just in the form of stars.

Impulse Writer Giveaways

Furthermore, you can always give things away on an impulse. Or during the promotions day at various writers’ Facebook groups, I will offer my book for free. All a person has to do is show me their receipt for purchasing another group member’s work. To make my life easier, I limit the time, usually to just one week.

I ask if someone will review both our works if they want to. And then I send the book and leave it. By the way, I’ve gotten three reviews this way. That might not seem like a lot, but I have also made some friends. And that helps in ways that go far beyond promotions and marketing.

Writer Giveaways and Takeaways

Consider opportunities for giveaways, prizes, and gamification of your work. Yes, yes, I know you want to make money from your work. I get that; I really do! But sometimes you need to lay out some of your own funds to make it all work. Don’t be cheap about this. When the time and conditions are right, give away at least a few copies of your work. Because nothing builds goodwill and relationships better, or faster.

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Libraries—How to Get Your Book into ThemPromotions, Swag, Exposition, Better Dialogue, Character Sexuality, Starting, Personal Writing Process, Starburst Method, how do I write a book, Supporting Indie Authors, Snowflake, Libraries, Descriptions, Ages, Dialogue Tags, Gender Swap, Pocket conflicts, Giveaways, Plotting, mental energy, Character Creation, Scene Setting, Transitioning, Genre Treatments, Easter Eggs, Accents, Plot Creation, Complex evil characters, Bechdel test, Writer Newsletter, Wattpad gets into the Digital Publishing Game, character reviews, Universal Explorations, Libraries, Awards, Social Signals, Blog Community, Query Letter,

Libraries—How to Get Your Book into Them

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 18, 2021

Shh, this is about libraries!

Getting into Libraries

Libraries are the unsung heroes of the American (and other countries’) educational system. They are where people look for jobs, listen to lectures, or teach themselves all sorts of things.

They are also a marvelous home for your newly-published book.

Connections

First of all, you probably can’t just write to or visit every library in creation. While writing is something of a numbers game, it won’t do you much good to just launch your book at all the libraries out there. You need to have a plan.

The best and easiest plan is to go with a library where you have some sort of a connection. Did you grow up in Cleveland, go to college in Dallas, and are now settled in St. Louis? Then try your local library from when you were growing up. Don’t try every single Ohio or even Cleveland library. The same is true of Dallas, plus you may want to try your alma mater. For St. Louis, do yourself a favor and get a library card before you even start. They want to know you, at least a little bit. So go and let them at least know that much about you.

The Approach

I’m going to give you three approaches.

With the Book

Take your book with you, in a purse or tote bag or backpack. Ask to speak to whoever is in charge of acquisitions. Go to them, book in hand, and explain how you are related to the library. E. g. “I grew up down the street, on Parkland Road.” or “I just got a card three months ago.”

Now explain what you’re doing. “I’m a first-time author. This is my book. It’s about ____.”

At minimum, tell them the genre. I find it’s helpful to tell them either where it’s shelved elsewhere (is it science fiction or fantasy, for example). Also tell them whether the work has any triggers or heavy sex or violence scenes. Mention if it is LGBT-friendly. This isn’t just a courtesy to help keep small children from taking out works with explicit sex scenes. It also helps the library decide how they are going to display the work and what they are going to say if anyone asks them about it.

Then give them the book. Yes, just hand it over. Make sure it’s a perfect new copy. Do not give them a signed copy. Why not? Because those can potentially be stolen. In addition, the library has to think ahead. Your book will probably end up in their book sale, and maybe even in less than a year. A pristine copy is easier for them to sell.

Without the Book

No book? No problem! Come over with a business card instead. Again, ask to speak with whoever is in charge of acquisitions. Explain who you are and what your book is about. Hand over your business card. And if you’ve got the ISBN handy, then write it on the back. But also get their address of where you can send the work. Don’t make them ask for it. You have to do all the legwork here.

On the Phone

This one is similar to when you go in but don’t have a copy of the book with you. Again, ask to speak to whoever is in charge of acquisitions, and explain about your work. Make it clear the book is free to them. Then ask for their shipping address, and whose name should it be addressed to. And the best part about this approach (or if you need to mail the book for any reason) is, you can just have Amazon ship it to them and send it as a gift.

What do You Want in Return From Libraries?

Pictures. Yes, really! Tell them you will do this if they take pictures of your book on their shelves and send the images to you. Explain you are going to use them in your marketing campaign. And then do so, making sure to thank them profusely and link back to any libraries which help you out.

Libraries: Takeaways

You just sold another book! Never mind that it was to yourself. You still sold one, and that counts for Amazon’s rankings system. Plus your book now is in a position to be seen by others. And the librarian knows your title. Finally, I have personally found talking to librarians to be easy. Because you’re not really selling. Instead, you’re giving them a donation. Libraries want authors to succeed.

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Swag for Independent WritersPromotions, Swag, Exposition, Better Dialogue, Character Sexuality, Starting, Personal Writing Process, Starburst Method, how do I write a book, Supporting Indie Authors, Snowflake, Libraries, Descriptions, Ages, Dialogue Tags, Gender Swap, Pocket conflicts, Giveaways, Plotting, mental energy, Character Creation, Scene Setting, Transitioning, Genre Treatments, Easter Eggs, Accents, Plot Creation, Complex evil characters, Bechdel test, Writer Newsletter, Wattpad gets into the Digital Publishing Game, character reviews, Universal Explorations, Libraries, Awards, Social Signals, Blog Community, Query Letter,

Swag for Independent Writers

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 17, 2020

Ah, Swag

Do you like swag?

So, swag is necessary when you go on the road. Work a convention at a dealer’s table, or get your book into a library, and you may need a little extra something to give away. Hence here are a few choices.

Bookmarks, a Very Common Form of Swag

Maybe the best and closest kind of giveaway item is the humble bookmark. In one sense, it’s perfect because it relates directly to books and reading. And you can spend as much or as little as you like. Plus maybe you only want something straightforward, perhaps a section of your cover, often printed on one side on heavy cardboard stock. And that’s great!

Because you’ve got some real estate, consider some additions, such as your website or even a QR code for a discount off one of your books. However, I suggest leaving one side blank for notes. While that’s not strictly necessarily, it may end up cheaper for you, not to mention it having an actual purpose.

Bookmarks are particularly useful because not only can you put them in your own books, you can put them in library or bookstore books. Yes, they might be removed and discarded. However, you need to consider that these are loss leaders; you need to be ready to lose some cash on these.

Business Cards

These seem hit or miss. If you go to conventions and run a table or booth, you will need cards. And again, try to keep the back blank. Pro tip: use matte. Shiny card stock costs more and it makes it harder to write on the card. Because you want people writing on your cards. Oh, and don’t be stingy with them. Give them away. Meet someone? Give them a card. Someone stops by your table? Give them a card. Like bookmarks, these will be discarded by a lot of people. Accept that as a cost of doing business.

Tee Shirts

These can work really well if you have a fantastic and memorable cover design, or a great catch phrase. Imagine a tee shirt which has your cover on the front and your catch phrase on the back. You can make people into walking billboards this way. Be ready to give a lot of these away, and maybe even use them as contest prizes. Most people will not purchase these unless you become really famous. Again, this is a cost of doing business.

Toys and Action Figures

Funko Pops lets you design your own male and female characters. But volume is an issue here. And so is the startup cost. The blank figures in that link are almost $10 apiece. Hence a large run of these may not be in the cards – so take advantage of their rareness and play on the scarcity aspect when giving these away or selling them.

For other types of action figures, look at prices and consider what you want to settle with. If the figure doesn’t end up looking a lot like you, how will that make you feel? If the answer is ‘terrible, of course’, then you might want to do something else with your swag budget.

Swag: Some Takeaways

Giving away swag may seem counterintuitive. After all, you want to make money, rather than spend it. But if you are new on the scene, it can be a great way to get noticed and show how you’re different from all the rest.

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Demographics for Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 27, 2016

Check Out Some Older Demographics for Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest and Some New Demographics

Demographics change over time. Hence the specific numeric percentages could be off, but the gist of these measurements remains on target. Part of this has to do with crowds. If a platform already caters to your demographic, you are probably going to be more interested in it than in a platform that does not.

At Agile Impact, Hilary Heino compiled some impressive statistics about who really uses these image-based social media platforms.

Tumblr

First of all, Tumblr reportedly has loyal users highly dedicated to the site. But Tumblr demographics have changed.

2013

In 2013, two-thirds of all users are under the age of 35. In addition, nearly forty percent have not yet seen 25 summers.

Finally, there are about 300 million monthly unique users; the site grew by 74 percent in 2013.

2022

Currently, over 32 million Tumblr bloggers live in the US. The demographics of Tumblr have changed a bit, in that now the number of users under the age of 35 is 2 out of 5 (or, 40%). Its audience is 40% Gen Z and 30% Millennials.

Tumblr’s traffic fell off dramatically in late 2018 when the platform banned adult content. The site still has not recovered. According to Finances Online, Tumblr has 16.74 million monthly users. Reddit, in contrast, has about 3 times as many monthly users. But some of that may be due to it being blocked in China, Iran, and Kazakhstan.

Genders are split nearly 50-50. The site’s usership has continued to decline, and they failed to capitalize on so many people being home at the start of Covid-19. Will Tumblr go the way of MySpace? Or will someone buy it?

Demographics for Pinterest

Let’s look at 2013 and 2022 Pinterest demographics side by side.

2013

First of all, as of July of 2013, there were 46.9 million unique monthly users. And women continue to dominate the platform; around a third of all women online have Pinterest accounts. In addition, two-thirds of all Pinterest users are over the age of 35, making it a near opposite to Tumblr.

Furthermore, a good three-quarters of its traffic comes through mobile apps. Hence if you post to Pinterest, make sure that your content is visible, clear, and comprehensible on smart phones. Finally, 80 percent of total Pinterest pins are repins. It’s probably the sign of a strong community. In addition, the site boasts 2.5 billion monthly pageviews.

2022

According to Omnicore,a good half of all Pinterest users are outside the United States. Just over 77% of all users are female. There are over 478 million monthly users—a ten times as many as in the older demographics of Pinterest, above.

Per 2021 info from Statista, 38% of persons between the ages of 50 and 64 are Pinterest users, making them the most represented cohort. But that number drops dramatically, to 18% for persons aged 65 and up. However, that’s probably explainable, due to generational differences and people just plain getting sicker and otherwise not having time for social media.

Instagram Demographics

Let’s compare Instagram demographics 2013 to 2022. How have things changed in the last 10 or so years?

2013

So with 150 million active users, Instagram reports 1.2 billion daily likes.

And 18% of smartphone users in the 30 – 49 demographic report using it. However, the majority of users are teens and young adults.

Furthermore, the site ties with Facebook as being the second-most popular site for teens. Yet Twitter is the first for that age demographic.

2024

Again, according to Omnicore, Instagram has nearly 2 billion daily users. The ages are now skewing differently.

Just under 2/3 of all users are between the ages of 18 and 34. In the US alone, 22.5% of users are 25 to 24 years old. Also in the US, 73% of teens say Instagram is the best way to reach them about brands or products.

Men slightly outnumber women, 51.6% to 48.4%.

Now let’s add TikTok, which wasn’t around in 2013.

TikTok

Per HubSpot, this platform is dominated by Gen Z in the US. But around the world, the demographics for TikTok skew more millennial. And globally, only about 14% of all persons aged 50 to 64. About 1/4 of Americans aged 12 to 34 have used it. Contrast with only about 3% of American adults over 35 years old.

TikTok users are more engaged and more likely to buy when they are on the platform.  There are over 14 million daily users on the Android version of the app, and almost 30 million using the iOS version. About 88% report that sound is vital to their enjoyment.

Social Media Platform Demographics: Takeaways

Savvy social media marketers (and book marketers) will do well to consider the demographics of their ideal customer/buyer persona before starting an account on any of these platforms. Marketing to women over the age of 50? Then Pinterest is important—and you can probably safely ignore TikTok and Tumblr. You may or may not be able to ignore Instagram.

If you’re marketing to teenaged boys, then TikTok is right up your alley, but you shouldn’t ignore Instagram. Pinterest would be a nonstarter for you. As for Tumblr, it may or may not be worth your time.

Since time and energy are finite, focusing like a laser on demographics will save both.

So, know your image-based social platforms. Because they are not the same!

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