Having You Been Yearning for a Viral Hit?

You aren’t going to want to believe this. “Going viral” is a myth. Nope it doesn’t exist—at least not the way we think it does.

I have been wandering around willy-nilly believing in the term “going viral.” I have even been actively suggesting we authors reach for “going viral” to achieve the promises and hope it offers us. Hoping for magic. One of my brilliant soundbites might turn into sudden fame. “Bippidy bopped boo! Instant transportation to princesshood!”

Here’s where reading a good book—a book by someone else—now and then is a good idea. Derek Thompson’s Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction explains why we now know “going viral” is just so much bunk. It was once hard to track a word-of-mouth trajectory but because of the Internet scientists can now track the trajectory of the popularity of an idea or product.

In a study of Twitter, “More than 90% of the messages didn’t ever diffuse at all much less travel like a virus from person to person! The vast majority [95%] of [tweeted news] comes directly from its original source or from one degree of separation.”

If you are mad at me (and Derek) for this burst of your bubble, don't be. This is good news for authors. Now we won’t labor under our inclinations to hope someone else will do our marketing for us. Thompson says, “Popularity on the Internet is still driven by the biggest broadcasts—not by a million 1-to-1 shares, but rather by a handful of 1-to-1 million shares.” Those power sources are companies like TV channels and FM stations. Thompson calls them blast points like a “Kardashian post or a top spot on Reddit.”

Thompson urges us to quit believing in a “perfect democracy where anyone can become a star if they make something good enough.” I can’t tell you how many students I have had who hold other myths dear. For many of them, a great agent will be the magic bullet. They are sure that a $100,000 advance will surely be theirs because they’re positive of the creativity and originality of their product. (Most advances—even advances from the New York big five—come in at about $2,000 to $4,000.) Super agents and huge advances are as much myths as the myth of virality which Thompson calls the “David myth—obscuring the fact that the Internet is still run by Goliaths.”

So, you’re wondering why I am would pass along this bad news? I’d rather think I’m giving you what you need to know to circumvent the near-impossible, to save you time chasing elusive butterflies, and to be ever-so-grateful if you should win Thompson’s Goliath to your side. In the meantime, your goal will be networking so that you get lots and lots of those first-degree shares from the audience you want most.

MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER

Howard-Johnson is the author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers including the award-winning second editions of The Frugal Book Promoter (where she talks more about choosing and the advantages of winning contests and how to use those honors)  and The Frugal Editor. Her latest is in the series is  How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically. Learn more on her Amazon profile page, http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile. Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers is one of her booklets--perfect for inexpensive gift giving--and, another booklet, The Great First Impression Book Proposal helps writers who want to be traditionally published. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it will help them convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. It is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. In addition to this blog, she helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com. She also blogs at all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor (http://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com )

Advanced Twitter App for Those Who Want To Tweet Like Marketing Work Horses

Aggie Villaneuva is always generous with her time. The other day she answered one of my questions about the pro plan she has with SocialOoomph.com. I was curious why she would pay for a service to mange her Twitter account when that same service does a very fine job for me at its freebie level. I got such a fully thought-out answer (and convincing!), I thought I'd ask her to share it with my subscribers.


By Aggie Villaneuva


Marketing is as vital to writers as writing the book, but it can't take over our work days. For this reason, most of the professionals I know use at least the free version of SocialOomph. Originally it was called TweetLater because it was an advanced aggregate program for twitter only. They have long since evolved into a cockpit for posting and managing all your social media and more.

With the free version you can schedule your tweets, save and reuse tweet drafts for later use, set up automatic direct messages. You can even extend your twitter profile so that the one link you’re allowed in twitter profile leads to a whole page with photos, text, html, links and more.

You can also use their dld.bz URL shortening to track your clicks and get all kinds of useful and insightful statistics, auto follow/unfollow, vet new followers, view @mentions & retweets and much more.

There are a number of free aggregate type programs that do nearly as much as SocialOomph, (not all) but not nearly as seamlessly. And because I’m serious about the necessity of marketing, I upgraded to the professional version as soon as they offered it.

Here's what I get with those Additional Features in the Professional Upgrade for $29.97/mo:

(Note: Don’t bother with what follows unless you are serious about your social media marketing)

Ping.fm Integration

This alone changes our social media marketing life. Ping.fm is my core social media aggregate or program that composites them all from a central service, but Ping only brings all my social media sites together, it offers none of the advances functions.

SocialOomph integrates seamlessly with Ping so that every tweet scheduled to post shows up in each and every social site I’ve already added to our Ping account, which is dozens. Some other aggregates besides SocialOomph offer Ping integration also, but I have found few, if any, that do everything else the Professional upgrade to SocialOomph does, and certainly not as inexpensively.

Recurring updates

This, and Ping integration, are the main features for which I upgraded to Professional. I have dozens of these recurring updates: each holds up to 100 posts. Some of my recurring updates are for general writing tips, some for general photography tips, a separate one for each of my promotional clients’ launches, social media education, contests, news about Visual Arts Junction, news about Promotion á la Carte and Buzz Club, etc. (Editor's Note: See the biograpy for valuable links to these resources.)

Each of these updates are randomly posted, one every few days. You can schedule the recurrences as often as you wish. I include so many different posts there are seldom repeats, unless I purposely want something to repeat. This keeps me out of trouble with twitter about repeating tweets.

I add to the informational posts almost daily. When I do that, I set the exact time of day, how many times I want it to cycle. I can also pause it if I want to reuse it later. You can also save tweets as drafts to save tons of time never having to retype your posts.

Using this function I can offer posts that teach literally books worth of information to friends and followers. Just last month a man on Facebook wrote to tell me how much he’d learned from the info I post, and proclaimed himself a life-long follower. I often receive thank yous from followers for all the free education I provide.

I could go without writing one new tweet for four months and still be posting five to ten important and time-sensitive tweets per day that seldom repeated. Of course I sprinkle in recurring updates that talk about my own books, photography and promotion business. But you can see the value and power of this function, especially when you link it with your Ping.fm account.

Drip Feed to Your Social Accounts

Visualize a reservoir (or several) each holding all your posts about a certain time-sensitive subject. You want these to drip feed one by one to the social accounts you choose, or all of them, at times you specify. They don’t recur, as with the recurring updates above. Once the reservoir is empty the tweets stop.

Facebook Features for Your Profile and/or (formerly Fan) Pages

Sometimes you need to schedule status updates differently for Facebook or Facebook Pages than for twitter. There are several functions available. You can schedule to post to your social network Profile or your Pages, one of your Pages or all plus your Profiles. This is a great function as it gives such flexible choices.

When you combine this feature with the Ping integration that posts to all your dozens of sites including LinkedIn you can say goodbye to all your other apps. Don't worry about forgetting to apply those site-hash tags and ending up with duplicate after duplicate on your various social media. SocialOomph takes care of the fuss all from one dashboard.

Schedule & Publish Blog Post & Pages

This is a powerful feature. Add your own blog’s posts right from the dashboard, and add unlimited number of blogs. As long as your blog has one of the following remote publishing APIs, you can schedule posts for it: Tumblr, Posterous, WordPress API (wordpress.com and self-hosted), metaWeblogAPI, Movable Type API, Blogger API, and Atom API.

Find Friends in Your Niche & Auto Add to twitter Lists

What I like here is that the Friend Finder is about quality not quantity. Keyword searches are great for following friends whose interests are the same as yours. Attach certain keywords to one of your twitter lists and when you follow one of the those tweeters they will automatically be added to that list. These reports can be filtered to several criteria, such as following-to-follower ratio, and ignoring tweeter profiles that contain certain words.

You may also apply the decisions of other tweeters by ignoring all accounts flagged as spam or that have been blocked by fellow SocialOomph users. The report is sent to you with all these parameters applied. You just decide which of the hand-picked friends you want to add to your twitter list.

Define Channels

Choose a list of favorite friends, or those in the same business, and create your own twitter channel. It's like your own tweet timeline, except a channel contains only the tweets from those users that you include in the channel. You can define an unlimited number of channels. You don't even have to follow someone to include that person in a channel.

Followers With Clout

This is a good tool for business, but not just to list those most important. Do you know which of your followers have the largest reach in terms of the number of people who follow them? That is exactly what the follower clout list tells you. It shows you the fifty most influential people who are following you, judged by the number of people who are following them. They are already following you, so they will probably appreciate it if you reached out to build a better relationship with them.

Direct Message Broadcast

You can send and schedule a direct message to every one of your followers, but only your StatusNet followers. I listed this because I’m hoping that soon SocialOomph will include this for our twitter followers too.

And Much More, Such As…

Manage direct messages with auto spam control you define yourself, forward DMs to others, manage all your accounts in TweetCockpit, which has numerous controls, mute annoying tweeters (this avoids reporting them or blocking and putting their account in danger of cancellation by Twitter, delegateing account management to your assistant, scheduling replies and DMs to their own time zones, bulk uploading your posts, Syncing friends and followers list, wipeing your friends list and start anew, and running your own bots. And I still haven’t listed all the functions.

I’ve seen most of SocialOomp’s functions offered elsewhere but always in separate programs. Who wants to log in to a dozen programs daily when you can log in to one? SocialOomph is the only site to shave your marketing time so dramatically by giving all this to you in one place.

I hate automation for automation’s sake, or the sake of quantity vs. quality. But this is automation that doesn't seem automated. When I am offered a means to communicate to my social media friends on a very personal level within seamless automation, I’m a fan.

Seriously, if you’re serious about you’re writing business, at least check out SocialOomph Professional upgrade.


Please be advised that I so highly recommend this program I have become an affiliate of SocialOoomph, but this is by no means why I recommend it. I recommend it because I know it can save time and help authors market better.


Guest Blogger's Biography
Aggie Villanueva is bestselling author, author publicist, blogger, and critically acclaimed photographic artist represented by galleries nationwide, including Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. She was a published author at Thomas Nelson before she was 30, and founded local the Mid-America Fellowship of Christian Writers three–day conference. Aggie founded Visual Arts Junction blog February 2009 and by the end of the same year it was voted #5 at Preditors & Editors in the category “Writers’ Resource, Information & News Source” for 2009. To further help authors she launched the VAJ Buzz Club – a club where members combine their individual marketing power to create the ultimate BUZZ. Authors clamored for the options to purchase additional promotional services á la carte (as needed) so Aggie added Promotion á la Carte . Contact Villanueva at myaggie2@gmail.com.

Because so many new authors and tweeters seem confused by Twitter, I tried to keep my book Frugal and Focused Tweeting simple. So, advanced information like this isn't in that book. If you are ready for this kind automation, please print this post by Aggie and put a copy in the book. Hey! Even if you're not ready for it, you may be glad you have c copy tucked away in your book when the time comes!

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal". She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

"THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN AND THE SEA" SERVES AS EXAMPLE FOR SELLING BOOKS IN A TOUGH ECONOMY

My friend and fellow UCLA Writers' Program instructor, Chris Meeks, is looking to selling books even in a rough economy. As per my advice in The Frugal Book Promoter, he posted an educational kind of release on one of my favorite media release disseminators, PRLeap.com. You'll find a list of others along with mini reviews of each at www.howtodoitfrugally.com. First click on "Resources for Writers" tab at the top of the page. Then find the media disseminators link under the title on that link. Lots of other resources, too! And here's what Chris is doing to beat the economy odds:


(PRLEAP.COM) There’s an old saying that in a tough economy, books and booze continue to sell. The booze is because people don’t stop drinking, no matter what, and the books are because people don’t stop thinking, no matter what.

Ah, but how does an author or small publisher get more sales when sales outlets become tighter, and customers are more discerning with their dollars? Here are six tips based on what "The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea" by Christopher Meeks has done to stand out. The collection of short fiction has garnered many great reviews, including one in the Los Angeles Times and a selection in Entertainment Weekly.

1) MAKE BOOKS "BOOKSTORE FRIENDLY" I.E. RETURNABLE AND RETAIL DISCOUNTED.

A number of small publishers have embraced the new print-on-demand (POD) technology, which heralded a green revolution for the publishing industry. Only books that book buyers ordered were to be printed—and printed quickly like a high-end one-hour photo. Most POD books, however, are not returnable, which means bookstores have stayed away in droves, not ordering anything POD.

Additionally, most POD titles are not discounted enough for bookstores. Barnes and Noble executive Diane Simowski in the Small Press Department says that only books that receive at least a 40% discount on will be labeled as a "retail discount" versus a "short discount." If a book shows up as the latter, individual Barnes stores can only order them if a customer prepays for the book.

Thus, if one is using print-on-demand, it’s best to use a printer that can print inexpensively, guarantee discounts to bookstores, and the books can be returned.

"The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea," first produced by Lulu Press, was not returnable and it had a short discount. Now with a new ISBN number, it’s published by White Whisker Books, printed though Lightning Source, and it’s bookstore friendly: retail discounted and returnable.

So is Meeks’s new book, "Months and Seasons," and his upcoming novel, "The Brightest Moon of the Century," out March 7.

2) ENABLE GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH.

Rhonda Herman, executive VP at publisher McFarland & Company, based in Jefferson, NC, has characterized the recent market for reference books as a "slow but steady decline." One of her company’s tips is to participate in Google Book Search. The full-text of their books are fully searchable on Google, resulting in a 1.5 percent click-through on a link to buy a book. Herman feels Google Book Search to be more effective than online advertising. "The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea" is fully Google searchable.

3) GO DIGITAL. GO KINDLE.

Books are not just in paper anymore. Books are now downloadable to computers and, thanks to Amazon, to a wireless reading device, the Kindle. The $359 Kindle is lightweight and can be used in daylight. It doesn’t cost publishers anything to make their books digitized for Kindle, and the growing market is thus worth pursing. For consumers, a downloadable book is much less expensive. Michael Connelly’s #1 bestseller, The Brass Verdict, retails for $26.99, sells on Amazon in hardcover for $16. 19, and for Kindle, just $9.99. "The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea" will soon be on Kindle.

4) TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LITERARY BLOGS.

Send your books to the best sites for review. A broad decline in newspaper circulation sales that began early this decade has worsened recently, according to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That means even worse news for space allotted to book reviews in newspapers. Witness the recent downsizing of the Los Angeles Times’ Sunday book review section.

What the newspapers are losing, the Internet is gaining. Such huge sites as Salon.com, the Huffington Post, and Rebeccas Reads, review books regularly, but so do smaller sites known as literary blogs. These are often individuals with a passion for reading and reviewing. Meeks’s books have appeared on more than two dozen of these sites, such as Dawn Rennert’s She’s Too Fond of Books, Rebecca Schinsky’s Book Lady’s Blog, Marc Schuster’s Small Press Reviews, and Sam Sattler’s Book Chase.

Literary blogger Wendy Robards, whose website Caribousmom recently won a BBAW Award for Best Literary Blog and has reviewed Meeks’s work well, wrote recently that "Authors and publishers are not sending their books to bloggers simply to be kind. It is becoming more and more apparent that book bloggers are impacting sales, and for the cost of mailing a book, an author gets marketing, which travels around the world." As author Elizabeth Emerson Hancock adds, "The worst review is no review." Get your books reviewed.

Meeks says to find some great literary blogs, go to Google, click on "more" then on "blogs" then type "Christopher Meeks" and you’ll see. He also recommends using the book "The Frugal Book Promoter" by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

5) TAKE ADVANTAGE OF INTERNET RADIO SHOWS.

With the airwaves finite, and the number of talk shows limited, the Internet is also becoming host to a legion of radio bloggers. Meeks is interviewed on http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Jordana-Ryan/2008/08/22/Chris-Meeks.

6) MAKE A VIDEO FOR YOUTUBE.

An author on YouTube is akin to a rock band on MTV - a growing necessity. Go to YouTube and type in your favorite author. You’ll see. The best videos are not mere authors talking to a hand-held camcorder, but they are made professionally with music and imagery, created by specialists such as the one for "The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea" produced by Expanded Books. You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgq5N-Me7j4.


"The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea"
Published by White Whisker Books
ISBN: 978-0-615-24917-9
List price: $14.95; retail discount through Ingram

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal." Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.

Best Selling Author TV To Be at LA Times Festival of Books

Big Video News!

Rey Ybarra, the interviewer for the video many of you have seen and commented on is fantastic. So is his cameraman, Randy Detroit, and so is the equipment they use! And so is their knowledge about getting that video out to places that most authors know little about.

They will be filming at the Authors' Coalition booth at the LA Times Fair April 26 and 27th with a special introductory price for videos. I'm hoping lots of authors drop by to see what this team can do for them besides film a really nice video. Learn more at www.bestsellingauthortv.blogspot.com .

Explore the videos they have done there. Check out Rey's amazing past in radio and TV.

There will be more on this opportunity in my newsltter later. You can subscribe by sending me an e-mail at hojonews@aol.com. Use the same e-mail address to make advance appointments or ontact me with questions.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.