Matthew Iden - Using Social Media to Connect with your Readers and Reviewers

Top Shelf Author Advice is a collection of comments made by a group of outstanding authors during Author Interviews and Studies presented by HBSystems Publications. Today's advice comes from:


Matthew Iden

Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Science Fiction & Fantasy, non-fiction

Website: Matthew Iden
Twitter: @CrimeRighter
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Pinterest: Check Out Pinterest
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
E-Mail: matt.iden@matthew-iden.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Spotlight Author Interview - Matthew Iden



Question
How do you use social media to connect to your readers and reviewers?

Answer
To be blunt, once you're past issues of the writing craft, there's nothing more important to a writer's career than taking advantage of social media, and this applies to both traditionally published authors as well as independent authors such as myself. The landscape of the market has changed--if you want to make connections with your readers and reviewers, you must use social media to reach out to them.

Having said that, I think one mistake is attempting to try everything at once: setting up a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Pinterest board, a tubmblr page, etc. all on the same day. You'll spend too much time on technologies and not enough time connecting with people (and writing).

A second mistake is sticking with a social media channel that you don't enjoy using or don't understand. For instance, I was a professional web designer and IT manager for years, but I can't wrap my head around Twitter. It's not intuitive to me and I don't use it. It would be a mistake for me to make it my go-to social media channel. But I'm simpatico with Facebook and I love Goodreads, so I spend a lot of time on both and it pays dividends in the form of fantastic contacts, an increase in sales and reviews, and just generally spreading the word about my writing.



Source Post
Getting Book Reviews: The Methods Award-Winning Authors Use



Author Recommended by: James Moushon, a Mystery Writer and writing industry blogger and HBSystems Publications, a Publisher of ebooks and the sponsor of the following blogs:
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