Guest Post, Margot Kinberg: When You’re On Social Media*

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Pet Shop Boys’ On Social Media. 

Margot Kinberg is a university professor and mystery novelist, originally from the US East Coast. Her academic and teaching background is mostly in language learning, teacher education, writing, and content area literacy. She has two crime fiction series: the Joel Williams series, and now, the Patricia Stanley series. Her new novella, Streets of Gold, comes out on March 16th.

Thanks very much for having me, Sarah. Technology has woven itself into our daily lives, and that’s especially true of social media. It’s not hard to see why, when you think of the ease of communication and the ability people have now to be in contact with others at any time, from many different parts of the world.

Social media has a lot of drawbacks, but, in both real life and in crime fiction, it can help solve crimes and find missing people. I’m sure you’ve read plenty of news stories that feature people who were reunited with family, and crimes that were solved, because of social media. We see that thread running through crime fiction, too.

Social media plays a major role, for instance, in Helen Fitzgerald’s The Cry. Joanna Lindsay and her partner, Alistair Robinson, travel from her native Scotland to his family’s home in Victoria. With them is their nine-week-old son, Noah. The flight is long and difficult, and the couple are all too glad to get off the plane and on their way. During the drive to Alistair’s family home, the couple faces every loving parent’s worst nightmare: the loss of their son. They report that he’s missing, and a massive search is undertaken. The media picks up the story, and before long, Facebook and other social media outlets are carrying the story, too. There are all sorts of ‘find Baby Noah’ pages, crowdfunding efforts, and more. The police are involved, too, of course, and they slowly begin to wonder whether Joanna and Alistair know more than they are saying about Noah’s fate. Questions start to come up online, too, and it’s not long before Joanna, especially, becomes the target of all sorts of speculation. The power of social media comes through clearly in this novel, and we see how that impacts the search and the couple.

Kazuhiro Kiuchi’s Shield of Straw is the story of Takaoki Ninagawa’s search for justice when his granddaughter is raped and killed. DNA evidence has linked Kunihide Kiyomaru to the crime, but he has gone into hiding. So, Ninagawa puts out a very public billion-yen bounty on Kiyomaru’s head and creates a website explaining how to claim the reward. When Kiyomaru hears of this, he knows that thousands of people will be looking for him, and he decides to turn himself in at the local police station. At least he’ll be protected there. Tokyo police detective Kazuki Mekari and his team are sent to bring the fugitive back to Tokyo to face trial, but that won’t be easy. Mostly through social media, thousands of people know that Kiyomaru is being brought to Tokyo by train. There’s even a way that people can check on the train’s progress online. So, the team will have to dodge amateur bounty-hunters all the way back to Tokyo. It’s an eerie look at how social media can be used to target someone.

The focus of Brannavan Gnanalingam’s Sprigs is an exclusive boys’ school in Auckland. Rugby rules there, and those who are on the team are the social leaders. One Saturday night after an important rugby match, members of the team get together for a party at the home of one of their teammates. News of the party gets around, and it’s soon crowded. One of the partygoers is fifteen-year-old Priya Gaianan, who’s both excited and nervous about going. She has too much to drink, and four of the boys on the team gang rape her. The incident’s recorded, too, and is soon passed around via social media. Priya is, of course, devastated, not only because of the rape, but also because everyone will find out about it. When she finally goes to the police to report what happened, they use the video to trace the attack to the boys responsible. In this case, we see how social media is helpful to the investigation, but also makes things that much worse for Priya.

Samantha Downing’s For Your Own Good is set against the backdrop of the exclusive (and expensive) Belmont Academy. The students there are all expected to be accepted at the finest universities, and their parents take every measure to ensure that happens. There’s a lot of pressure on the young people, and that only increases when Ingrid Ross, the mother of one of the students, suddenly dies during a major event at the school. When it’s established that she was murdered, the police begin an investigation that comes to focus on the victim’s daughter, Courtney. Along with the interviews they conduct, the police check online activity, texts, and social media to look for evidence. They arrest Courtney, but is she guilty? And if not, who else could the murderer be? It’s a complex case, and it doesn’t stop with just one killing. As we follow along, we see how the various characters share information and gossip, create their own theories about the crimes, and more, all using social media. We also see how the killer uses social media.

Social media is a part of my new novella, Streets of Gold, too. The story features fifteen-year-old Staci McKinney, who’s left home to escape her predatory stepfather. As you can imagine, her mother, Theresa McKinney, is desperate to find her, and checks her daughter’s social media dozens of times. She also creates a video, which she puts online, hoping that people will share. Her strongest wish is that Staci will see it and respond. But Theresa’s not the only one looking for Staci. Philadelphia City Councilman Daniel Langdon and his assistant, Scott Townlee, want to find Staci, too. She is the only witness to a crime they committed, and they want to make sure she’ll keep quiet. They, too, use a social media campaign to enlist the public’s help in tracking Staci down. In this case, social media could be a way to find and rescue Staci – or to trap her.

And that’s the thing about social media. Love it or hate it, it’s an important part of our modern lives. So, it’s no wonder at all that it plays a role in crime fiction, too.

Thanks again for hosting me, Sarah!

Speaking of Dystopias...

Funding our healthcare through GoFundMe, our journalism through Patreon, and road repairs through Dominos. Everything's perfectly on track, America https://t.co/xreFmWHJ5I

— James Temple (@jtemple) June 11, 2018

A remarkable amount of fundraising is going on, and much of it is for services we normally associate with the government, or at least public money. Meanwhile, the fields that used to produce income and ad buys, like journalism and fiction writing, has been reduced to begging for sponsors.

Meanwhile, the pizza people are paving roads, because it's not getting done.

Every day is Backwards Day, it seems.

In the last year or two, I've donated to help a child get necessary surgery, to help a friend who lost her home due to a fire, to help another friend in danger of losing the family's home due to outsourcing + crappy job market, and to bury a friend whose family couldn't afford a funeral. In all these cases, I had some form of personal connection to someone involved with the need. Think of all the unpopular people out there - and the names and faces change regularly - who aren't getting help because they are introverted or belong to whichever marginalized group is in bad odor.

This is why we need public funds for assistance: because shit happens. Businesses kept the money from the recent tax cuts for buybacks of stock and consolidating power, not creating jobs so fewer Americans would need to beg. Just because it's on social media doesn't mean it's not a form of begging. Charles Dickens would understand our society very well.

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Interview: Lillian Brummett

Today, I welcome Lillian Brummet to Sinister Scribblings. Lillian is an author, but also so much more. She and her husband Dave offer book publishing services when they're not promoting green living and living positively. They also host an Internet Radio program, "World of Writing", on her channel, Conscious Discussions Talk Radio:
 http://www.blogtalkradio.com/consciousdiscussions 
The next broadcasts are scheduled for February 7th and 17th.

Today, she's answering some questions I posed to her about self-promotion.

Q: Whenever I read blogs about promoting writing, I keep hearing about a 'platform'. What do they mean by this term? Is it the same thing as the buzzword 'branding yourself'?

You are so right about the changing buzzwords in the industry – people are coming up with new terms to mean similar things and it can be confusing that is for sure. So I’ll try to clear this up for you and your readers. 

Branding: this term is used to describe how you present yourself or better said, how you appear to others, or what you are known by. An example of this would be:  Jane has have built a reputation for being a green living expert that specializes on educating her audience. So that is her brand. This also means that her logo, the colors she uses in her promotion materials, the website… everything that her put out there reflects this brand. 

Platform: this term is used to describe how you get your branding known. It is kind of like a launching pad that you built that supports your marketing and promotion efforts. So this would include promotion materials you’ve prepared, a website that describes your services and/or products, blog, setting up social media, newsletter, e-newsletter, radio show, video series… or whatever you are choosing to utilize. When you have a platform created (and this can be an ongoing evolving process) it offers you a solid place to stand on and makes your other efforts more efficient. 

Q: I had a self-published author tell me once that you needed to have 5 books in print to make enough money to support yourself. Is this true, presuming that one lives modestly? 

Honestly the comment you heard does make sense in that book sales can fluctuate and the more books you have the better chance you have of creating a sustainable steady income. Sadly, though, in reality this isn't necessarily the case. For instance I've met authors who have written a small book, one single book, but then created a steady income out of it. They’ve built speaking engagements, alternate formats of the book (think audio CD’s, streaming video series, webinars, etc.) and have strong marketing skills. Other authors may have written 10 books and still have to work that ‘day’ job in order to make ends meet. So I would say that income is really an individual thing –your book last year might do well but next year’s book flops for the first year, but then sales pick up again 3 years later. 

I think you just have to have faith in yourself and diversify so that you can have a steady stream of income (such as doing freelance work or offering workshops at the local college). The key to dealing with the low moments is to remind yourself why you are writing in the first place. If you are doing this to leave a legacy, because you love the craft of writing, because this allows you a chance to create positive change, to help evolve society, or some other greater good – then you can console yourself, knowing that this is more important than fiscal gain.

Q: Is it worth the money to buy ads on Facebook, Goodreads, or similar sites? 

I am very wary of putting out money for advertising as an author. I’ve paid for ads early on in my career in both print and online publications/sites and haven’t had a good Return On Investment (ROI). After becoming a staff writer and member of the media, I learned that there are a lot of ways of saving money and creating a better ROI, which I share in our Purple Snowflake Marketing (PSM) book. I have found that there is a higher ROI for ads highlighting either the radio show or blog, and then from there they learn about our books and services. Sites like what you are talking about often offer what is called Pay Per Click (PPC) and this simply means that you don’t pay anything for your ad until someone clicks on it – and you might pay a few cents per click. But that can be dangerous to the budget if all of a sudden you have 5,000 clicks! So you might want to set up a limit if you go this route. The trick with advertising is to understand what your agenda is for that ad – meaning, do you want to drive traffic to your blog or website, or sell a specific product. Once you know what your agenda is for that one ad, you can then create engaging content for the ad that inspires the reader to what is deemed a: Call To Action (CTA). However, once you’ve engaged the reader to respond to your CTA is only the first step – what they see when the go to where you sent them is also an important thing to focus on. So, say for instance you’ve decided to send people who read your ad to your website home page – what will they see there and how does that help build your branding or increase your income?

Q: Could you offer us one tip on generating sales after the Honeymoon Period (described in Purple Snowflake Marketing)?

Ah… this is a great question. First, let me define the Honeymoon Period for your readers – this is the first year after a book is released, when the author has exhausted current contact lists and local outlets, and the author has usually run out of their initial promotional budget. The author’s excitement level also tends to run lower after the first year and they begin to tire of marketing the same product over and over. 

So my tip today would be to get creative – I mean, yes you do want to do all those activities in the first year, but the life of your book may be 7 years or longer depending on the contract with your publisher. Branch out to other communities that surround your area, find new ways of getting media exposure, look for long-term promotion materials (like bookmarks) and get involved with organizations, and get busy online where there are tens of thousands of opportunities just waiting for you.

Q: Can an introvert successfully promote and publicize her writing? Never mind why I'm asking this.

(She laughs) I love that you ask this, since I am an introvert myself. The thing is that each of us has unique strengths and weaknesses, we have a unique location, a unique budget for each and every book we release. We need to constantly evaluate where we are at and what we can do. You’ll notice that our PSM book talks about creating a business plan for your career as an author, but then a marketing plan for each book you release. Those plans should be very flexible and should probably be revised every 3-6 months. Who you are on a personal level plays a vital role in this. 

Most of us will try different things and go through a bit of a learning curve before we figure out what works best for us. Some of us are great at one on one networking, others do very well at speaking events; someone might be a great teacher, while others have fantastic technical skills. One person might excel at radio interviews, another might find better results through social networking, and someone else finds out that they have great results through blog appearances, or promotional articles in a variety of publications. Everyone is different and I think this is a good thing – after all we want to stand out and be noticed… not do what everyone else is doing and get lost in the crowd. 

Thank you for spending time with us. I appreciate it. Below is information on Purple Snowflake Marketing, for authors who would like to learn more about promoting their work.

*  *  *

Make your book stand out in the crowd! Getting your book into the hands of paying readers is the most important goal of a writer and with the tools offered in this book the sales of your book will increase dramatically!


For the average author the marketing and promotion of their own book is a mystery in itself, and outsourcing these activities can quickly erode their budget. This book has all the tools and tips for developing that marketing plan, and turn your writing into a professional career.

Purple Snowflake Marketing offers a realistic guide to what authors can expect to face and how to employ research and preparation to make a memorable first impression. As you put together a marketing plan, you will be able to proceed with the confidence of a seasoned writer. This book is packed with value, with over 1000 resources along with stats and inspiring quotes to assist you in developing that unique marketing plan for each book you write.

http://www.brummet.ca/store.html

Social Media: Setting up your #FF list for Twitter

I get a double dose when it comes to dealing with social media. I have a personal Twitter account where I talk with friends, interact with people who share my interests, and promote my writing. I also have a 'business' Twitter account for my job, where I represent my department and promote its programs.

My first Twitter account was the personal one, used to stay in touch with  political contacts and swap information as it became available. Later, as my fellow Sisters in Crime moved to Twitter, I began adding friends who were writers. We engaged in chats, Retweet blog links, shared news of recent sales, etc. Now that I have a book coming out, I'm also using the account to announce updates in its production and places I will be appearing and guest blogging.

My second Twitter account was set up as a public 'face' for my department, which offers continuing healthcare education. In other words, we offer educational programs for doctors, pharmacists, etc. From that account, I forward articles I think our customers will find interesting, Retweet posts from other Twitterers (I prefer the terms 'Tweeps' and 'Twits'), make comments on the posts of others, and, of course, occasionally post a link to one of our programs. An aside: no one is going to follow you for long if all you do is plug your own product.

On Fridays, people suggest Twitterers that they think their friends might also want to follow. This is referred to as "Follow Friday" or by the hashtag #ff. People send out #ff posts to promote their friends, but they also do it as a sign of their friendship with others. I can tell you that I look kindly upon people who #ff @saraheglenn. Follow Friday can be genuinely useful - I've found lots of new Tweeps this way - but it's very, very easy to begin with a few friends and wind up, in a matter of months, sending over ten posts of nothing but Twitter IDs plus the #ff. If you follow as many people as I do, Friday is a day of many recommendations but little commentary.

What can help?

Suggestion 1: Make a special shout-out post to a few people. Marian Allen, for example, saw my blog earlier in the week and posted:

#ww @SarahEGlenn because she's photogenic.

You bet I'm going to remember that, and will be much more likely to Retweet her blog and book announcements as a result.

Mark Souza posts his "100 Best Writers on Twitter". This is a great idea because a. you know his list is finite, b. the people named are nominally part of an elite group, and c. he's included me.

Suggestion 2: Weed out your #ff list if it's gotten too large. I did this recently with both my personal and office Twitter accounts. I pulled up each account and found several that didn't exist any more. I also noticed that others only posted new material every two or three weeks. Those got cut. I looked over the content of posts as well: did they ever share useful information, like blog links? Get involved in group chats? If so, I kept them. Naturally, there was one more criterion: did they ever #ff me? Automatically a keeper.

Suggestion 3: Set some standards for the people you #ff. Once again, this will not be useful if you only have a few friends, but once you're following over 300 people they will come in handy. I follow over a thousand people on each of my accounts, but I can only #ff a small fraction of them on Fridays. Below are mine, subject to revision as needed:

My personal account:
Did they ever #ff me?
Do they represent some important group, like the SFWA?
Are they great bloggers, like Pam Spaulding or Joe Sonka?
Are they real-life personal friends, spouses, or relatives? Yes, nepotism counts with me.
Are they cool? I met Jacqueline Lichtenberg about twenty years ago, but she's still one of the best things since sliced bread. I also love BurbDoc, whom I came across during my work, but his posts are too vulgar for me to promote them as a representative of my office. However, it works fine for my personal account.
Do I just plain flat like them?

My office account:
Did they ever #ff me?
Do they represent a major healthcare body, like the AMA or the American College of Chest Physicians?
Do they provide news of interest to healthcare providers?
Are they connected with the institution I work for?
Are they popular bloggers, like Kevin MD?


Your standards may not ultimately match mine. You may have a more relaxed system for choosing people. You might even go with a weekly shout-out to a couple of friends, and rotate the people you pick each week. The Follow Friday, though, is a good way to confirm friendships and promote one another, and I hope you won't be intimidated by it.


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