TopTips on Social Media for Authors and Illustrators

Insta Post!

Social media - love it or hate it, it's part of our modern lives and a big part of the deal of getting your book to readers.   Not everyone takes naturally to it, and not everyone has an instinct for using the technology.  If that's you, this post aims to give a simple guide of how best to make social media work for you without swamping your life. If you've any questions, pop them in the comments and I'll do my best to help.

Website.

You probably need a website. It doesn't need to be all singing all dancing but it needs to showcase you and your work in an appealing way so that if someone searches for you, they're going to be mildly impressed. This is especially important if you're an illustrator.

Here's mine: www.kathrynevans.ink

Who does it reach? Anyone searching for you - potentially agents, editors, reviewers, readers, librarians.

How to use it?  

1. I've written a brief how to on my own website that you might find useful for the very basics. You'll find it here. 
2. Keep it updated and fresh. Post public appearances, news,  information about event bookings - have a look at other people's websites for inspiration.
3. Put links to booksellers on your posts - make it easy for people to purchase if they want to.
4. Check your website is usable on phones, tablets and desktops. Wordpress has a facility that will allow you to see how it looks across all of these.
5.  Check in so you can answer any comments or have them sent to your email.

Facebook

This is probably the best known of all the western platforms. It's also, possibly,  the most highly visible in terms of ethical issues such as misuse of data and the spreading of fake news. I won't go in to those here but our own Candy Gourlay discusses that here. Aside from those issues,  in terms of promoting yourself to an audience, is it worth being on Facebook?

I get very little traffic to my Facebook Author page - I keep it because there is some traffic and because I don't want to bore my friends and family rigid with all my book news on my personal Facebook page. In truth though, most of my Facebook followers ARE my friends and family. And that is what I find Facebook best for.  I am a member of several private groups and I love the community space they provide. I can see what my wider family are up to and dip in and out when  I want to.

Here's mine: https://www.facebook.com/kathrynevansauthor/

Who does it reach?   Mostly friends and family. Good for chat groups like SCBWI and other writer groups.

How to use it: 
1. Post regularly, aim for at least every other day.
2. Check your messages so you don't miss anything. Block any horrible people without engaging.
3. Interact with comments at least once a day if you can.
4. Don't push your book at people, give them interesting relevant content such as news articles or reviews.
5. Use the cool things Facebook gives you - there's a Book Now link that you can set up to take your readers straight to  your website.
6. Link the account to Instagram if it helps, (so if you upload to Insta it'll automatically post to the face book page you  select).

There are alternatives to Facebook but I'm not hugely familiar with them and so far, adding extra platforms is just a bit too much for me BUT you'll find a few Slushies, including me occasionally, on MeWe.

Twitter.

Fast paced and furious Twitter can be a bit bewildering and shouty as well as fun and dynamic.

Here's mine: @KathrynEvansInk

Who does it reach? Librarians, book sellers, bloggers and other authors cross paths. If you want to reach industry professionals, Twitter is the place.

How to use it:
1. Don't shout BUY MY BOOK, no one  will follow you.
2. Be wise, pertinent, funny and sharp. You need to be generous - share good things you've found, help promote others - if someone asks for advice, try and give it.
3. Follow people, interact with them. Be interested and interesting.
4. If you get embroiled in an argument stay calm , block anyone who is outrageously rude to you.
5. You can't retweet a tweet over and over without commenting on it but it's easy for a single tweet to be missed so Retweet with comment - you can use ICYMI ( In Case You Missed It) so you can RT (retweet) again later.
6. Use a service like TweetDeck to organise your tweets - you can create search columns and schedule tweets.
7. Use appropriate hashtags - #amwriting #amediting are really useful ones !
8. Use your author name so people can find you easily.

Instagram. 

I was advised to join Instagram by my publicist. I didn't think I'd like it. Turned out, I LOVE it.

Classic Insta story post!

Here's mine: @KathrynEvansAuthor

Who does it reach? Readers and bloggers and librarians. This is the primary place my readers connect with me - I write YA so that  may skew the figures - do comment if you write for a different age group, I'd love to know where works best for you.

How to use it? 

1. Post regularly without swamping people's feeds. Aim for once or twice a day.
2. Be interesting and relevant but don't be shy - the posts that get most likes on my Instagram are usually pictures of my new hair colour!
3. Think about what you're presenting to the world and try and keep to the same themes - I post about my life so it is a bit eclectic - books, hair, pets and fencing mostly.
3. Use hashtags - that's how people find you- #bookstagram #amreading are good ones.
4. Stories allows you to take a reader on a journey through your day without swamping their feed - they have to choose to look at stories - look at how Juno Dawson and Alwyn Hamilton do it. I find their story threads really fun and engaging.
5. Make your pictures as good as they can be - the edit features in Instagram allow you to turn your pictures the right way around and brighten or sharpen them. Take time to get to know how to use them.
6. Interact with people - this is almost more important than posting - comment, ask questions - aim to do so around 5 times a day.
7. Use an app like Repost to share other people's cool posts - ask permission first, they usually love it.
8. Go to settings and connect your account to twitter and facebook - then you can choose which images to share across all platforms.

YouTube

I am on You Tube but creating content takes such a long time I don't use it enough. Still, it's fun and another place for people to find you. Youngsters search YouTube all the time, they use it like a search engine to locate 'how to's' and information about things they're interested in. It's a platform I should make more use of! Though I don't feel qualified to help you with this one but have a look at my channel if you want to see what I do.

SnapChat

I thought Snapchat would be a great way to connect with my teen readers. I hated it - I got sent a lot of pictures of willies and my son deleted all the people I'd inadvertently befriended.

Here's mine:

Who does it reach? Who knows? I only use it to keep in touch with my son these days!

How to Use it: Sorry, it's still a mystery to me BUT it has really fun filters and you can save the images and videos and post them wherever you like. Here's a snapshot  of a virtual reality video I made with a Snapchat filter and then posted on Instagram.

That's it - there are many other platforms but for promotion purposes, these are the main places to be. My final bit of advice though - if you hate it leave it. Choose the place you feel happiest and make the most of that one.


 Kathryn Evans is the award winning author of More of Me. Her new book, Beauty Sleep, ( Black Mirror meets Sleeping Beauty) is out now.  Kathryn loves faffing about on social media: find her  on Facebook and Instagram @kathrynevansauthor and tweeting @KathrynEvansInk.  

Making the Most of an Opportunity

By Candy Gourlay

Amazingly, my novel Bone Talk was shortlisted for this year's children's Costa Book Award.

Unfortunately (for me) the other three shortlisted titles –– The Skylarks' War by Hilary McKay, Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen and The Colour of the Sun by David Almond – were pretty magnificent books. The winner, announced last Monday, was the uber-talented Hilary McKay.

On the night, my daughter cheered me up by awarding me with her own version of the Costa. And then we watched laughing baby videos for the rest of the evening.





To be honest, when the shortlist was announced. I was under no illusion about the possible outcome.

But there was no time to waste.

The shortlisting had created an opportunity. There would be more people paying attention to my book – many of whom would not have heard of me before. How was I going to make the most of the time between the announcement of the shortlist (in November) and the winner (in January)?

Opportunities happen all the time in this job. Tiny opportunities that are the building blocks of a platform. I'm not just talking short-listings and prizes. Opportunity also comes in small packages: completing a manuscript, learning a skill, attending a conference, the launch of a book, a positive review.

How do you make the most of your opportunities?

Don't Wait.

I suppose I could have waited until the winner was announced. But the shortlisting was THE opportunity. The winning might never happen (and it didn't). So whatever I decided to do, I needed to do it right away. No putting it off.

We all procrastinate, don't we? I can build that website later, post those photos later, work on those resources another day.

As a former journalist, I am keenly aware of the ephemerality of the news. Something in a blaze of attention today can turn cold and forgotten overnight.

Making the most of an opportunity means doing something while people are still paying attention. They're still receptive, still ready to share your good news. If you get the timing wrong, it will be too late. And you'll never get that white hot moment back.


Reach out to True Believers.

Like many authors, I am my own one-person marketing department. One thing I've learned is you just don't have time to go door-to-door, selling your goods to every individual you meet. Most people don't get this, hence the many invites to do free events because "it's good publicity!". Random targeting is a waste of time better spent writing another book.

Don't go door-to-door, go find True Believers. True believers, in marketing parlance, are people who are already interested in what you have to give. They want to know about you, and they will talk about you to their friends, who are likely to have the same interests. I quoted Seth Godin in a recent piece over on my author blog:

"You put an idea in the world. Not to everyone in the world, just to people who want to hear it. And then maybe it spreads. And if it spreads it grows. And if it grows you get to do it again ... The goal is to go the people who care. To invite them in and to tell them something they didn't know before ... Not with a grand opening but with a whisper. Here, I made this. That's our work."

I've discovered over the years that the people who really make a difference to my book getting read were not the individual punters I met at a festival, nor even the child readers who write me fan mail ... not even my large family in Manila, who have been known to create shortages of my titles by buying up all the stock in local bookstores. The people who make word of mouth happen about books are the children's librarians who champion books and put them into the hands of readers they know will love them. After librarians are the literacy advocates. And then maybe teachers.

Realising this, the challenge is: how do I connect with the people who want to hear about my ideas? Perhaps learning about them is a start, getting to know what makes them tick. This will give me the wherewithal to create work that truly matters to them – carefully considered essays, videos, etc –  rather than just fly-by sound bytes.

Make something that will last.

Yes, social media has made it easy to be our own marketing departments. But beware, the scrolling news feed and the disappearing Instagram story are only good for the moment.

Twitter and Facebook are superhighways that don't stop moving. It's all about reach, but not necessarily about engagement.

To make the most of an opportunity, you need to create things that have lasting value – something that adds to the sum of your public profile, ideas you will be building on, something that you and your audience will learn from, something that readers will continue to discover over time.

It might be a well-written essay filled with nuggets of wisdom that people are always searching for. It might be a How To video that anyone in search of guidance might access. It might be a podcast that can be shared and revisited over and over again.

My years of blogging on Notes from the Slushpile, for example, have made me a better author. They gave me a chance to reflect on the issues of publishing – and thinking is never wasted time. They had the incremental effect of helping me formulate opinions and ideas that I continue to refer to in my writings and presentations. More currently, I find that my writing on blogs and other platforms, has been helping me learn about diversity, cultural appropriation and other issues that, as an author of colour, I am frequently invited to comment on.

For the Costa shortlisting, it was important, I thought, to create something that would outlive the Costa buzz. Something for the immediate audience here in the UK, who are already familiar with the Costa. And something for the audience back home in the Philippines, who do not know about the Costa but who would be so pleased that a home-grown Pinoy was up for the award.

So I recruited the assistance of a couple of videogenic friends – fellow author Sarah Towle and Pinoy artist/editor/writer pal Joy Watford – to create interview videos about Bone Talk.  We made two – one in English, with Sarah, for British readers, and the other, with Joy, in Taglish (Tagalog and English) for Filipino readers.

Filming a Taglish interview with my friend, Joy Watford. We filmed it using the selfie camera of my Android phone  attached to dual lavalier microphones. As you can see, we forgot to tidy the book case behind us.

They were not short videos so I published them on my YouTube channel, which is a platform where people take more time to watch longer form stuff (unlike Facebook and Twitter where a minute is a long time, and people zoom through videos,  often not even bothering to turn up the sound).

The videos are not for casual passers by. I made them for people who are prepared to make the time to watch – maybe someone who's read and loved my book, a teacher who would like to teach it, a librarian who wants to know more so that she can share it with more readers, a bookseller who would like to hand-sell the book.

I'm not expecting masses of traffic. And I'm not hoping for an instant spike in views either. I'm happy for people to discover the videos over time.

"The goal," Seth Godin said, "is to go to people who care." I know this is going to be a quality audience.


Make it matter.

We authors do so much for scrolling newsfeeds. Partly because it's compulsive. You can't help yourself when you feel the the newsfeed's siren call. We pretend that it's work, that it's all in aid of the author platform our publishers expect us to have. But deep down, we know our posts are destined to be forgotten. The social media superhighway moves too quickly and too many people are on the highway already.

So how do we make an impact on social media?

How do we make what we do matter?

Slowing down is one way. Posting less, and leaving your posts there for enough time to be found, to gather attention.

Another way is by being more selective about what you share and when you share it. The less dross you post, the more people take you seriously and want to see what you have to say.

It also means taking the time to put your post into context, so that it's value is clear to the audience. Why am I sharing this? What does it mean to me and my books? Why should it be of value to you?

For the past few years, I have favoured Facebook and Twitter, neglecting my websites and blogs for the ease of microblogging and the instant gratification of the scrolling newsfeed.

But now I want to invest effort into making things that last,  that continue to be relevant beyond the spark that led to its creation. This year, I'm going to test this by using platforms that aren't ephemeral: platforms that won't scroll away and disappear.

I'm ready for a change.

I'm ready to make the most of every opportunity.

I'm ready to make it matter.

---

Candy Gourlay is leaving Facebook. Read why here and here. Please stay in touch via Instagram, Twitter and via her website www.candygourlay.com

Is It Time to Face the Truth About Facebook?

By Candy Gourlay

We were supposed to post our Notes from the Slushpile Christmas greetings today but I've been so bothered by recent events that I thought I'd push our Christmas post to Monday and put this out today. 

Facebook.

A lifeline to the world. A boon to authors who are their own marketing departments. A way to meet like-minded folk, share information and grow friendships with people you would otherwise never have had the chance to meet in a million years.

I have really valued Facebook. It is not an understatement to say Facebook has given me the world.

But recent news has left me wracked with discomfort and guilt about my enjoyment of Mark Zuckerberg's creation.

We have known the harm that Facebook has been doing for some time. Its addictive qualities have eroded not just our productivity but our capacity for face to face, real life interaction. We discuss and debate this problem but most of us do nothing because our need for that Facebook Rush outstrips any concern for our own wellbeing – like just having to eat that chocolate bar when you're trying to lose weight.

As an author, I depend on Facebook to engage with readers. I try to curate a Facebook feed that does not just talk about my books but delivers meaningful content about reading, literacy and writing.

But recently, I have had to ask myself: at what cost?

PRIVACY

Isn't it funny how we all got used to giving up our data in exchange for all the conveniences and wonders of social media? When the Cambridge Analytica debacle happened, maybe some of us tweaked our privacy and permissions settings but it didn't stop us using Facebook.

And then there were security vulnerabilities that resulted in up to 50 million accounts being hacked.

And then those trusted partners FB shares our details with? They included "such powerful global firms as the Russian search engine (and Kremlin partner) Yandex, Chinese phone maker (under sanctions for producing insecure devices that enable state surveillance) Huawei, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Sony (which suffered a major security breach in 2014), and the New York Times", writes Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. Says Vaidhyanathan:

... if it becomes clear – as it has – that multiple industries depend on exploiting the personal data of millions or even billions of people, the concentrated political power of organized, wealthy companies outweighs the distributed power of disorganized citizens. These most recent revelations show that while Facebook might be the most egregious abrogator of our trust, there are no innocents.

COUNTING THE COST IN BLOOD

But I think the most inconvenient truth about Facebook is how it has been weaponised by certain sectors to spread disinformation, win votes, destabilise and divide.

At first, there was euphoria, as ordinary people realised social media could bring down authoritarian governments. But it quickly became obvious that FB didn't discriminate between good guys and bad guys.

Warned over and over by alarmed journalists and experts, FB did nothing. Watch the PBS documentary The Facebook Dilemma, Part One and Part Two – or listen to the audio track 1 and 2. A report about the documentary on CNN summarises it thus:

... there were plenty of people sounding alarms who were by all accounts dismissed or ignored -- practically "begging and pleading with the company, saying 'Please pay attention to this'". CNN

Oh sure, out in the west, we are hearing a lot about concerns for US democracy. But in big, strong, monied democracies there is always an opportunity for justice.

It is FB's effect on smaller, poorer, weaker states that we see profound damage. In the Philippines – where most mobile phones can view FB for free – a FB-enhanced election has led to a drug war (drawing its oxygen from yet more FB weaponising) that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. In Myanmar, killings incited on Facebook are being called a genocide.

ARE WE FACEBOOK ENTHUSIASTS CULPABLE TOO?

Well ... are we?

Facebook thrives on us.

Wired Magazine quotes media theorist Douglas Rushkoff:

Ask yourself who is paying for Facebook. Usually the people who are paying are the customers. Advertisers are the ones who are paying. If you don't know who the customer of the product you are using is, you don't know what the product is for. We are not the customers of Facebook, we are the product. Facebook is selling us to advertisers.

Many of us think, but that's okay. I have nothing to hide. I don't mind being served those adverts on FB – I want to see most of them anyway!

And for authors like me, Facebook is such a godsend that so what if FB has shared my details with Netflix? I like watching Netflix and FB is so convenient, so easy to use, and most importantly, has such a MASSIVE reach ... I could never achieve that with a poxy little author website.

But but but ... how can we ignore the harm FB is doing? How can we shrug and say, 'nothing to do with me' when the harm FB does is all in our name?

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?

Is Facebook going to change?

Facebook will not change unless we change.

But most of us have too much too lose. Family, friends, livelihood ... we are enmeshed in FB's ecosystem (which includes WhatsApp and Instagram).

The right thing to do is to #DeleteFacebook or at least deactivate your account ... here's how.

For authors like me (this is, after all a blog for children's authors), deleting FB will be a massive loss. It will demand a sea change in social media behaviour. An author who abandons FB will have to:

• Return to blogging (many of us abandoned our blogs for microblogging on FB). Do all you can to build your subscriber list (not for the lazy or faint hearted).

• Boost one's presence on Twitter (which has its own ethical issues) and other social media platforms like Goodreads and Tumblr. Twitter is stronger on the networking front so this would take creativity and is only useful in combination with other social media. It might be that Twitter will be forced to change to respond to the needs of a huge influx of FB refugees

• Look to traditional media – radio, print and TV – for a presence. Even though this has been a shrinking space, large numbers abandoning FB will create demand. But will traditional media respond?

• Use YouTube – video is powerful but demands skills and presence. But YouTube is part of the Google ecosystem, and we haven't exactly been happy about Google's behaviour either, have we?

• Improve one's website – but how to drive traffic to one's website?

• Seek and participate in literacy groups and teaching resources (like Teachit) sites or whatever special interest group that might appeal to one's particular books – online AND in real space

I am mulling all these (and more). It will certainly make my professional life harder. How do I make the time for all these while writing my books and doing the speaking engagements that are my bread and butter?

And to be totally honest, I am feeling reluctant. I have put so much of my life on FB. I love seeing my friends from across the world on my feed. I love my FB groups for authors and illustrators and and literacy and history and Philippine mythology enthusiasts. I have so much to lose.

But people are dying. Surely that is a good enough reason to get on with it? Isn't it time to ACT instead of complaining on social media and signing endless e-petitions that only help to feed the FB newsfeed?

Siva Vaidhyanathan is not optimistic about these revelations changing FB:

... while the most recent revelations of the depths of Facebook’s depravity shock the conscience, the deeper story is that Facebook’s position is more secure than we had feared. And Zuckerberg need not abandon his core principles as his algorithms continue to manipulate how billions of people make choices every day. 

Leaving Facebook will be one choice that Zuckerberg cannot manipulate.

But do I have the moral courage to do it?

---

Candy Gourlay's latest book BONE TALK has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Award. Her picture book Is It a Mermaid? illustrated by Francesca Chessa has been nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal.  Find out more about Candy on her website and Twitter. 

Why I changed my mind about Facebook Pages for authors

By Candy Gourlay

For the past two years now, I've been co-running a Boot Camp for debut authors with writing pals Sara Grant (Chasing Danger) and Mo O'Hara (My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish).

The three of us bring useful skills from our real lives: Sara has worked in public relations and talks about strategy; Mo is a stand up comedian and an actress and talks about performance and school visits ... and me? Well I'm a former web designer and an all around geek – my role is to discuss how authors can take advantage of the digital opportunities available.

Mo O'Hara discussing the art of the school visit.

Sara Grant showing off her author kit in front of a board scribbled with the hopes and dreams of our audience.

Here I am with a roomful of debut children's authors behind me.

In past years, I have written a lot about author promotion, dishing out practical advice about websites, building a platform, how to do Skype visits, how to do Google Hangouts, how impoverished authors can make their own book trailers (part 1 and part 2), how to plan a book launch party and Facebook pages.

The very nature of digital opportunity is so fluid, what with technology constantly changing, that the advice is never the same. Looking back at a 2011 post I wrote about building your own websites, for example, so much has changed in the online world that I should really put up a warning note at the top of the piece, pointing out that I wrote it six years ago. Six years is a long time in a digital world.

Ten years ago, when the internet was just beginning to pick up speed, everyone suddenly decided that  authors must blog. Well the graveyard of defunct author blogs is now full to overflowing as a result. Later, Twitter seemed to have The Power. Today, thousands of books are not getting written because their authors have become Twitter addicted. While Twitter is a social network that connects individuals, it's not a great place to actually sell books. And then there's Facebook, virtual hang-out to two billion of the world's population.

At the beginning, Facebook introduced the 'fan page' – a thrilling way for authors to connect directly with fans who are on Facebook. Soon though, Facebook decided to 'monetise' fan pages via what one pundit called a 'bait and switch' – hiding your FB posts from your fans so that you will pay for them to be shown.

I was so disappointed I wrote a piece declaring that there was no point having a Facebook page unless you're JK Rowling and your fans willingly visit your page instead of waiting for you to appear on their feed. So for the past few years, I've been using my personal FB profile, instead of an official fan page, to connect with my readers.

But I kept an eye on Facebook. It's a no brainer that anyone wanting to be discovered should cultivate a good FB profile. But how?

In December 2016, I noticed that under the relatively new button 'Following' on every Facebook Page, a new menu was popping up (pictured right).

It gave fans the following new choices:

• They could UNFOLLOW your page so that they didn't have to see your postings, even though they liked the page.
• They could tick DEFAULT and let the FB algorithm decide how much or how little they see of the page.
• Or they could select SEE FIRST so that they could see your all of the page's posts on their feed as soon as they are posted.

Suddenly the game changed.

Facebook was giving users a way to keep track of pages that they absolutely wanted to see.

Yes, FB is still trying to encourage us to pay for promotions. But the social network has also realised that they have been alienating the people who create the content that makes the network social in the first place.

For us authors, it gives us a fighting chance to be discovered.

Book launch guru Tim Grahl says never make it about you, the author ... he says:

'Always focus on helping the reader'.

With the new improved FB pages, we now have the opportunity to post such compelling content that our readers will want to click SEE FIRST because they do not want to miss out. Tthink about all the things you find so compelling that you are moved to share them on your feed: heartwarming videos, surprising facts, amusing quizzes, urgent news ...

So what content can you create that will persuade your readers to click that SEE FIRST button?

The answer lies in several things:

• Your identity as an author.

• How useful/beguiling/compelling your content is to your reader.

• How original your posts are

• How much value do you, as author, add to what you post

Considering your identity, it might help to see how other authors are playing themselves on Facebook - Junot Diaz posts about social and political topics, if you're a fan of Neil Gaiman, you get to hear that gorgeous voice and witness the disarray of his hair in his videos, John Green posts about nerdy stuff, Kate DiCamillo (whose readership probably most matches mine) posts inspirational stories.

Me, I avoid politics but on my FB page, I comment on reading, writing and getting published (in childrens' books). As an 'author of colour' I am deeply concerned about diversity and inclusion. I use my skills as a former journalist to report on book events (you are welcome to read my blog post: Social Media: eight things we can learn from old-style journalism). It's also a chance to take photos and make videos (which I love!).

As for adding value – never post in a vacuum! Imprint every posting with the value of who you are – with a comment, a thoughtful reflection, a wise interpretation, a personal anecdote.

I only started my Facebook Page at the beginning of 2017 though I don't have a new book out until 2018.  I thought this would give me time to get to grips with the page, create fresh content and build an audience. If you're interested in following my progress, please like my page ... I really try to be useful. Oh ... and don't forget to click on SEE FIRST.

How is my FB page doing so far? Well, I'm feeling very positive.

Videos are a big hit, especially if they're about picture books. I am trying to do quickie interviews with the interesting people I meet – most recently, at the Pune International Literary Festival in India (see the playlist) where I interviewed a range of fantastic folk, from student volunteers to venerable literary stars.

The photo albums covering book launches (such as my friend Katy Dale's) and other booky events (like Melvin Burgess' nomination to the Hans Christian Andersen award, the Carnegie-Greenaway Awards, and the Dubai Literary Festival) attract many visitors (the secret is in the tagging – learn how to like other pages as your page). Some random visitors who come to look at pictures actually end up liking the page! I've noticed that the more original my posts – original here meaning, nobody else has posted it – the better it is received, with more likes, comments and shares.

As for links posting, I am always on the look out for interesting links, and so I find myself following good pages that serve up useful information that suit my page's personality. For example, I love the posts on diversity by Lee & Low Books (a multicultural publisher in the US) and have reposted some of their links. One of the most popular links I posted was an article by the author Grace Lin discussing Dr Seuss's early racism in his work and how he changed. I had more than a thousand hits in two days. A photo of my feet in Little Prince Socks on the day I went to my first day as a judge on Booktrust's In Other Words Competition got thousands of views though only eight likes! Why?



Still so much to learn. I'll report back in 2018 after my new books come out. Watch this space!

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Candy Gourlay thought she could not become an author while growing up under a dictatorship in the Philippines and became a journalist instead – but she was wrong. Years later, her novels Tall Story and Shine have been listed for many awards including the Waterstone’s, the Blue Peter, the Carnegie and the Guardian Prize.

DON'T INTERRUPT!

By Candy Gourlay

So it's February now. How's it going?  Written any books lately?

It's such a struggle. I sit down to work, my good intentions shining, and what do I do? I interrupt myself. I make another cup of coffee (that I'm going to allow to go cold anyway). I go to the bathroom (even though I've already had a wee ... but why not go again, just in case?). I glance at my phone for messages (and spend the next hour or five answering texts and scrolling through Facebook). I read a passage from the book I'm currently reading (and end up reading for the rest of the morning or even, day).

Why? Why do I do it? Why do I interrupt myself like this?

How to Self-Promote Without Losing Yourself in the Process

By Nick Cross

Whether you’re traditionally published, self-published or still trying, the pressure to promote yourself has never been greater. We’re exhorted to “get out there and build a platform” via social media and word of mouth. But while some authors manage this transition gracefully, there are others who undergo a Jekyll and Hyde transformation, turning into publicity-hungry monsters.

Why (Most) Authors Don't Need a Facebook Page.

By Candy Gourlay


If your name is JK Rowling, please ignore this post.

Facebook Page: formerly called a fan page, it's for businesses, brands, products, public figures. More

Facebook Profile: for individuals. More

So you're an author or about to become one, your publisher or maybe your agent thinks you ought to create a Facebook Page, so that you can start the social media ball rolling. Should you?

What do you want from your Facebook Page?

Social Media: Eight Things We Can Learn from Old Style Journalism

By Candy Gourlay

Well I say 'old-style' because I was a journalist in the eighties and the nineties. This post is about how journalism has taught me stuff I now apply to Social Media.

Authors or Agents? Picking the Shortest Queue

So Sarah Megibow at the online friendly Nelson Literary Agency was carefully explaining manuscript submission rules to a Denver writer's conference when someone asked, "are those rules the same for all agents/editors?"

GULP! No, they aren’t. I’ve been thinking about that question a lot this month. There are so many rules and regulations that writers must feel overwhelmed. I mean, Nelson Agency only accepts email queries (no paper mail whatsoever), but other agents only want snail mail. Some agents want query letters and yet others want a query pitch and a synopsis. Others will want you to include the first ten pages of the work. Then there are the editors. Some will read unsolicited submissions and others won’t even look at them unless submitted by an agent. It’s enough to make any writer’s head spin. So while I don’t have a submission rule that’s true for all agents or editors, I can give this suggestion: Do your research online before submitting. Tips From the Slushpile, November 2007 issue

And sometimes online research doesn't do the trick.

If you checked out the website of Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury, the submission guidelines are clear:

Unfortunately, due to the enormous volume of material sent in to our Children's department, Bloomsbury can no longer accept unsolicited children's manuscripts.

But last week soft-spoken Emma Matthewson, Deputy Editorial Director of Bloomsbury Children's Books told a group of SCBWI authors that yes, submissions will be read.

Cause for celebration? Weeeell. Editors speaking at writer's events (and I can claim to have attended quite a few of these) very kindly always say they will look at your manuscript. My theory is that confronted with the fresh-from-the-garret faces of suffering writers, editors feel they just have to be nice.

And yes, they really do read the manuscripts. Now before you print off another copy of your 1700 page wizard fantasy, beware.

I asked Emma if agents had to wait as long as authors for their submissions to be looked at. She said, no, though agents had to wait a few weeks, they pretty much jumped the queue of direct author submissions. The authors submitting directly have to wait months. And the sad number of books from the slush pile that make it to publication (I think Emma said they published four in the past five years) just isn't funny.

So which queue — Editors or Agents?

At the end of the day, it's only time.

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Are you a facebooker? Join our group The Waiting Room - for all writers and illustrators who are waiting, waiting, waiting for that call from a publisher or agent. Published people are welcome to join and mock. But please no spitting.