Price Increases from 2nd November

This is just a quick note that from the 2nd November, prices for some services will increase, to keep in line with inflation and the industry standard. The details are as follows:

  • Release blitzes to increase from £20 to £25 (£30 if reviews are also requested)
  • Cover reveals to increase from £20 to £25
  • Blog tour packages will have an extra £10 added. For example, one week tour, which was £20, will be £30, and so on

Any services booked and paid for before then (even if they’re not actioned before the 2nd November) will still be available at the previous prices. So if you have some new releases coming up that you would like to promote, now’s a good time to get these packages booked in order to save yourself some money.

Teaching at Swanwick Writers’ School in August

Hi all,

swanwicklogoI’m delighted to announce that I’ve been asked to teach a short course at Swanwick Writers’ School in August. The course is entitled PR and Marketing for Writers – Making Technology Work For You.

Here’s the information for the two hour course:

This informative course is designed to help you get the most out of technology in order to promote your books as quickly and effectively as possible—giving you more time to dedicate to the most important part… writing more books!

Topics that will be covered include:

  • Social media—posting to multiple accounts, scheduling in advance, using Triberr
  • Blogging—scheduling in advance, promoting via social media, making it easy for others to share your posts
  • Google Analytics—finding out where your website traffic comes from in order to concentrate your efforts in the best place

There will also be time allotted for a Q&A session where Lucy will do her best to answer your burning questions.

This particular course is on the 12th August, though the writers’ school runs all week and has a schedule jam-packed with fantastic sessions, workshops and tutorials.

For more information and to book your place, visit the Swanwick Writers’ School website.

What Is Thunderclap and Why Use It?

thunderclap

I’m sure some of you have seen messages and notes about Thunderclap floating around the web and wondered what it is. I know I’ve had several clients ask me about it, which is why I’m writing this post.

Basically, it is a free promotional tool (though there are paid options you can explore) to help you get the word out about something. For the purposes of this post, I’ll use books as an example, as it’s what I deal with.

You sign up for a free account at Thunderclap.it, and follow the simple instructions to set up your campaign. Use graphics from your book if you can, as that way you’re increasing visibility of your book to those that click through to support your campaign. Spend some time crafting your message, adding some relevant hashtags if you’ve got room – bear in mind that this message will go out once and hopefully to an awful lot of people, so you want it to have punch, something to really make people want to click on the link you’ve provided. I’d also recommend only opting for 100 supporters the first time around – it sounds like a small number, especially if you have lots of social media savvy friends, but it’s tougher than you think to get people to click that link.

Once you’re happy with what you’ve done, submit your campaign and wait for Thunderclap to approve it (you can speed this process up by paying, but I’ve never done this). Then, when approval arrives, the really hard work begins. You have to get supporters.

Supporters are the whole point of Thunderclap – they’re the ones that are signing up to send out your message on the date and time you’ve selected. I think, since Thunderclap is fairly new, that people may be shying away from supporting Thunderclaps as they don’t fully understand what it means. So, in a nutshell, here goes: supporters are pledging to help you, by donating a Tweet, a Facebook status or a Tumblr post (or indeed, any combination of those three). That’s all. They’ll see the message they’re pledging to send out, hit those support buttons, and, providing you get enough supporters to “tip” the campaign, their social media account/s will automatically send out the message on the date and time you’ve selected.

The point of all this? Well, since we’re talking books – it’s to drive sales. If you have an upcoming book, you can set something up in advance to go out on your release date – then you’ve got a while to promote the Thunderclap, get your supporters and then you’ll get a big boost on social media on the day, which will hopefully get people clicking those buy buttons and pushing you up the respective retailer charts. Cool, huh?

There is more to it than just getting the supporters, though. Sorry to complicate matters 🙂 Ideally you need supporters that Tweet/share/Tumble about books in your genre – so in turn their followers/friends/etc are more likely to be interested in your book. Also, it goes without saying that the more followers/friends/readers your supporters have, the more people are likely to see your message once it goes out. So if you can attract people with a large reach on social media, all the better.

But to keep things simple, maybe start out small, and once you’ve dipped your toe in the Thunderclap water and seen how it all works – you can be more adventurous next time.

Bottom line: make sure you’ve crafted a powerful message to go out, that will catch people’s eyes and make them want to click. Then sit back and (hopefully) watch your sales increase.

Want to see how it works from a supporter’s angle? Here are three Thunderclaps you can sign up for (and I’d be grateful of your help):

Timeless Desire – M/F erotic romance story

Little Boxes – contemporary romance novel

To Rome with Lust – erotic romance novel

I hope this has helped you. Feel free to share far and wide on the web, to help people gain an understanding of how it works. If I get lots of questions and queries, I may do another article at a later date with more specifics.

Happy Promoting!

Lucy

Why Use Triberr?

Hi everyone,

I’m writing this post due to popular demand. I’ve had several clients ask me about Triberr, what it is, why they should be using it and how much time it will take up. I’ll do my best to answer these questions, and probably more, without writing a blog post that will be the same length as my latest novel 😉

Here goes…

Screenshot 2014-03-13 10.19.02

1. What is Triberr?

Triberr is a type of social sharing site where a user will join “tribes” that are relevant to the content they create on their blogs. So, for example, I’m in several writing, erotica, erotic romance and romance-type tribes. Once a user’s account is set up correctly, their blog’s RSS feed will automatically add each new post into the streams of people who are in the same tribes as them. The idea of this is that because people in tribes share similar interests, the posts they will see in their streams are things they will want to share with their own followers. Which brings me neatly onto point #2.

2. Why should you be using it?

Because it increases your reach. Massively. At the time of writing this post, I have 5,653 Twitter followers. So when I go into Triberr and approve other people’s relevant posts (this is key for me. I don’t want to alienate my followers by Tweeting stuff about children’s books or young adult), they will automatically be Tweeted onto my account. Not all at once, but at intervals set by me, which are half an hour.

Imagine this reversed. Because each of my blog posts are fed into Triberr, they’ll appear on my tribemates’ feeds and they’ll share them. So without Triberr, my Tweets would be seen by 5,653 people and probably then by others because my followers have Retweeted me. But with Triberr, my blog posts are automatically fed to the Twitter feed of every tribemate that approved my post – and because I’m in tribes that are relevant to my work, this is most of them. So, depending on how many Twitter followers each of my tribemates has, you can see how much my reach increases. The biggest reach of the tribes that I’m in is 452,533 people! That’s HUGE!

3. How much time will it take up?

Not much is the short answer. If you simply join us as a member and don’t have a tribe of your own (there are currently enough tribes out there that you don’t need to worry about setting up your own), it’s a quick and easy thing. Now I have everything set up correctly, I probably spend ten minutes per day approving relevant posts. I know we’re all busy people, but this is a tiny portion of time compared to the potential benefits. Because if you’re seen to be active, to be approving other people’s posts, then they’ll approve yours, too. So where your blog posts might have only reached 6,000 followers beforehand, with Triberr this is multiplied many fold with a small amount of time on your part.

I realise this is a really, really short piece which doesn’t go into the nitty-gritty of setting up Triberr, finding tribes and so on, but as I said I didn’t want to write a novel in a blog post 😉 . Ultimately, even if you’re not technically-minded, once Triberr is set up, it’s just a matter of going in once a day, going to your stream and hovering over that share button for each post you want to share. Technology does the rest for you. If you don’t want to share a post, then click the hide link. You’ll soon get into a rhythm. Once your stream is empty, give yourself a pat on the back and move onto the next item on your to-do list. But don’t forget to watch traffic to your site increase, especially if you’ve taken the time to write engaging blog post titles – something I personally am working on improving, and am already seeing results.

So, there’s Triberr in brief. If I end up with lots more questions and feedback on this post, then I may well write another article in a couple of weeks about the more nitty-gritty side of things. Alternatively, you could just pay me to get you set up on Triberr then sit back and reap the rewards 😉

P.S. If you’re an erotica or erotic romance author and want to get started – come check out my tribe.

Confirmed Speaker at Smut by the Sea

I’m delighted to announce that I will be speaking at this year’s Smut by the Sea event, which takes place on the 14th June in Scarborough, England.

I’ll be giving a talk on promotion and marketing from 1pm – 1.50pm. Come along to receive hints, tips and advice on how to handle the dark art of selling your books once you’ve written.

There’s lots more going on, too, including talks and workshops on inspiration, writing better erotica and an erotic reading and poetry slam. There will also be a bookstall, a craft stall and an erotic tombola.

So, what are you waiting for? If you’re up for some smut by the sea, then come to Smut by the Sea! Tickets and full details are available at http://smutbythesea.co.uk

Writer Marketing Services is Three!

Wow – I can’t believe it. Can’t believe that I’ve been self-employed for three years, running Writer Marketing Services. I’ve loved every minute, so I thought it was fitting to have a bit of a celebration, and a toast to many more years of doing PR, marketing, blog tours, release blitzes, websites and much more for writers and small businesses.

So, here goes… a giveaway! Yes, that’s right – the chance to get something for FREE!

Just fill in the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win your choice of either a FREE release blitz or one week blog tour. And don’t forget to tell all your friends.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Another Satisfied Customer

Jane Jackson contacted me to help her out with getting her books onto relevant Goodreads lists in order to increase her exposure on the popular book networking site. Having finished the project (for now), Jane kindly sent me a testimonial to put on the site. Here it is:

It was through posts between two authors on a writer’s loop that I learned of Lucy Felthouse’s Writer Marketing Services.  Having little technical know-how I was in desperate need of help to get my list of published books onto Goodreads lists.  I emailed Lucy and told her what I needed. She said  ‘fine’, we agreed a fee, she requested cover images which I sent, then I left her to work her magic. She completed a demanding job in a remarkably short time, and did it brilliantly.  With four more titles due out between January and May 2014 I will be calling on Lucy’s expert skills again. If you need help to market your book/s, she’s your woman. I’m delighted to recommend her.

Cyber Monday Deal!

How about an awesome Cyber Monday deal? Yeah, I thought you’d like that. So how about this:

Book any length of blog tour, and get it HALF PRICE!

That’s right – a one week blog tour will set you back just £10, two weeks £20, and so on.

And yes, you can book and pay now, and save the tour until later.

So, what are you waiting for? Go here to see prices and options, and book your blog tour. I’ll send you an email within a couple of days with the next steps.

This offer is open until 10am GMT on the 3rd December, so be quick!

Increasing Reach on your Facebook Page

Here’s a handy tip for increasing reach on your Facebook page. “Reach” is Facebook’s word for how many people have seen your posts in their timelines. And I’m talking “fan” pages here, not profiles.

Normally, if you’re promoting book buy links, blog posts, etc, you’d type your message and the link into the box, then hit “post.” It’ll then go out and a percentage of the people that like your page will see it. To increase that number, give this a try:

Instead of posting the link in the same box as your text, try writing your text, then saying you’ll include the link in the comments. Post it, then post your link as a comment on that particular post. See screengrab:


Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge


I’ve tried this myself, and in the statistics of my page, it’s roughly tripling the number of people that see my posts. So it may take a few seconds more, but it’s worth it for that many more users to see what you’re posting.

I’m not 100% sure why Facebook do this, but I suspect it’s a) because they don’t want people linking out of Facebook, taking traffic away and b) because they want you to pay to use that “boost post” button. Can’t blame them for wanting to make sure cash out of page users, I suppose, but it’s pretty annoying as that’s the only way users are supposed to promote things, as opposed to on their personal profiles.

Give it a try. I hope it helps!

Using Twitterfeed to Promote Blog Posts

Do you spend ages Tweeting, Facebooking in LinkedIn-ing (think I just made up a new word there) your blog posts? Perhaps you contribute to several other blogs, as well as your own, and all that social networking takes up too much time. Time you could be using to plot, write or edit your next book!

Never fear, Twitterfeed is here. In a few simple steps, you can be letting Twitterfeed do all the hard work for you.

1. Go to Twitterfeed.com and sign up for an account.

2. Add your first feed by clicking ‘create new feed.’

3. Add the feed name and the URL, then click ‘test rss feed’ to make sure it works.

4. Click ‘advanced settings.’ Check each of the settings to make sure they’re what you want. The most useful I found, particularly if you contribute to a group blog, is ‘post prefix.’ That way you can add text to show that it’s from a blog you contribute to, but not necessarily your post. For example, I prefix with ‘From BlogName.’

5. Continue to step two. You now have three available services; Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Follow the steps to add the Twitter account you’d like to feed the blog posts to. Then repeat the same steps for Facebook and LinkedIn. Pay particular attention to the Facebook settings, as you have the option to post to your regular wall, or you can post to a page, instead.

6. When you’ve selected all the services you want to post to, click ‘All Done!’ and you’ll receive confirmation that your feed is set up and ready to post automatically.

7. Click to go to your dashboard, and you’ll see the feed you just set up, ready and raring to go. Simply repeat from number 2 on this post to add more feeds.

And there you have it! Effort free blog post promotion for yourself and your fellow bloggers!