Help Me Help You by Thea Atkinson
by Thea Atkinson
[caption id="attachment_12639" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Thea Atkinson writes what she calls 'to the left of mainstream'[/caption]
Like most writers, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about how to sell my book. I spend time on Twitter and Facebook, and Goodreads. You know the drill. I do lots and lots of running and getting nowhere.
One thing I do enjoy doing (mostly because I also procrastinate like crazy) is try to help other writers spread their words too. It makes me feel good about myself while I'm avoiding my work. And in some ways, it actually feels like work in a good way. The internet is full of advice that says you benefit from helping others. Give and take. Mind you, I'd do it anyway. In fact, it's not why I try to help others at all. I've been given so much help in my time by fabulous mentors like Sandra Phinney, Glen Hancock, Kent Thompson, and some great indies, that it behooves me to pay it forward. To remember where I was. To think about where I could go. And help others get to their destinations.
But this new indie ebook world is new to me. I have very little social media savvy that will propel you into viralosity, but I can do a few things to make small differences. Tweet you, RT you, and comment on your blogs. And therein lies some aggravating things for me that keep me from doing it as much as I'd like.
For as long as I've been tweeting one thing has been bothering the heck out of me.
Folks who take all, absolutely ALL of their 140 characters to tweet.
Makes me wonder how many of us are doing this. How many other possible RTers or Word spreaders have just made an attempt to spread our word and given up because we haven't made it simple for them.
And then there are captchas.
Oh Gawd. Don't get me started.
Gah!
I can tell you I took captchas off my blog and I haven't had Akismet lose any spam. In fact, my spam box shows quite a few.
You know where all this is headed, don't you? You guessed it. I won't comment.
So help me help you.
Two simple things.
Now: what simple thing can I do to help you help me? What drives you crazy that I'm doing (or other writers) that keep you from spreading another's word?
If you like this post, please share. It helps #amwriting, and it helps me. And in the end, it helps you.
-30-
Thea Atkinson is a writer of character driven fiction; call it what you will: she prefers to describe her work as something akin to the left of mainstream.
To purchase any of her novels, visit her blog or Amazon, BN, Kobo, Smashwords, Sony, or Itunes
[caption id="attachment_12639" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Thea Atkinson writes what she calls 'to the left of mainstream'[/caption]Like most writers, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about how to sell my book. I spend time on Twitter and Facebook, and Goodreads. You know the drill. I do lots and lots of running and getting nowhere.
One thing I do enjoy doing (mostly because I also procrastinate like crazy) is try to help other writers spread their words too. It makes me feel good about myself while I'm avoiding my work. And in some ways, it actually feels like work in a good way. The internet is full of advice that says you benefit from helping others. Give and take. Mind you, I'd do it anyway. In fact, it's not why I try to help others at all. I've been given so much help in my time by fabulous mentors like Sandra Phinney, Glen Hancock, Kent Thompson, and some great indies, that it behooves me to pay it forward. To remember where I was. To think about where I could go. And help others get to their destinations.
But this new indie ebook world is new to me. I have very little social media savvy that will propel you into viralosity, but I can do a few things to make small differences. Tweet you, RT you, and comment on your blogs. And therein lies some aggravating things for me that keep me from doing it as much as I'd like.
For as long as I've been tweeting one thing has been bothering the heck out of me.
Folks who take all, absolutely ALL of their 140 characters to tweet.
- You know that doesn't leave me any room to RT, don't you?
- You know that doesn't offer me any space to write a comment, right?
- You know I'm going to delete the RT I click because I can't fit it all in. Right?
- You know you've lost me.
Makes me wonder how many of us are doing this. How many other possible RTers or Word spreaders have just made an attempt to spread our word and given up because we haven't made it simple for them.
And then there are captchas.
Oh Gawd. Don't get me started.
- How many times have I crafted a comment only to get caught by that durn captcha?
- How many times has that captcha gobbled up the bytes and then left me staring at the screen wondering if I really…REALLY wanted to write the comment all over again.
- How many times has the captcha just flat out forced me to type over and over again because I couldn't see the durn thing good enough.
Gah!
I can tell you I took captchas off my blog and I haven't had Akismet lose any spam. In fact, my spam box shows quite a few.
You know where all this is headed, don't you? You guessed it. I won't comment.
So help me help you.
- Give me room to tweet you.
- Take the captchas off so I can comment without having to consider typing it in Word first and doing the dreaded copy/paste (cause I won't. You know I won't.)
Two simple things.
Now: what simple thing can I do to help you help me? What drives you crazy that I'm doing (or other writers) that keep you from spreading another's word?
If you like this post, please share. It helps #amwriting, and it helps me. And in the end, it helps you.
-30-
Thea Atkinson is a writer of character driven fiction; call it what you will: she prefers to describe her work as something akin to the left of mainstream.
To purchase any of her novels, visit her blog or Amazon, BN, Kobo, Smashwords, Sony, or Itunes
