Where do we go if we leave Twitter? by Lu Hersey

 So much has happened in the last month - another new Prime Minister, a new Chancellor, a former cabinet minister busy eating grubs and kangaroo penises in the jungle with Boy George, and Donald Trump running for president again. And all before that infamous lettuce has even wilted. It's all very unsettling...

Which brings me onto twitter. Recently taken over by Elon Musk, Donald is allowed back on (along with any other nutter or troll who wants to shout poison - Musk believes in free speech). Consequently people have been leaving it in droves. So where are they all going? Do we need to panic? Where can we all talk about new books and hang out together if it folds? I thought it might be worth checking out some other platforms to try and find alternative social media hangouts, in case Twitter dies completely.

First off, I tried Mastodon. Recommended as the new twitter by a friend (ironically through twitter), thought I'd set myself up a profile. If you haven't done so already, don't bother. Yes, I have a Mastodon account. But because setting up gives you so many confusing server options, I've forgotten which one I used, and now I can't find it. Anyway, I had zero followers, and worse, couldn't find a single person I knew, not even the person who recommended it. You might think Twitter is just an echo chamber, but for me, Mastodon turned out to be a massive white elephant. (PS am revising this today as actually found Mastodon account again - it helped when I spelt it right...)

Decided to try TikTok next, as that's where the cool kids hang out. Turns out, I'm really not a cool kid. I set up 3 separate TikTok accounts by mistake, and the right one (the only one where I managed to upload a couple of videos and find 3 friends) isn't even on my phone. So I'm unable to upload all those hilarious videos I might have made for any of the #toks (#booktok, #witchtok, #anythingyoucanthinkoftok) in a universe filled with pouting youth and guaranteed to make you feel like the oldest person in the world. (On the plus side, I saw some amazing parrot videos. Sadly I don't have a parrot, but boy, parrots are REALLY clever.) 

Of course there's always that old favourite, Instagram. I've had an account for ages, and apart from an unfortunate incident where a hacker took it over for a while and turned my profile photo into a woman with a very large chest who seemed to have lost all her clothes, it's generally a place I like. It's great as a visual account of what fellow writers, friends and family are up to - but on the downside, book promotion stuff on Instagram doesn't really grab me. Yes, of course I'll show you my new book cover, or someone else's lovely book cover - possibly even a few photos of a book launch with friends. But generally I'd rather show you a picture of the moon rising over Glastonbury tor, or the badger in the garden, and occasionally my family behaving like twats. Basically, I'll never be an 'influencer' and don't even follow any...

Facebook? Still popular and used by a lot of writers, but I've still never managed to work out the algorithms on my author account (probably because I don't pay to advertise) - the only real plus is occasionally gossiping in closed facebook groups with other writers, and Messenger, which is great for chats with family and friends. Maybe I'm just too wary of Zuckerberg's metaverse. Apparently it works well for online publishers promoting digital book sales, but self promotion? Erk! *shudders *

So full circle, back to Twitter. At the moment, I'm still there. It's a good way to find out what's going on, whether you like it or not. However, it's far more toxic than it used to be, even for writers. In the past I've made real life friends via twitter, but these days it's best to be careful what you say. Sadly, the writer world is currently busy fighting over trans rights, of all things. Never mind that the world could end soon because of climate change or potential nuclear war... Anyway, if you avoid engaging with any of the crazy, it's still ok...for now. But if it implodes completely, hopefully someone will come up with somewhere else to hang out, otherwise I'll be writing in the void. 

To be honest, it feels like that most days anyway...

Lu Hersey

Twitter: LuWrites

Facebook: Lu Hersey

Instagram: luwrites

TikTok: LuWritesBooks

Mastadon: I have absolutely no idea...

TOP TWELVE TIPS for NEW WRITERS – Dianne Hofmeyr

In the 80’s when hair was permed and big and shoulders broad, I was a potter working towards my first ceramics exhibition. Then in 1987 my first novel was published. Thirty years later I’m still writing.

Last week, a question asked by a young man from HMS Census Dept: Does being a writer require any qualification? sparked my immediate reaction:  'Anyone can be a writer.' But after he left, I felt I had too easily dismissed the years and years of 'qualification.'

So in no special order, I’ve made a list of things that might smooth the process for a first-time published writer.

1. Celebrate being a debut author. The world loves a debut. It puts possibility in sight for anyone with aspiration. Even if the publisher doesn’t offer, have your own party. There’ll never be another debut book for you. So party on...

Illustration by Piet Grobler from my story Fiddle Dee Dee to be published soon by Otterbarry Books

Illustration by my friend Niki Day, from his book Welcome to Zanzibar Road. 

Illustration by my friend Fiona Moodie from her book Noko's Surprise Party published by Frances Lincoln

2. Plan in advance for how you think your book could be marketed or what events it might fit with. Don’t wait for the day it’s published. Publishers don't necessarily know everything.

Carol Thompson's marvellous tiger from her workshop for our book, My Daddy is a Silly Monkey, Otterbarry Books. 

3. Say thank you… thank you to everyone along the way – your editor, your agent, the bookshop, the librarian, the teacher, your foreign rights person. Grace generates grace.

4. Writing is a lonely business. Get out there. Do things… photography, fabric design, learn a new instrument, do high-wire trapeze… anything that involves other people.

Illustration by Piet Grobler from my book Fiddle Dee Dee to be published soon by Otterbarry Books

5. Join the SOA (Society of Authors). They are your Trade Union and lifeline for helping with Contracts, Questions on Tax, Copyright, Agents etc etc. and they’re a jolly nice crowd. Join Here. IBBY (International Board of Books for Young Children) is also worth joining. Also a jolly nice crowd! Join Here.

6. Don’t compare yourself to others. It's a bad habit. Your voice is unique.

7. If, like me, you are hopeless at paperwork, use an accountant. Look out for tax deductions. Have I said it before...? Join the SOA.

8. Only use social media if you’re comfortable with it. Choose what suits you best. If you write picture books, Instagram might work for you.

9. Write a good bio (high-wire trapeze? be sure to mention it) and insist on being introduced at events. It sends a much more positive message to an audience, than standing there saying… hi, I’m an author.

10. Even though you may already have signed 100 books, make eye contact with the person in front of you. It might be the first book that child or adult, will ever have signed.

Jane Ray signing at The Illustration Cupboard for her book Feather Girl pub by Frances Lincoln

Polly Dunbar signing at Daunts Bookshop, Marylbone High Street.

11. Be generous. Build a book community. Photograph friends’ books in bookshops and fairs. Send the message out there. Books are great!

12. Lastly – writers empower people. Why else have so many writers been imprisoned or banned over the centuries? Ovid was banned from Rome to Constanta in Romania in 8 AD for his writing, Beverley Naidoo’s Journey to Jo’burg, a children’s novel, was banned in the apartheid years of South Africa.

Beverley Naidoo reading When I Coloured in the World by Ahmadreza Ahmedi, illustr by Ehsan Abdollahi, Tiny Owl

So get out there. Empower people with your writing. Break boundaries. Break down barriers. Dream adventures. Explore down the rabbit hole. Open trapdoors to other worlds. Take courage and write! And most of all, have fun doing it. And feel free to add some more tips in your comments.

PS this blog is full of links to publishers and writers if you want to find out more.

www.diannehofmeyr.com
Instagram: diannehofmeyr

Dianne Hofmeyr's next picture book TIGER WALK will be out in October this year and is illustrated by the very talented Jesse Hodgson and published by Otter-barry Books.

An incident with Instagram by Lu Hersey

Social media can be a helpful marketing tool, if you choose to use it that way. A means of drawing attention to new books coming out, reviews and events. It’s also a way to communicate with other writers, family and friends. But very occasionally it can backfire in a spectacular way, as I found out recently with Instagram...

Fab cake made for me by YAfictionados (cakes feature a lot on Instagram)

Unless you choose to have a private account, Instagram is a public platform – a bit like twitter, but with more pictures. Great for improving mediocre photos with its selective cropping and filter options, and for the most part, fun. It’s become an increasingly popular site for authors and book bloggers, and a social media site currently popular with nearly all teenagers.

YA event at Foyles, Bristol - writers always Instagram events...

Some writers and illustrators have a ton of followers and a zillion ‘likes’ for everything they post (look at Chris Riddell’s amazing Instagram feed and you’ll see what I mean)…although if you take a look at teen profiles like Zoella’s, the rest of us have a lot of catching up to do!

Like all social media, Instagram is another way of keeping up with what your writer friends are doing – and on a bad day, making you feel really inadequate looking at other people’s amazing book tours, fantastic book covers, new book deals, and countless foreign editions (even though you’re delighted for them!)

Social media can sometimes make you feel like this...

Anyway, as Instagram is mostly a public platform, like most children’s writers, some of my followers are kids and teenagers. The audience I write for, in fact. And therefore I’m fairly selective about the images I post.

So when my Instagram account got hacked by a spammer, my new profile pic of a much younger model with surgically enhanced breasts (and wearing very few clothes) was a bit of a worry.

Eeeeep!

It took me some time to actually find my account again. The spammer had blocked me from accessing my own photos, and it’s quite complicated getting Instagram ‘help’ to do anything remotely helpful. I had to send them a photo of myself holding a card with my email address on to prove I was a real person. It took them several days to grudgingly agree that yes, maybe I had been hacked, and let me have my account back with a slightly different name. Now I’m luwrites instead of LuWrites, because Instagram ‘help’ said someone already owned LuWrites. Duh. But I couldn’t be bothered to argue.

Having got my account back, I found my big breasted spammer had kindly started following 5000 random people on my behalf. Some of them had very dubious names like Cmidic and Luvmicok and had messaged to request nude pics...

After hastily blocking all of them (and changing my profile photo, obvs), I had to unfollow the other 5000, which took AGES. Instagram only allows you to unfollow about 100 people in one session before they freeze your account for a while – apparently to ‘protect our community’. Yeah, right. The same ‘community’ where a spammer can follow 5000 people in one go. Pffft.

Surprisingly, in the end, some good came out of it all. I ended up feeling almost sorry about unfollowing some of the 5000 people I’d never met. Quite a few of them had followed me back – though I’m surprised they didn’t wonder why I’d followed them in the first place, especially with THAT profile pic.

By the time I’d slowly waded through, I found it kind of comforting that apart from the porn spammers, the vast majority of the accounts I had to unfollow were people from across the globe, simply recording very similar things in their lives. High days and holidays, families, falling in love, cars – along with some truly spectacular cakes, and a very wide range of pets. (One guy actually appeared to own a pair of tigers and a grizzly bear!)

I ended up with a warm, fuzzy feeling of a global community and shared humanity, something hard to remember in these days of political tensions and rifts between countries.

I still follow a few of the people who followed me back. Mainly young teens I feel might be upset if I unfollowed them, and I wasn’t quite sure if they were following me before or not. After all, at its best, Instagram can be a great public space and a good way to link to others.

But if you’re a children’s writer with an Instagram account, or about to open one, I’d strongly advise making your password impregnable…it could save you a lot of time and effort.

Lu Hersey
Deep Water out now, published by Usborne

@LuWrites on twitter

luwrites on Instagram

Lu Writes on Wordpress

Marketing and other non-writing stuff - by Karen King

Marketing is increasing in importance to most authors now so when I heard The Belmont Belles of the RNA (Romantic Novelists’s Association) were running a workshop on 2^nd October about ‘Readers How to Find Them and Keep Them’ which included lots of marketing tips I signed up.

It was a really interesting day. The team, Sue Moorcroft, Kim Nash, Katherine Gerbera, Lizzy Lamb, Lucy Felthouse and Sarah Houldcroft led us through starting a Street Team, reaching readers with newsletters, using Carva and Photofunia for graphics, scheduling tweets and Facebook posts using Buffer, using hashtags – especially useful with Instagram- and making use of the Facebook ‘Call to Action’ button on your Author Page to direct people to your latest book or newsletter. All very useful stuff and I came away with lots of notes.

Here I am with Sue Moorcroft, who gave a workshop on Street Teams

Some of the authors had put together a set of Regency romances into an Amazon Kindle Box Set and were getting pretty good sales for it. I thought this was a really good idea. Like many of you, I already use Amazon Kindle to self-publish out of print books and back copies (actually only one at the moment but I intend to do it with a few more when I can find time). But I'd never thought of compiling some of my books into an e-box set. Have you?  

If you’ve written several spooky stories, for example, you could republish them as a Halloween box set. Or you could get together with another author and publish a collection of YA Reads, or School Stories. That way you can share the expense of covers and any marketing and enjoy more exposure. Yes, of course you’ll have to share the profits but that wouldn’t be too complicated.

I’m looking through my back list right now to see what titles I can make into a Kindle box set. 

Karen King writes all sorts of books. Check out her website at www.karenking.net

(With thanks to Pixabay for the book picture)