Book Blogger Hop

What is your favorite social media and why? (submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews)

I am on Twitter, Facebook and I blog. I have given Instagram a go but I find it a tad clunky with Windows and do not have a iPad. I must admit I’m a bit behind about new social media sites and maybe I’ll learn something from the participants of this Book Blogger Hop.

Why I like Blogging?

I love the way it challenges me to write regularly; learning all the time to be selective of my words, to edit on the hop and to choose themes which I think might resonate. I enjoy posts where I get a response but for me this may be an email, a tweet or even a comment on Facebook. It does not have to be in the comments box because I find it often puts people off who do not have a WordPress site themselves. I sometimes get emails months or years later, if I have used my tags and categories correctly. Now, that’s a real pleasure. I also make links and ‘friends’ with the WordPress community who are mutually supportive.

www.dianamj.wordpress.com

Why I like Twitter?

Twitter is more intransigent; here one minute and gone the next. I love the banter and the real conversations. The photos and wildlife are fab and make me smile; as do the jokes, sometimes! There are real connections to be made; groups of extremely supportive authors who give you encouragement and support in your journey. The spam does annoy me sometimes; the white noise of constant book ads, but then how else do we writers get out books seen by new readers. I try to keep mine to a minimum. When other authors support you, there is nothing like the reassurance that your book has been recommended and endorsed by others and I do try to read books that I RT if I can.

Author Diana Jackson @Riduna on Twitter

Why I like Facebook?

I like keeping in touch with friends, colleagues and family on Facebook most of all. They can be my readers too, but not always. As an author I like the way you can announce an event, both real and on line and that you can invite people to join you. I feel less comfortable when writing posts solely to promote my books on my own page, of which I have three; a private and personal page (where I extremely rarely mention my writing);

a page Diana Jackson Author

https://en-gb.facebook.com/DianaJacksonauthor

and an author page which is more geared to businesses I feel. I’m not sure if I really need both. What do you think?

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDianaJackson/

Which social media platform do I like the best as an author?

Going back to the original question, all in all I probably enjoy blogging most, although I go on Twitter most frequently. It is the best platform to relax and enjoy. I am on Linkedin too, but am not very good at using it all that often.

Thanks to Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews for the question.

If you’d like to know more about Book Blogger Hop you can follow this link.

Which platform do you prefer?

Authors ~How to drive traffic to you WordPress site.

I’ve been writing my blog here on WordPress since 2012! Nearly 10 years. Amazing. What have I learnt about successful posts and ways of driving traffic to your blog.

What has worked for me?

• Book reviews : put simply, if you share the love of books and write about the books you read it will draw traffic. A bit of good karma maybe, but as your fellow author is encouraged by your honest and positive review, then they and their followers will share it and voila!
• Offer to be part of Book Tours: much like the above, there is a buzz about being part of a Virtual Book Tour, whether you are offering a Cover Reveal or a full blown review. It takes time, yes, but it draws folks to your site, excellent if the book is in a genre that you write in.
• An enticing title: If you get your fellow bloggers intrigued by your title then they’re hooked. My largest no of readers ever was for the title Can You Snuggle in Bed with a Kindle? Now, that tells you how long ago the post was published. My most recent was I Admit I’m a Murderer with Intent! ~ I was actually talking about the greenfly on my lupin tree, but it certainly hooked readers. I hope they were amused rather than disappointed.
• Background information to your novel/ novels: I had some successful series on each location of my novels called virtual tours. These brought traffic on the long term, far outside the blogging fraternity.; potential readers.
• Series: The above series kept readers hooked because they were interested to find out more but a recent series where I interviewed successful indie authors went down well.
• Extra Historical detail: very much as the above two, I have had wonderful comments and emails about posts, sometimes months or years later and that brings me on to categories and tags

Some bloggers miss a huge trick by not realising the power and purpose of categories and tags. They are your SEO information like the key words when launching on KDP. It is through them that folks can track you down on the internet and read your post, even though they do not blog themselves.

Categories

These are your umbrella subjects. There will be a list for you under post, or you can write new ones and build a list. At first I had far too many and had to rationalise. They can be your tabs, but if you write a category, for example ‘Early Flight’ or Book Reviews’ as in my list and a reader clicks on one of those phrases by the side of your post, all your posts under that subject will come up together. (and don’t forget to unclick the ‘uncategorized’!)

Tags

With these words folks can find your post on the internet when they search for specific things. It may come up when you google it. In my early days of writing if, for example, you googled my twitter handle @Riduna, it might come up with my Twitter feed but also any pages which might mention my first book names Riduna on my blog or of course Amazon. Of course, I have not promoted Riduna for a good while (and probably should do) but you get the idea I hope.

I admit, due to recent circumstances I’ve let some of this slide a bit but reflecting on this has been really positive and given me a gentle nudge too!

Happy blogging. Much love Diana

www.dianajacksonauthor.co.uk

Author Platform ~ If you’re new to writing plan ahead!

Don’t do as I did!

My author platform is now:

www.dianajacksonauthor.co.uk

www.dianajacksonauthor.com

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDianaJackson/

DianaJackson@Riduna on Twitter

My main blog www.dianamj.wordpress.com

Dear Reader

I began writing in 2000 and had my first book Riduna published in 2009 by Pegasus Elliot McKenzie. I knew nothing about author platforms and just chose a Twitter handle and web address fairly randomly.

Twitter

I chose my Twitter handle @Riduna’ before it had occurred to me I’d write several books. It was the title of my first book and the Roman name for the island of Alderney, on which my novel was located. In the early days of marketing it certainly helped to link myself to Alderney and one of my first followers and readers did a search for ‘Riduna’ on Twitter and came up with me. He was an ESOL teacher in Argentina at the time, but his Great Grandparents were alive on Alderney at the same time of mine. One of those lovely coincidences!

Riduna

In 2012, a small Indie Author Collaborative, for which I was a founding member, relaunched Riduna and its sequel Ancasta. (losing all my hard earned reviews for Riduna on Amazon unfortunately, but that’s another story)

It was when I came to release ‘Murder Now and Then’ in 2014 that @Riduna was less helpful, although characters in that novel did in fact visit Alderney briefly.

Website

The website for Diana Jackson was not available and I so I chose http://www.dianamaryjackson.co.uk as my web address. I was asked where the ‘Mary’ came from when interviewed by Chiltern Radio. I must have looked surprised, although of course I couldn’t be seen, ‘it’s my middle name,’ I replied. Since then I’ve realised that it is a little odd. At first I thought to change my pen name to Diana Mary Jackson. It has a certain ring to it don’t you think? If you ever wish to do that, please don’t go there! It’s far too complicated, especially since I had already published at least one book in each of my three series.

Blogs

I am reluctant to update my main blog www.dianamj.wordpress.com because it goes through periods of success and increased outreach, dependent on my input and a bit of luck. I also find that some posts and themes have a certain amount of longevity, discovered by folks sometimes years later. I now have links to this blog on both websites making it easy to share news and for me to update most of it myself. This works seamlessly

I have two blogs, but this year I have paused on www.selectionofreflections.wordpress.com to give myself less pressure through a difficult year.

…and so I’ve kept ‘Mary’ hidden in my blog address by the initial ‘M’ and that sounds like the title of a book!

Banner

I have yet to get this banner updated with my latest release ~ see below, but it is on my dot com website and my Facebook page too. I’m not sure about my twitter header. What do you think?

In Short:

Think carefully before you choose twitter handles and web addresses and not only that its worth paying for web addresses ahead of time to reserve them. You never know who might come along and snap them up. Be consistent!

“Diana Jackson’s latest release is a #YA book of encouragement, inspiration and motivation called ‘Search for the Pearl Inside Yourself‘, just released on Kindle .”