Category Archives: Promo

First Official Work Day of 2023

03 Tuesday Jan 2023

Posted by in Personal, Promo, Writing

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Which means that I’ll be spending it writing, working on Nicola’s upcoming Patreon (an exclusive short story every month, sneak peeks at WIPs and behind-the-scenes looks! Levels to get ebooks, print books, and book boxes with swag and goodies! Plus there will be at least one level where you will get everything plus a handmade piece of jewelry from me), and planning the Sekrit Project (more on that in March).

I also need to call the vet and make the yearly appointment for J.J., and sometime this week I have to gird my loins and call Spectrum to cancel our cable (because they jacked up prices and we simply don’t watch anything on cable—practically all of our TV watching is done on streaming services) and T-Mobile to switch the Brit and myself over to their 55+ plan. I truly loathe having to call companies but it’s what needs to be done so I’ll grab some knitting so that I can do something useful until a representative can help me. Plus that should save us about $200 a month, which we really kinda need right now.

I’m also going to start looking at Indeed and see if there are any contract tech writing or instructional design jobs going in the area. I don’t want a permanent job, but if I can pick up some contract work here and there it would be a good thing (I really want to send Lyndon home for a week to see his family and me bringing in some sweet, sweet contract money is the only way I can do that right now. I mean, unless Nicola sells a shit-ton of books this month).

The Great TikTok Experiment, Day Six

22 Wednesday Sep 2021

Posted by in Promo, Writing

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As you may remember, Bob, I signed up for TikTok last week. As per the webinar’s instructions, I’ve been posting 2-3 videos a day, most of them on the subject of my books or writing but some of them just goofy little filips.

So far I have 324 followers, one of my posts from Sunday has crossed the thousand views mark (unsurprising as it stars J.J.), and I know for sure that I’ve sold six books from my posts. I’m also having a whale of a good time making these vids and learning a lot about the different filters, effects, and other visual goodies that come with TikTok. I’d also like to get some apps to help me with captioning, but I need a phone that can handle iOS13 first (come to me, iPhone 12).

I have to admit that this surprises me, but after a week of participating I have to say that joining TikTok was a good idea. I might change my mind in a month or two, but so far it’s been both a ball and surprisingly lucrative.

And if you want to see me in action, you can find me here.

So, about TikTok…

18 Saturday Sep 2021

Posted by in Promo

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I’m going to be posting this exact same blog entry at The Other Website, so if you subscribe to both my apologies.

@nicandmelatbelaurientThis one was inspired by Westworld, and I got to chat with one of the actors! ##booktok ##romance ##kindle ##spicybooks ##indieauthor ##romancebooks♬ original sound – NicolaCameron/MelanieFletcher

https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

This week I attended a webinar led by Jayne Rylon and Lila Dubois about how authors can use TikTok to promote their work. Normally I’m a little meh about webinars, but this one was funny, effective, and reinforced a lot of stuff I’ve been hearing from authors about how being on TikTok can boost your sales. It also demonstrated some best practices, things not to do, and suggested a couple of tips that surprised me (like wearing crowns in videos. I mean, who would have guessed?).

Anyhoo, on Thursday I took the leap and signed up for a TikTok account. On the recommendation of Jayne and Lila, who said that TikTok readers are voracious and aren’t bound to genre, I decided to use my TikTok account for both my Melanie and Nicola books and came up with the username nicandmelatbelaurient. A little clumsy, yes, but the screen name can be changed as much as you like and I settled on Melanie Fletcher/Nicola Cameron for that, which seems to work. My first video was a cute little pan of all the proof copies I have on a bookshelf, with a voiceover that muses how I really should order real copies of all those books. Did a bit of editing, added on-screen text and a sticker, and uploaded it.

I then joined Authors of TikTok and TikTok for Beginners on Facebook. Right now the Authors group has been more useful because it gave me the opportunity to join in on a daily cross-promotion post where people post their latest TikTok. You can then go and like/follow/comment them, and they’ll do the same for your post and account. Not very organic, true, but TikTok is gamified where you get certain privileges when you get certain numbers of followers, and right now I’m in a growth phase in order to get some of those privileges.

So what’s the point of all this? Well, over the last two days I’ve posted four videos — the panning one of the proof copy shelf, one where I feature Behind the Iron Cross, one where I’m actually on camera saying hello (link at the beginning of this post), and one featuring the Two Thrones series. As of right now I have 85 followers, 73 likes, and I’ve gotten 567 views on the proof vid, 336 views on the BtIC vid, 494 views on the “Hello, it’s me” vid, and 12 views on the Two Thrones post (but that was only uploaded an hour ago). I’ve also gotten two people reading BtIC on KU, which I can only attribute to my TT post. I’m hoping that as I establish more of a presence on the platform I’ll be able to boost my sales even more.

Plus, I LOVE making videos. I’m already a frustrated screenwriter and videographer so to me TikTok is an absolute ball, especially if I can make my videos funny. I already have a series planned where Melanie and Nicola will both be in the videos bickering with each other about stuff (which will require costume changes and a lot of editing, but that’s okay).

And, erm, I may have purchased a ring light with automatic start button for my camera. Hey, it’s a tax write-off.