Children's Book Writers and Illustrators of the Hunter and Central Coast   (CBHunCC)
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Lessons from failure

4/12/2015

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When something doesn't work like you anticipated, then all you have left is lessons learned the hard way. So it has been with the inaugural Free Plug Friday.

The idea came from Brandan Vogt's Shameless Monday http://brandonvogt.com/shameless-monday/ which appeared to work very well. After all if you are looking for a free place to plug your creative work together with the opportunity to try out a different sales pitch-who wouldn't jump at the opportunity, right? Any online breadcrumb that leads people to your work is something to get excited about, right?

Wrong.

Given that no one took advantage of CBHunCC's Free Plug Friday, possible reasons are:

• It was school holiday time and plenty of people are with children and grandchildren.

• Maybe those people who say you have to carefully choose what time of day to tweet actually know what they are talking about.

• It is never easy sitting down to write a self-promotional piece. In fact it is surprisingly difficult to even get 100 words together let alone 200.

• The comments when posted don't automatically show on the blog-page (you have to click through). That makes them virtually invisible. The comment section's unsophisticated 'plain text only' input didn't help either. One way around that for next time is to still get the raw information in via comment, and then to put that information into a blog-post eg FPF Sandra Moncrief illustrator. Plain text URLs for images in the comments could then become visible images in the blog-posts.

• The bitly link didn't get clicked through at all, although profile views were up significantly. This means people exercise caution first and say 'Who is this?' before looking at what they have to say. Such unforseen behaviour meant that anyone who did look at the profile (and didn't click through to the blog) may have incorrectly concluded that only locals need apply. One way around that is to have a line on the home page about Free Plug Fridays being for any children's book writer and illustrator where ever they happen to live.

• Just because you use a hashtag, it doesn't mean it will show up in the hashtag feed. Yep. Posted two with #kidlit and looked during the day to see that it didn't show. Maybe it got 'drowned' because the hashtag was so busy. That was disappointing, but sometimes technology doesn't deliver as expected. #freeplugfriday showed up but the culture of that hashtag was more self-promotion than opportunities for self-promotion. Next time having one tweet for #kidlitart and one tweet for #kidlitauthor would be more targeted.

• Having an image takes up a big chunk of 140 characters to play with on Twitter.

• It takes time for a Twitter reputation to be built up, and for people to decide to follow your Twitter handle. How successful a promotion is greatly depends on the number of followers you have and the proportion of them who are interested in your topic. There are no short cuts to this step. Wait for the reputation to build before trying again.

• Social proof is crucially important. One of the recommendations from those using crowdfunding is that you lock in 25% of your donors before you even launch your crowdfunding project. People are more likely to give if they can see a good number of other people thought it was worthwhile to give to. Likewise, no one wants to be the first to add a comment, but if they can see 4-5 comments already posted they will a) have a good idea about how to write their own and b) will be happy to have a go themselves. So make sure you have some people lined up to comment as soon as the blog-post goes live. Giving people advanced warning isn't enough, you actually need commitments to comment.

• Even giving LinkedIn and Facebook a go to get the word out didn't work. That was truly surprising because the LinkedIn groups for people associated with children's books seems top heavy with people seeking to promote their work. But then a big ocean of potential contacts will always appeal more than a small pond.

What now?

Free Plug Fridays are still a good idea.

Because every #kidlit author and illustrator needs more breadcrumbs online.

And because this small pond is going to grow.

So if you came in late, or missed out, if anyone wants a FPF blog-post with their name on it, between now and the end of April 2015 send the raw material in a comment, and CBHunCC will make it look good (especially if you send some relevant image URLs).

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Free Plug Friday updated

4/10/2015

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Now that it has been discovered how relatively invisible the comment sections are on this website (Arrgh!), here is an alternative solution.

If you want to be a part of Free Plug Friday, still add a comment and throw in some image links. Yes, the comments come out in disappointing plain text. 

So if you put the information in a comment, it will be taken and made into a visible blog-post instead. Much better!

So send the information along, and this way it will become visible to all. Just a little more work on this end - but worth it.
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Free Plug Friday

4/9/2015

 
Welcome to our inaugural Free Plug Friday, an opportunity for children's book writers and illustrators to plug your book, blog, website or online portfolio in 200 words or less.

Why? Because we all need practice in pitching our work to others and thinking seriously about what our unique selling points really are in the world of children's books.

Why 200 words? Because most book blurbs need to be that length or less to be successful, and if you haven't caught the interest of your reader by then it isn't going to happen.

You might find this link about writing an effective book description helpful in preparing your free plug https://www.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1462

Here's the rules:

• You can only plug your own work.

• You can plug more than one of your works, as long as they relate to children's books and squeak within the 200 word limit.

• Children's books include anything from Picture Books up to Young Adult (but not New Adult), and can take any 'for sale' format (traditional print, e-book, print-on-demand, book app). You are welcome to plug traditionally published work as well as self-published work.

• If you don't have any work published in book format yet, promote your website, your blog, or any online illustration portfolios you have.

• Write (or paste) your free plug in the comment section below.

• Each person only gets one comment section to plug with.

• A home page URL will be counted as one word and any other URLs will be counted as two words. However you cannot include more than 4 URLs in your plug.

• Make sure that any URL you provide is available to anyone on the internet and doesn't require registrations and passwords to view.

• The comment section will be open from around midnight 9 April to midnight 10 April Australian Eastern Standard Time, comment moderation will be on, and every few hours comments will be checked that they comply with the rules before being published.

• CBHunCC members get a bonus and have 300 words to plug with, and are the only ones allowed to plug exhibitions, book launches and local community events.

• The best plug as judged by the CBHunCC moderator will have their work promoted by 3 tweets from @CBHunCC, one on 11 Apr, one on 12 Apr and one on 13 Apr.

The plan is to run a Free Plug Friday every two months, so please tune in for the next one in early June 2015.

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