Tuesday’s Tip is about engaging your readers. Engagement is the buzz word this week at the Digital Book World Conference & Expo in New York City. If you’re like many authors you’re probably wondering how to measure your engagement with your readers.

One really quick way is to look at your Facebook Page. I don’t mean your profile. I mean the Like/Fan page you created to promote yourself. (Don’t tell me you haven’t done this yet. Shame, shame.)

In the left column under your picture you’ll see how many people “like” your page. Beneath that you’ll see another number. It indicates how many people are “talking about” your page. “Talking about” includes comments on the page, likes, and shares. That’s the easiest way to look at it. The higher the number, the more engagement.

How to you increase that number:

• ask your readers questions
• post covers
• post lines from your WIP
• share photos and content from other peoples’ pages and walls
• most importantly – reply to comments, like your readers’ comments

A few authors that I think do a great job of interacting with their readers are Susan Mallery, Selena Blake and Eloisa James. I’ve included a screenshot of Susan’s FB Page to the right.

My copyeditor sent me the final edits for Tips for Authors earlier this week. I love how thorough she was and I can’t wait to share this book with everyone.

It’s taken a decade to get to this point but I’ve compiled a whole bunch of tips for authors into one easy-to-read book. There’s a little something in there for everyone. New authors. Seasoned authors. And best of all, purchase of the book includes access to an awesome bonus site full of exclusive content.

Release day is December 15th. Be sure to mark it on your calendar. And if you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter yet, please do. I’ll be sending out a reminder on release day.

Tip of the day: Rescue your time

Do you spend a lot of time on the computer? Wonder how much time is spent on productivity vs. games or internet? There’s an application I use to help me stay on top of everything called Rescue Time. You can use it to rescue your time too. Check it out and see where you’re losing valuable hours and minutes.

To all those people who told me how wonderful dropbox is, can I just say, you were right!

I’m officially converted.

Okay, so I’ve been preaching Dropbox to anyone who’d listen for about six months now but I haven’t posted about it on my blog yet. At least not with the respect it deserves.

What is dropbox?

It’s a file management/backup system. I’ll let you watch the little video at Dropbox to learn more.

Why I love it:

My harddrive died recently and I didn’t even break a sweat. No kidding. No tears were shed, no hand wringing commenced. I knew everything was backed up on dropbox. All I had to do was install a new harddrive, install a few programs, connect to drop box and then all my files were back.

Drop box takes whatever changed in your file and sends it to their servers. This way, you have a copy on your computer, they have a copy on their server. That’s the backup aspect that I love.

Did I mention no panic attack?

I can also use Dropbox to share files which is great for sending over graphics or copy to my husband or assistant. It’s super fast, super easy. Great for critique partners. *hint* *hint*

Also, I love that no matter which computer I’m using, I can easily locate and use my files. All of our home computers have dropbox installed so no matter which computer I’m on, my files are synced and up to date locally. And if I’m out at a library or at a friends house, it’s a snap to login and download a file. It keeps older versions for me so I never have to worry about losing something.

Did I mention Dropbox has a healthy free plan? Really, there’s no reason you shouldn’t give it a try. My husband did some research on the company (compared to similar ones) and drop box is making a profit and doing well, which makes me happy because I know my data is safe and I’ll be a happy Dropbox user for many years to come.

fabulous photo by: FeatheredTar

If you’re interested in in self-publishing, you’ll find plenty of discussion on Twitter. No matter what the view point, there are a few key authors who you’d be smart to follow. They routinely discuss their indie careers, give tips and share excellent resources. Many will even answer questions.

1. JA Konrath
2. Barry Eisler
3. Amanda Hocking
4. Bella Andre
5. Selena Blake
6. HP Mallory
7. John Locke
8. James Scott Bell
9. Bob Mayer

So now that you have a grasp of hashtags you might be wondering which hashtags you should be looking for and using as an author.

First up: #ww aka #writerwednesday

This hashtag is used by authors and readers to share writers that they like.

#FF or #fridayfollow

Use this hashtag to share twitter users that you really like. If you follow someone who always makes you smile or always has a great article to share, this is the perfect time to tell your followers about them.

#pubtip

This hashtag is full of great tips and articles by authors, editors, agents and other industry professionals about the publishing industry.

#promotip

If you’re looking for tips on promotion, try this hashtag. Authors and marketing experts routinely offer advice and links to articles.

#amwriting or #amediting

Let your followers know what you’re up to.

#1k1h

Need a push? Try writing 1,000 words in 1 hour. Use this hashtag to announce your intention and join others in the challenge.

#writegoal

Announce your writing goal each day and support others who do the same.

#nanowrimo

If you participate in NANO, keep up with your fellow writers via this hashtag.

#writetip

Look for writing tips from some amazing authors under this hashtag. Share your own.

One thing that Klout allows that no other social network does is a way to promote your friends by saying "this person knows about this topic."

As previously mentioned in the Influential Topics post, you can see a whole page of topics a person is influential about. The more they network, the more topics will likely be on this page.

As their friend and follower you can give them a boost by clicking the +K next to the topic.

Start at your Klout Profile and look beneath your profile picture and bio. You should see some friends faces smiling back at you under Influence Network. If you click "see all" you’ll be taken to a page that lists all the folks that are in your sphere of influence. (You can also click on the Friends link in the navigation menu.)

Here’s a snippet from my list of people who "influence me:"

Say I want to give Christina Dodd some Klout. I could just click the +K next to Romance, Authors, or Writing. But suppose I want to see what else she’s influential about?

I click on her name and it brings up a list of topics.

Since she’s most influential about the three topics I already mentioned, they’re listed at the top. And out next to them you can see that her other followers have given (+K) her Klout for those topics.

For the record, her fourth most influential topic at the time I took this screen shot: dogs. (And we all know how much I love dogs. +K, Christina. +K)

So there it is. How to give friends Klout.

Think I’m influential about something? You can give me Klout here: klout.com/#/AllyAnderson

The other day, a dear friend asked me what a hashtag is.

I wasn’t surprised and I was happy to educate her. In this new web 2.0 world authors are struggling to keep up with all the networking and promo options. If you’re one of them, read on.

A hashtag is typically used on twitter as way to categorize keywords. For instance, if you’re making a tweet about an author, you might use the hashtag #author. People who are interested in authors would do a search on #author to find recent tweets with that hashtag.

Things you should know:

There are no preset hashtags. There are no right or wrong hashtags. There are, of course, popular hashtags (and that’s a different post.)

Some people like to have a little fun with their hashtags. Rather than using a hashtag to classify information, they use it as a way to be ironic and save character space. So when you see something like #yeahIsoneedmymorningcoffee don’t expect to find dozens of other people carrying on a conversation about needing their morning coffee. On the other hand, some hashtags just stick.

Things to consider when using hashtags:

• You can use more than one hashtag to offer extra classification. So on one tweet you might include: #author #writer #editing
• The shorter your hashtag, the better. Everything on twitter is a numbers game. How much can you squeeze into 140 characters?
• You can use hashtags anywhere in your tweet. So you might say something like: New #author Suzie Q really knows how to write a #thriller.
• Watch for conference related hashtags to stay up to date with the latest conference and workshop info.
• Don’t use hashtags too often. You want hashtags to classify the best of your tweets. Otherwise you risk diluting their usefulness and people will become annoyed.
• If you post the same tweet throughout the day or over a series of days to capture a wider audience, vary your hashtags.
• If you’re replying or RTing someone who used a hashtag, take out the hashtag. We don’t need to see the hashtag/message over and over again. We saw the message the first time.

As a registered user of Klout you’ll find all sorts of metrics on your profile page. One that has people sitting up and taking notice is the Influential Topics section.

You’ll see three topics/categories listed on your profile page.

Klout’s super algorithms have decided that I’m influential about Facebook, Marketing and Branding. This could be because I a) talk about these topics frequently, b) I discuss these topics with other people, c) I post links about these topics, d) others RT/share the links I post about these topics or e) all or any of the above and any other secret voodoo that Klout has going on.

If you click on the "see all…" link below the three influential topics you’ll be taken to a page that lists all the topics that Klout thinks you’re influential about.

What does this mean to authors?

This is a good general idea of what you talk about most frequently. And this would be a good brand building tool.

If you want to be known for your writing advice, you’d want to discuss writing topics rather than food, sports, kids.

Klout friends can also +K you, meaning they deem you influential about certain topics. All they have to do is click the little +K icons next to topics on your Influential Topics page (aka, see all…)

Stay tuned for more Klout related posts for authors. If you’d like to be notified of new posts, please insert your email address into the form on the left of my blog. You may also want to sign up to my newsletter to receive my free ebooklet, 55 Tips for Authors.

My father sent me a link to an online article the other day. Having a few minutes, I clicked on the link and started reading. The first few paragraphs were fairly intriguing. But my eyes roamed over to the scroll bar on the right.

Did you know you can tell how long (big) a page is by how small the scroll bar is?

Needless to say, the article was pretty long. And I was short on time. So I sent the article to my InstaPaper account (that in itself deserves a blog post) and went about my business.

Let this be a lesson to bloggers everywhere. Get to the meat of your post ASAP and please, I’m begging you, keep your blog posts short.

250 words is more than enough in my opinion. Anything longer than that and I’m out of there.

If you have a post that needs to be longer, has more to say, or whatever the case may be, break it into a series.

• You’ll get more visitors that way.
• You’ll keep readers like me happy.
• And you’ll get the chance to include a newsletter sign up form at the end of your blog post requesting visitors sign up to your newsletter so you can let them know when the next part of the series is posted.

This post, by the way, is 228 words.

Between a rock and a hard place. That’s where today’s authors find themselves. In the middle of a turbulant storm. An industry in the middle of a revolution. And everyone is telling them the same thing: build your platform.

What’s an author to do?

During the decade or so that I ran the CataNetwork websites (and associated yahoogroups, messageboards, etc) it became painfully abvious that there are two types of authors in this world.

The type that get it and the type that don’t.

Seth Godin, marketing guru, said on his blog: If you only show up when you want something, we’ll catch on.

For the authors who don’t “get it” let this be a note to you. If the only time you ever come online is to promote your latest release, shame on you. We’re people too. And like you we have busy lives: families, sick kids, critters that need to go to the groomers, dinner to cook, parties to host, and occasionally, we sleep.

Building a platform is not about promotion. It’s about becoming known for something other than your blatant-self-promo. Do you like spam? How about endless advertisements in your mailbox? That’s what blatant-self-promo is. And no one cares.

That deserves repeating. No one cares.

How do you get them to care?

1. Build a solid platform based on an interesting, giving personality.

2. Listen to others. Ask them questions. Share information.

3. Do not send direct messages on twitter and messages on Facebook promoting yourself or your book the instant you become friends with someone. See above spam reference.

4. Engage people consistently. You don’t need to be on twitter twenty-four hours a day. But you do need to be present more often than you release books. Aim for half an hour per week.

5. Be polite. Thank people who share your work and words. This means RTing. Linking back. Promoting you. Letting you guest blog.

photo by: thecrazyfilmgirl