sara pence

Social Media for Authors: How to Use Twitter, Goodreads and Guest Blogging to Reach Readers and Fuel Book Sales

September 9, 2016 by Lisa Tener

This week, on this book writing blog, we’ve created a 3-day crash course in social media: Social Media Week for Authors. Whether your book is already out there or you are just getting started, engaging on social social media Swiss Army knife

media will help you tremendously.

I’ve shared interviews with three of my favorite Digital Media Gurus: Rusty Shelton, Frances Caballo and Sara Pence.

All three of these folks have helped me and many of my clients to develop an engaged community, sell books (as well as other programs) and make a difference with your message!

And the response has been exciting. Readers have asked terrific questions about the specific steps to implement the strategies shared in these interviews.

If you missed the posts earlier this week, Tuesday we published Rusty Shelton’s Twitter Tips for Authors. Rusty is co-authored of Mastering the New Media Landscape. In response to Denise’s questions, Rusty has shared more on how to get above the noise in Twitter conversations and how what makes a twitter profile stand out. He also answered Julia’s question about how to identify the top influencers, bloggers, journalists, conferences and organizations in your field.

On Wednesday it was Goodreads for Authors with Frances Caballo, author of The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day and other books on social media specific to authors.

And in Thursday’s lesson, Sara Pence of Advantage Media shared why guest blogging is such a valuable skill/strategy for an author, along with tips on pitching a guest blog post and guest blogging success stories.

It’s not too late to get your questions answered! Just share your questions/comments here or on each specific post.

How to Guest Blog Successfully: An Interview with Sara Pence

September 8, 2016 by Lisa Tener

In our third lesson of Social Media for Authors Week you’ll learn how to guest blog (pitching and writing one!)–and why guest blogging is such a valuable skill/strategy for an author.

Sara Pence, social media and guest blog strategist — Sara Pence

I first met Sara Pence when working with Shelton Interactive, now Advantage Media, on a campaign for platform building. I wanted to raise my visibility in the field and my media page looked outdated. It was time for some outreach. Sara helped me come up with terrific strategies and ideas for guest blog posts, which she successfully pitched. I even landed my dream post—with Writers Digest—12 Workplace Skills to Apply to Your Writing Career.

Guest blogging is such a terrific strategy for connecting specifically with your target audience and expanding your reach. I felt it deserved a place in our Social Media for Authors Week. And who better to discuss how to guest blog successfully than Sara Pence.

Why Guest Blog?

Lisa: What are some of the benefits of guest posting? Why would an author want to guest blog?

Sara: There are several benefits that come with writing guest posts for other bloggers and influencers. Here are a couple:

Guest blogging will help you tap into an audience other than your own, and draw other people to your own platform.
You’ll grow your online presence by having a link to your own website in your byline. This will help SEO (search engine optimization) for you AND the blogger who is hosting you.

Lisa: For what percentage of your authors do you suggest a guest blogging strategy? What are your criteria?

Sara: We work this strategy into every publicity campaign we work on. It’s important to remember that all media outlets are constantly searching for fresh content. Our job is to work with our Members to come up with the right angle for the outlet we want to pitch.

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Lisa: How do you identify blogs that are a good fit?

Sara: Each project we work on is different, which requires us to constantly be on the lookout for new outlets that cover a wide variety of topics.

We do a lot of organic research through Google, in addition to looking for new outlets listed in Cision – a media relations database. With this resource we are able to find influencers, build media lists and track necessary analytics from a publicity standpoint.

We also keep track of our Member’s social media interactions and reach out to writers, bloggers and journalists who are already engaging with them online.

Lisa: Can you give an example of a recent pitch you made and the result?

Sara: We recently started working with first-time author Jane Wyker and her book, Soul Selfish. While monitoring her Twitter interactions we were able to identify a news outlet that engaged with her on a regular basis, and I reached out to the site’s editor with a few guest blog post ideas. Referencing Jane and their Twitter interaction(s) in the beginning of my pitch was key. The editor requested a guest blog post from Jane, and you can read the final product here.

This is an example that illustrates how social media management and active publicity outreach can complement each other well.

Lisa: Let’s talk for a minute about original content vs. duplicate content. When we worked together on a guest blogging strategy, you helped me brainstorm overall ideas. Then we focused on a specific pitch for each blogger or website. I imagine pitching guest blog posts is more involved since you can’t pitch the same article for every blog. Each blogger wants original content. Is that right?

Sara: Correct. We generally pitch guest blog posts that are made up of original content, because that’s what the majority of news outlets and blogs require.

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Lisa: How do you approach your pitches to bloggers? Do you tend to pitch a variety of topics for one author, or variations on a theme?

Sara: Each pitch we send is different and tailored to who we’re reaching out to – which is why research is such a huge part of this process. We’ll sometimes offer a variety of topics, or if we feel very confident that one specific story idea will be a hit, we’ll offer just one.

Lisa: What are some tips to keep in mind when approaching a blogger about a guest blog post?

Sara: Be personal. Make sure what you’re offering is truly a fit for the blogger, and tell them early on in your pitch why.

Lisa: I noticed some statistics on the blogs you approached for me. What are those numbers and what do they mean?

Sara: One number we keep an eye on while pitching bloggers is unique monthly visitors (UMVs). This is the number of unique visitors a website has each month. For example, I’ve visited Writer’s Digest online before, so that site won’t register me as a new visitor in the future. The bigger the UMV, the better.

Lisa: What suggestions do you have for writing a great guest blog post?

Sara: One word: Lists.

Think about how many times you see articles that start with, “Five ways to…,” “10 reasons why…,” “Three common ways…,” etc., every day. This is because people (and the media) love lists.

As explained in this Fast Company article, we gravitate towards easily-digestible information. For this reason, we always suggest writing guest posts with valuable takeaways in a list format.

Lisa: Good point, we brainstormed quite a few list-based guest blog posts together. The guest blog post on Live, Write, Thrive that provides tips to land that 5- or 6- figure book deal comes to mind. We actually came up with several lists: writing advice, the tried and true tips (what hasn’t changed in publishing), the list of what’s changed in publishing and three rules to go by. So, if you offer lots of tips or items in a list, sometimes it’s a good idea to break them up into categories, each with its own headline.

Guest Blog Success Stories

Lisa: Can you share some examples of clients of yours and the experiences they’ve had with guest posting? Any exciting opportunities that have come out of the experience?

Sara: We have had several Members write guest blog posts for top news sites, like Entrepreneur.com or Huffington Post, and be offered the opportunity to become a regular contributor. You can look at Denise Nagel’s HuffPost column or Michelle Reina’s Entrepreneur.com posts as a couple of examples of how this turns out. There isn’t really a set-in-stone process to make this happen, so it’s really exciting when those invitations come through!

Lisa: What are some things that would cause a blogger or website to have you back as a guest blogger?

Sara: Providing a blogger with really solid and valuable content that proved to resonate really well with his or her audience is key. For example, offer a completely different opinion on a popular news story, list tips that only you as the expert in your field can explain, or regularly check in on your guest post and engage with those who comment on it.

Lisa: Any parting advice for our readers?

Sara: When writing for someone else’s blog or platform, always keep the term, “news you can use” in mind. At the end of the day, it can’t be all about promoting your brand. You have to provide valuable tips, advice and a call to action for THEIR audience in order to grow yours.Be patient because this strategy takes a lot of time, but you’ll find it worthwhile in the long-run.

Lisa: How can people get in touch with you?

Sara: You can learn more and contact me here.

Sara Pence is a senior publicist at Advantage Media Group. She has successfully developed and implemented publicity strategies by securing hundreds of media hits for bestselling authors, health professionals, nonprofit organizations and much more. For more information, please visit www.advantagefamily.com.

Ask your questions about guest blogging below–or share your experiences and tips for pitching a guest blog–or writing one!

And here are the other two blog posts in the Social Media for Authors series:

Frances’ Caballo shares why Goodreads is so important for authors, along with tips and success stories on Goodreads for Authors.
Rusty Shelton shares his favorite strategies on Twitter for Authors, along with several inspiring examples.

Why Authors Need an Active Social Media Presence: And Your Upcoming FREE Immersion: Social Media for Authors WEEK

August 19, 2016 by Lisa Tener

From a Publisher’s Standpoint, Authors Need an Active Social Media Presence

Several months ago, I contacted publishers for a client of mine and the book went to auction. That means that more than one publisher wanted to publish the book and they bid, increasing the author’s advance. I couldn’t believe it.

Normally, I would have helped the author find a literary agent. However, since this author had little online presence, I didn’t think I could find an agent (I expected the anticipated advance would be too small to warrant an agent’s investment in time).

I was right and I was wrong. Since the book went to auction, I was able to negotiate a more sizeable advance than I initially expected.

But the publisher wanted one promise: that the author would focus on her social media presence, which was negligible to start with.

Why? Why is a significant Social Media presence so important for authors? Why was it the one thing the publisher mentioned and wanted to address with this author?

Why You Need an Active Social Media Presence as an Author

The people who feel a connection with you are much more likely to buy and recommend your book than people who have never heard of you before.
Journalists, bloggers and radio and TV producers are on social media looking for experts to interview for their pieces and shows. Many, if not most, of them find their experts originally through social media.
Influencers are on social media. These are the people who connect to your target audience–the therapist who will recommend your book to a client, the manager who will buy your business book in bulk for his or her entire team, the HR director who will bring you in to train employees.
Books gain viral support by word of mouth recommendations and more and more, people get their recommendations on social media.
Goodreads reviews, Amazon reviews, blog posts, interviews and more can all be shared on social media, getting additional traction for your book.
Through social media, you can serve a growing community.
As an author on social media, you don’t just reach the people you know, but the people who know them.

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Most aspiring authors who come to me are experts in their fields, but most of them start with minimal online presence.

I know that some lessons in social media would have a huge impact on helping them (is that you?) get started on developing an online presence. It can also help you decide where to focus your efforts.

So, I decided to offer a free 3-day course via my blog.

The free training begins the day after Labor Day, Tuesday, September 6.

While You’re Waiting: Your First Few Lessons on Social Media for Authors

Here are a few blog posts that show the power of social media to radically boost a book’s sales, generate publicity, grow your mailing list and garner invitations as a speaker, trainer or consultant.

5 Fresh Ways Authors Use Social Media: While written in 2015, these innovative strategies are as relevant and effective today as they were last year.
Social Media Tips from a Busy Surgeon: Diane Radford, MD has been influential in using social media to spread
8 Social Media Tips to Get Noticed by Publishers: Yes, many of these tips were used by my clients and resulted in book deals. In fact, in some cases the authors were contacted directly by publishers and not the other way around!

The client I mentioned in the first paragraph worked with a colleague I introduced her to (whom I promise to introduce you to during Social Media for Authors Week) and, within three months, she went from zero to 3,000 engaged followers on Twitter. Less than a year from starting, she has over 8,200 engaged followers and is seen as a thought leader in her field.

Retro Shot: Rusty Shelton and me at the Harvard Course in 2011.

I hope you’ll join me for Social Media for Authors Week, where you’ll meet my mentors in the social media field: Digital Media Strategists Rusty Shelton (who will share his best Twitter tips for newbies and regular tweeters alike) , Frances Caballo (who will share her Goodreads Secrets–since Forbes called Goodreads “the most important site on the internet) and Sara Pence, whose guest posting strategies got me opportunities on Writer’s Digest; Live, Write, Thrive; and The Procrastiwriter, among others.

So, mark your calendar for September 6- 8 to read these exciting, potentially career-changing interviews on my blog! I’ll also send out a newsletter on September 8 with links to the three interviews.

Meantime, feel free to ask your Social Media questions, or share a social media tip that’s worked for you, as a comment below.

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