Social Media Presence

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

I’ve seen a handful of writers start social accounts under their pseudonyms and I was wondering if anyone here has any experience of that?

Do you have a handle for your writing on social media platforms and how has it worked out?

 

[AlinaX]

I spend too much time on Twitter irl, I don't need excuses to spend even more time there.

 

[lovecraft68]

I have a twitter for my horror pen name.

I haven't found it worth it. Joined a couple author groups and followed other authors to try and cross promote, but honestly they're annoying as fuck tweeting their books and links 40 times a damn day

Then again if you're promoting free stuff you might see something out of it.

Silkstockinglover is uses it and she's on 32K favorite pages, I'm sure some came from there.

 

[lovecraft68]

I spend too much time on Twitter irl, I don't need excuses to spend even more time there.

I can't stomach it. Can't look at a sports feed without someone spewing politics and hate. That and the owner should be in jail.

 

[TadOverdon]

I tried to do this and found myself mainly tweeting politics. I don't think Twitter is the right platform, and there's not enough Photoshop on Earth for me to build an Instagram following.

I've posted stories on reddit with links to our Smashwords account, which may have produced a couple of bumps early on. Nothing else has worked as well as lit appears to.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

Reddit seems like a natural place to go. I agree that Twitter isn’t worth it because everything devolves into politics.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have a Twitter account, but I'm not a very active user. I've probably picked up some reads from social media, but not that many.

 

[lovecraft68]

I tried to do this and found myself mainly tweeting politics. I don't think Twitter is the right platform, and there's not enough Photoshop on Earth for me to build an Instagram following.

I've posted stories on reddit with links to our Smashwords account, which may have produced a couple of bumps early on. Nothing else has worked as well as lit appears to.

Because Lit is FREE.

What I've never understood is I've seen authors here who are also in the selling market...and tweeting links to their free Lit work

So....I'm no business mogul, but let me get this straight, you'd like to make some money selling your work, but are linking people to a site with hundreds of thousands of free stories in every kink they could want?

As my wife is fond of saying regarding common sense, there is nothing common about sense these days.

 

[TadOverdon]

Yeah, I don't advertise lit or reddit or anything else on our Smashwords account. Makes no sense.

But as I've done chapter-by-chapter posting of our Smashwords catalogue here I'm pretty sure I see occasional sales bumps for whatever book I'm currently uploading here. The cost of the ebooks is nominal for lots of people, and I'd like to think that at least some get impatient.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yeah, I don't advertise lit or reddit or anything else on our Smashwords account. Makes no sense.

But as I've done chapter-by-chapter posting of our Smashwords catalogue here I'm pretty sure I see occasional sales bumps for whatever book I'm currently uploading here. The cost of the ebooks is nominal for lots of people, and I'd like to think that at least some get impatient.

I was saying advertising free work while trying to sell.

The issue in the market isn't just a free site like lit or LS. SOL or others, its also the people who constantly give away free e-books. SW proudly touts there 90k free books on there site, you could read forever and never pay anything if you chose.

I have a mercenary mentality when it comes to doing anything involving making an income. If you have no intention of selling and just want to share your work, lit is a great place.

You want to sell, and still drop something on lit, then lit becomes the dirty secret you never tell your paying customers about. As you said, in the reverse people from lit will sometimes buy something, but they're a small percentage.

 

[TadOverdon]

We wrote one short story and posted it for free at SW for one month, before setting the price at 99 cents. We did it to attract attention. I was glad when I first saw others of our books exceeding that one's "sales."

 

[RejectReality]

I've got a Twitter and Facebook page for my pennames. Primarily there as another method of notification to readers as anything. I rarely do more than announce new releases. I'll occasionally promote another author's story, a contest, etc., and even more rarely just tweet something.

One thing is that if you're looking for more exposure specifically on Lit, then Twitter can be helpful with that. Lit retweets most of the tweets that @Lit, and it's a decent sized follower base. The biggest part of my engagements come from tweets that Lit has retweeted.

 

[Emirus]

Reddit seems like a natural place to go. I agree that Twitter isn’t worth it because everything devolves into politics.

Reddit? Is that the site on which the frogs do the reviews? (Sorry about that!)

The only social media I’m on is Facebook (about 60) and that’s just to keep in touch with friends in this country and abroad. I do get fed up of the crap that keeps popping up that you have to get rid of but always returns at some future point. As for Twatter and the rest I can’t understand why anyone would want to be on them.

As for this site I would think 99.99999% of writers aren’t in the slightest bit interested in selling their work. But for the ones who do all the best and hope you’re successful.

 

[RejectReality]

Judicious use of the mute feature and keyword blocking makes Twitter a much more tolerable place. The repetitious nature of political echo chambers means that the proper keywords can silence oodles of garbage with each keyword block.

I use mute instead of block, because blocks get turned into weapons by the person blocked. Mute just makes their garbage quietly go away.

 

[HeyAll]

I have a twitter account for my erotica, but not my real life.

https://twitter.com/HeyAllStories

I think it's great. Twitter is truly one of the great websites today.

As far as stories go, you have to be smart and use strategy. If you're smart, then you get more readers.

I tweet my stories use using the right hashtags and the Literotica account (which has around 16,000 followers) retweets them.

Overall, if you're lucky, a hundred or so people could click the link to your story that you tweet. if it's incest, it's much higher. (twitter gives you detailed analytics to how many people look at your profile and click your links, etc...)

Also, twitter allows you to put a link in your bio, so I have a link to my Lit account.