Blogging, Microblogging and Social Networking

Three PR Tools for the Self-publishing Author and Other Writers

© John Lamkin

May 10, 2009
Author's LinkedIn Page, John Lamkin
In these days of the Internet, blogging, microblogging and social networking are important tools for the author who wants to get their book and themselves publicized.

In this time in addition to the necessity of having one's own website and of following "guerilla marketing" principles, blogging, microblogging and social networking have become very important tools to enable the self-publisher to get his or her book in front of the public. And, also for any other author or writer--seeing that lately publishers are doing increasingly less marketing for anyone but their celebrity writers.

Below the author has listed a select few of the many possible venues providing the blogging, microblogging and social networking necessary for the marketing of one's books and for making the author more visible to the buying public.

Blogging

Some of the top choices for setting up a blog are:

TypePad - One of the top blogging services around, TypePad, a Six Apart creation, puts a premium on ease of use and functionality. The companyhas introduced an option for journalists to obtain a 1 year pro-level membership free of charge, ordinarily a $150 value. They call it the TypePad Journalist Bailout Program.

WordPress com – Easy to use and it's free.

WordPress org – Build your own blog with your own domain name. Very popular.

Blogger – Easy to use and very popular. Blogger is a Google-run platform thus helping you to get search engine visibility.

Microblogging

Twitter – The most popular and most recognized microblogging site, It restricts the writer to a post of 140 characters making posting for quality and informative material require a modicum of creativity, Twitter is used by many, including biggies such as NY Times, LA Times and more.

Social Networking

Here are a few of the many networks available:

Red Room – A social network for authors to maintain pages and readers to get better acquainted with theml. Red Room has blogs, essays, videos, podcasts, events and more.

LinkedIn – A website famous for business networking, LinkedIn is a place where writers can introduce themselves to agents, editors, fellow writers and other valuable connections. One of the best.

Facebook – One of the most used social networks, not as "professional" as LinkedIn--but just asuseful.

Marketing for the Author

Regardless of which of the above services are chosen, the marketing of one's book(s) and of one's self are bound to be enhanced. All that is required is a little of the writer's time and effort and some perseverance.

SOME RESOURCES:

Easy Steps for Writers to Self-Publish a Book

Book Review: The Self-Publishing Manual

Ten Websites Important to Self-Publishing Author


The copyright of the article Blogging, Microblogging and Social Networking in Self-Publishing is owned by John Lamkin. Permission to republish Blogging, Microblogging and Social Networking in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.


Author's LinkedIn Page, John Lamkin
Blogger, Blogger
Typepad, Typepad
Red Room, Red Room
Facebook, Facebook


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Comments
May 11, 2009 5:43 AM
Guest :
Number one, Typepad is a proprietary piece of junk no one uses. Everyone uses Wordpress, it is enterprise level, not some free stuff as it comes of here and has millions of free plugins that extend it's functionality heavily.

You have full run of the source code so you can make major changes easily and GOOGLE loves Wordpress. Add a few SEO tweaks and it easily will get you ranked much higher than more powerful sites in Google rankings.

Second with the powerful socail features Google is building into YouTube and Blogger, Blogger is a first time blog user's dream. AND it out ranks many in Google too.

Third, Google Reader produces a RSS feed called Google Reader shared items and right now is my MicroBlogger platform of choice. Show me a Facebook page that has an RSS feed and then you can call it a microblogger platform.

You have no idea what you are talking about and you should not be giving people advide like this.

Chris Lang
May 11, 2009 7:57 AM
John Lamkin :
Thanks Chris--Some great comments and an excellent add-on to the article.

I use Typepad--The Journalist Bailout Program, also Blogger.

John Lamkin
2 Comments