Five #Author Shortcuts To Save Time #marketing

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories to engage the emotions. Today I wanted to share five things I use to save me precious time when it comes to promoting, so I can get back to the actual job of writing. I hope they might help you too! If you know of any others, please share them in the comments. (These are all services I use and personally recommend, but there are others available).

1. Booklinker.net - this gives you a shortened universal Amazon URL that will take anyone who clicks it to the appropriate Amazon store for their location. So no more having to tweet/post individual links for the UK, Canada, Australia etc. You can also create one for your Amazon author page. However, I'd recommend using it only for your own individual books - once a book URL is registered with the site, no one else can use it which might be an issue with multi-author anthologies or boxed sets for example. For those you might need permission, or to nominate one author to take responsibility for it. If you're with a publisher, you might also need their permission.
2. Bitly.com to shorten links - There are lots of sites that will do this, but I find this one is the best. My embedded eBook links don't like the URLs from my website because of the # in page URL, but bitly not only shortens lengthy URLs but removes this issue. Why shorten links? Well, it gives you more character space in tweets if you're not using something like Hootsuite for example (more on that further down). And it looks less untidy in your social media links if you're not embedding them or inserting hyperlinks. It can also tell you how many clicks a particular link gets, so if you wanted to track a particular marketing method or promo event, you can assign separate bitly links and check the stats.
3. Link your Facebook page to Twitter - Go to www.facebook.com/twitter. It gives you the option to add any pages you admin and your profile, so choose whichever you wish. This means whenever you post to your page, it gets tweeted too, saving you a job. It might also help with your page visibility. One note of warning: If you use the scheduling function on your page, it won't tweet that scheduled post. Don't ask me why. I've tried asking and complaining and got zero help from Facebook. But there's a way around it...
4. Link your blog to Twitter - I use twitterfeed.com but there are others. So when a new blog post goes live, it automatically tweets (though there can be a delay up to a couple of hours. Again, I don't know why). You can also add hashtags to be included in the blog tweet, but bear in mind it'll be added to EVERY blog post tweet, so be sure to use something that will apply to anything you post. You can also link your blog to your Amazon page (via Author Central), and your Goodreads account.
5. Hootsuite - this allows you to not only schedule tweets but also to other social media platforms. The free version allows for three social media sites - I use it to post to my Facebook fanpage (this gets around the issue of posts scheduled on your actual page not tweeting), Twitter, and my Facebook group. You can add more with the paid version. This means you can space out promo to stop it being annoying, and schedule for days when you're away from social media (for those who can escape the time suck!). You can also set up streams to follow certain accounts, hashtags etc (a bit like Twitter lists but you can see several on a page - handy for events).WARNING: When converting Amazon links, be sure to delete unwanted extra text from your URL. A direct Amazon link should look like this - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BI7BDC2 And NOT like this - http://www.amazon.com/Quickshot-Pippa-Jay-ebook/dp/B01BI7BDC2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1459241496&sr=1-1&keywords=quickshot You don't need any of the text from and including ref. There was an article about this HERE. 

I hope you find some of these useful, and please share any you've found.

Disclaimer: Any views expressed in the post are purely the opinion of the author and not the SFR Brigade.

Bio: 

After spending twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay is now a stay-at-home mum who writes scifi and the supernatural. Somewhere along the way a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. In between torturing her plethora of characters, she spends the odd free moment playing guitar very badly, punishing herself with freestyle street dance, and studying the Dark Side of the Force. Although happily settled in the historical town of Colchester in the UK with her husband of 22 years and three little monsters, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

Pippa Jay is a dedicated member of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade, Broad Universe, and EPIC,  blogging at Spacefreighters Lounge, Adventures in Scifi, and Romancing the Genres. Her works include YA and adult stories crossing a multitude of subgenres from scifi to the paranormal, often with romance, and she’s one of eight authors included in a science fiction romance anthology—Tales from the SFR Brigade. She’s also a double SFR Galaxy Award winner, been a finalist in the Heart of Denver RWA Aspen Gold Contest (3^rd place), the 2015 EPIC eBook awards, the 2015 RWA LERA Rebecca (2^nd place), and the GCC RWA Silken Sands Star Awards (2^nd place).

You can stalk her at her website, or at her blog, but without doubt her favorite place to hang around and chat is on Twitter as @pippajaygreen.

Website | Adventures in Scifi | Spacefreighters Lounge | Romancing the Genres | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook | Amazon page | Newsletter

A Space Opera Short Story
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Blurb:

Sal, a legal carrier (just about) of whatever comes her way, puts her trust in just two things: her guns.

Keeping out from under Imperium eyes—especially those belonging to a certain Ehi Wahu—while making a living, and trying to keep a lover who can tolerate her twitchy trigger fingers, are the extent of her ambitions.

Then a kiss from a passing stranger, and a promise of the biggest score in a long time, tempt her. Devin fulfils more than one need, but he comes with more trouble than one woman can handle. And this time it'll take more than her guns to save her. She'll have to trust a man again.

WARNING: for over 18s only. Adult content including sex, bad language, & implied extreme violence.

Ruled by Cool: How Much Science is Too Much?

Hello hello!

So, a quick post today. As some of you will know, I'm an editor as well as a sci fi writer, and that means that I fix a lot of errors. But, being a writer, I also make them.

I've been watching Mythbusters a lot lately. Unfortunately, I don't spend my days firing guns, breaking down doors, fending off wild jellyfish, etcetera, so my understanding of how to do these things is impaired. And Hollywood certainly doesn't help. Did you know, for instance, that bullets don't ricochet and produce sparks? Sure, they do ricochet, but--as frequent readers of Cracked.com may also know--they certainly aren't as fatal as advertised, either. In movies, TV, and a lot of books, one shot means you die.

But what about science fiction? We often talk about matter transporters, Faster Than Light (FTL) travel, fast-growth cloning, and other semi-realistic and sometimes purely fictional technologies. (Yes, I know cloning is real, but we haven't cloned any humans and we haven't sorted out that pesky issue of the telomeres yet.) So when it comes to the little details, do we follow the 'Rule of Cool' (doing whatever seems coolest) or do we try our best to create something realistic? There's a few approaches to this, which I'll outline below.

Approach 1: Whatever is The Coolest

This is what it says on the tin. Ricocheting spark-bullets? Diving through suspiciously close asteroid belts? Ignoring side-effects of a drug treatment? Convenient amnesia? Arguably, this is sloppy writing, but it's also within most readers' comfort zones and is often easy to picture. As well, most readers won't be experts, and most who are will recognize the value of entertainment rather than something that's, well, more rigorous in intent. However, some readers are annoyed by this, and too many scientific errors or historical anachronisms will bounce you right out of a story.

Approach 2: Scientific Rigour

Jack McDevitt stands out as an author who follows this; Charles Sheffield, too. It characterizes a lot of Golden-Age sci fi, but not the pulp sci fi (which tends to follow Approach 1). This is more realistic, and that can be nice, but it can also be bogged down by exposition. Sometimes it's also a bit inaccessible. After all, not all of us who write sci fi are teachers or astronomers. It also involves a lot of research. However, 'getting it right' is really satisfying, and readers often compliment it.

Most sci fi falls into the middle, but there's a skew towards each end. Personally, I think that due to the lack of scientific education, we should be aiming a bit more towards Approach 2, but modifying it. Really, it's okay to have space be silent and sacrifice sparkly bullets and deal with injuries realistically. The thing about Approach 1 is that it arguably makes a story too easy for the characters. Consider Starship Troopers, which is intentionally a satire, and which makes use of Approach 1 very heavily. Consider Alien instead, which was a bit more realistic, and much more difficult for characters to survive.

It's a matter of taste, but consider doing your research very thoroughly before your next story--question the little stuff, too, not just the location of the nearest habitable moon or planet. How would doors work? You don't have to--and shouldn't--explain everything, but a little realism can go a long way.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out!