Want a Strong Twitter Presence for Your Book? Check out JoeyTweets.com!

CLG is about to do a first: feature a GUY!

Now that the shock has died down, let me introduce you to author, book reviewer and promoter, and overall funnyman, Joey Pinkney.

I have known Joey for several years now, and he is just one of the best kind of people... seriously. When I learned recently about his latest endeavor, the Twitter campaign opportunity for writers called JoeyTweets, I had to share it with the CLG audience because if you are wondering how you can get more exposure for your literary wares, this opportunity is definitely one you will want to check out!

Joey Pinkney does author interviews and book reviews for JoeyPinkney.com. The “JoeyPinkney.com 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Author Interview Series” is over 5 years old and features over 800 authors of various genres and levels of fame in the publishing industry.

Find Joey at the following online outlets:

Joey Pinkney on Twitter | 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With... on Twitter | Facebook 

LinkedIn | Google+ | Joey Tweets

What inspired you to develop Joey Tweets?

I was inspired to develop Joey Tweets because there are many authors with very interesting books and little to no social media presence, especially on Twitter.

I’ve been growing my followers on my two Twitter accounts for years. @JoeyPinkney has been on Twitter for over 5 years currently with over 134,000 followers, and @5M5QW has been on Twitter for over two years with over 96,000 followers. That type of cultivation takes time and patience.

One day, I thought about this: Why should authors who don’t have the followers or the time to build the followers not be able to take advantage of the book promotion opportunities available on Twitter?

The answer to that question became the foundation of what Joey Tweets is built upon. I’ve been exposing readers to authors and vice versa on Twitter for a relatively long time. Those two Twitter accounts have a combined following of over 230,000 worldwide and growing. Joey Tweets is a way for authors to tap into the viability of exposure that Twitter has to offer.

Why do you think it's important for authors to be on Twitter?

It’s important for authors to be on Twitter for various reasons. I always speak of Twitter in terms of it being a “metropolis.” Just like any large area that is highly populated, Twitter has a lot of different groups and subcultures.

There are many authors and publishers on Twitter. More importantly, there are tons of readers on Twitter. While there are plenty of people on Twitter for the sole purpose to talk about books, many average, everyday people who are on Twitter for reasons other than books ARE readers.

Twitter is extremely fast in terms of speed of communication. That can be very advantageous to an author who likes to converse with his/her readers. In terms of book releases, social media events, physical book signings, news, etc., an author and send and receive info within seconds.

There are plenty of book- and author-related hashtags (the “#” symbol followed directly by a word or phrase) used on Twitter. Quite a few of these hashtags are extremely popular in terms of connecting like minded people. Whether you use them from an information-gathering standpoint or a conversational standpoint, the use of hashtags can enhance your experience on Twitter.

Tweets and Twitter accounts also come up high in search engines like Google. So if a person is searching online for something related to your book, it’s likely that they will see the tweets related to your book or your Twitter account as well as other Internet entries.

Aside from those reasons, there are tons of great articles, techniques and contests being posted and publicized on Twitter that can help you take the writing and publishing of your book to the next level.

What are three things you believe authors can do while on Twitter to benefit them and their literary wares?

One: When you tell people to check out what you’ve written, give them a link that leads DIRECTLY to you want them to read. If the book is on Amazon, for example, don’t tell them this: “Go check out my book on Amazon!” Instead, say something like: “Go check out The Soul of a Man Anthology on Amazon here: bit.ly/W7eMBr” Notice I gave the title and a short link. The title was given in case someone retweets your tweet. The short link was given so that the potential reader is more likely to click the link. Although Twitter will shorten your link, longer links are less likely to be clicked.

Two: Find out what social issues are related to your book and try to join or start a discussion around that issue. Not only will you build a rapport with other people on Twitter, you will also start to make strong connections, gain followers and gain new readers.

Three: Find authors who you think are using Twitter in a way that you can emulate and study their techniques. Fine tune them to fit you, and get to tweeting!

How does Joey Tweets work? What do you offer authors?

JoeyTweets.com is pretty simple. You pay me for the length of time you want the Twitter Campaign to run using PayPal, you send me the information I need to put the Twitter Campaign together, and I create and run your Twitter Campaign. I build tweets a certain way using years of study and tinkering. That way, you don’t need work pull your hair out trying to figure out if it’s right or not.

I currently offer 3, 7 and 28 Day Twitter Campaigns. I create the tweets using the title of your book, your Twitter handle and a link to your book on Amazon. I tweet about you and your book around the clock to my global digital footprint on Twitter.

Where can interested authors go to learn more about Joey Tweets?

Authors can learn more about JoeyTweets.com by going to the website. There is a lot of information there from the About Me page to the FAQ page. If there is something that is not covered on the website, there is a Contact Form that can be used to ask further questions.

Anything else you'd like to share with the CLG audience?

Twitter is a double-edged sword, just like anything dealing with social media. You have to approach it knowing that there are people who will praise you and there are people who will try to talk bad about you. You have to have a thick skin and an open mind to keep from falling into unwanted situations.

A bad practice that many authors engage in is tweeting a sales pitch to a bunch of different people as if it is welcomed. Although it may gain you some attention, over time that attention will be bad for your brand.

An even more useless tactic is to tweet your sales pitch to a bunch of celebrity Twitter accounts. You might have a better chance at winning the lottery than to have a bonafide celebrity look at your book because you tweeted it to him/her and a thousand other celebrities. The outcome of this form of “spamming” is getting block, reported as spam and eventually shut down by Twitter.

Tweet responsibly, my friends...

Intrigue, Action, Romance: The Book of Joshua I - Trust by Iris Bolling

COMING AUGUST 20!

CIA Operative Joshua Lassiter is always in the midst of danger. When an international incident requires his attention, the journey begins. In foreign territory with a ruthless King at the helm, Joshua finds himself rescuing royalty and a mysterious woman.

Akande Ambree has a mission: kill the man who dishonored her family. Ready to give her life in honor of her country, it is Joshua that crosses her path. Life takes on a different meaning under the tutelage of a Lassiter in more ways than one.

Love for your country or the sweet love of a man.....

The choice comes with trust.

Iris Bolling was born in Richmond, Virginia, has a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Management. She is currently a Workforce Development Trainer with the Commonwealth of Virginia, providing management training and professional development consultation for the state workforce.

In an effort to combine the areas in her life she enjoys the most, education, politics and romance, she penned her first manuscript, Once You’ve Touched the Heart, which was released in March 2008. Since that time she has released books 2-5 of what has become The Heart Series, which includes, The Heart of Him, Look Into My Heart, A Heart Divided, A Lost Heart, and her latest release, The Heart. In May of 2011, Iris introduced her new novel, Night of Seduction/Heaven’s Gate.

In April of 2010, Iris was named Debut Author the Year at the Romance Slam Jam conference. Her novel, Once You’ve Touched the Heart was voted the Readers Choice Award with Shades of Romance Magazine for Romance Book of the Year. Iris was voted Romance Author of the Year and Author of the Year. Her novel A Lost Heart was nominated Romantic Suspense Novel of the Year at the 2011 Romance Slam Jam. In 2012 her book Teach Me, was awarded Heroine of the Year at the 2013 Emma Awards for her character Diamond Lassiter.

You can learn more about Iris through the following online locations: Website, Twitter, and Facebook. Other online places to see Iris include Amazon, Good Reads, and Barnes and Noble.

The Corner Cafe's Shonell Bacon on Being Moved to Change

Have you ever been moved to change?

It's a question that's at the heart of my short story "I Wanna Get Off Here," which is available in the wonderful, eclectic collection, The Corner Cafe: A Tasty Collection of Short Stories.



available for only 99¢ at Amazon

On June 14, fellow CC author, Morgan Mandel, talked about life-altering events in real life and in fiction at Straight from Hel. In most life-altering events, the choice to be moved to change presents itself.

A choice is definitely given to Bay, the main character of "I Wanna Get Off Here."

In the story, Bay is a sweet, quiet bus driver with a dream in one hand and a bucket full of pain in the other hand. Her dream is one that many of you reading have or have achieved: to write and to more importantly DO something with her writing. In the bucket full of pain, we find low self-esteem, we find familial strife, we find a relationship that leaves so much to be desired. Much of the pain she endures keeps her from believing she could be better, that she could do something with the words she writes.

Does she ever find herself moved to change: to face the pain head on and say, "Enough is enough! I'm doing me now?"

Well, you'll have to pick up The Corner Cafe and read my story to figure that out.

But that move to change, that final hurdle, obstacle where you have to make the choice to fight to the death to obtain your desires or to tuck tail and call defeat is a powerful one. It's what we read stories for. It's often what makes the most significant moments in our lives.

I know about the move to change.

The summer of 2001, I was trying to figure out what to do next in my life. I knew I wanted to pursue a master's degree, but I had so many passions in my life it was hard to narrow down to one thing. One day, in an online group digest e-mail, I read about a school in Louisiana that was looking for students to apply to its MFA program. Only thing I knew about Louisiana was the stereotypical things I knew about Mardi Gras from TV. But something stirred in me to apply. Writing stories had been a part of my life since I was ten, and being able to better my craft and teach appealed to me. On a whim, and with the new semester beginning in a month (Gah!), I applied, and two weeks later, the fiction professor called me. We shared the best two-hour phone call I've ever had. In the end, the professor said, "We want you, Shon." I felt a warmth spread in my chest as I said, "And I want to be wanted." I had the choice to continue trying to figure out what to do with myself or to take a leap of faith and follow this path. I was moved to change, and that move has changed my life.

My life would be moved again in 2008. At the time, I feared that I would be losing my job soon, and I didn't know what to do with myself. I lamented over money, had a hard time finding another job, and I was right at the point of thinking I was a loser. How could I have all of this education, yet no one want to hire me? One day, while I walked across campus, a breeze touched my face, and I heard God say, "Apply for your Ph.D." I had thought about doing so numerous times in the past, but always said no, thinking I wouldn't get in, fearful of taking the dreaded GREs again (I absolutely SUCK at standardized tests). God made things even more interesting for me when he told me to apply to one school and even told me which school to apply to. Who did that--applied to one school? Wasn't the goal to hedge bets and have at least one "safe" school--just in case? Again, life had build itself up in a way where I had two choices: go for the gold or tuck tail and stay lamenting. Again, I chose to act instead of retract. And again, the move changed my life, presenting me with new experiences, new friends, new milestones achieved, and new dreams to fulfill.

Like Bay from "I Wanna Get Off Here," like many other characters, like many of you reading this, there always comes a moment when we are finally made to choose between breaking through fear and achieving a goal or walking away with our dream still in one hand and our bucket of pain and regret heavy in the other hand.

Have you ever been moved to change?

What choice(s) do you give your main character to face in your latest work? 

[Join The Corner Cafe Tour tomorrow as it chugs on to Alberta Ross' blog!]